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Show allotted as their own. But the profitableness of the peonage and the docility of tlie Indians made any haste in the direction of individual rights unnecessary if not uodedirahle on the part of the missionaries. They were therefore continued in peonage and without recognition of their ihd~ridual rights up to tile date of the sectilarizatiou act of 1533. 1 A t thiv time the Iudian ~u i s s i o~w~erse the centers of industry and of wealth and of social t~ttraction for the Pacific coast countrj. In 1526, they were reported at twenty-one missions as nnmbe.ring 25,000, and, possessed of 365,00U bend of cattle, sheep, a ~ b~ordses , and harvest-ing 75,000 b~~slreolfs grain. The law of secularization7' passed in the ' Mexican Congress treated all these. Mexican lauds, with their i~nprove- : meuts, flocks, and herds, as tlle pr0pert.v of the church, nud divided the111 up among a few S11a11isha nd 3Zexican families. The 111diausn -ere scattered over tire .coorltrr, prinoipally alotlg the coast,. up011 the fertile, n'atered, aud the11n ~~oce~iptireadc ts, :~udp rocurer1 their living by herrl- ! ing wild rattle and horses, cultivating s~nall palchesof ground, a1111 , receiving employlne~lftr om the stwrooniling whites, horn t,he>-n ocepteil ; ~i r t o a l l ra s tlleir masters. grant or l i i~l~alet : I I I ~ luoliieut to be eutered a t tile land-office i n the 1 lrarne of 8o111es ettler. \Vheo the title of trade and tliegold emigratio~s~n e l ~otT er the Statc of Califbrnia, these I lnl i~nsw ere ~ O L I I Il~~ racticallpv r.ithont protection by law in their rights to the land on ~ ~ l r i cthhe y were liciug, and by suits.of qjectn~e~alcn d cost of cont,i~rgerf~ete s i t \\,as compar~tivelye asy for the il~con~inAgr nerica11,to ?ispossess all tlre'India11s of Nortl~ern and iVIi11dle C:~liforuia; Thus made l~omdr s sw anderers, rile process of 8 rice :lud ~lrst,itutionb y rvl~icht h e j \%-erec an-ied aslvj is fitly described :IS extrr:nil~atioll. B'or.tlle 4,000 or 5 , 0 1 1 ~ ~ ~rebmoa iut.il in the soutl~ern portiou of Lower Califi~ruiat,h is (loom seems to have been ~ostponedb y t l ~ c delay iu the settlelnerlt of tile country. Gradnallj, however, for the past eight years, Yo~rthernC alif<~mi;ll~ nsb een filli11.q up by emigra-tion ; Spanish and Mrniuan grants bavo been '' detenninerl" in snch a was as to cover choic.e tracts wherever fou~jijl largc ranelles hare bee11 cut up and the desirable por t iu~~osf public domaill pre-emptrd; and thus all available agricultural lands hare been seized or 01:cnpied by individual owtlerr, who, i l l confor~oittjo law, hare breome possessecl of the lauds on which the renlnatlts of :i few t h o ~ ~ s Ba l~is~siodn Indians arc ~ u a k i ~th~eigr hornes in S i ~ uD iego aud San Bernardino Ooonties. So long as the pre-blnptors and pnrchasers did not require their lands for passed to the orvuersl~ip of another. Of late, under the increasing I use or sale, the I n d i a ~w~ ser e allo~redto remain nndistorbed and in bliss- 1 fill iguor:~uce of tile fact t,lcit the place tthey oadleil home had by laT ' dem:111(18 fur these 1;11lds,.mriLs of cjecto~eut are being procored by nlhich t l ~ Le u dians are foreibl) dis~~ossessexiol tl turned adrift in poverty and !~retebc.~luess.. The In<littus liring ou t,he tract of land kno\rn as Temecula, in the c o u ~ ~ot fy, San Diego, h w e within tile p;lst two ~nonthsb eeu thus dis-possessed. The Ten~ecula rerlcl~ co~rtirmed by tlie district court of the Uuited Stntev for the so~l t l~edr~islt riot of Califbruia to Louis Vigars in 1855. No steps n-ere take11 to ~Vs t t l~thbe Indians until 1Y73, wheu a judgluent wa.s recovered in the city of Ban Francis~oa gainst thtatie l~ld~auwa ,h o were a t that time living 500 ~l~i laews aj-, all uucon-scious that any person was seeking their possessions; and ou the lit11 |