Two page manuscript letter from Nicolás Gutiérrez, then serving as Governor of Alta California, to the administrator in charge of the San Diego missions regarding the recently emancipated Mission Indians (Neofitos) and the enforcement of the Mexican Secularization Act of 1833. The letter, sent from Monterey on April 12, 1836, informs the San Diego adminstrator that any of the emancipated Mission Indians who failed to comply with the recent secularization law would be treated as vagrants and returned to mission rule, with others sent to replace them in their stead. The main text of the letter reads:
Si alguno ó algunos de los Neofitos emancipados de esa su cargo, no cumplen con las prevenciones á que los sujeta el Reglamento de Secularisacion, esto es, que cultiven sus tierras ó se ocupen en otros trabajos utiles á ellos y á la Sociedad, se tendrán por vagos; en cuyo caso los reducirá V. de muevo á la Comunidad, y emancipará otras si lo solicitar y que V. conasca que lo merescan.
While brief, the letter addresses the ongoing upheaval that the Secularization Act had caused, both among the indigenous peoples within the missions, as well as the non-native Californio population. During the politically tumultuous year of 1836, where Gutiérrez served - twice - as one of the four different Governors of Alta California during a few months span, San Diego was one of the centers of contestation with the territorial government, with indigenous relations being one of the primary reasons for the conflict. Gutiérrez inititally served as interim Governor while waiting for the arrival of Mariano Chico, and became Governor again after the revolt for independence in Northern Californio forced Chico into exile, and subsequently Gutiérrez was exiled as well.
Original manuscript material from the upheavals of 1836 is exceptionally scarce, with no other letters from Gutiérrez as Governor appearing in commercial records.
