For their part, California governors and presidial commanders found the mission priests to be a haughty lot who sometimes considered themselves superior to the military.
Governors and commanders assumed that the soldiers would remain in California following their tours of duty and local marriages and land grants were strong inducements to this end.
The fathers of the Mexican governors Alvarado and Pico and of the Generals Vallejo and Castro had all begun as presidials, as were the founders of the important California houses of De la Guerra, Ortega, Peralta, Valencia, Sanchez, Bernal, Alviso, Galindo, Carrillo, Moraga, and others.
By the seventeenth century crimes that were considered felonies included murder, manslaughter, witchcraft, larceny, abduction of an heiress with intent to marry her, forgery of a deed or testimonial, transportation of a sheep, and malicious cutting of another man's tongue or his eyes [Veall, 1970:2].
Some were royal colonies (such as Virginia) thought to be under direct control of the Crown; others were chartered colonies (e.g., Massachusetts) in which extensive governing rights were given to a charter company; still others were proprietary colonies (e.g., Maryland and Pennsylvania) in which a single owner had been granted vast authority [Hall, 1989:14].
This created a difficult situation, because slaves, in many of the colonies, were considered chattel and could, theoretically, be included as part of a forfeiture if their owner were convicted and attained for a capital felony.
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