Historical and biographical record of southern California; containing a history of southern California from its earliest settlement to the opening year of the twentieth century, Part 8

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago, Chapman pub. co.
Number of Pages: 1366

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From various causes the founding of the sec- ond pueblo had been delayed. In the latter part of 1779, active preparations were begun for car- rying out the plan of founding a presidio and three missions on the Santa Barbara Channel and a pueblo on the Rio Porciuncula to be named "Reyna de Los Angeles." The Coman- dante-General of the Four Interior Provinces of the West (which embraced the Californias, So- nora, New Mexico and Viscaya), Don Teodoro de Croix or "El Cavallero de Croix," "The Knight of the Cross," as he usually styled him- self, gave instructions to Don Fernando de Ri- vera y Moncada to recruit soldiers and settlers for the proposed presidio and pueblo in Nueva California. He, Rivera, crossed the Gulf and began recruiting in Sonora and Sinaloa. His instructions were to secure twenty-four settlers, who were heads of families. They must be ro- bust and well behaved, so that they might set a good example to the natives. Their families must accompany them and unmarried female rel- atives must be encouraged to go, with the view of marrying them to bachelor soldiers.

According to the Regulations drafted by Gov. Felipe de Neve June 1, 1779, for the Government of the Province of California and approved by the King, in a royal order of the 24th of Octo- ber, 1781, settlers in California from the older provinces were each to be granted a house lot and a tract of land for cultivation. Each pobla- dor in addition was to receive $116.50 a year for the first two years, "the rations to be understood as comprehended in this amount, and in lieu of rations for the next three years they will receive sixty dollars yearly."

Section 3 of Title 14 of the Reglamento pro- vided that "To each poblador and to the com- munity of the Pueblo there shall be given under condition of repayment in horses and mules fit to be given and received, and in the payment of the other large and small cattle at the just prices, which are to be fixed by tariff, and of the tools and implements at cost, as it is ordained, two mares, two cows and one calf, two sheep and two goats, all breeding animals, and one yoke of oxen or steers, one plow point, one hoe, one spade, one axe, one sickle, one wood knife, one

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

musket and one Icathier shield, two horses and one cargo mule. To the community there shall likewise be given the males corresponding to the total number of cattle of different kinds dis- tributed amongst all the inhabitants, one forge and anvil, six crowbars, six iron spades or shov- els and the necessary tools for carpenter and cast work." For the government's assistance to the pobladors in starting their colony the settlers were required to sell to the presidios the surplus products of their lands and herds at fair prices, which were to be fixed by the government.

The terms offered to the settler were certainly liberal, and by our own hardy pioneers, who in the closing years of the last century were making their way over the Alleghany mountains into Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee, they would have been considered munificent ; but to the indolent and energyless mixed breeds of Sonora and Sinaloa they were no inducement. After spend- ing nearly nine months in recruiting, Rivera was able to obtain only fourteen pobladores, but little over half the number required, and two of these deserted before reaching California. The soldiers that Rivera had recruited for California, forty- two in number, with their families, were ordered to proceed overland from Alamos, in Sonora, by way of Tucson and the Colorado River to San Gabriel Mission. These were commanded by Rivera in person.

Leaving Alamos in April, 1781, they arrived in the latter part of June at the junction of the Gila and Colorado rivers. After a short delay to rest the main company was sent on to San Gabriel Mission. Rivera, with ten or twelve soldiers, remained to recruit his live stock before crossing the desert. Two missions had been established on the California side of the Colo- rado tlic previous year. Before the arrival of Rivera the Indians had been behaving badly. Rivera's large herd of cattle and horses de- stroyed the mesquite trees and intruded upon the Indians' melon patches. This, with their previous quarrel with the padres, provoked the savages to an uprising. They, on July 17, at- tacked the two missions, massacred the padres and the Spanish settlers attached to the missions and killed Rivera and his soldiers-forty-six persons in all. The Indians burned the mis- sion buildings. These were never rebuilt nor was there any other attempt made to convert the Yumas. The hostility of the Yumas prac- tically closed the Colorado route to California for many years.

