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Every community has
a story to tell about how it came to be. That history is celebrated at
community events, taught in textbooks, and memorialized in monuments and
museums. This story about the founding of Los Angeles is taken from the
Los Angeles County website:
When the Spanish
occupation of California began in 1769, an exploratory expedition of
more than 60 persons led by Gaspar de Portola moved north through the
area now known as Los Angeles. They camped by a river where fertile
soil and availability of water for irrigation impressed members of the
party. Father Juan Crespi, who accompanied the group saw the location
as having all the requirements for a large settlement. He named the
river El Rio de Nuestra Señora la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciúncula,
which means "The River of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula."
In September
1771 Father Junipero Serra and a group of Spaniards founded the San
Gabriel Mission as the center of the first "community" in
an area inhabited by small bands of Gabrielino Indians.
Twelve years
after Portola's trek, which began in San Diego and ended in Monterey,
a company of settlers called "Los Pobladores" were recruited
in the states of Sonora and Sinaloa in Mexico. Their mission, under
the authority of Governor Felipe de Neve, was to establish pueblos in
the name of the king of Spain.
On September
4, 1781, the Pobladores, a group of 12 families-46 men, women and children
led by Captain Rivera y Moncada -established a community in the area
discovered by Portola, and named it of El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora
la Reina de Los Angeles de Porciúncula, after the nearby river.
Over time, the area became known as the Ciudad de Los Angeles, "City
of the Angels," and on April 4, 1850 became the City of Los Angeles.
California was
ruled by Spain until 1822 when Mexico assumed jurisdiction. After a
two-year period of hostilities with Mexico beginning in 1846, the area
came under U.S. control. In 1848 the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo made
California a United States territory.
The County of
Los Angeles was established on February 18, 1850 as one of the 27 original
counties, several months before California was admitted to the Union.
It derived its name from the area known as Los Angeles, already a large
community, and made it the designated "seat" of County government.
On April 1, 1850
the people of Los Angeles County asserted their newly won right of self-government
and elected a three-man Court of Sessions as their first governing body.
A total of 377 votes were cast in this election. In 1852 the Legislature
dissolved the Court of Sessions and created a five-member Board of Supervisors.
In 1913 the citizens of Los Angeles County approved a charter recommended
by a board of freeholders which gave the County greater freedom to govern
itself within the framework of state law.
The story told on
the county website is part of the city's official history. Like all histories,
it emphasizes some events, downplays others, and omits still others. In
1948, historian Carey McWilliams expressed concern about some details
that are often left out of the story:
The city boasts
of the Spanish origin of its first settlers. Here are their names: Pablo
Rodriguez, Jose Variegas, Jose Moreno, Felix Villavicencio, Jose de
Lara, Antonio Mesa, Basilio Rosas, Alejandro Rosas, Antonio Navarro,
and Manuel Camero. All "Spanish" names, all good "Spaniards"
except-Pablo Rodriguez who was an Indian; Jose Variegas, first [mayor]
of the pueblo, also an Indian; Jose Moreno, a mulatto [of European and
African descent]; Felix Villavicencio, a Spaniard married to an Indian;
Jose de Lara, also married to an Indian; Antonio Navarro, a mestizo
[of Spanish and Indian ancestry] with a mulatto wife; and Manuel Camero,
a mulatto. The twelfth settler is merely listed as "a Chino"
and was probably of Chinese descent. Thus of the original settlers of
Our City the Queen of the Angels, their wives included, two were Spaniards;
one mestizo; two were Negroes*; eight were mulattoes; and nine were
Indians. None of that would matter …except that Mexicans are still
not accepted as part of the community. (1)
Nearly 50 years later,
Cecil L. Murray, the pastor of the Los Angeles's oldest African American
church, reached a similar conclusion. He told a reporter, "Forty-six
founders of Los Angeles, 42 of them were Native Americans and African
Americans. Pico Boulevard is named after the last territorial governor
of this territory-he was black. So we are part and parcel of this community."
(2)
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CONNECTIONS
Working
in small groups, tell the story of the founding of Los Angeles from a
different perspective. What information would you like to highlight in
your account? What might you add? Share your version with your classmates.
What do all of the versions have in common? How do you account for differences?
How important are those differences to our understanding of the story?
McWilliams writes
that the additions he made to the story of Los Angeles's founding would
not matter except that "Mexicans are still not accepted as part of
the community." Nearly 50 years later, Murray makes the same point-not
about Mexican Americans but about African Americans. Why does it matter
who is included in the story and who is not? What does it mean to be left
out of a story as important as the history of one's community?
What is the story
of your community? Where do you go to learn that story?
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