An illustrated history of Los Angeles County, California. Containing a history of Los Angeles County from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospective future and biographical mention of many of its pioneers and also of prominent citizens of to-day, Part 8

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1092

USA > California > Los Angeles County > An illustrated history of Los Angeles County, California. Containing a history of Los Angeles County from the earliest period of its occupancy to the present time, together with glimpses of its prospective future and biographical mention of many of its pioneers and also of prominent citizens of to-day > Part 8

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" Years afterward, this strange treatment of the travelers was explained by the priest who had refused to entertain them. The summer preceding this event a most fearful epidemic had swept off the Indian population of the Sacra. mento and San Joaquin valleys. Vague rumors of this pestilence had reached the ears of this priest, and when he discovered that there were two strangers at his mission who had come from that direction, and that one of them was but the shadow of a man and suffering from disease, he was seized with fear that this fatal malady might be introduced among the thousands be- longing to the mission, and all his powers were aroused to relieve the place from the presence of such unwelcome guests. In after years, when the priest and the once frightfully siek man had become sufficiently acquainted with each other to spend evenings over a social game of conquien, the respective sensations of each at their first meeting were matters of frequent comment and mutual raillery."

In 1834, with others, the mission of San Fernando was secularized; and Lieutenant An- tonio Del Valle was the commissioner in charge Ybarra continued his ministry until the middle of the year 1835, when he temporarily retired to Mexico. His successor was Cabot, who

HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY.

served until his death, in October, 1886. Blas Ordez came in 1838 and served two years.

In 1840 there were still about 400 Indians in the ex-mission community. Del Valle, who sec- ularized the mission in 1834, became its major- domo the next year, which position he held until the year 1837, when he was succeeded by Anas- tasio Carrillo. Captain José M. Villavicencio served as administrator from the middle of the year 1838.

At one period of its history there were nearly one and a half miles of buildings connected with this mission, these including residences, work- shops, schools and store-houses, all of which are now in ruins. The edifice erected especially as an abode for the padres and reputed to be the finest of its kind in Alta California, is, however, still standing in a fair state of preservation. It is principally interesting as having been the abode of the Mexican General, Andrés Pico, and was his headquarters during the war of occupation. It is two-story, nearly 300 feet in length by eighty feet in width, inside meas- urements; and the walls-of brick and adobe- are four feet thick. The rafters, after being cut in the mountain forests many miles away, were dragged here by Indians and oxen, each log being occasionally turned upon the way, "that all sides might be planed alike." They are as smooth as though really planed. The long cor- ridor of this building is paved with brick, and the heavy tile roof is supported by arches and columns of masonry. Many of the windows

are protected by iron bars, giving it a somewhat prison-like appearance.

The church building-in all the tottering decrepitude of venerable decay-measures 45 x 150 feet within walls. It is entirely dismantled, and no service has been held therein for years.

The general statistics of the San Fernando Mission from the date of its foundation in the year 1797 till its secnlarization in 1834, are as follows: Total number of baptisms, 2,839, of which 1,415 were Indian adults, 1,367 Indian children, 57 children de razon. Total marriages, 849; of which 15 were gente de razon. Deaths, 2,028; 1,036 were Indian adults, 965 Indian children, 12 white adults and 15 white children. The largest population was 1,080 in 1819. The sexes were nearly equal; children from one fourth to one-third. Largest number of cattle, 12,800 in 1819; horses, 1,320 in 1820; mnles, 340 in 1812; sheep 7,800 in 1819; goats, 600 in 1816; swine, 250 in 1814; all kinds, 21,745 animals in 1819. Total product of wheat, 119,000 bushels, yield nineteen fold; barley, (only raised six years) 3,070 bushels, fourteen fold; maize, 27,750 bushels, eighty-three fold; beans, 3,624 bushels, fourteen fold.

The church is 40 x 60 varas, tiled roofed, board ceiling, brick floor, adobe walls, three doors, seven windows with wooden bars; sacristy, eight varas square, with one door and window. The mission also had 32,000 vines, 1,600 fruit trees; this in the year 1835.

HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY.

THE SECULARIZATION OF THE MISSIONS.

CHAPTER VI.