The pobladores who had been recruited for the founding of the new pueblo, with their fam- ilies and a military escort, all under the com- mand of Lieutenant José Zuñiga, crossed the gulf from Guaymas to Loreto, in Lower Califor-

nia, and by the 16th of May were ready for their long journey northward. In the meantime two of the recruits had deserted and one was left behind at Loreto. On the 18th of August the eleven who had remained faithful to their con- tract, with their families, arrived at San Gabriel. On account of smallpox among some of the children the company was placed in quaran- tine about a league from the mission.

On the 26th of August, 1781, from San Ga- briel, Governor de Neve issued his instructions for the founding of Los Angeles, which gave some additional rules in regard to the distribu- tion of lots not found in the royal reglamento previously mentioned.

On the 4th of September, 1781, the colonists, with a military escort headed by Governor Felipe de Neve, took up their line of march from the Mission San Gabriel to the site selected for their pueblo on the Rio de Porciuncula. There, with religious ceremonies, the Pueblo de Nuestra Señora La Reina de Los Angeles was formally founded. A mass was said by a priest from the Mission San Gabriel, assisted by the choristers and musicians of that mission. There were salvos of musketry and a procession with a cross, candlesticks, etc. At the head of the pro- cession the soldiers bore the standard of Spain and the women followed bearing a banner with the image of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels. This procession made a circuit of the plaza, the priest blessing it and the building lots. At the close of the services Governor de Neve made an address full of good advice to the colonists. Then the Governor, his military escort and the priests returned to San Gabriel and the colo- nists were left to work out their destiny.

Few of the great cities of the land have had such humble founders as Los Angeles. Of the eleven pobladores who built their huts of poles and tule thatch around the plaza vieja one hun- dred and twenty years ago, not one could read or write. Not one could boast of an unmixed ancestry. They were mongrels in race-Cauca- sian, Indian and Negro mixed. Poor in purse. poor in blood, poor in all the sterner qualities of character that our own hardy pioneers of the west possessed, they left no impress on the city they founded ; and the conquering race that pos- sesses the land they colonized has forgotten them. No street or landmark in the city bears the name of any one of them. No monument or tablet marks the spot where they planted the germ of their settlement. No Forefathers' day preserves the memory of their services and sac- rifices. Their names, race and the number of persons in each family have been preserved in the archives of California. They are as follows : I. Jose de Lara, a Spaniard (or reputed to

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

be one, although it is doubtful whether he was of pure blood) ; had an Indian wife and three chil- dren.

2. Jose Antonio Navarro, a Mestizo, forty- two years old ; wife a mulattress ; three children. 3. Basilio Rosas, an Indian, sixty-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. Jose 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. (In the rec- ords, "wife Coyote-Indian.")*

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

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

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

II. José Morena, a mulatto, twenty-two years old, and had a mulatto wife.

Antonio Miranda, the twelfth person de- scribed in the padron (list) as a Chino, fifty years old, and having one child, was left at Loreto when the expedition marched northward. It would have been impossible for him to have rejoined the colonists before the founding. Pre- sumably his child remained with him, conse- quently there were but forty-four instead of "forty-six persons in all." Col. J. J. Warner, in his "Historical Sketch of Los Angeles," orig- inated the fiction that one of the founders (Mi- randa, the Chino) was born in China. Chino, while it does mean a Chinaman, is also applied in Spanish-American countries to persons or animals having curly hair. Miranda was prob- bably of mixed Spanish and Negro blood, and curly haired. There is no record to show that Miranda ever came to Alta California.

Another fiction that frequently appears in newspaper "write-ups" of Los Angeles is the statement that the founders were "discharged soldiers from the Mission San Gabriel." None of them had ever seen San Gabriel before they arrived there with Zuñiga's expedition on the 18th of August, 1781, nor is there a probability that any one of them ever was a soldier. When José de Galvez was fitting out the expedition for occupying San Diego and Monterey, he is- sued a proclamation naming St. Joseph as the patron saint of his California colonization scheme. Bearing this fact in mind, no doubt, Governor de Neve, when he founded San José, named St. Joseph its patron saint. Having

named one of the two pueblos for San José it naturally followed that the other should be named for Santa Maria, the Queen of the An- gels, wife of San José.

