Savage heading verbatim: '1804 - Ag.to 28 - Sn. José. / Sanchez á Arrillaga. : Cosecha de Cañamo.' English gloss: Sanchez to Arrillaga, on the hemp harvest. Opening verbatim: 'Por la comis.n q.e se me ha conferido, y deseoso de dar el mas exacto cumplim.to en todo lo conserniente á ella, pero parece estoy obligado á hacerle pres.te á V. mi concepto en cuanto reconojca favorable, ó adverso á este ramo...' Substance: the commissioner of the San José hemp program submits an unsolicited and openly pessimistic opinion on the whole enterprise. He warns first that the ignorance of the accountants (contadores) aboard the supply ships in judging hemp will cause the crop to suffer a capricious contempt, so that even when hemp of the greatest quality is presented to them the growers will end by losing the whole of the outlay; and since the King is the only buyer and has no other application for it in the province, the growers will be forced to throw it away, in which case he thinks it evident this will be the last hemp anyone in the province will consent to sow rather than expose their sweat, unless one of the accountants who this year carry the commission of the Ministro Principal de San Blas applies real effort to it. Second, he reports that the slender means of these vecinos and pobladores together with their admirable negligence hold out no hope that they can ever deliver a quantity of hemp worth attention, and that the missions should take the branch instead, since they have all the proportions required and, he has observed, will take it up gladly. He closes asking that one fanega of the present crop be distributed among San Luis Obispo, La Purisima Concepcion and Santa Ines, the rest to remain with its respective owners until Arrillaga orders its distribution. Rating note: a blunt insider verdict on why the California hemp program failed, and an explicit contrast of pueblo settlers against mission labour capacity.
| Date | 1804-08-28 (exact) |
|---|---|
| From | Joaquin Sanchez to Jose Joaquin de Arrillaga |
| Place | Pueblo de San Jose |
| Series | State Papers, Missions and Colonization |
| Tomo | I |
| Original tomo page | pp. 330-3 |
| Savage copy page | 34-35 / 33-34 |
| Scan leaf | n33-n34 |
| Document type | verbatim transcription |
| Source | verbatim transcription |
Read this leaf on the Internet Archive ↗ · leaf n33-n34
Joaquin Sanchez to Jose Joaquin de Arrillaga, Pueblo de San Jose, 1804-08-28, State Papers, Missions and Colonization, I, pp. 330-3, Archives of California, C-A 52, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.Cite the document by series, tomo and original tomo page, as the literature does; the C-A number locates it in the repository. To cite this catalogue entry itself, use https://archivesofcalifornia.com/record/ca52/ca52-d71.html