"I do not think they will submit," Miranda writes (149). One of the Seri leaders told Miranda that "he loved neither God nor priest nor political authorities and preferred to die killing."

Miranda is clearly caught in a vicious conundrum: the more "industriously" and "diligently" he protects the welfare of the Indians, "the less relief and rest he will have from the Spaniards, whom he also serves." It is a "very ticklish" subject and he resents the fact that the Spanish political leaders in Mexico "watch over a priest's action in order to bring censure upon him. Many times the life I have described is simply not worth it, not worth it at all." He misses Spain, he writes: "There one lives, here one only dies." His worst fear is that once the presidio is finished, the plan will be to "extinguish and annihilate the Seri nation once and for...
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