HE secularization of the missions had been a great political question in Mexico for many years, extending even back into the days of Spanish domination. To " secularize the missions" meant not to destroy them, as the at- tempt resulted in California, but to take them from the control of the missionaries, make citizens of the converts, and place the missions and the new-made citizens thereafter under the spiritual guidance of the regular clergy. It was at first thought that the missions would be ready in ten years after their founding to convert into pueb- los, the christianized Indian by that time being supposed to be ready to be clothed with civil rights. The theory was pretty but not practical. The fact was, the Indian, with rare exception, was never anything more than a brute in human form, and all the prayers and chants lie could learn to repeat by rote never made him anything else than a child in mind that he was. In the hands of the priest he practically became a slave, building churches and toiling in the fields, flogged when lazy, or otherwise punished se- verely when he attempted to renew his wild freedom, or was hunted like a wild beast if he did escape. The priest stood to him in loco parentis; indeed, in the nature of the native it never could be otherwise. Again, the mission- ary found in the unrequited labor of the Indian a source of rapidly increasing wealth. The im- mense riches of the missions were all created by Indian labor. The priests, notwithstanding

their vows of " chastity, poverty and obedience," are only human, and when once this wealth and its mode of acquirement was within their grasp, it is no wonder they were loth to let it go. It is also no wonder that the " regular clergy" were anxious to get a bite of the missionary pie. To such a crisis did the controversy come in South America, that, at the solicitation of the Bishop of Guiana, the Cortes of Spain, in 1813, passed a decree fixing the limit of the life of missions at ten years; but, with the struggle for independence in Mexico, the question did not come prominently to the front for several years. After independence had been secured the ques- tion again came up. The clergy urged the execution of the plan; but the missionaries pro- tested that the Indians were not ready to become citizens, being incapable of self-government, which was true. In California a stronger argu- inent still was urged by the people, and that was that the missions were monopolizing all the good land to the exclusion of the settlers. And still another argument in favor of secularization was that of the politician, who ever hopes for more spoils of office. Finally the Mexican Congress, anxious to fill its depleted treasury, enacted a law to that end, which was supplemented at once by similar legislation in California. Says Warner, in the Historical Sketch:

" It was not contemplated, either by the Gov - ernment of New Spain or the Directory of the College of San Fernando, that the missions to

HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY.

be established should remain permanently as missions, but that at the expiration of ten years from the founding of each and every mission, it should be converted into a innnicipal organiza- tion, known as a pueblo, and that the property created and acquired by the mission during the term of its continuance should vest in the in- habitants of the political organization. It soon became evident, to both the ecclesiastic and po- litical authorities, that at the end of the ten years the neophytes of a mission-the converted Indians-would be incompetent to form a po- litical organization or to rightly use and man- age the property accumulated by the mission; and consequently no steps were taken while Cali- fornia was subject to Spain, nor for more than fifty years after the establishment of the first mission in California, to convert them into pueblos.

" After the independence of Mexico, 1821, the discharged soldiers and their offspring, wlio de- sired to obtain land npon which to breed cattle, began to agitate the matter of the conversion of the missions into towns, and in 1824 the Mexi- can Congress enacted a law under which, in 1828, the Executive of the Mexican Government issued regulations for the disposal of the public lands. The conversion of the missions into towns did not meet with the approbation and hearty approval of the friars in charge of the missions, and the transition was so slow, and attended with so many obstacles, that only the mission of San Juan Capistrano reached the condition of being dressed in the swaddling clothes of a political organization. The control and management of the neophytes and the tem- poralities of the missions were taken from the friars about 1835 and given to secular officers, called administrators, who were appointed by the Governor of California.