On the Ist of August, 1769, Portolá's expedi- tion, on its journey northward in search of Mon- terey Bay, had halted in the San Gabriel Valley near where the Mission Vieja was afterwards located, to reconnoiter the country and "above all," as Father Crespi observes, "for the purpose of celebrating the jubilee of Our Lady of the Angels of Porciuncula." Next day, August 2, after traveling about three leagues (nine miles), Father Crespi, in his diary, says: "We came to a rather wide cañada having a great many cot- tonwood and alder trees. Through it ran a beau- tiful river toward the north-northeast and curv- ing around the point of a cliff it takes a direc- tion to the south. Toward the north-northeast we saw another river bed which must have been a great overflow, but we found it dry. This arm unites with the river and its great floods during the rainy season are clearly demonstrated by the many uprooted trees scattered along the banks." (This dry river is the Arroyo Seco.) "We stopped not very far from the river, to which we gave the name of Porciuncula." Por- ciuncula is the name of a hamlet in Italy near which was located the little church of Our Lady of the Angels, in which St. Francis of Assisi was praying when the jubilee was granted him. Father Crespi, speaking of the plain through which the river flows says: "This is the best locality of all those we have yet seen for a mis- sion, besides having all the resources required for a large town." Padre Crespi was evidently somewhat of a prophet.

The fact that this locality had for a number of years borne the name of "Our Lady of the An- gels of Porciuncula" may have influenced Gov- ernor de Neve to locate liis pueblo here. The full name of the town, El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora La Reina de Los Angeles, was seldom used. It was too long for everyday use. In the carlier years of the town's history it seems to have had a variety of names. It appears in the records as EI Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles, as El Pueblo de La Reina de Los An- geles and as El Pueblo de Santa Maria de Los Angeles. Sometimes it was abbreviated to Santa Maria, but it was most commonly spoken of as El Pueblo-the town. At what time the name of Rio Porciuncula was changed to Rio Los Angeles is uncertain. The change no doubt was gradual.

The site selected for the pueblo of Los An- geles was picturesque and romantic. From where Alameda street now is to the eastern bank of the river the land was covered with a

*The term coyote was applied to Indians who were natives of Lower California.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

dense growth of willows, cottonwoods and al- ders; while here and there, rising above the swampy copse, towered a giant aliso (sycamore). Wild grape vines festooned the branches of the trees and wild roses bloomed in profusion. Be- hind the narrow shelf of mesa land where the pueblo was located rose the brown hills, and in the distance towered the lofty Sierra Madre mountains.

For ages the Indians had roamed up and down the valley, but the Indian is so ardent a lover of nature that he never defaces her face by attempt- ing to make improvements-particularly if it re- quires exertion to make the changes. For cen- turies within the limits that Neve had marked out for his pueblo had stood the Indian village of Yang-na or rather a succession of villages of that name. When the accretions of filth en- croached upon the red man's dwelling and the increase of certain kinds of live stock, of name

offensive to ears polite, had become so great and their appetites so keen that even the phlegmatic Digger could no longer endure their aggressive attacks, then the poor Indian resorted to a he- roic method of house-cleaning. On an appointed day the portable property was removed from the wickeups, the village was set on fire and myriads on myriads of piojos and pulgas were cremated in the conflagration. After purification by fire poor Lo built a new village on the old site-a new town with the same old name, Yang-na. Probably all of the Indians of Yang-na had been gathered into the mission fold at San Gabriel before Neve's pobladores built their huts on the banks of the Rio Porciuncula, still there seems to have been fears of an attack by hostile In- dians, for the colonists built a guard house and barracks and a guard of soldiers was stationed at the pueblo for many years after the found- ing.

CHAPTER VIII.

LOS ANGELES IN THE SPANISH ERA.

I N THE previous chapter we had a description of the founding of the pueblo and the dedi- cation of the house lots and the plaza. The plaza is an essential feature in the plan of Spanish-America towns. It is usually the geo- graphical center of the pueblo lands. The old plaza of El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora La Reina de Los Angeles, as designated by Gov. Felipe de Neve, in his "Instruccion para La Fundaccion de Los Angeles," was a parallelogram one hun- (red varas in length by seventy-five in breadth. It was laid out with its corners facing the cardi- nal points of the compass, and with three streets running perpendicularly to each of its four sides, so that no street would be swept by the winds. The Governor evidently supposed that the winds would always blow from the orthodox four cor- ners of the earth; therefore, he cut out his town on the bias, so as to outwit old Boreas.

