Toypurina Trial Testimony, 1785
In October 1785, Nicolás José, a baptized Native, organized a rebellion against the mission. Given warning, soldiers arrested 21 Natives without bloodshed. In the trial held at the mission, Nicolás José testified that he rebelled because neither the missionaries nor the mission guards allowed the Natives’ ceremonial dances. He had contacted Toypurina, an unbaptized twenty-five-year-old woman, who encouraged others to rebel. She spoke for herself and other Natives when she testified that “She was angry with the Fathers and with all the others at this mission, because we are living here on their land.” Found guilty, Nicolás José was flogged, exiled, and sentenced to hard labor. Also found guilty, Toypurina soon expressed a firm desire to convert to Christianity. When Natives who blamed her for their participation in the rebellion threatened to kill her if she were freed, the Franciscans asked that she be transferred to a distant mission where, in their words, she “could live, and marry, and be free from the threats upon her life.” Baptized in 1787 as Regina Josefa, Toypurina married and lived out her years in the Monterey region. She remains an inspirational figure for the Native community.
Proceedings that Sergeant Joseph Ignacio Olivera carried out by order of the governor against a neophyte Indian from the Mission San Gabriel (named Nicolás José), two other Indians, and an Indian woman, all of whom gentiles accused of being leaders of an uprising against the Fathers and Mission Escort on the night of October 25, 1785. Archivo General de la Nación, México.