" When the friars became convinced that the conversion of the missions into towns was de- termined upon by the Mexican Government, the prudent and economical management of the missions, which hitherto had been the practice, became, during the last few years in which they were under their control, wasteful. Under the

far more improvident management of the secular officers, the personal effects of the missions rapidly diminished, and those buildings which had been reared by the toil and labor of thou- sands of Indian converts, and which had so heavily taxed the powers of the friars, and had been their pride and their glory, were not long in giving evidence of neglect. The artificial water courses, which had been constructed under the direction of the friars, to conduct water to the gardens, orchards, fields and vineyards for irrigation, were neglected, their banks broken and rendered useless for the conveyance of water. The orchards and vineyards were left without irrigation or proper cultivation. Groves of olives were barbarously felled and converted into firewood. Fruit orchards and vineyards were left unprotected by fence from the inroads of cattle, until in 1846 hardly a vestige of the vines, which had covered scores of acres of land, was left remaining. The orange orchard of San Gabriel, and a fragment of the vineyard and olive grove of San Fernando, still remain, as living witnesses of the energy and untiring in- dustry of those zealous friars who, coming into a country full to overflowing with ignorant, savage barbarians, changed them into patient, docile laborers, and in less than fifty years filled the country with fruitfulness."

In 1846 Governor Pio Pico was authorized by the California Legislature to sell the mission es- tates at auction, distributing among the Indians any surplus of funds that might exist, and in any case providing for the maintenance of the priests and the expenses of public worship. Before the decree was carried into effect there arrived an order from Mexico suspending all proceedings in the sale of mission property. Pico, however, had sold San Luis Rey to Reid & Workinan. The San Fernando Mission was sold to Celis, for $14,000. In the case of the San Gabriel Mission, after American occupation, the Supreme Court decided that Pico had no right to make the sale; but the title of the San Fernando Mission was confirmed by the United States Land Commission.

HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY.

THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES FROM THE FOUNDING UNTIL THE MEXICAN WAR.

CHAPTER VII.

HE town of Los Angeles was founded by Governor Felipe de Neve, September 4, 1781. The town was made a city and capital of Alta California on May 23, 1835, by the Mexican Congress, but it did not actually become the capital until ten years later. April 4, 1850, the city was incorporated by the Legis- lature of the American State of California. The reasons why it was named Los Angeles have been already given. The causes which led to the selection of the site and the founding of the town will now be told.

Supplies for the missions and presidios were yearly shipped from San Blas. It often hap- pened that these supplies were deficient in quality or quantity. Once they entirely failed to reach their destination, and the priests and . soldiers were compelled for the time to live on milk and what few herbs they could gather. If California could raise its own grains, fruits and vegetables these troubles would not again occur. Not only would it reduce the expense of main- taining the northern establishments, but it would render them more self-reliant. Captain Anza had brought back the report from Cali- fornia in 1774 that there were good agricultural lands on the Colorado River; and Governor Felipe de Neve, who received the appointment of his office that same year, was directed by the Viceroy of New Spain to look out for similar lands near and convenient to the missions. IIe arrived at Loreto in March, 1775, and at once

assumed his office. Loreto is situated on the eastern side of the peninsula of California like its namesake on the Adriatic side of Italy. It is in about latitude 25° 29' north, and was the first mission on the peninsula, having been founded in 1697.

In August, 1775, Governor de Neve was or- dered to transfer the capital to Monterey, but he did not receive his final orders till July of the next year, just sixteen days after American Independence had been declared. Nothing much is known of De Neve's journey to Monterey, ex- cept that lie went overland, and arrived there February 3, 1777. IIe kept the matter in mind to look out for suitable sites for agricult- ural colonies, and finally reported that he had selected two such places as fit for experiment. One was on the Rio de Porcúneula in the south, and the other was ou the Rio de Gaudalupe in the north. He also determined to found two pueblos (or towns), one on each of these rivers, and asked the Viceroy for four laborers and other necessary assistance. Before he received a reply he made up his mind to at once estab- lish the northern pueblo; and, accordingly, he took nine of the soldiers from the fort at Mon- terey, who knew something of farming, and five settlers, who had come to California with Anza, making about sixty-six persons in all, and on November 7, 1777, founded the pueblo or town of San José.

Echeveste's regulations for the government of

HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY.

California, which had been prepared, as the re- sult of Junipero Serra's visit to Mexico in 1773, were next revised by De Neve, and published in 1779, and became of effect as law, with the ap- proval of King Carlos III., from thebeginning of the year 1781.

