Bad Indians is both a memoir of the author’s family experiences and the tribal history of the California Mission Indians. Following a chronological order, the book combines oral histories, anthropological recordings, newspaper clippings, and personal reflections to describe the experiences of Miranda’s Ohlone Costanoan Esselen family and the California Indians during the Spanish missions.
The narrative opens up with a vast history of violence enforced by Spanish Catholic missions. Miranda describes instances of rape, land theft, forced conversion, and deaths that befell her native people. Much of the mission’s conquest was the inheritance of the Native tribe. Miranda includes poems in the voice of her native people enduring the pain and suffering inflicted by the Spanish missionaries. She also expresses the condemnation of the native cultures in an attempt to control and disable Miranda’s people.
The author also makes use of illustrations to describe the forms of discipline and punishment inflicted on those who violated the Spanish rules. Those found guilty of disobedience were severely whipped. The missions took advantage of the tribe’s free workforce to build their churches and homes. The workers were exploited and later denied basic commodities.
Employing 1935 documents from ethnographer J.P. Harrington, Miranda recounts the high rates of sexual exploitation against Native women by the missionaries. For instance, the author tells of a Native adolescent woman, Vicenta Gutierrez, who was raped by a catholic priest. Miranda praises Vicenta for her bravery and describes her own rape experience.
