Accueil
"The Spanish empire founded the small settlement of Los Angeles as an afterthought to the system of missions and presidios, or military forts, that it established to hold its northern territory in the late eighteenth century. Living in a poor, dusty village, the citizens of Spanish and then Mexican Los Angeles felt little connection to the rest of the world. Angelenos supported themselves as best they could, raising a few crops and some livestock, living in the shadows of the great mission estates and ranchos. Nothing much happened there for sixty years. But all this changed when Americans arrived, bringing knowledge of world markets and the vigor of an expanding republic. Inevitably, the United States annexed California. Soon, the newcomers turned the little town into a thriving modern metropolis, and Los Angeles could finally claim to be a global city.
It’s a familiar story. But is it true ?
A perception that early Los Angeles was an isolated and static place has been around for a long time. In the early nineteenth century, Americans who visited Mexican California brought their own standards of “progress,” (with themselves at the pinnacle). They condemned Mexicans as lazy and corrupt, lacking enterprise [...] Conquest would be natural and justified. By the end of the century, boosters and promoters reinterpreted this narrative with nostalgia, lamenting the loss of a simple, pre-modern past. “Never before or since, was there a spot in America where life was a long happy holiday, where there was less labor, less care or trouble,” wrote California historian Hubert Howe Bancroft in 1888 [...] This “Fantasy Past” of trailing bougainvillea and flirtatious señoritas still informs California architecture, fiestas, and pageants." (p.20)
"A counter-narrative began to develop in the early twentieth century among academic historians of the “Spanish Borderlands,” led by Herbert Bolton (1921). These scholars called for the integration of the Southwest into US national narratives, arguing for the continuing relevance of Spanish colonial institutions and culture. They did much to show historical continuities, yet often neglected the impact of local actors. By the late 1960s and 1970s, a new generation of historians took up the subject, emphasizing Native and mestizo perspectives, and celebrating resistance to Spanish and American conquest (Pitt 1966; Heizer and Almquist 1971; Acuña 1972; Camarillo 1979). Yet in many ways, the basic assumptions did not change. Deplore, lament, or reclaim, the history of California before statehood still appeared as a counterpoint to the United States: semi-feudal, pre-modern, traditional. For their own reasons, historians of Mexico, too, have easily dismissed the north as irrelevant to their national story, and the era before their own liberal reforms of the 1850s and 1860s as a simple continuation of the colonial order (Cuello 1982; Guardino 2005: 159).
The history of Spanish and Mexican era Los Angeles, indeed of California as a whole, is a work in progress. But recent studies in California and Latin American history are offering intriguing new paths of inquiry. Far from being stuck in pre-modern stasis, they suggest that Los Angeles before statehood was swept up in the dynamism and debate of a turbulent era." (pp.20-21)
"Los Angeles was born a global city. In the second half of the eighteenth century, Spanish reformers under the Bourbon kings sought to restructure their colonial holdings, and fend off challenges to the empire from Britain, France, and Russia. In 1765, Visitador General José de Gálvez proposed sweeping changes to the whole of the northern frontier, including sending a permanent presence to hold Alta, or Upper, California. A key consideration was the defense of Spanish trade with Asia, and the prevention of any other European power from finding the long-fabled sea passage through North America, called by the Spanish the “Strait of Anián.” The 1769 migration of missionaries, soldiers, and settlers into California would turn out to be the last new venture of Spain in the Americas, and in many ways the development of the territory would defy its careful planners [...] In the Los Angeles region, as elsewhere in California, missions were founded before the civilian settlements. Bureaucrats such as José de Gálvez had hoped to subordinate the power of the Church relative to the King, and preferred to minimize the role of missions on the northern frontier of New Spain. But in California, a lack of resources and colonists made it seem expedient to use Franciscan missions to turn the Native population into Spaniards.
In return, these missions held the right to occupy most of the arable land in the colony, as far north as the San Francisco Bay. Without access to firearms, horses, or alternate European allies, and with their subsistence base eroded by an ecological invasion, many Native people had little choice but to join the mission communities [...] The fourth mission in Alta California, Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, was founded in the Los Angeles region in September of 1771.
