DAWN AND THE DONS 66
of three sisters who were his wives.
Besides this, he had
to wife his mother-in-law.” In his history of California, Chapman refers to the patent, if not always strenuously manifested hostility of the California Indians during the crucial years of early settlement, and concludes his comments as follows: “It can be seen that no civilized state might be expected to develop among the barbarous Californians. The only question was, how long could they, postpone the inevitable conquest of the land by a capable people? They had the advantage of distancefrom civilized | lands, intervening =% seosraphical difficulties, and considerable numbers among themselves. Yet they did not delay white settlement and conquest for a single day, once the white men had overcome the obstacles of nature. This is, indeed, an evidence of their insufficiency, but it was also far more
than civilization
had a right to expect. That the Spaniards were so successful in coping with them is more a tribute to the Spaniards than conclusive proof of utter Indian incapacity.” Such were the people, and such were the conditions that confronted Junipero Serra. Nothing short of a
