USA > California > Los Angeles County > Los Angeles > The Herald's history of Los Angeles City > Part 4
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Now if the mission was to be a mere acces- sory of the government, it was evident that there must be some form of colonial develop-
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History of Los Angeles.
ment distinct from that; and this came in two forms, the pueblo and the presidio. The first of these was, in theory, purely civil-the town -and the other purely military-the fort. As the plan worked out, however, each partook in some measure of the properties of the other. The pueblo was under a semi-military rule, for the reason that one of the purposes of its ex- istence was to supply provisions for the army ; the presidio, on the other hand, was finally surrounded by a town made up of retired sol- diers and their families, and of people who sought the safety and the trade that came through the presence of the military. Monte- rey, San Francisco, Santa Barbara and San Diego were the presidial towns; and the three regularly established pueblos were San Jose, Los Angeles and Branciforte, or, as it came to be called later, Santa Cruz. Towns also natu- rally came into existence in the vicinity of the missions, but these were regarded as accidents, not as part of the general plan.
The year after the establishment of the mis- sion of San Gabriel, 1772, Father Junipero Ser- ra founded San Luis Obispo, the fifth of the series, and the work having now advanced to a point where he felt it could be left alone for a time, the conquerer of the wilderness journeyed to the City of Mexico, to confer with the new viceroy, Bucareli. A conflict had already be- gun between the military authority, represent- ed by Fages, and the Franciscans; and Serra wished to have the lines drawn more closely as
MISSION OF SAN LUIS OBISPO
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The Pueblo Plan.
to their respective powers. Bucareli seems to have arrived at the conclusion that the difficul- ty was due in some measure to the bad judg- ment of his military representative, for he straightway removed Fages and put in his place Rivera-the same officer that had taken charge of the commissary in the first expedi- tions. A suggestion of Serra's that a new land route to California be opened by way of So- nora and the Colorado river was adopted, and an experienced Mexican officer named Anza was sent through that way. A mission post was presently established on the Colorado river which a few years later met with a tragical fate.
In 1774 Serra returned to California with in- creased authority and renewed hope and en- thusiasm, and set about preparing for the establishment of more missions. He found that the Franciscans in Lower California were in- volved in a quarrel with the governor of that province, De Barri, who possessed a nominal jurisdiction over Alta California, and it is very probable that he asked Bucareli to make a change there as he had in the upper territory. At all events Bucareli removed De Barri, as he had Fages, and to him there succeeded one of the most remarkable and interesting characters of this whole period, a man second only to Serra himself in force, energy and foresight, Felipe de Neve, the founder of Los Angeles.
In 1775 the Indians of the San Diego dis- trict attacked the mission, and set it on fire. Father Jaume and two artisans were killed, and
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History of Los Angeles.
all the buildings were destroyed. There is no evidence that the Indians had been ill-treated by the soldiers, nor did the investigation, which was presently carried on by Rivera, reveal any special cause for complaint on their part, other than that the padres were baptizing their breth- ren. The outbreak seems to have sprung from the erratic impulse of a crowd. It struck terror into the hearts of the missionaries all over the state, and tightened the lines of discipline in the camps and around the Indian villages.
This affair led to a falling out between Ri- vera and the Franciscans, in consequence of which the former was removed from his posi- tion. He insisted upon entering the church edifice at San Diego and dragging thence an Indian who, he asserted, had participated in the rebellion, but whom the fathers regarded only as a fugitive seeking the sacred privilege of sanctuary. For this violation of the laws of the church Rivera was excommunicated. He chose to make light of this for a time, but at last it began to prey upon his mind, until there was a rumor among his soldiers that he was going mad. In 1776 the new governor, Felipe de Neve, was ordered to make his headquarters at Monterey, and to send Rivera south to Lor- eto. The next year the change was effected, with Monterey as the capital of the two Cali- fornias. It was now only eight years since the founding of the upper territory, but Galvez, who was a member of the king's colonial coun- cil, had come to believe that its development
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The Pueblo Plan.
would soon surpass that of Lower California, and for that reason it was given the prefer- ence.