Yet, inspired by the liberal reforms of the Bourbon era, California’s Spanish governors such as Felipe de Neve (1775–81) continued to press for a different sort of relationship between California’s Native population and Spain’s representatives. For the most part, de Neve was unable to weaken the control friars exercised at this edge of empire, failing to convince missionaries to grant self-government to mission Indians, to preach to Indians in their own villages, or to convert missions into parishes. But in 1781 he did succeed in creating a small counterweight to San Gabriel mission, in the form of a civilian agricultural settlement called Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles [...] Spanish officials approved De Neve’s plans for Los Angeles in 1779, and soon afterwards Don Fernando Rivera y Moncada, the Lieutenant Governor of California, left to recruit settlers in Sonora and Sinaloa. Rivera y Moncada targeted male heads of families with agricultural and artisanal skills. Although terms seemed generous – a house lot, two plots of farmland, tools, livestock, and a salary – only fourteen families agreed to go, and of those, two deserted before leaving for California. In two or three straggling groups, they walked north from Baja California in the summer of 1781, while 1,000 head of their livestock were driven up from Sonora, and across the Colorado River at the Yuma, or Quechan, settlement.
In the meantime, de Neve was preparing for the new settlement by entering into negotiations with the people of the ranchería, or village, of Yaanga, located on the west bank of the Los Angeles River, near the present-day site of the downtown Civic Center. At the time, five to ten thousand native peoples lived across the Los Angeles Basin, in forty to sixty villages. Today, they are known as the Gabrielino-Tongva, but in 1781 they identified themselves by village, clan, and family. Most were Shoshonean language-speakers, who engaged in trade with other Native peoples to the north and south, and, through the Cahuilla and Mojave, eastward to the tribes of the Colorado River and Arizona. Their agreement, as well as their knowledge of local resources and trade routes, would be critical to the success of any Spanish settlement. As part of the negotiation, Governor de Neve himself chose three dozen of the ranchería’s children to baptize, and a young couple to remarry “in the eyes of the Church.” Apparently, de Neve’s hope was to create independent and self-governing villages of Christianized Indians who would visit the missions only for religious instruction." (pp.21-22)
-Louise Pubols, "Born global - From pueblo to statehood", chapitre 2 in William Deverell & Greg Hise (eds.), A Companion to Los Angeles, Blackwell, 2010, 527 pages.
"
-William Deverell & Greg Hise (eds.), A Companion to Los Angeles, Blackwell, 2010, 527 pages.
It’s a familiar story. But is it true ?
A perception that early Los Angeles was an isolated and static place has been around for a long time. In the early nineteenth century, Americans who visited Mexican California brought their own standards of “progress,” (with themselves at the pinnacle). They condemned Mexicans as lazy and corrupt, lacking enterprise [...] Conquest would be natural and justified. By the end of the century, boosters and promoters reinterpreted this narrative with nostalgia, lamenting the loss of a simple, pre-modern past. “Never before or since, was there a spot in America where life was a long happy holiday, where there was less labor, less care or trouble,” wrote California historian Hubert Howe Bancroft in 1888 [...] This “Fantasy Past” of trailing bougainvillea and flirtatious señoritas still informs California architecture, fiestas, and pageants." (p.20)
"A counter-narrative began to develop in the early twentieth century among academic historians of the “Spanish Borderlands,” led by Herbert Bolton (1921). These scholars called for the integration of the Southwest into US national narratives, arguing for the continuing relevance of Spanish colonial institutions and culture. They did much to show historical continuities, yet often neglected the impact of local actors. By the late 1960s and 1970s, a new generation of historians took up the subject, emphasizing Native and mestizo perspectives, and celebrating resistance to Spanish and American conquest (Pitt 1966; Heizer and Almquist 1971; Acuña 1972; Camarillo 1979). Yet in many ways, the basic assumptions did not change. Deplore, lament, or reclaim, the history of California before statehood still appeared as a counterpoint to the United States: semi-feudal, pre-modern, traditional. For their own reasons, historians of Mexico, too, have easily dismissed the north as irrelevant to their national story, and the era before their own liberal reforms of the 1850s and 1860s as a simple continuation of the colonial order (Cuello 1982; Guardino 2005: 159).
