The Evening News. October 12, 1916.

16. The Unconquered One. Part I.

She is of a conquered, despoiled race. Submissively the gentle Dons bowed their heads to the spoilers. Humbly they eat their bread of poverty, but she, this blending of Spain and Mexico, is unconquered.

She is old, nearly ninety, a tiny, square woman with a square jaw, a square head, sad eyes, furrowed brown skin, hands purple with age and toil. When I first saw her walking in her little back garden she seemed a poor weak creature that a breeze might blow away. But when my interpreter spoke to her of our mission she defiantly folded her weak arms over her black dress, drew tight her plum collared shawl and said:

"Americans! Those shameless people! Those thieves! Murderers!"

San Jose's oldest native daughter was strong enough to hate for her entire race. At last she consented to sit by the grape arbor and tell me why she hated the Americans.

"I was born in Market street near where the Southern Pacific station now is, in 1831. When I was ten years old I went to live on my father's great ranch near Mountain View. But we had very little peace. Soon the Americans came and squatted on our land and wouldn't leave. Now we have nothing. Once in 1845 the Americans came in the night when my mother and sisters and I were alone. They held revolvers against us to make us tell where the men were so they could kill them. That was the beginning. Now the Americans have California. Americans are shameless."

I tried to distract her from bitter brooding by asking of the life on the Mountain View ranch in the 30's.

"We didn't go to school," she answered. "There were no schools. We worked. We had no servants. The women milk the cows. We ground flour to sell. It brought a high price. We made cornmeal in the metates, course Indian stone mills. We worked always."

She revealed one reason why she felt more keenly her losses then did the daughter of Don Jose. Her hard toll had made her ranch seem doubly hers.

"Did you ever travel," I asked, "to San Francisco or Monterey?"

She was amused. "I traveled from one door in the house to the other, and then on horseback to the Mission Santa Clara to church."

"And did you ever hear Father Magin Catala preach?"

"No, I was too late for that," she said, "but Father Magin was a saint."

She almost blessed herself, and said in a low tone, "A friend of my mother's, the majordomo at Santa Clara, once saw a wonderful thing happen Father Magin. The majordomo was passing the mission one night. He saw a light. He thought it was a candle. He went into the Mission, but there was no candle. Father Magin Catala was kneeling at the foot of the cross. A light was on the cross, and Jesus was blessing Father Magin. The majordomo saw it, and everyone knew he always told the truth. Father Magin was a saint."

"Were there any romances at Mountain View, women and men?"

"No, girls were so busy working they had no time to think of such things. In those days men weren't foolish enough to give women liberty. That is what makes all the trouble now. I never saw my husband till the day I married him. I was twenty-three. We lived happily for thirty-six years."

"But did all girls marry the men their fathers picked out? Did no girls run away?"

"Never. Children respected their parents. They always took off their hats to them. Nowadays children respect no one. At that time if a girl disobeyed her father, he struck her over the shoulders with a rawhide. She deserved it. Nowadays women talk with men. They go around freely. They're wretches, they want a divorce."

"Don't you believe in divorce?" I asked innocently.

"What can you expect of shameless Americans? They are shameless in marriage. They started as murderers and theives, they have been at it ever since--stealing husbands and wives."

"And you never voted?" I kept on shamelessly.

In disgust she shrugged her shoulders and tried to rise. A shameless Gringo helped her to her feet. Unshaken, she answered: "The crazy wild women that want to vote, it doesn't matter what happens to them. Let them vote."

Transcribed by Claire Martin, for the Santa Clara Co. CAGenWeb Project. 2007

Return to When San Jose Was Young Index.