Pueblo de Los Angeles

:See also "History of Los Angeles, California"El Pueblo de la Reina de los Ángeles was the town founded in 1781, which eventually grew in the twentieth-century into the metropolis of Los Angeles. Los Angeles was the second secular town created by the Spanish in Alta (Upper) or Nueva California after more than a decade of establishing misisons in the area. The original settlement consisted of eleven families recruited mostly from Sonora and Sinaloa. As new settlers arrived and soldiers from the surrounding presidios returned to civilian life in Los Angeles, the town became the principal urban center of southern Alta California, whose social and economic life revolved around the raising of livestock and the ranches devoted to this.

Founding

The Spanish conquest of Mexico did not reach Alta California until 1769, when explorer Gaspar de Portolà reached this part of California via a land route. Accompanying him were two Franciscan Padres, Junípero Serra and Juan Crespí, who recorded the expedition. As they came through today's Elysian Park, they were awed by a river that flowed from the northwest, past their point and on southward. Crespí named the river "El Río de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula", meaning, in Spanish, "The River of Our Lady Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula". The name derives from Santa Maria degli Angeli (Italian: "St. Mary of the Angels") is the name of the small town in Italy housing the Porciuncula, the church where St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan order, carried out his religious life. The river that was called the Porciuncula is today's Los Angeles River. Because the future town's name was a take on this Marian title, various versions of Crespí's formula would be used for the town, including the ostentatiously long "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Ángeles sobre el Río Porciúncula". [Historian Doyce B. Nunis, Jr., has traced the longer name to the histories written by the Franciscan missionaries, especially Francisco Palóu, who wished to play up the region's connections to their order. Pool, Bob, "City of Angels' First Name Still Bedevils Historians." "Los Angeles Times" (March 26, 2005), Sec. A-1.]

During the expedition, Father Crespí spotted a location along the river that would be perfect for a settlement, possibly a mission. But in 1771, it was Father Serra who unwittingly commissioned two missionaries to build the San Gabriel Mission near the Whittier Narrows. A flood in 1776 caused them to move the mission to its present location in San Gabriel. The first Spanish governor of Las Californias, Felipe de Neve had, as well, recommended to Viceroy Bucareli Father Crespí's location on the Porciuncula (Los Angeles) River for a mission. Instead, in 1781, King Charles III of Spain ordered that a "pueblo" be built on the site, which would be the second town in Upper California after San José de Guadalupe, founded in 1777. The king, disregarding the commercial and industrial roles of the missions, saw more of a need for secular centers of agriculture and commerce to be established to supply his ever-growing military presence in Nueva California. The priests at the missions ignored the King's wishes and continued their ranching, trading and production of tallow and soap, often in competition with the new pueblos.

ettlement

Governor de Neve took his assignment seriously and had a complete set of maps and plans drawn up for the layout and settlement of the new pueblo, including the placement of government houses, town houses, the church, the fields, the farms, and access to the river ("Reglamento para el gobierno de la Provincia de Californias"). [Nunis, Doyce B., Jr. "The Founding Documents of Los Angeles: A Bilingual Edition". (Los Angeles: Historical Society of Southern California; Pasadena: Zamorano Club of Los Angeles, 2004) ISBN 9780914421313] It is recognized as possibly the first and only time a town has ever been planned before a settler set foot on it. But gathering the "pobladores" (settlers) was a little more difficult. After failing to recruit the target number of families in Sonora, he had to go as far as Sinaloa to finally end up with 11 families, that is, 11 men, 11 women, and 22 children of various Spanish American castes: Criollo, Mulatto and "Negro". [The California "Reglamento" here was following Book 4, Title 5, Law X of the "Recompilación de las Leyes de Indias" and the 101st Ordinance of Philip II's Ordinances Concerning Discoveries. ]

On September 4, 1781 the 44 "pobladores" gathered at San Gabriel Mission and, escorted by a military detachment and two priests from the Mission, set out for the site that Father Crespí had chosen. The small town received the name "El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Ángeles sobre el Río Porciúncula", "The Town of Our Lady Queen of the Angels on the Porciuncula River." Per the "Reglamento" the new towns in Upper California were to have four square leagues of land; that is a distance marked by one league in each cardinal direction from the town center. [Guinn, J. M. "A History of California and an Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs", Vol. 1. (Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1915), 74. Book 4, Title 5, Law VI of the "Recompilación de Leyes de Indias" and Ordinances 88 and 89 of the Ordinances Concerning Discoveries.] The streets, however, were layed out at forty-five degrees from the cardinal directions, a plan which is still preserved in Downtown Los Angeles. The old town limits are still marked by Hoover and Indiana Streets in the west and east respectively.

Government

As a pueblo, Los Angeles was granted a "cabildo". The first municipal officers were appointed by Neve, and subsequent ones elected by the settlers ("vecinos pobladores") of Los Angeles. Since the government of Nueva California had a strong military orientation in this early phase of colonization, the civilian "cabildo" was originally supervised by a "comisionado" appointed by the commander of the Presidio of Santa Barbara, who was charged with making sure the "alcalde" and "regidores" carried out their duties correctly. The first recorded "alcalde" was José Vanegas (listed as an Indian in the original 1781 "padrón" but as a Mestizo in the 1790 census), who served for the years 1786 and 1796. [Unfortunately the records of the Spanish-era "cabildo" were lost and the relevant parts of the Provincial archives burned in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, so the surviving list of "alcaldes" is incomplete. Caughey, John and LaRee Caughey. "Los Angeles: Biography of a City". (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 74-75. ISBN 0-520-03410-4] The next few "alcaldes" reflected the mixed population of the small settlement: José Sinova, a Criollo, 1789; Mariano de la Luz Verdugo, a Criollo, 1790; and Juan Francisco Reyes, a Mulatto, 1793. Among the first "regidores" were Felipe Santiago García (a Criollo) and Manuel Camero (a Mulatto in the 1781 "padrón", and a Mestizo in 1790 census). In judicial affairs, both military and civil cases were appealed to the Audiencia of Guadalajara. [Bancroft, Hubert Howe. [http://books.google.com/books?id=QugNAAAAIAAJ "The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft. Vol. XVIII (The History of California, vol. 1, 1542-1800)"] (San Francisco: The History Company Publishers, 1886), 337 and 461-462.]

