USA > California > Los Angeles County > History of Los Angeles county, Volume I > Part 21
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Taking him by and large he was a fairly good man, too, and in some ways he was also a great man. He had his faults, it is true, but all men, great or small, also have had their faults, and it is not to be expected that there will ever be a man without some weakness or other of character so long as human nature remains as it is and we are clothed in the weakness of flesh and blood.
The name of the founder of Los Angeles was Felipe de Neve, and he was the third governor of California. There have been a great many governors of California from the first one down to the present time, and it is with no small degree of satisfaction that we find Don Felipe de Neve holding his own among them in history as an executive of consequence and of parts. Wherefore, our city of wonder may look back to its flesh and blood ancestor with some smugness of content, and certainly with little or nothing of which to be ashamed.
The great seal of the City of Los Angeles-one of the most artistic and beautiful of all municipal seals-relates in its colorful heraldry that the city has passed, so far, under the dominion of four flags. It was first a city of a province of Spain ; then a city of a territory of the Republic of Mexico ; again, after a very brief but thrilling and immortal period, a city of the Republic of California, popularly known as the "Bear Flag Republic ;" and it is now, as it shall doubtless remain until the end of all time, a city of the United States of America.
There were, in all, ten Spanish governors of California, beginning with Don Gaspar de Portola, who came in command of the expedition of 1769 that brought Fray Junipero and his brown-robed Franciscan companions to found the white man's civilization and Christianity on these sunset shores, and to colonize California for Spain. Among these Spanish governors there was none unworthy of attention and a lasting place in history, and there were at least three among them who stand out as extraordinary persons. And we think it is safe to say that Don Felipe de Neve, the founder of Los Angeles, was one of these three.
Felipe de Neve was, first of all and essentially, a soldier. But, as the case has sometimes been with other soldiers, he had also the mak- ing of a statesman in him had his career turned early to civil instead
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of military administrations. When he received his appointment as governor of California from the Spanish viceroy in Mexico, de Neve was a cavalry officer at Queretaro. He arrived at Monterey, the capital, in February, 1777, and found conditions in the province far from being satisfactory from any point of view whatever. The great trouble with everything had its source in the bad feeling which existed between the missionaries and the military authorities. Each was extremely jealous of prerogatives. Looking back at it now, however, in the calm and unprejudiced view of history, it seems clear enough that the friars were the ones who could most justly feel aggrieved. They were engaged in this superhuman task of lifting the native Indian out of heathen darkness into the light of Christianity and to teach him at the same time to abandon his ancient traditions of idle- ness and shiftlessness, and to bend his back to toil.
The missionaries in their stupendous trial needed and should have been accorded every possible help, assistance and sympathy from everybody around them. But, instead of receiving this sympathy and assistance from the military authorities and the soldiers of the garri- sons, they received, instead, rebuffs at every turn that was made, and every conceivable and unwarranted obstacle that could be imagined was spitefully and even viciously thrown in their path. The friars complained unceasingly to the viceroy in Mexico, and even got word to the king himself in Spain of their difficulties, but it does not seem to have availed them much.
Now, when Felipe de Neve came to Monterey and found these to be the conditions, he did what seems to us to have been a move in the right direction, and one that only a man of right impulses and good heart would make, which was, namely, to at once make the most friendly advances to Fray Junipero, the father president of the mis- sions. And we are glad to find that Fray Junipero met these advances in the spirit in which they were made, and that ever afterward while de Neve continued as governor of the province, he lived at peace with the friars except for two or three incidents that perhaps neither side could be blamed for.
We find, further, that during his term of office as governor of the province, Don Felipe composed and caused to be promulgated in the year 1779 a code of laws for California which stand today as the work of a real statesman. This code was called the "Reglamento," and it made provision, among other things, for the manner in which Cali- fornia should be colonized; laying down laws for not only the estab- lishment but also for the government of towns; outlining the pro- cedure that should promote stock-raising and agriculture and the progress of the industries; and it also contained a very precise and exhaustive regulation for the various procedures and conduct of the troops occupying the province.
