Now there were two Indian villages nearby, and they fought over the possession of those springs. They went on the warpath over the Two Sisters and Brother Life Springs. So the mission went away and settled elsewhere, and the priest also went away.
Then our white neighbors came, as I said, and drove the Indians from our sacred springs. That is why the Indians are dying out in Southern California, because we must live on worthless lands far away from those springs.
Our white neighbors may think we Indians have no religion, but that is not so. We do believe in God who is the Creator of the world, and of the firmament, of Indians as well as white people.... Therefore we are brothers in God, as we are created by God.
I often hear white people say they are Americans in America, and we are Indians. I say we are the native sons of America. We are good to our country and to our white neighbors, and do not trouble them. When the missions first came to this country the Indians were numerous and the country well inhabited by the Indians. Then the Indians did not know that the country was going to be filled with intoxicating liquor. If they had known that, they would never have allowed the missionaries to establish any missions in this country. For a great number of Indians died of intoxicating liquor.
However, the United States Government made a law prohibiting the sale of intoxicating liquor to the American Indians. But by that time it was too late. The American Indians are nearly all gone. But maybe a few will be saved.
It was in 1908 that special officers suppressed the liquor traffic among the mission Indians in Southern California. The chief of these special officers came to me and asked:
"Why is it that you are always fighting the whites?"
"Because they are all liars, thieves, and whisky peddlers," I answered.
"No," I answered. "You do not look like one. I think you are on the square."
"I want you to work with me on the same job."
"To suppress the liquor traffic among the mission Indians," he said.
So I was deputized as Special Officer since then, and I became Chief of Police in the Indian Service for nine Indian reservations under the United States Government, to protect the Indians, to make transactions for the Indians, and to help them become sober, improve their morals, and become civilized. In 1847 if the United States Government had sent us a man like Mr. C. T. Coggeshall, who is the superintendent of the nine Indian reservations, the Indians would never have lost the Two Sisters and Brother Life Springs. Mr. Coggeshall is a man with large experience and he has done a lot of good for the Indians under his jurisdiction.