De Neve came up by land, inspecting the missions as he passed along, and studying the needs of the country. He arrived at Monterey in February of 1777, and the first boat that went south carried a report to his superior of what he had seen and what he desired to rec- ommend. The missions of San Francisco and San Juan Capistrano had been established in 1776, and that of Santa Clara in 1777 just be- fore the governor's arrival. This made eight in all. The governor advised that three more missions be located on the Santa Barbara chan- nel at the center of the chain, and that one of these be made also a presidio. The sites se- lected were those subsequently occupied bv the missions of Purisima (near Point Concep- cion), San Buena Ventura and Santa Barbara. The latter place was, in accordance with the advice of De Neve, made the military head- quarters for all the central portion of the state.
The new governor was a thoroughly busi- ness-like individual, and the practice which prevailed-even after eight years of occupancy -of bringing all the supplies for the presidios by vessel from San Blas struck him as absurd, especially in view of the reported fertility of the California land. Before leaving Lower California, he had explained to the viceroy that the only way to remedy this state of affairs was to import settlers to till the fields, gather-
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History of Los Angeles.
ing them into cities for the sake of safety and to make life in the wild country more endur- able. The process of settlement recommended by De Neve, and subsequently employed, was entirely different from that followed on the eastern coast, and throughout the middle west of America. In California the town or pueblo was made the unit of settlement; else- where in the union, the country received the pioneers, and the cities did not come into ex- istence until the farming land was largely tak- en up. The California system showed the in- fluence of Rome, coming down through the ancient province of Spain. The Roman empire was a city governing the territory that sur- rounded it, and throughout its provinces a sim- ilar system was employed; the city governed the country. Therefore it did not occur to De Neve to import settlers to go on farms. He must bring in people to found cities.
In his tour of the state, he noted two sites of striking beauty and fertility, each supplied with plenty of water and surrounded by open, level country. These were the site called Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles, on the Rio Porciuncula, and a location near the mission of Santa Clara, on the river Guadalupe, which has since become one of the most famous fruit dis- tricts of the world. At the latter site he found- ed the city of San Jose, named for Jose de Gal- vez, the original patron of California, as well as for the saint of that name. The settlers numbered sixty-six persons in all-fourteen
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The Pueblo Plan.
families, the heads of which were, for the most part, retired soldiers from Monterey and San Francisco, special care being exercised to se- lect those that knew something about agri- culture. The date of the establishment of this first California pueblo is November, 1777, and it thus precedes by four years the pueblo of the south, Los Angeles. The plan pursued in the allotment of lands, and the treatment of settlers was very nearly identical with that em- ployed later at Los Angeles, and the descrip- tion given in the next chapter will do for both cities.
CHAPTER VII.
GOVERNOR DE NEVE COMES TO LOS ANGELES.
ERETOFORE the governor of Califor- nia had reported to the viceroy direct, but about the time that De Neve was sent to the capital at Monterey a new arrangement went into effect, where- by the northwestern provinces of Mexico, in- cluding the two Californias, were joined in one district under a commandant general. The first to occupy this position was Teodoro de Croix, nephew of the De Croix who had been viceroy when Galvez was sending the expedi- tions into California. He was a man of energy and progressive ideas, and he seems to have reposed a large amount of confidence in Colonel Felipe de Neve-and wisely. The latter was fitted by natural inclination to be a jurist and a lawgiver. His state papers are, for the time and circumstances of their production, models of fairness, prudence and foresight. He found the governmental system of California in con- fusion, with the representatives of the church, the army and the civil authority continuously working at cross purposes. During the seven years of his administration-five of which were spent in Alta California-he codified the existing laws and rulings with regard to these
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Governor De Neve Comes to Los Angeles.
provinces, and drew up a detailed plan for their military and civil government, touching in some degree, moreover, on the relation of the church to other elements of authority.