De Neve was governor of California during a period between October, 1774, and September, 1782. Upon his retirement from office the king bestowed a high decoration upon him and promoted him to be inspector general of all the military establishments of new Spain north of Sonora in Mexico, and including New Mexico, Texas and
IRRIGATING AN ORANGE GROVE
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California. He made his headquarters at Chihuahua with the rank of general. He died in Chihuahua toward the end of the year 1784.
As far as Los Angeles is concerned, however, we take it that it will continue to regard its own foundation as the greatest achieve- ment of the life of Don Felipe de Neve. And this brings us to that memorable and fateful event. We find that the governor was at the Mission San Gabriel, the mother of Los Angeles, in August, 1781, having journeyed from Monterey, the capital, with an escort of troopers and the necessary entourage. And it was while enjoying the hospitality of the padres at the mission that he formulated there in some now long lost room of that once vast establishment the way in which the new city was to be founded and the laws and rules by which it should be guided and governed. It is so intensely interesting to know the manner in which Don Felipe went about the great work he had in hand that we are sure we should make a somewhat exhaustive record of it here.
First of all, we find from the governor's instructions for the found- ing of Los Angeles (the paper bearing date of August 26, 1781, at San Gabriel), that after selecting a spot for a dam and a ditch by which the land was to be irrigated, the next step was to choose a site for the town, which was to be on high ground commanding a view of the farm lands, but, at the same time, some distance from the river ; the houses to be exposed to the north and south winds.
It seems that Don Felipe was very much concerned about the winds at the place where the new city was to be. He evidently thought that the people might be distressed by them. But we know now, of course, that his fears were groundless. Los Angeles is remarkably free from wind storms, and it is only on a day now and then through- out the whole year that they are noticeable at all.
There was to be a plaza, which was afterwards duly laid out, its four corners to face the cardinal points of the compass, the streets running from each of the four sides of the square. Thus, said Don Felipe, "no street would be swept by the winds," always supposing that the winds would confine their action to the cardinal points, but I think the Los Angeles winds have not always been obedient in this respect.
Now we see that the plan that the governor had for the new city was a very good plan in that day. Indeed, it would be a very good plan today or in any day for a new town anywhere. The square, or plaza as the Spaniards called it, is a fine focus from which to survey a town. So, Felipe de Neve made a good beginning in surveying his new city by beginning with an open square.
Abutting on the square he laid out house lots, each one about 60 by 120 feet in size, and the number of these town lots was to be more than double the number of people who were to compose the first population. The eastern side of the plaza was set aside for public buildings. The first settlers were to draw lots, and did do so, for choice of the farming lands, which was fair enough, as everybody must admit.
We come now to a very important record in the history of Los Angeles, namely, the list of its first inhabitants. As we have already learned, Los
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Angeles was what might be called a premeditated town. In these times it would be called a "come-a-long" town, that is to say, it was first laid out in streets and residential spots and then the people were called to come and occupy it.
Everybody living today in our wonder city must have some time or other asked himself who were the first families of Los Angeles? Who were the first "Four Hundred," as one might say. Fortunately, we have their names, their standing in life, the racial blood that was in their veins, and, by a very slight exercise of the imagination, we can picture what kind of people they must have been socially, and what strata they occupied in human society.
It is probably to be feared that a lineal descendant of any of the first residents of Los Angeles living today, if such there be, will not be found boastful of his antecedents. Maybe, in all the essentials and fundamentals of life, these first settlers were the best of men and the best of women; they may have been honest though poor, and eager to make their way in the world by the performance of honorable deeds, but they were not of aristocratic birth, and a descendant of theirs would find small reason for vanity in the fact that his ancestry was so constituted.
There is one thing about them, however, which cannot fail to impress the mind of whoever digs into the musty cellars of the past and thumbs the dim pages of history, and this is that the Los Angeles of today is a city composed of people in whose veins course the blood of all the races of the earth ; and the same thing is to be said of the first inhabitants. There- fore, the original settlers of the city may be said to have been prophetic of the day that was to be when the little pueblo should have sprung out of its squalor and obscurity to take its place among the great cities of the earth.
