Pueblo de Los Ángeles

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
For a full description of the buildings preserved in the district today as a historic monument, see El Pueblo de Los Ángeles Historical Monument.

Further information: History of Los Angeles
La Plaza, as seen from the Pico House, c. 1869. The "Old Plaza Church" is to the left, the brick reservoir on the right, and in the center of the plaza, was the original terminus of the Zanja Madre.

El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles (English: The town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels), shortened to Pueblo de los Ángeles, was the Spanish civilian pueblo settled in 1781, which became the American metropolis of Los Angeles. The pueblo was built using labor from the adjacent village of Yaanga and was totally dependent on local Indigenous labor for its survival.[1]

Official settlements in Alta California were of three types: presidio (military), mission (religious) and pueblo (civil). The Pueblo de los Ángeles was the second pueblo (town) created during the Spanish colonization of California (the first was San Jose, in 1777). El Pueblo de la Reina de los Ángeles—'The Town of the Queen of Angels'[2] was founded twelve years after the first presidio and mission, the Presidio of San Diego and the Mission San Diego de Alcalá (1769). The original settlement consisted of forty-four people in eleven families, recruited mostly from Estado de Occidente. As new settlers arrived and soldiers retired to civilian life in Los Angeles, the town became the principal urban center of southern Alta California, whose social and economic life revolved around the raising of livestock on the expansive ranchos.

Founding

In 1542 Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, with a commission from Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, was the first European to sail along and explore the California coast. Although he claimed all he saw as territory of the Spanish Empire, no efforts at colonization were made for over two hundred years. Concerned about colonizing efforts by the Russians and French, Spain set plans in motion in the 1760s to establish a presence and defend its claim to the territory.

The Spanish settlement did not reach Alta California until 1769, when explorer

Porciuncula, the church where St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan order, carried out his religious life. The river that was called the Porciuncula is today's Los Angeles River. Because the future town's name was a take on this "Queen of Heaven" Marian title, various versions of Crespí's formula would be used for the town, including the exceedingly long El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles sobre el Río Porciúncula.[4]

During the expedition, Father Crespí observed a location along the river that would be good for a settlement or mission. However, in 1771, Father Serra instead commissioned two missionaries to establish the

San José de Guadalupe
in 1777. The monarch, disregarding the production and trade roles of the missions, saw a greater need for secular pueblos to be established as the centers of agriculture and commerce to supply the crown's ever-growing military presence in "Nueva California." The priests at the missions ignored the royal mandate and continued their ranching, trading and production of tallow, soap, hides, and beef, often in competition with new pueblo ventures.

Settlement

See also: Los Angeles Pobladores

Governor de Neve took his assignment seriously and had a complete set of maps and plans drawn up by May 1780 for the layout and settlement of the new pueblo, including the placement of government houses, town houses, the church, the fields, the farms, and access to the river – the Instrucción and the Reglamento para el gobierno de la Provincia de Californias.

Criollo, Mulatto and Negro.[7]

Monument commemorating origin of Pueblo de Los Angeles

As local lore tells it, on September 4, 1781 the 44 pobladores gathered at

plaza
, to provide religious services to the settlers.

Government

See also:
List of pre-statehood mayors of Los Angeles, California
Old Plaza Church
", circa 1890-1900.

The pueblo came under the jurisdiction of the

Audiencia of Guadalajara.[13]

La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles

Main article: La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles

On 18 August 1814 Father Luis Gíl y Taboada placed the cornerstone of a new

Californio and immigrant Roman Catholic community as the only church in the vicinity of the City of Los Angeles until the 1876 construction of the Cathedral of Saint Vibiana. Saint Vibiana Cathedral became the English-speaking parish and La Placita became the Spanish-speaking parish.[16] "The Plaza Church" still stands today, exhibiting Spanish Colonial and Carpenter Gothic
architectural styles.

The Los Angeles parish was under the

Baja California Peninsula and Alta California. Both the dioceses of Sonora and the Two Californias were suffragan of the Archdiocese of Mexico
.

Mexican independence and era

See also:
California History: Mexican era (1821–1846)

After Mexico's War of Independence (1810–1821) from Spain, life began to change in Los Angeles and Alta California. With the secularization of the missions, their land was distributed for the establishment of many more ranchos. The Native population was displaced or absorbed into the Hispanic population.

Beginning about 1827, Los Angeles, now the largest pueblo of the territory, became a rival of Monterey for the honor of being the capital of California; was the seat of conspiracies to overthrow the Mexican authority; and the stronghold of the South California party in the bickering and struggles that lasted down to the American occupation.

In about 1834,

San Pedro Harbor as a sailor. His book, Two Years Before the Mast, includes a brief depiction of the pueblo and area, then dependent on the export of cattle hides and tallow. In 1835 it was made a city by the Mexican Congress, and declared the capital, but the last provision was not enforced and was soon recalled. In 1836–1838, it was the headquarters of Carlos Antonio Carrillo
, a legally named but never de facto governor of California, whose jurisdiction was never recognized in the north; and, in 1845–1847, it was the actual capital.