As was stated in the preceding chapter, the project for the founding of civil settlements was an important feature of De Neve's plan. The reason which he set forth in his first com- munication to De Croix on this subject, viz., that of producing supplies for the consumption of the army, was doubtless not the only ele- ment in his calculations. While preserving al- ways a friendly and courteous attitude toward the Franciscans, he saw far enough along the line of policy they were pursuing to compre- hend that it would never produce a legitimate industrial community, such as the colony need- ed for permanent prosperity. Being a man with some education, as well as a high degree of intelligence, he was probably not unfamiliar with the development that was taking place on the Atlantic coast, where the settlements founded by the English had increased in wealth and population to such a degree that they were now demanding for themselves the right of self-government; and he felt that if Spain was to hold its own in the final struggle for ter- ritory it must people the country with some- thing better than a horde of timid and childish savages.
Immediately after the founding of San Jose, the governor set about preparing for the city in the south. He readily obtained the enthus-
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History of Los Angeles.
iastic co-operation of De Croix, who transmit- ted to Galvez the recommendation of De Neve, and by Galvez they were transmitted to Carlos III. When they came back from Spain they were in the form of a royal regulation, or or- der, and the new ruler of California was com- mended for his energy and good judgment. All this consumed time, and it was not until 1781 that the actual founding of Los Angeles took place. It was, therefore, the first legally ordained city of California, San Jose being rather in the nature of an informal, preliminary experiment.
The greatest difficulty with which De Neve had to contend-an almost insuperable one, as the subsequent history of the colony showed- lay in securing the right kind of material for citizenship. The whole policy of Spain for three hundred years had tended to drive out or destroy the progressive artisan class-the sturdy, independent yeomanry that had made England great on land and sea. There is rea- son to believe that De Neve was not pleased with the conduct of the ex-soldiers at San Jose ; at all events when he came to establish Los Angeles he preferred to experiment in a new field, and he asked De Croix to send him some agricultural people from Mexico. Orders were dispatched to Captain Rivera at Loreto to come over to the mainland and secure twenty-four settlers with their families to form the new city in California. The requirements were that they should be healthy and strong, and men of
Photo by Pierce
MISSION OF SAN GABRIEL
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Governor De Neve Comes to Los Angeles.
good character and regular lives, that they might set a good example to the natives. There must be among the number a mason, a black- smith and a carpenter. Female relatives should be encouraged to accompany them, with a view to marriage with the bachelor soldiers already in California. The term for which all were obligated was ten years.
The proposition that Rivera was empow- ered to make to the possible settlers, in accord- ance with the plan laid down in the regulations, was a fairly liberal one-vastly more liberal, in fact, than any that was ever offered to colon- ists on the Atlantic coast. Each settler was to be given enough land to engage his personal labor, though no extensive land grants were at this time contemplated. It was not his to mort- gage or sell, but he owned it through life, and at death it descended to his children on the same terms. But this was not all. In addition to the land, each settler was to receive an al- lowance of $116.50 per annum, for the first two years, and $60.00 for each of the next three years, these sums to be paid in clothing and other necessary articles at cost prices. Each one was to receive, moreover, two horses, two mares, two cows and a calf, two sheep, two goats, a mule, a yoke of oxen, a plow point, a spade, a hoe, an axe, a sickle, a musket and a leathern shield. Breeding animals were to be provided for the community, and also a forge, an anvil, crowbars, spades, carpenters' tools,
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History of Los Angeles.
etc. The cost of all these articles was to be charged against the recipients, to be paid for at the end of five years in stock and supplies taken at the market price for the consumption of the army.
The regulations drawn up by De Neve pro- vided that the pueblo which these settlers were to occupy should contain four square leagues, or thirty-six square miles; and the original boundaries of Los Angeles measured six miles each way. Near the center of this area there was to be a plaza, measuring 275 by 180 feet, around which building lots should be assigned the settlers, III by 55 feet in size. About half a mile from this plaza a series of fields were to be laid out, each containing about seven acres, and the settler was entitled to two of these for cultivation. He had, besides, a community right in the general area, both within and with- out the city, for pasturage.