The historic first families of Los Angeles were twelve in number, mus- tering among them in all, counting men, women and children, forty-six human beings. The blood of the four great races was in their veins-red men, black men, yellow men and white men. Can the most exacting cosmopolite ask more ?
Moreover, who so dull of curiosity that he would not like to know the very names of the heads of these twelve first families? Are they not now immortal, although in their day and time they walked humbly on the earth unhonored and unsung and quite unknown? Is it not something far beyond the ordinary to have been the first man to live in a place where now every man in the world longs to live? Indeed, yes. Wherefore, let us set down the names. They were as follows :
Josede Lara, Spaniard, 50 years of age, wife Indian, 3 children; Jose Antonio Navarro, mestizo, 42 years, wife mulattress, 3 children; Basilio Rosas, Indian, 68 years, wife mulattress, 6 children; Antonio Mesa, negro, 38 years, wife a mulattress, 2 children; Antonio (Felix) Vilavicencio, Spaniard, 30 years, wife Indian; Jose Vanegas, Indian, 28 years, wife Indian, 1 child; Alejandro Rosas, Indian, 19 years, wife coyote (Indian) ; Pablo Rodriguez, Indian, 25 years, wife Indian, 1 child; Mamuel Camero, mulatto, 30 years, wife mulattress; Luis Quintero, negro, 55 years, wife mulattress, 5 children; Jose Moreno, mulatto, 22 years, wife mulattress ; Antonio Miranda, chino, 50 years, 1 child.
In this list there would seem to be satisfaction for everybody. We
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have now a large negro population in Los Angeles, and it is a class that has done its share to build the city. It must be a matter of pride, therefore, to members of the negro race, that they were represented among the first families of Los Angeles. The same may be said of the Chinese of our present population, although historians dispute among themselves as to whether Antonio Miranda, who was listed as a "chino," was a Chinaman. The great Bancroft, who would be infallible if it were not that he also made errors, declares that Miranda was not a Chinaman. And maybe he wasn't, but we like to think that he was, because it is desirable that the great Mongolian race should have its hand in starting Los Angeles, as well as a hand in pushing it along after it was started.
Reading between the lines of original documents, we somehow get the impression that these first twelve families were, in a way, conscripted. But, even at that, it would seem that they had no real grounds for complaint against fate. The government made very generous provisions for them, indeed. They were equipped, without expense to themselves, to prosecute the work of life. Each family received a subsidy of $10 per month for a period of three years, and in addition a ration of one meal per day for ten years. They had a town residence and each family a farm, the water ditched to the farms and doorways that faced the morning sun. What more could a reasonable man ask in those days, or in these days, either ?
And yet they were not all satisfied. Then, as now, there were men upon whom favor might be heaped without stint, and yet they will grumble. The very next year after the pueblo was founded three of the families were drummed out of town because they were useless to their neighbors and to themselves. Don Felipe de Neve was so indignant he had their property taken away from them and ordered them dismissed from the community.
It appears that Don Felipe, the governor, spent about ten days as the guest of the padres at San Gabriel, after he had come down from Monterey, before he was ready to fare forth with his troopers to carry out the orders of the king and found the new city of destiny. But all was in readiness at last and on the fourth day of September in the year of our Lord 1781, the reveille of trumpets sounded at sunrise in the old mission that morning, reverberating among the far-flung adobe walls and arousing the sleeping community into action. The day of fate had dawned.
It must have been a sight to remember that morning in the old plaza of San Gabriel as the governor mounted his steed and the winds set the gay plumage of his hat dancing. And when his feet were in the stirrups, and the troopers in their leather jackets, with sword and lance and shield, fell in behind him, and the padres in their brown robes and sandals, and the Christian Indians and the new settlers and all were lined in a great procession, it must have been a stirring scene. It is a pity that there was no painter there to limn the picture; that the day did not have its Homer to write the epic.
