Los Angeles Pobladores

Los Pobladores de Los Ángeles refers to the original "townspeople" or settlers of the city of Los Angeles, California. When the Governor of Las Californias, Felipe de Neve, was assigned to settle what is now Southern California, he commissioned a complete sets of maps and plans ("Reglamento para el gobierno de la Provincia de Californias") to be drawn up for the design and colonization of the new "pueblo". [Nunis, Doyce B., Jr. "The Founding Documents of Los Angeles: A Bilingual Edition".] Finding the individuals to actually do the work of building and living in the city proved to be a more daunting task. Neve finally located the new and willing dwellers in Sonora and Sinaloa, Mexico. But gathering the "pobladores" was a little more difficult. The new townsfolk comprised of eleven families, that is, 11 men, 11 women, and 22 children of various Mexican "Castas" (Castes): Spanish, Mulatto and Black.

The official foundation date is September 4, 1781, when with an escort of a military detachment, the forty-four "pobladores" gathered at San Gabriel Mission along with two priests from the Mission and set out for the site that Father Juan Crespí had chosen over a decade earlier. El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Ángeles sobre el Río Porciúncula, (Spanish for The Town of Our Lady Queen of the Angels on the Porciuncula River) is the original, official long version of the name of the town founded by the Pobladores.

The earliest Hispanic settlers of all of California, not just Los Angeles, were almost exclusively from the Mexican states of Sinaloa and Sonora. The author and historian, Dr. Antonio Ríos-Bustamante, has written that "the original settlers of Los Angeles were racially mixed persons of Indian, African, and European descent. This mixed racial composition was typical of both the settlers of Alta California and of the majority of the population of the northwest coast provinces of Mexico from which they were recruited." Dr. Ríos-Bustamante relates that in the century preceding the founding expedition of 1781, many Indians in this region of Mexico had been "culturally assimilated and ethnically intermixed into the Spanish-speaking mestizo society." [Rios-Bustamante, Antonio. Mexican Los Angeles. Encino, California: Floricano Press, 1992.]

William M. Mason, historian of Los Angeles and early California, uncovered the ethnic richness of the Pueblo de la Reina de los Angeles through extensive research. Mason, one of three founders of the Los Angeles Historical Society, authored six books and several articles regarding the early history and cultures around Southern California and he is credited with helping to uncover the ethnic facts about the original families of Los Angeles

Racial origins changed over time

Of the 44 original pobladores [colonists] who founded Los Angeles, only two were white, […] Of the other 42, 26 had some degree of African ancestry and 16 were Indians or mestizos [people of mixed Spanish and Indian blood] . — William M. Mason, 1975 [William Mason, Op-Ed, "Los Angeles Times", September 4, 1975, cited in [http://www.scgsgenealogy.com/storage/Northrup3.pdf Mason, William M. "Los Angeles Under the Spanish Flag: Spain's New World"] ]

Alta California, as the province was known then, marked the northern frontier of the Spanish empire in the New World. The story of California's African heritage began in 1781, when the forty-four settlers founded El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles, and more than half of these original pobladores—Antonio Mesa, Manuel Camero, Luis Quintero, José Moreno, their wives, and the wives of José Antonio Navarro and Basilio Rosas—had African ancestors, as was typical in the northern provinces of New Spain. [Alfred "Ed Moch" Cota, of The Los Pobladores 200, an organization of descendants of the founding families of Los Angeles, agrees that they "were mostly mixed" back then, that is some limited African ancestry is found in the founding families. However, Cota suggests that we have to discern the difference between those of having part Black-African and those having part Moorish-African origin. (Although the use of terms like "mulato", or "negro" in the 18th century Spanish America were never applied to people with "Moorish" ["moro"] background.) Personal communication by Aedwardmoch, August 11, 2008.] The descendents of these early settlers eventually developed their own culture and sense of place and became the Californios. Some became owners of large landed estates, granted to them by the Crown, others became government leaders.