Such were the privileges and the opportun- ities that Rivera was authorized to present to the people of Sonora and Sinaloa, along the west coast of Mexico, to induce them to come to California. The reputation of the Spanish government as paymaster not being first-class, he was advised by De Croix to explain specific- ally that funds had been set aside out of the royal treasury to meet these obligations; and as an earnest of good faith the first payment was made in advance. By this means, he was enabled to enter into a final contract with those who would agree to come, and to punish as de-
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Governor De Neve Comes to Los Angeles.
serters any that took the king's money and then failed to respond to the call.
Rivera was, without doubt, an excellent man for an undertaking of this kind. Having been in charge of the commissary for several expeditions, he knew the country and under- stood its people, and having served eight years in Upper California, he was probably well equipped with the usual stock of adjectives to describe its beauties and the excellence of its climate. There is, we believe, no case on record of any one living in California eight years without becoming enamored of its cli- mate. Then there was a particular reason why Rivera should do his best to please De Croix at this piece of work. De Neve had ac- cepted the governorship of California rather under protest, and his resignation was now on file with the commandant general. He had cause to hope that his influence at the Span- ish court would procure him a more exalted position -a hope that was presently realized. Rivera was next in rank, and the position was now, under the new arrangement of provinces, of much greater importance than when for- merly held by him.
We may therefore assume that the cap- tain exerted himself to the utmost to secure the required number of settlers, and to make the best possible selection of material. He consumed nearly a year in the work. Never- theless, the net result of his labors was not the twenty-four families demanded, but twelve,
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History of Los Angeles.
and of these there was one that probably never came to Los Angeles at all. While the writer naturally hesitates to say anything that can be construed as a reflection upon the "first families of Los Angeles," historical verity re- quires the fact to be set down that Rivera, at the end of his search, seems to have taken what he could get, rather than to have selected what he desired. A list of these people will be given presently, together with some partic- ulars about them, and the reader may judge for himself.
It was in the beginning of the year 1780 that Rivera crossed over from Loreto to Sina- loa, and it was not until a year and t.vo months later, March, 1781, that his settlers arrived at Loreto to undertake the trip to the new coun- try. They were in charge of Lieutenant Jose Zuniga; for Rivera was to go north with the live stock and supplies, accompanied by some soldiers that he had enlisted, by the new route across the Colorado river. Zuniga and his party arrived at San Gabriel on the 18th of August, and they were quartered some dis- tance from the mission-probably at the old buildings-for the reason that one of the col- onists was just recovering from the smallpox, and a temporary quarantine seemed advisable.
Now comes the end of poor Rivera. Two years before this time, a small settlement had been established by the Spaniards on the Col- orado river, and two churches were founded there, under the special patronage of the com-
MISSION OF SAN FRANCISCO DE LOS DOLORES
Photo by Pierce
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Governor De Neve Comes to Los Angeles.
mandant general, De Croix. These latter were in the nature of an experiment, for they dif- fered radically from the missions of the Cali- fornias, in the respect that padres were forbid- den to direct the industrial efforts of the In- dians, or to exercise any form of temporal au- thority over them. De Croix, like many other civil and military officers of the provinces, viewed with mistrust the increasing power of the priestly orders, and he proposed to try here a system that was more in accord with what he considered the legitimate function of the church. He was most unfortunate, however, in the locality that he selected for his experi- ment, the Colorado, or Yuma, Indians being fiercer and more treacherous than those nearer the coast.
Letters written to De Croix by the priests stationed in this district were full of forebod- ings of disaster, but the commandant trans- lated these to mean that the restrictions on the temporal powers of the padres had ruffled their pride. When Rivera arrived at the set- tlement with his train of cattle, he laughed at the fears of the fathers. He judged these In- dians by those he had known along the coast, and, as if to show his contempt for the warn- ings, he sent all his soldiers on ahead, except a small bodyguard, and even turned back the detachment that the governor had sent down from San Gabriel to meet him.
On the 17th of July the Indians attacked the settlement and the churches, slew all the
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History of Los Angeles.
men except five, and captured the women and children, whom they held for ransom. The number killed is estimated at forty-six, among whom was Rivera, who died fighting bravely. Three months later De Neve sent an expedi- tion into the district headed by Pedro Fages, now returned to California as a lieutenant- colonel. The captives were ransomed, as it was found impracticable to attack the Indians. The attempt to colonize the Colorado river district was, however, abandoned.