There is no human soul breathing the breath of life today that saw Don Felipe de Neve and his cavalcade march out through the great arches of the mission of San Gabriel the Archangel to found a new city.
Forth they fared along the dusty stretches of El Camino Real that led from San Gabriel and was lost in the green chaparral of the Ventura hills --- trudging steadily forward until they had covered perhaps four leagues of
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distance before a halt was made and the gobernador dismounted and unsheathed his sword and stuck its point into the soft warm ground, saying : "Here in the name of God and our Sovereign King we will found the Pueblo of our Lady the Queen of the Angels."
It was the site of the ancient Indian village of Yank-na. The waters of the fountain in the plaza of Los Angeles leap and sparkle today quite upon that very spot. It will be the better marked, perhaps, some day, when the people shall erect there a heroic statue of old Don Felipe to proclaim his deeds.
No doubt the governor made a speech upon the occasion. We cannot imagine that any governor, ancient or modern, would permit so fair an opportunity for oratory to pass without taking advantage of it. And it is to be regretted that we have not a stenographer's report of what the gov- ernor said. It might prove a good model for the speeches of California governors in general ; and certainly it would be of great interest after nearly a century and a half of time has passed.
A cross was reared under the blue September skies; the bright blue silken banner of our Lady of the Angels rustled softly in the gentle breeze ; the Te Deum was sung; the soldiers fired three volleys of musketry; and one more city took its place among the cities of the world to work out its own destiny and to meet what fate might be in store for it.
CHAPTER XV
THE FIRST UNCERTAIN STEPS
We have seen that the City of Los Angeles began its earthly carcer on a bright September morning of the year 1781. We are now to follow it in its first uncertain steps when, like other infants, it was learning to walk. We have seen, also, that the original population, provided by conscription, was not composed of persons who might be called peculiarly desirable. However, they had at least one virtue, which was that they were "stayers." All but three or four of them settled down in their new habitations and appear to have been ordinarily industrious. They built adobe houses in which to live, and inclosed the pueblo in an adobe wall. Either this was done to repel human invasions or to keep out jack rabbits and coyotes. It is difficult now to decide, but it is probable that they built the wall mainly for the reason that it was the fashion to do so in those times.
In the year 1790, nine years after the foundation of the city, a census was made, the details of which cannot fail to be of interest to the present day resident of Los Angeles, when Don Felipe de Neve's little "come- along" town is pushing its population toward the million mark and confi- dent of making it many times more as the rushing years go on.
The census of the year 1790 showed that the total population of Los Angeles consisted of exactly 131 souls. As to sex, there were 65 males and 66 females. Forty-four were married and 91 unmarried, and there were six of them widowed. Forty-seven were under 7 years of age, 33 under 16 years, 12 under 29 years, 27 under 40 years, 13 under 90 years, and 9 over 90 years. There was one who was put down as having come vaguely from somewhere in Europe. Seventy-two were Spaniards, 7 Indians, 22 mulattoes and 39 whose racial blood was a mixture of Spanish, Indian and negro.
It must be admitted that this was an exceedingly slow growth for a new town to make in nine years, but the fact is that for many times nine years Los Angeles was very slow to grow. In 1890, 100 years after the first census was taken, the population had reached only 50,000. It was about that time, however, that Los Angeles really began to jump. The place didn't have a very good name at the beginning, or for a long time afterward. For years and years it was nothing more than a dirty, squalid little village whose people had a bad reputation throughout the whole province.
And it seems that the reputation they had was by no means a calumny on them. The men were nearly all ex-soldiers, and the soldiers of Spain and Mexico sent to California in those times were usually the products of prison pens, and they were sent here really in penal servitude. It will do no harm to admit the unpleasant truth of this fact now, when Los Angeles
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has come to be not only one of the largest cities of America, but also one of the most law-abiding and best behaved.
