The Big House IV: San Quentin State Prison and Los Angeles County Inmates

The fifth Los Angeles County resident sent up "to the big house" at San Quentin State Prison was Atanacio Moreno, who arrived at the facility on 10 April 1854, and whose story was told here in an April post.

Moreno was followed by an Indian named Juan Chapo, who was delivered to San Quentin on 4 August.  Juan Chapo was tried before the District Court on a charge of manslaughter because, as recorded in the diary of that court's jurist, Benjamin Hayes, he was "indicated for killing an Indian woman.  He was in a deep state of intoxication at the time.  It occurred at Mr. Jno Roland's."

This was the ranch of John Rowland, owner of some 24,000 acres comprising half of the massive Rancho La Puente in the eastern San Gabriel Valley.  Rowland had a large population of Gabrieleño Indians working for him and Juan Chapo was undoubtedly one of the ranch's laborers.

The register listing for prisoner #414 at San Quentin State Prison, Juan Chapo, a Gabrieleño Indian who pled guilty to killing Anselma, an Indian woman, during a drunken state and sentenced to one year and a $1 fine based on "an excellent character."  Click on the images to see them enlarged in separate windows.

Hayes did not provide any further information concerning the circumstances of the killing of the woman, named as Anselma in court documents, but he did note that "an excellent characer [was] proved for him."  Consequently, Hayes went on, "the Court sentenced him to one year in the state prison" after Juan Chapo pled guilty.  Strangely, Hayes also pronounced a fine of $1.

It is also notable that, in the San Quentin register, there is no occupation listed nor are there the physical descriptions of heights, complextion, and color of eyes and hair usually given.  The only other notation was that Juan Chapo was discharged a couple of weeks early on 22 July 1855 and then faded from history.

The other prisoner confined at San Quentin around this time was a notable character in Los Angeles:  José Serbulo Varela.  Varela was from an old, established family in town, dating back to its early Spanish-era period.  During the Mexican-American War, he served in the Californio forces defending the town and region against the American invasion.

In 1846, when a cadre of Americans, who gathered for mutual protection at the Rancho Santa Ana del Chino's adobe home of its owner Isaac Williams, on what is now the grounds of Boys Republic, a troubled youth facility in Chino Hills, were captured, there was a serious consideration of executing the group.  This included the John Rowland mentioned above, as well as prominent Angeleno Benjamin D. Wilson, namesake of Mount Wilson, and others.

Varela, however, refused to consider the idea and told his fellow Californios that they would have to kill him before trying to take out revenge against the American prisoners, who were held for a substantial period before finally being released.  From that point forward, Varela, it was said, was held in the highest esteem by Americans, to the point that, whenever he fell afoul of the law, which was often, he was invariably bailed out and released.

Jose Serbulo Varela, a hero to many Anglos for his defense of Americans captured at the Battle of Chino and threatened with summary execution in 1846 during the Mexican-American War, was convicted of perjury and sentenced to a year at San Quentin, registering as prisoner #400.  Varela was found murdered in an irrigation ditch in 1860.

Charged for petty larceny and perjury in a crime against Santiago Feliz, of the family which owned the Los Feliz Rancho northwest of downtown Los Angeles, Varela was acquitted of the larceny charge, but convicted of perjury, evidently in his sworn statement of what took place in the matter with Feliz.

On 16 June 1854, he was sentenced to a year at San Quentin and registered ten days later as prisoner #400.  The 5'5 1/2" Varela, listed as 41 years of age and with dark complexion, hair and eyes and with the occupation as a laborer, served out his term and was discharged, presumably on or just before 26 June 1855.

Varela, who was said to be a drunkard, continued to attract trouble, but was always put out on his liberty because of his conduct at Chino, until his luck ran out in September 1860, when he was stabbed to death and his body found in the zanja madre (the mother ditch used for irrigation in town) at Los Angeles.

Native Indian Forced Labor in the Los Angeles Criminal Justice System

The situation among the native Indians of the Los Angeles region is, as with so many parallels around the world, a sad tale of destruction and loss mingled with resiliency and determination for those indigenous people who have survived.

From the arrival of the Spaniards by land in 1769 onward, the Indians, called Gabrieleños by the conquerors, and such names as Tongva and Kizh by varying factions of descendants today, faced the onslaught of disease, forced labor, abject living conditions, destruction of native plant and animal resources, alcoholism, violence and other forces.  Despite this, there are many thousands of people today who claim some portion of native blood, even if the last of the pureblooded Gabrieleño passed on decades ago.

The situation continued to worsen in the American period, particularly as the Gold Rush and general western migration brought Americans and Europeans to the area in greater numbers.  Constituting the main labor force on the region's ranches and farms, the largest of which were roughly similar to the plantations of the South (and, not coincidentally, many of the new migrants to the Los Angeles area were from that part of the U.S.), natives were often paid in liquor, which they then consumed and, when drunk, were arrested and confined in jail.

Unable to pay the fines accuring on their convictions, Indians then found themselves subjected to being "hired out" as laborers to work off their sentences.  This was, in effect, a forced labor system that some have likened to slavery.

The system of contracted labor of Indian convicts in the Los Angeles city jail was managed by the mayor, whose court heard the cases of public intoxication that led to convictions and sentences, and the city marshal, who was responsible for managing the jail.

In late Winter 1853, charges were brought by the county Grand Jury against Mayor John G. Nichols and Marshal George Batchelder for misconduct in office.  The two were alleged to have financially profited directly from the labor system.  The matter went before the Los Angeles district court, presided over by recently-elected Judge Benjamin Hayes.

As reported in the 26 February edition of the Los Angeles Star, however, "the court decided that the statutes on this subject applied expressly and exclusively to county, township and district officers" and "that in such a case as the present, the party, injured might have resorted to certioari, habeus corpus, and other adequate remedies."

A summary of the case of People v. John G. Nichols, mayor of Los Angeles, in the Los Angeles Star, 26 February 1853.

The concept of certioari, or legal review, involves having a higher court, such as the Los Angeles District Court, reviewing the rulings of a lower tribunal, like the Mayor's Court.  The issue of habeus corpus deals with unlawful imprisonment.

Essentially, Judge Hayes ruled that, because there were no specific state laws covering the question of misconduct in improper jailing (and, then, farming off Indian convicts for labor in lieu of paying fines) by a mayor and marshal, the only legal resort was to seek review of Nichols' rulings on Indian cases and Batchelder's imprisonment of natives.

Consequently, the notice in the paper simply observed: "Defendant was discharged."  The case file for the District Court proceeding, dated 20 February 1853, and now deposited with The Huntington Library, noted that the charges were dismissed.

Hayes' ruling and dismissal, of course, does not mean that Nichols and Batchelder were innocent of manipulation of Indian convicts in the matter of labor to "pay off" their fines.  It was, rather, a technical matter, something that, in other types of criminal cases, generally infuriated the press and many of the local populace.

In light of the statutes then in effect, though, it was the correct legal ruling.  Clearly, state law and practice did not, in this example, serve to protect native Indians from the predatory nature of forced labor.  As their numbers declined precipitously during the 1850s, from about 3,800 enumerated Indians in the 1852 state census to about 2,000 by 1860, natives suffered legal, as well as social, political and economic abuses, by omission as well as commission.

The practice of sending Indian convicts into forced labor on the area's ranches and farms in lieu of fines for intoxication convictions (brought about largely because of the practice of payment for that same labor with alcohol) is the ultimate example of the "vicious cycle" and a black mark on society in early American-era Los Angeles.