Much as he regretted the disaster, De Neve saw in it no reason for postponing the foundation of the pueblo of Los Angeles. On the 4th day of September, 1781, therefore, the expedition set out from San Gabriel, the gov- ernor leading the way in person, followed by a detachment of soldiers bearing aloft the banner of Spain. Then came the settlers, forty-four persons in all, eleven being men, eleven women, and twenty-two children of all ages. The plaza had already been laid out, and the boundaries fixed for the building lots that faced it. As they neared the selected spot a procession was formed, made up of the sol- diers, with the governor at their head, the priests from San Gabriel, accompanied by their Indian acolytes, then the male settlers, and, lastly, the women and the children, the former bearing a large banner with the Virgin Mary painted upon it. We may suppose this banner to have been loaned by the mission authori- ties, and it may have been the same one that
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Governor De Neve Comes to Los Angeles.
had so miraculously brought the natives to submission when Padres Somera and Cambon first met them on the banks of the San Gabriel, ten years before.
The procession marched slowly and im- pressively around the plaza, followed, no doubt, by the wondering gaze of the Indians from Yang-na, who had assembled for the event. When the circuit was completed the priests asked a blessing on the new city that was about to come into existence. Then Governor Felipe de Neve delivered a formal speech to the settlers, of which no report has come down to us, but which we may safely assume was full of excellent advice to the citizens, and of glowing prophecy for the pueblo's future. Prayers and a benediction from the padres concluded the ceremony, which was probably the most extensive and the most impressive that was ever held over the founding of an American city. The com- parison is easily made, for the reason that probably not more than a half a dozen Amer- ican cities ever enjoyed the distinction of be- ing really founded. The great majority of them merely happened.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ROSTER OF 1781.
HE demands of tradition and of imperial dignity having been satisfied by this ceremonial, the practical work of city building was begun. The plaza, which had been laid out by De Neve's orders a few days before, was an oblong space, with its corners turned toward the four car- dinal points of the compass, the longer sides running northwest and southeast. The reason alleged for this apparent violation of the natu- ral laws of direction was that by this arrange- ment the winds would not sweep directly through the streets. This would involve a stupid assumption on the part of the governor or of some one else in authority, that the winds were accustomed carefully to consult the com- pass before they started out to blow. The present writer does not believe this to have been the real reason for the plan; and he may perhaps be pardoned a slight digression on this point, as it raises an important issue of archi- tecture and health.
The streets of the original Los Angeles ran northeast and southwest, and southeast and northwest. The modern city has shifted from this a few degrees, but it is still consid- erably out of plumb. The city of Santa Bar-
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ORIGINAL PLAN OF THE PUEBLO From Bancroft
P-Plaza. A B C-Public Buildings.
The lots around the Plaza are the homes of the first set- tlers. The lots between the river and the ditch are the culti- vated lands of the settlers.
MAIN DITCH
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The Roster of 1781.
bara is exactly "on the bias," and others of the older cities of Spanish America were laid out on this same plan, although some sections of them, built in later years, have grown entirely away from it. People from the eastern states are accustomed to speak of this arrangement as "peculiar" and "awkward," and they point with pride to their own cities, which are as severely accurate and regular as a demonstra- tion in Euclid. It is true that ninety-nine out of every hundred cities in the eastern states have their streets running to the cardinal points, the exceptions being those places-like Boston-that were never actually laid out, but that "just grew." To defend and to praise this plan, however, shows the easy triumph of con- ventionality over logic and good sense. The most charming guest that the householder can ever hope to bring into his home is the sun- shine, for it drives away disease, and instills cheerfulness and good health. Now if the streets are laid out exactly "on the bias," this glorious visitor can find his way, in his daily course, to every room in the house. If the streets are drawn straight with the points of the compass he is forever shut out from one- fourth of the domicile. Especially is this true in the great cities, where the buildings are huddled together in indecent proximity. Had the city of Chicago, for example, been orig- inally planned to lie as Santa Barbara does, who can say how many thousand lives might have been saved from the baleful ruin of diph-
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