In the early days the population included so many disreputable charac- ters that it was even difficult to find a good man to serve in the office of mayor. Jose Vanegas, the first mayor, or "alcalde" as he was called, appears to have made such a poor fist of his job that Governor Fages felt impelled to put a boss over him and over the magistrate of the pueblo as well. This village dictator is a man whom we should remember gratefully and with pride. His name was Vincente Felix, and the first we hear of him is in his capacity as the corporal of the guard at the presidio of San Diego.
Governor Fages called Corporal Felix up to Los Angeles to be a sort of city commissioner with a free hand, apparently, to run things as he thought they should be run, and especially to see that the mayor maintained good order, justice, and morality ; that the magistrate should hold the scales of justice with an even hand; that the settlers performed all the duties required of them, while being deprived of none of their privileges, and also that the native Indians be treated fairly and with respect to the dignity of life. And the thing to remember about Corporal Vincente Felix is that he saw to it that all these instructions were faithfully fulfilled. Los Angeles was a better town during the time that he ruled over it, and all the records go to show that he was honest and fearless and just. And it is a pleasure to make this record of him here-to recall the name of a good man out of the mists of time ; a good man who did the work that was cut out for him.
The historians tell us, and a search of the record bears them out in what they say, that very little is known concerning Los Angeles between the years 1790 and 1800. Perhaps it was an era of dull times when there was little doing anywhere between San Diego's harbor of the sun and Sonoma's valley of the seven moons. But there is sufficient information at hand to show that while the pueblo was not going ahead by leaps and bounds, it still was by no means slipping back. The population had increased from 131 to 315. Not much of an increase, it is true, but the fine thing about it is that it came about through the birth rate and not by any invasion from with- out. No town that has a pride in growing children is without hope, and everything points to the fact that Los Angeles took a special pride in having children then, the same as now. Also, the number of horses and cattle had increased from 3,000 to 12,500, and there was a plentiful crop of grain.
The pueblo offered to supply the market with over 3,000 bushels of wheat in the year 1800 at the price of $1.66 per bushel. It was about this time also that the fortunes of some Los Angeles families were created by means of land grants, which Governor Fages made. The great holdings of the Verdugos were created at that time as well as the Los Nietos holdings, and also the famous Dominguez ranch. There were also several other grants which became famous and remain so to this day.
We learn, too, that there was some little excitement in the pueblo about that time, caused by the cutting off of the water supply by the padres of San Gabriel Mission. Just how this could be it is difficult to figure out, but the old records make mention of it. Certainly Los Angeles was not dependent on San Gabriel for its water supply, but it may be that the padres had something to say about water wherever water was.
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There is another thing that crops up among the scant records of the year 1800 and the decade following it which may be regarded as a coincidence. It was that Los Angeles was then, as now, highly favored as a health resort. Invalids from various places in the province came here then for the benefit of their health. There were so many of them, indeed, that Governor Arrillaga was impelled to say that "If it were not for the invalids, Los Angeles would not amount to anything."
But every night has its star, and every town, no matter how squalid it may be, has its saint. The saint of Los Angeles in those times was a girl named Apolinaria Lorenzana. She spent her life in tending the sick, teach- ing the children and luring from the squalid pathways of sin the wayward and erring. Her's is another name that should not be forgotten, and it is again a pleasure to us to set down here even so slight a record of her good deeds.
It seems a strange thing that Los Angeles should have remained without a church for a period of thirty-three years after its foundation. The popu- lation was wholly composed of Roman Catholics and of a race of people who, wherever we find them organizing settlements and communities, built a church for themselves almost before they did anything else. That Los Angeles should have proved an exception to this rule would appear at first glance to be extraordinary. The explanation, however, is doubtless that the people of the pueblo were well aware that, even if they had a church, they would not be able to procure ministers to attend it. They were short of priests at San Gabriel, where the little handful of padres had more than they were able to do in the mission without taking the responsibility of Los Angeles on their shoulders. So, the way it was, if anyone in Los Angeles felt the need of attending divine service, the only thing he could do would be to saddle his horse or hitch up his ox cart and make the pilgrim- age to San Gabriel. And this the people did with more or less persistence for thirty-three long years before they had a church of their own.
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