"La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles"

On August 18, 1814 Fray Luis Gíl y Taboada placed the cornerstone of a new church amidst the ruins of the former "asistencia" to serve the local "pobladores" (settlers); the completed structure was dedicated on December 8, 1822.Ruscin, p. 49] A replacement chapel, named for Mary, mother of Jesus ("La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles", or "The Church of Our Lady of the Angels") was rebuilt utilizing materials of the original church in 1861; "Reina", meaning "Queen," was added later.Ruscin, p. 50] For years the little chapel, which collected the nicknames "La Placita" and "Plaza Church," served as the sole Roman Catholic church in Los Angeles, until the construction of the Cathedral of Saint Vibiana in 1876. The later became the center of the English-speaking Catholic community and the Plaza Church became a Spanish-speaking parish. [Poole and Ball. "El Pueblo: The Historic Heart of Los Angeles", 111.] The church still stands today. The parish of Los Angeles was part of the Diocese of Sonora until 1840, when a new Diocese of Both Californias, suffragan to the Archdiocese of Mexico, was established in Alta and Baja California.

Mexican independence

Mexico's independence from Spain, in 1821, did not change life in Los Angeles, other than to allow the secularization of the missions: land grants distributed the mission properties to "rancheros".

Beginning about 1827, Los Angeles, being the largest pueblo of the territory, became a rival of Monterey for the honor of being the capital of California; was the seat of conspiracies to overthrow the Mexican authority; and the stronghold of the South California party in the bickering and struggles that lasted down to the American occupation.

In about 1834, Richard Henry Dana, Jr. visited San Pedro as a sailor. His book, "Two Years Before the Mast", includes a brief depiction of the area, then dependent on the export of cattle hides and tallow. In 1835 it was made a city by the Mexican Congress, and declared the capital, but the last provision was not enforced and was soon recalled. In 1836-1838, it was the headquarters of Carlos Antonio Carrillo, a legally named but never de facto governor of California, whose jurisdiction was never recognized in the north; and, in 1845-1847, it was the actual capital.

In 1842, a shepherd discovered gold in Placerita Canyon, just outside current city limits, and sparked a minor gold rush. In subsequent decades, mining became an important industry, employing hard rock and placer techniques. The local mountains are still riddled with abandoned mines, and hopeful prospectors still pan for gold in the San Gabriel River.

Manifest Destiny reached California at the time of the Mexican-American War (1846 - 1848). On 18 June 1846 a small group of Yankees raised the California Bear Flag and declared independence from Mexico. United States troops quickly took control of the presidios at Monterey and San Francisco and proclaimed the Conquest complete. In Southern California, the Mexicans, for a time, repelled American troops, but Los Angeles eventually fell to American forces under Commodore Robert F. Stockton, General Stephen Watts Kearny, and Lieutenant-Colonel John C. Fremont.

The city was rent by factional quarrels when war broke out between Mexico and the United States, but the appearance of United States troops under Commodore Robert F. Stockton and Lieutenant-Colonel John C. Fremont at Los Angeles caused both factions to attempt to unite against a common foe. However, the defenders of Los Angeles fled at the approach of Stockton's troops, and on the 13 August 1846 the American flag was raised over the city. A US garrison of 50 men under Archibald Gillespie, left in control, was compelled in October to withdraw on account of a revolt of the inhabitants. Los Angeles was not retaken until Commodore Stockton again captured the city on 10 January 1847, after the battles at Rio San Gabriel and La Mesa. These represented the only important overt resistance to the establishment of the American regime in California. The United States and Mexico signed the Treaty of Capitulation at Cahuenga Pass on January 13, 1847.

Growth

Located on the plains surrounding the Los Angeles River, the town became a cattle ranching center. In the years to come, the development of metropolitan Los Angeles moved the center of town to the south, away from the Pueblo site, and by the turn of the 20th century it had fallen derelict. A 1920s restoration drive headed up by Christine Sterling revived the historic area, and today the Pueblo's original outline is preserved by the El Pueblo de Los Angeles Historic Monument, or Olvera Street. Among its edifices stands the oldest residence in Los Angeles, the Avila Adobe built in 1818 by Don Francisco de Avila, owner of Rancho La Brea and one of the more successful cattle ranchers of the time. [The oldest house in Los Angeles County was built in 1795 on what became the Rancho San Antonio. It is now known as the Henry Gage Mansion and is in Bell Gardens.] Across the street stands the Eloisa Martinez de Sepulveda House of 1887 that serves as the El Pueblo de Los Angeles visitors center. Of archaeological interest is the discovery of the "Zanja Madre", literally "Mother Ditch", the original brick laid underground aqueduct that brought water in from the Porciuncula River to the Pueblo.

Notes

ee also

*Los Angeles Plaza Historic District
*Zanja Madre
*Basilica di Santa Maria degli Angeli

References

*Poole, Jean Bruce and Tevvy Ball. "El Pueblo: The Historic Heart of Los Angeles". Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2002. ISBN 0-89236-662-1
*Ruscin, Terry. "Mission Memoirs". San Diego: Sunbelt Publications, 1999. ISBN 0-932653-30-8