The usual area of a pueblo in California was four square leagues, or about 17.770 acres (a Spanish square league contains 4,444 4-9 acres). The pueblo lands were divided into solares, or house lots, suertes *- planting fields, dehesas, outside pasture lands ; ejidos, or commons, lands nearest the town where the mustangs were teth- ered and the goats roamed at pleasure (from the ejidos, solares or house lots may be granted to

new comers) ; propios-public lands that may be rented or leased, and the proceeds used to defray municipal expenses ; realanges, or royal lands, also used for raising revenue, and from these lands grants were made to new settlers. In addition there was also certain communal property known as Bienes Concejiles, which term has been defined as "that which, in respect of ownership, belongs to the public or council of a city, village or town, and in respect of its use belongs to every one of its inhabitants, such as fountains, woods, the pastures, waters of rivers for irrigation, etc."

After the pobladores had built their rude huts they turned their attention to the preparation of their fields for cultivation. A toma, or dam, and an irrigating ditch were constructed. This ditch passed along the cast side and close to those lots on the southeastern corner of the square. It not only supplied the settlers with water for irrigating their fields, but also for drinking and household purposes. It was the first water system of Los Angeles. According to Neve's "Instructions," the suertes, or plant- ing fields, were to be located at least 200 varas from the house lots that surrounded the square. This instruction, if complied with, located the western line of these fields about where Ala- meda street now is.

The following description of the colonists' planting fields is taken from the first Los An-

*Suerte-chance or lot. The fields were called suertes because assigned by lot.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

geles directory, published in 1872 by A. J. King and A. Waite :

"Thirty fields for cultivation were also laid out. Twenty-six of these fields contained each 40,000 square varas (equal to about eight acres). They were, with the exception of four (which were 300 by 100 varas) 200 varas square, and separated by lanes three varas wide. The fields were located between the irrigating ditch and the river, and mostly above a line running direct and nearly east from the town site to the river. (The fields covered the present site of Chinatown and that of the lumber yards, and possibly extended up to the San Fernando, or river station depot.) The distance from the irrigating ditch to the river across these fields was upwards of 1,200 varas. At that time the river ran along where now (1872) stand the houses of Julian Chavez and Elijah Moulton. It was evident that when the town was laid out the bluff bank, which in modern times extended from Aliso street up by the Stearns (now Capitol) mill to the toma, did not exist, but was made when the river ran near the town."

The streets of the pueblo were each ten varas (about twenty-eight feet) wide. The boundaries of the Plaza Vieja, or old plaza, as nearly as it is possible to locate them now, are as follows : "The southeast corner of Upper Main and Mar- chessault streets for the southern or southeast- ern corner of the square; the east line of Upper Main street from the above-named corner, 100 varas, in a northerly direction for the east line of the square; the eastern line of new High street for the western line of the square ; and the northern line of Marchessault street for the southern line of the square."* Upon three sides of this parallelogram were the house lots, each 40x20 varas, except the two corner lots, which, fronting in part on two sides of the square, were L-shaped.

The eastern half of the southwestern side was left vacant ; the western half of this side was de- signed for the public buildings-a guard-house, a town-house and a public granary.

While the house lots, the tilling-fields and a certain part of the live stock belonged in sever- alty to each head of a family, and to the care and cultivation of which he was supposed to devote his time and attention, there were also certain community interests of which each was re- quired to perform his part, such as building the guard-house, the public granaries and the irri- gating works, standing guard and herding the village flocks. It was discovered before long that there were shirks among the colonists-men who would not do their part of the community labor.

*J. J. Warner's Historical sketch of Los Angeles Co.

Early in 1782, José de Lara, one of the two Span- iards, Antonio Mesa and Luis Quintero, the two negroes, were deported from the colony and their property taken from them by order of the Governor, they being "useless to the pueblo and to themselves." As their families went with them, by their deportation the population of the pueblo was reduced to twenty-cight persons. The re- maining colonists went to work. Before the close of 1784 they had replaced most of their tule-thatched and mud-daubed huts of poles with adobe houses. They had built the public build- ings required and had begun the crection of a chapel .. All of these were built of adobe and covered with thatch.