Some historians and people in general have emphasized a difference between a "Spaniard" and a "Mexican" in terms of race. For example, "colonial Mexicans" are "persons of mixed blood." The implication is, of course, that Spaniards are persons of "unmixed blood" or racially "pure" types. This is a gross oversimplification and ignores the fact that "the population of the Iberian Peninsula was anything but ethnically homogeneous." As Magnus Mörner has observed, the seven centuries prior to the discovery of the New World in Spain "witnessed extraordinary acculturation and race mixture." Furthermore at one time in the history of Mexico there were more African slaves held in Mexico than in the colonial United States north of the border. Moreover, "Mestizos born in wedlock, at least during the sixteenth century, were accepted as criollos, that is, as 'American Spaniards'."Fact|date=August 2008 In short, the definition of "Mexican" often confuses race with nationality in the modern period and with caste in the colonial period. In addition, by this definition of "Mexican," neither an Indian, nor a Criollo, nor a Black would be Mexican because they are, by social definition at least, of "unmixed blood." ["Unfortunately, the subjects of California's early African heritage and extensive interracial mixture both remain controversial among nonscholars." Forbes, Jack D. "The Early African Heritage in California" in Lawrence Brooks de Graaf, Kevin Mulroy, and Quintard Taylor, eds., "Seeking El Dorado: African Americans in California" (Los Angeles: Autry Museum of Western Heritage, 2001), 74. ISBN 9780295980836] [See Mitchell, John L. "Diversity Gave Birth to L.A." for the debate among contemporary Angelenos.]

Like the original settlers of other parts of California and the American Southwest in general, the Pobladores reflected varied backgrounds: Peninsular (born in Spain), Criollo (born in the Americas of Spanish ancestry), Indian, Black, Mestizo (of mixed Spanish and Indian ancestry), Mulatto (of Spanish and African ancestry), and Zambo (of mixed Indian and African ancestry), among other combinations. Most of the colonists were of mixed racial backgrounds, and the process of "mestizaje" (racial mixing) continued in California, to include mixing with the various California Indian societies. Many Mestizos and Mulattos strove, sometimes successfully, to become identified as pure-blooded Spaniards, and many Indians and Black became Mestizos and Mulattos, because racial identity affected and reflected socio-economic mobility. In California, this meant that the descendents of the original settlers came to identify themselves as either Mestizo, or among the more socially prominent, as Spaniards.

"For Race and Social Mobility, see also The Los Pobladores."

Descendants became early civic leaders, from "alcaldes" to governors

The descendants of these settlers naturally played a prominent in developing the Los Angeles area. Some, such as Andrés Pico and Juan Francisco Reyes, acquired vast ranchos. Among those exercising considerable political and economic power were "Alcaldes" Juan Francisco Reyes and Tiburcio Tapia. Pío Pico, the last governor of California under Mexican rule and the builder of the Pico House, was a large landowner and businessman. Grandchildren of Luis Quintero included Eugene Biscailuz, who served as sheriff of Los Angeles, and María Rita Valdes Villa, whose 1838 land grant is now Beverly Hills.

Commemoration and controversy

Historic Walk of Los Pobladores

"Los Pobladores Historic Walk to Los Angeles" occurs each year over the Labor Day Weekend, which coincides with the September 4 anniversary of the city's founding. It is organized by the Los Pobladores 200, an association of the descendants of the original forty-four settlers and soldiers that accompanied them. The cities of San Gabriel and Los Angeles join to celebrate Los Pobladores' last nine-mile trek to the city center. Claremont columnist and administrator T. Willard Hunter and the descendants of the original founders of the city, began the tradition of the walk in 1981.

Olvera Street Monument

The original plaque at Olvera Street commemorating Los Pobladores had for many years omitted any reference to the African heritage of the Pobladores. Eventually, scholars from the Los Angeles area, including professors from the University of Southern California and California State University at Dominguez Hills, were part of a subcomittee formed during a citywide effort to commemorate the Los Angeles' 200th anniversary and they helped to erect the current plaque which accurately depicts the multiracial makeup of the founders.

