MISSION INDIANS. A collective term for the surviving remnants of the tribes civilized and Christianized by the effort, of the Spanish Fran ciscan missionaries in southern California in the latter part of the eighteenth century. They were originally of ninny various dialect, and stocks. chiefly Shoshonean and Yuman, roving over the desert and mountain region stretching from the lower Colorado River to the Pacific. and in al most the lowest stage of culture. By the heroic and persistent labor of Father Juntpero Serra and his successors. beginning in 1776. they were gathered into civilized communities, where they supported themselves by farming and simple mechanioal arts, and under the kindly super vision of the fathers, reared those magnificent mission structures which are the glory of oil California. For half a century the missions grew and flourished, until in 1831 they contained 19,000 civilized Indians, but with the overthrow of the Spanish power by the Mexican revolution ary gover lit came oppression, spoliation, and finally mnliseation and (lestrootion in the period from 1835 to 1840. The missionaries were ban ished, the missions plundered and lift to fall into rain, and the Indians driven into the desert and the mountains. ntains. Under the later American rule the remnants of the mission Indians continued to be and treated as outcasts until, chiefly by the endeavor of Helen Hunt Jackson Iq,v•).
public attention was so forcibly directed to their neglected and unfortunate condition that the Government Ilmk steps for their relief by setting aside some small reservations for their occupancy nil appointing an agent to had: after their af fairs, together with a good school equipment. Since then some progress has been made toward bringing them up to the standard to which they bad attained under the mission system more than a century ago. The two great barriers in the way are the uncertain tenure of their lands and the monopoly of the water ,amply by white elaim mos. At 32 small tions, aggregating her only Itio.000 The 11);11 implliatiOn is :won, the• I:n•gesl settle• Meals Iwing Torres, 520; Morongo, Potrero. 223; Mesa Grande. 20o: Temecula. 190. They are ie,cribed as industrious and ,;!,41(111 workers wrong the whites during the labor season. but strongly given to drink and improvident of the future, much of wide') disposition their agent attriblites to diseouragement and bad snrroilial ings.