In 1785 José Francisco Sinova, a laborer, who for a number of years had lived in California, applied for admission into the pueblo and was ad- mitted on the same terms as the original pobla- dores.

In 1786 Alferez (Lieut.) José Argüello, who had been detailed for that purpose by Governor Fages, the successor of de Neve, put the nine settlers who had been faithful to their trust in legal possession of their house, lots and sowing fields. Corporal Vicente Felix and Private Roque de Cota acted as legal witnesses. Each colonist in the presence of the others received a grant of a house, lot and three sowing fields, and he was given a branding-iron to distinguish his live stock from that of his neighbors.

It is probable that there had from the begin- ning been some understanding of what was the individual property of each one. Each of the nine settlers signed his grant or agreement with a cross; not one of them could write. Lieut. Argüello spent but little time over surveys, and probably set up no landmarks to define bound- aries. The propios were said to extend southerly 2,200 varas from the toma or dam (which was located near the point where the Buena Vista street bridge now crosses the river) to the limit of the distributed lands. The realenges, or royal lands, were located on the eastern side of the river.

The exterior boundaries of the pueblo were not fixed then, nor were they ever defined while the town was under the domination of Spain. As we shall find later on, this occasioncd controver- sies between the missionaries of San Gabriel and the settlers of Los Angeles.

The local government of the pueblo was a combination of the military and the civil forms. The civil authority was vested in an alcalde and two regidores (councilmen) ; the military in a corporal of the guard. There was another office, that of comisionado, which was quasi-military. The principal duty of this officer was to appor- tion the pueblo lands to new settlers.

HISTORICAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

The corporal of the pueblo guard seems to have been the ranking officer in the town gov- ernment, and, in addition to his military com- mand, had supervision over the acts of the regi- dores and the alcalde.

The civil authorities were at first appointed by the governor; later on they were elected by the people. The territory of California was di- vided into military districts, corresponding in number to the presidios. Each military district was under the command of a military officer (captain or lieutenant), who reported to the gov- ernor, who was also an army officer, usually a lieutenant-colonel or colonel.

At the time of the founding of Los Angeles there were three presidios, viz .: San Diego, Monterey and San Francisco. Los Angeles was at first attached to San Diego. After the found- ing of Santa Barbara presidio it was placed in that military district.

The corporal of the pueblo guard reported to the commander of his district, and the com- mander to the comandante-general or governor. Vicente Felix, who assisted Lient. Argüello in the distribution of the pueblo lands to the set- tlers in 1786, was the first corporal of the pueblo guard, which was furnished from the presidio of San Diego, and consisted of four or five sol- diers of the regular army. All the male in- habitants of the pueblo over eighteen years were subject to military service, both at home in keep- ing order, and in the field in case of foreign in- vasion or an Indian outbreak. These civilian soldiers reported to the corporal of the guard for duty. Each was required to provide himself with a horse, a musket and a cuera or shield of bull hide.

For fifty years after the founding of the pueblo a guard was kept on duty at the cuartel or guard- house that stood just above the church of Our Lady of the Angels, on what is now the north- west corner of Upper Main and Marchessault streets; and nightly armed sentinels patroled the town.

Los Angeles, like all pioneer settlements of America, had her Indian question to settle. There are no records of Indian massacres, but Indian scares occurred occasionally. In 1785 we find from the provincial records that 35 pounds of powder and 800 bullets were sent to Los An- geles as a reserve supply of ammunition for the settlers in case of an attack. There was not much danger from the valley Indians, who had been tamed by mission training and subjugated by the lash, but the mountain Indians were pred- atory and hostile. At one time the Mojaves made an incursion into the valley with the design of sacking the mission and attacking Los An- geles. They penetrated within two leagues of

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Historical and biographical record of southern California; containing a history of southern California from its earliest settlement to the opening year of the twentieth century, Part 8

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918 Publication date: 1902 Publisher: Chicago, Chapman pub. co. Number of Pages: 1366

Author: Guinn, James Miller, 1834-1918
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Chicago, Chapman pub. co.
Number of Pages: 1366