Telling the history of the original families, known as Los Pobladores (the settlers), turned out to be “a political hot potato,” according to Doyce Nunis, the USC professor of history who asked his former student Hata to chair the subcommittee.
“The descendants of Los Pobladores were very sensitive to the prospect of being revealed as having African roots,” Nunis says. “But history is history, you can’t change it. And the subcommittee found the evidence.”
Also serving with Hata on the subcommittee was Miriam Matthews, the first African American to earn a degree in library science at USC, and who went on to have an illustrious career as a librarian and archivist of African American history in Los Angeles. The group also included David Almada, a Los Angeles Unified School District administrator serving at a time when few Latinos served in such positions, and Leonard Pitt, an emeritus professor of history at California State University, Northridge and author of "Decline of the Californios: A Social History of the Spanish-Speaking Californians, 1846-1890". […]
The multiracial ethnicity of Los Pobladores had been rejected as rumors by the scholarly establishment, according to Hata, and never accepted until explicit census information was found in an archive in Seville. Documents confirmed that 11 families recruited by Felipe de Neve, the first Spanish governor of California, arrived from the Mexican provinces of Sinaloa and Sonora. [Harmon, Joanie. [http://www.csudh.edu/univadv/dateline/archives/20071011/facstaffnews/donhata.htm "Don Hata: Historian Helped Reveal the Multicultural Origins of Los Angeles Settlers"] . Dateline Dominguez Hills (October 2, 2007).]

Founding Families of El Pueblo de la Reina de los Ángeles

From the original, November 19, 1781 "Padrón" of the Pueblo [ [http://www.laalmanac.com/history/hi03c.htm "Original Settlers,"] Los Angeles Almanac. Retrieved on 2008-08-04] [ [http://www.lospobladores.org/archive1.htm "Founding Families of El Pueblo de la Reina de Los Ángeles,"] Los Pobladores 200. Retrieved on 2008-08-04]

The Los Angeles Census of 1790

Carried out as part of the Revillagigedo Census of 1793 [ [http://sfgenealogy.com/spanish/cen1790.htm The Census of 1790, California] , California Spanish Genealogy. Retrieved on 2008-08-04. Compiled from William Marvin Mason. "The Census of 1790: A Demographic History of California". (Menlo Park: Ballena Press, 1998). 75-105. ISBN 9780879191375. Information in parentheses () is from church records.]

ee also

*Pueblo de Los Angeles
*History of Los Angeles, California

References

Sources

* [http://www.lospobladores.org/archive1.htm#Founding%20Families "The Founding Families of El Pueblo de la Reina de los Ángeles"] Los Pobladores 200
* Alarcón, Raúl. [http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/calcultures/lesson_plans/pdf/californios_calcultures.pdf Los Californios":California's Spanish, Native American, and African Heritage".] California Cultures Lesson Plan. Calisphere-University of California.
* Jensen, Marilyn. [http://aaleon.tripod.com/id3.html "Los Pobladores Celebrate Their 200-Year California Heritage."] " [http://www.whittierdailynews.com/ Whittier Daily News] ". (March 24, 1982) at [http://aaleon.tripod.com/ A. Anthony Leon V: Descendant of a Los Angeles Settler] .
* Mason, William M. [http://www.scgsgenealogy.com/storage/Northrup3.pdf "Los Angeles Under the Spanish Flag: Spain's New World".] Burbank: Southern California Genealogical Society, 2004. ISBN 0-9617773-3-8
* Metcalfe, Howard H. [http://www.lanopalera.net/LAHistory/LASite.html "Probable Location of the Original "Pueblo de la Reina de los Ángeles" on the River Porciúncula"] 1998.
* Mitchell, John L. [http://articles.latimes.com/2007/aug/22/local/me-founders22 "Diversity Gave Birth to L.A."] "Los Angeles Times". (August 22, 2007), Sec. A-1.
* Nunis, Doyce B., Harry Kelsey, Theodore E Treutlein, and Thomas Workman Temple. "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
* Pitti, José, Antonia Castaneda, and Carlos Cortes. [http://www.nps.gov/history/history/online_books/5views/5views5.htm "A History of Mexican Americans in California."] National Park Service
* Rios-Bustamante, Antonio. "Mexican Los Ángeles: A Narrative and Pictoral History". Encino, California: Floricanto Press, 1992. ISBN 9780915745197
* Taylor, Beverly Mateer. [http://www.scgsgenealogy.com/rsch-Black.php "Black in L. A.—The Vital Link."] Burbank: Southern California Genealogical Society, 2006.
* Vigil, Ralph H. [http://www.sandiegohistory.org/journal/73summer/hispanic.htm "The Hispanic Heritage and the Borderlands".] "Journal of San Diego History". Vol. 19, No. 3 (Summer 1973).