In 1842, a sheep rancher, pausing under an oak tree, discovered gold in

hard rock and placer
techniques. Land however turned out to be the more "profitable gold", as ranching and development expanded as the town and region grew.

Mexican–American War

Further information: Mexican–American War

Bear Flag Revolt on the Plaza in Sonoma, Northern California. United States troops then took control of the presidios at Monterey and San Francisco, and proclaimed the invading "conquest" complete. In Southern California, the Mexican citizens repelled American troops for five months, utilizing about 160 vaqueros
, or cowboys, against about 700 American forces.

Image from 1929 story map Los Angeles as it was in 1871

Los Angeles initially surrendered to the surprise invasion by United States forces. The small Mexican forces of Los Angeles fled at the approach of US troops, and August 13, 1846 the American flag was raised over the city. A garrison of fifty US Marines under

Governor of Alta California Andrés Pico signed the Treaty of Cahuenga, an informal agreement to cease fighting in California at the Campo de Cahuenga in the San Fernando Valley in January 1847. Under the later comprehensive 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
, Mexico formally ceded nearly half its nation's total territory, including Alta California, to the United States.

Modern state park

Los Angeles Plaza Historic District Visitors Center. The 1939 construction of the significant transit hub and architectural landmark, the Los Angeles Union Station
east of the old Plaza, added to the Pueblo area's reinvigoration.

Of archaeological interest is the discovery of sections of the original brick lined

aqueduct, that brought water from the Rio Porciuncula-Los Angeles River near the Arroyo Seco
confluence, to the colonial pueblo and later the American city into the latter 19th century.

See also
Diseño submitted 1854 Los Angeles City Lands, including Plaza Church and "Azcquia Madre"

Notes

  1. ISBN 9780292782099
    . pg. 17 'Hence, the location of Yaanga near El Rio de la Porciuncula (Los Angeles River) was an essential prerequisite to the survival of Los Angeles.' pg. 35 'After Los Angeles was founded, the adjacent village of Yaanga served as the main source of labor for the pueblo and surrounding ranchos... In fact, as the demand for Indian labor grew, the Yaanga village began to look more like a refugee camp than a traditional community.'
  2. ^ "Settlement of Los Angeles". laalmanac.com. Retrieved January 23, 2023.
  3. ^ "Origin of the Name Los Angeles". laalmanac.com. Retrieved January 23, 2023.
  4. Roman Catholic religious order. "City of Angels' First Name Still Bedevils Historians."
    Los Angeles Times (March 26, 2005), Sec. A-1.
  5. ISBN 978-0-914421-31-3
    .
  6. ^ Regulations for the Government of the Province of the Californias (Reglamento para el gobierno de la provincia de Californias) Spanish reprint plus English translation in Land of Sunshine magazine, volume 6, January 1897. Available online at Internet Archive (retrieved July 2018)
  7. ^ The California Reglamento here was following Book 4, Title 5, Law X of the Recompilación de las Leyes de Indias and the 101st Ordinance of Philip II's Ordinances Concerning Discoveries.
  8. ^ The families arrived at San Gabriel Mission in two groups. The first in early June and the second in mid August. The second group had to be quarantined for a few days due to an outbreak of smallpox among it. The September 4 date seems to reflect the day the formal foundation documents were drawn up. Ríos-Bustamante, Mexican Los Ángeles, 50–53.
  9. ^ Guinn, J. M. A History of California and an Extended History of Los Angeles and Environs, Vol. 1. (Los Angeles: Historic Record Company, 1915), 74. Book 4, Title 5, Law VI of the Recompilación de Leyes de Indias and Ordinances 88 and 89 of the Ordinances Concerning Discoveries.
  10. ^ See Map Of The City Of Los Angeles Showing the Confirmed Limits… below in External_Links.
  11. ^ "Los Angeles Department of City Planning, Recommendation Report" (PDF). City of Los Angeles. August 21, 2008. Retrieved March 9, 2016.
  12. ISBN 0-520-03410-4
    .
  13. ^ Bancroft, Hubert Howe. The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft. Vol. XVIII (The History of California, vol. 1, 1542–1800) (San Francisco: The History Company Publishers, 1886), 337 and 461–462.
  14. ^ Ruscin, p. 49.
  15. ^ Ruscin, p. 50.
  16. ^ Poole and Ball. El Pueblo: The Historic Heart of Los Angeles, 111.
  17. ^ Note: The oldest house in Los Angeles County is the Henry Gage Mansion, built in 1795 on the Rancho San Antonio site, presently Bell Gardens.

References

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Los Angeles". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 17 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 12–14.

External links

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