An important feature of this new law was in reference to the founding of a pueblo on the Rio Porcúncula, at the historic camping spot of Gov- ernor Portolá in 1769, and was therefore to be called "Nuestra Señora de los Angeles." The pueblo was to have a guard of four soldiers for two years. Settlers were to be obtained from the older provinces; to be granted each a house- lot and a tract of land for cultivation; to be supplied at the beginning with the necessary live-stock, implements and seed, which advance was to be gradually repaid within five years from the produce of the land; to be paid each an annual sum of $116.50 for two years, and $60 for the next three years, the payment to be in clothing and other necessary articles at cost prices; to have as communities the use of Gov- ernment lands for pasturage and for wood and water; and finally to be free from church tithes or State taxes for five years. Government aid in the way of money and cattle was to be given only to colonists who left their own country to come to California; but in respect of lands, other colonists, such as discharged soldiers, were entitled to equal privileges. In return for aid thus received the colonists were simply re. quired to sell to the presidios exclusively the surplus products of their lands, at fair prices to be fixed from time to time by the Government, in accordance with the market rates in the southern provinces. Each settler must keep himself and horses and muskets in readiness for military service in an emergency. They must take their farms together within the pueblo limits of four square leagnes, according to Spanish law; they could not alienate their lands nor in any way encumber them with mortgages or otherwise; they must build houses, dig irri- gating ditches, cultivate, own and keep in re- pair certain implements and maintain a certain

number of animals. They could not kill or otherwise dispose of their live-stock, except under certain regulations to insure its increase; neither could one person own more than fifty animals of a kind (!). Certain community work must be done in the construction of dams and irrigating canals, on roads and streets, church and necessary town buildings, and in tilling the propios (or pueblo lands), from the product of which the municipal expenses were to be paid. The municipal officers at first were to be appointed by the Governor but afterward chosen by the people.

In December, 1779, Governor De Neve sent Lieutenant-Governor Don Fernando Rivera y Moncada to Sinaloa and Sonora for the purpose of recruiting soldiers for the Santa Barbara pre- sidio and missions and settlers for the new pueblo on the Rio Porciúncula. He does not appear to have had an easy time in enlisting soldiers and settlers for California; for by August 1, 1780, he had recruited only forty-five soldiers and seven settlers. But by the 25th he had nearly completed his number at Rosario, in Sinaloa. According to instructions he was to recruit twenty-four settlers and fifty-nine sol- diers. He obtained, however, but little more than half the number of settlers. The soldiers were to march to California overland from Alamos, in Sonora, by way of Tucson and the Colorado River, and were commanded by Rivera in person. Leaving Alamos in April, 1781, they arrived in July, at the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers, where Rivera sent on the most of his troops to San Gabriel Mission, while he remained to recruit the live-stock before attempting to cross the Colorado Desert. Here he was massacred by the Yuma Indians, who at the same time burned the two missions and massacred the priests on the opposite side of the river in California from where he was camping.

The remainder of the recruits crossed the Gulf of California from Guaymas to Loreto, under command of Lieutenant José Zúñiga. In this party were the eleven settlers and their families who had been enlisted for the pueblo on the

HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY.

Porciúneula. All were en route for the north by May 16, coming up overland on the penin- sula, and all arrived August 18 at San Gabriel, where they were kept in quarantine three miles from the mission for a few days, as some of the children were recovering from the small-pox.

On the 26th of August, Governor De Neve issued his proclamation containing instructions for the foundation of the pueblo Nuestra Señora de los Angeles, which, besides reciting the general provisions of the law for the establish- ment of pueblos, contained many additional particulars respecting the survey and the dis- tribution of lots. The site selected for the new pueblo was on the bench of land where that part of the city now called " Sonoratown " stands, overlooking the Rio Porciúncula, which name was then changed for that of the town. Here, in a quiet manner, with little or no ceremony, was founded, September 4, 1781, the pueblo of Los Angeles. There can be no doubt as to the exactness of this date; althoughi by a strange error, when the centennial anniversary of the founding was celebrated, the 5tli was chosen for the date. H. H. Bancroft, who more than any person has had access to the original records in the archives of Mexico, hints at no other date; hence the date of September 5 as given by Don Juan de Toro, in his " Authentic IIistory," and Major Ben. C. Truman in his writings on Southern California, must be erroneous, as they do not agree with the original records.

