Volume 44, Number 8 · May 15, 1997
Subjects to Let
By Czeslaw Milosz
It was at the time when missions fell into ruin and their possessions were divided by the Mexican authorities between neighboring estates, before the appearance of Americans. The causes of the missions' downfall were multiple. The Sonoma mission disintegrated because of grizzly bears. These made a discovery that the mission's cattle could serve as a larder of fresh meat, and ignored the Indians who guarded the herds. The mission therefore invited from the Presidio in San Francisco a few soldiers with muskets. Syphilis brought by them developed into an epidemic, lethal to the Indian converts.
Feature, 772 words
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