The history of Spanish and Mexican era Los Angeles, indeed of California as a whole, is a work in progress. But recent studies in California and Latin American history are offering intriguing new paths of inquiry. Far from being stuck in pre-modern stasis, they suggest that Los Angeles before statehood was swept up in the dynamism and debate of a turbulent era." (pp.20-21)
"Los Angeles was born a global city. In the second half of the eighteenth century, Spanish reformers under the Bourbon kings sought to restructure their colonial holdings, and fend off challenges to the empire from Britain, France, and Russia. In 1765, Visitador General José de Gálvez proposed sweeping changes to the whole of the northern frontier, including sending a permanent presence to hold Alta, or Upper, California. A key consideration was the defense of Spanish trade with Asia, and the prevention of any other European power from finding the long-fabled sea passage through North America, called by the Spanish the “Strait of Anián.” The 1769 migration of missionaries, soldiers, and settlers into California would turn out to be the last new venture of Spain in the Americas, and in many ways the development of the territory would defy its careful planners [...] In the Los Angeles region, as elsewhere in California, missions were founded before the civilian settlements. Bureaucrats such as José de Gálvez had hoped to subordinate the power of the Church relative to the King, and preferred to minimize the role of missions on the northern frontier of New Spain. But in California, a lack of resources and colonists made it seem expedient to use Franciscan missions to turn the Native population into Spaniards.
In return, these missions held the right to occupy most of the arable land in the colony, as far north as the San Francisco Bay. Without access to firearms, horses, or alternate European allies, and with their subsistence base eroded by an ecological invasion, many Native people had little choice but to join the mission communities [...] The fourth mission in Alta California, Mission San Gabriel Arcángel, was founded in the Los Angeles region in September of 1771.
Yet, inspired by the liberal reforms of the Bourbon era, California’s Spanish governors such as Felipe de Neve (1775–81) continued to press for a different sort of relationship between California’s Native population and Spain’s representatives. For the most part, de Neve was unable to weaken the control friars exercised at this edge of empire, failing to convince missionaries to grant self-government to mission Indians, to preach to Indians in their own villages, or to convert missions into parishes. But in 1781 he did succeed in creating a small counterweight to San Gabriel mission, in the form of a civilian agricultural settlement called Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles [...] Spanish officials approved De Neve’s plans for Los Angeles in 1779, and soon afterwards Don Fernando Rivera y Moncada, the Lieutenant Governor of California, left to recruit settlers in Sonora and Sinaloa. Rivera y Moncada targeted male heads of families with agricultural and artisanal skills. Although terms seemed generous – a house lot, two plots of farmland, tools, livestock, and a salary – only fourteen families agreed to go, and of those, two deserted before leaving for California. In two or three straggling groups, they walked north from Baja California in the summer of 1781, while 1,000 head of their livestock were driven up from Sonora, and across the Colorado River at the Yuma, or Quechan, settlement.
In the meantime, de Neve was preparing for the new settlement by entering into negotiations with the people of the ranchería, or village, of Yaanga, located on the west bank of the Los Angeles River, near the present-day site of the downtown Civic Center. At the time, five to ten thousand native peoples lived across the Los Angeles Basin, in forty to sixty villages. Today, they are known as the Gabrielino-Tongva, but in 1781 they identified themselves by village, clan, and family. Most were Shoshonean language-speakers, who engaged in trade with other Native peoples to the north and south, and, through the Cahuilla and Mojave, eastward to the tribes of the Colorado River and Arizona. Their agreement, as well as their knowledge of local resources and trade routes, would be critical to the success of any Spanish settlement. As part of the negotiation, Governor de Neve himself chose three dozen of the ranchería’s children to baptize, and a young couple to remarry “in the eyes of the Church.” Apparently, de Neve’s hope was to create independent and self-governing villages of Christianized Indians who would visit the missions only for religious instruction." (pp.21-22)
-Louise Pubols, "Born global - From pueblo to statehood", chapitre 2 in William Deverell & Greg Hise (eds.), A Companion to Los Angeles, Blackwell, 2010, 527 pages.
"
-William Deverell & Greg Hise (eds.), A Companion to Los Angeles, Blackwell, 2010, 527 pages.