The founders of the pueblo, who had been enlisted in Sinaloa, were as follows:

1. José de Lara, a Spaniard fifty years old; had an Indian wife and three children.

2. José Antonio Navarro, a mestizo forty-two years old, whose wife was a mulattress, and had three children.

3. Basilio Rosas, an Indian sixty-eight years old; had a mulatto wife and six children.

4. Antonio Mesa, a negro thirty-eight years old; had a mulatto wife and two children.

5. Antonio Felix Villavicencio, a Spaniard thirty years old; had an Indian wife and one child.

6. José Vanegas, an Indian twenty-eight years old; had an Indian wife and one child.

7. Alejandro Rosas, an Indian nineteen years old, and had an Indian wife.

8. Pablo Rodriguez, an Indian twenty-five years old, and had an Indian wife and one child.

9. Manuel Camero, a mulatto thirty years old, and had a mulatto wife.

10. Luis Quintero, a negro fifty-five years old, and had a mulatto wife and five children.

11. José Moreno, a mulatto twenty-two years old, and liad a mulatto wife.

Thus there were eleven families, consisting of forty-four persons, and no more, who constituted the founders of Los Angeles. Not counting the children, there were two Spaniards, nine Indians, one mestizo, eight mulattoes and two negroes, truly "a mixtie, maxtie, motley squad," as Burns would say. Not oue of them could read or write, and only one of them, Navarro, had a trade; he was a tailor. They were very poor, or else they would never have come so far for such low wages. Poor in purse, poor in learning and poor in blood, the founders of Los Angeles were certainly among the scum of Mexico. As to the number, Bancroft himself strangely contradicts the original records, which he gives in a foot-note, from which the above is taken, for in the body of his subject-matter he says there were " twelve settlers with their families, forty-six persons in all," and then re- fers directly to the foot-note, which contains the names as above given, The name of a twelfth settler does indeed appear, that of Antonio Miranda, but Bancroft immediately says he was then absent at Loreto, and on the next page says, " The record does not show that Miranda, the chino, ever came to Los Angeles at all," so he could not have been one of the founders.

They were engaged at $10 per month for three years, and rations of one " real " (12} cts.) per day for ten years, though this did not agree with De Neve's law, which had probably been modi- fied; 82,546 was furnished them in Sonora, and $500 in California, and there was due to them December 31, 1781, 82,303. Two of the origi-

HISTORY OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY.

nal recruits had deserted before reaching the country, and three of the " founders," Lara, Mesa and Quintero, the first was a Spaniard and the two last were negroes, were sent away in 1782 as " useless to the town and to themselves." But the rest went to work, and soon the Gov- ernor reported satisfactory progress in their irri- gating ditch and mud-roofed huts of palisades, the latter before the end of 1784 being replaced by adobe houses, the needed public buildings having also been erected, and a church begun of the same material.

It would be an interesting and perhaps not unprofitable task for some historian to trace ont the subsequent life of these founders, humble though they were, and their genealogical lines of descent. It is also interesting to here note the popular errors which exist and flourish vigorously in the annual editions of local news- papers, in the writings of eastern correspond- ents, and in various ephemeral pamphlets about the early history of the city.

1. That the name of Los Angeles-the angels-was given on account of the climate. It was so given because a religious ceremony was here celebrated on the day of the first arrival of white men, August 2, 1769, the fes- tival of " Our Lady of the Angels."

2. That the founders were soldiers, or had been soldiers. Generally the fancy is here greatly drawn upon by various writers, in de- scribing how the old soldiers of the king started the town. It is true there was a guard of four soldiers at first provided for the town. It is also true that many discharged soldiers settled in Los Angeles after it was founded. The founders themselves were also required to bear arıns in any emergency that might arise; but it is not true that any of them at the time of their enlistment as colonists, or previous thereto, were soldiers. Indeed their enlistment was almost in the nature of a draft, for Rivera was nearly eight months in securing them in a populous part of Mexico. The record is very clear that they were enlisted as pobladores (town settlers), and not as solados (or soldiers). 4

The very first idea of the founding of Los Angeles was that of an agricultural colony, to help supply the northern establishments, and not as a soldiers' home, as is often pictured. It was a pueblo (town), and not a presidio (fort). The discrepancies in the number of settlers, as given by various writers, have already been mentioned.

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Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1092

Author: Lewis Publishing Company. cn
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Chicago, Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1092