by James Roman
Corporal José María Verdugo and his brother Mariano were granted 36,000 acres that make up today’s Burbank and Glendale neighborhoods. (Today, The Walt Disney Company stands on Buena Vista Drive, part of the original Verdugo territory.) Their Rancho San Rafael became even more famous for its rodeos and fiestas than for the voluminous cowhides they delivered to the port at San Pedro for shipment to Boston and New York. They set the pace for a generation of revelers.
By 1790, the pueblo’s official population was up to 139 residents. The pueblo had a chapel, a town hall, a guardhouse, granaries, irrigation canals, a protective wall that surrounded the central pueblo and even an alcalde: a mayor to oversee justice and morality, who was constantly busy.
Since the Californios regularly produced more grain, cattle, horses and sheep than any other community in California, suddenly there was … wealth. Los Angeles gained a reputation as one big party town. There was revelry in the Plaza, and celebrations on the sprawling acres recently awarded to rancheros.
Like a lord overseeing a European manor, a ranchero owned a self-contained community that employed craftsmen, herdsmen, leatherworkers, harness-makers, sheepshearers, cooks, seamstresses, housekeepers, a few freeloading relatives and a small army of Indians who cared for the crops and everything else. A large spread required the efforts of hundreds, all living outside the confines of the central pueblo.
With so much free labor, the wealthy rancheros did little work. They dressed in fancy silks and velvet suits embroidered with gold threads. They lived for their fandangos: each month brought fiestas, birthdays and holiday celebrations. On Sundays, they fenced in the Plaza for bullfights, eventually constructing a bullring on Calle del Toro, near today’s Chinatown. (The bull was rarely killed; sacrificing a bull was too costly.) At the annual rodeo, cattle were divided by their rancho brands. Horses bore ornate saddles bedecked with silver mountings and rawhide reins. As the aguardiente brandy flowed, wagers were placed and emotions ran high when competitions in bronco riding and horsemanship measured the skills and daring of each rancho community.
‘Californios’ during the Mexican Rancho period
Celebrations got even louder when Mexico declared its independence from Spain in 1821. No more scrutiny from the judgmental friars at the San Gabriel Mission. All Spanish-born priests were ordered out of California. Across the state, the government took control of an estimated $78 million worth of land and chattel (that’s more than $1.5 billion today) developed by European ingenuity and the lives of overworked Indians. At the time of the transfer in 1834, Mission San Gabriel had 3,000 Indians, 20,000 horses, more than 100,000 cattle and eight million acres of land. Half the land was supposed to go to the Indians, but that didn’t happen. Political connections with Mexico prevailed. The governor awarded land grants to only 800 families who assumed control of eight million acres. Spacious ranchos soon followed.
In 1835, the pueblo was declared a ciudad (city), and designated as the state capital. The transfer of power took years, however, because a succession of Mexican governors were reluctant to exchange the comforts of Monterey in the north for an unruly town in the south.
There were no public buildings to run the government in LA, yet it had saloons, bordellos and gambling dens as new and permanent fixtures. Until government buildings were constructed, the home of Judge Olvera, who occupied the largest house on the north side of the Plaza, served as the local courtroom. (Today’s Olvera Street is named for the respected Mexican judge.) Across the street, Gibson’s Gambling House’s green table was frequently piled high with $50-gold ingots, while wealthy rancheros risked their increasing fortunes.
The first Yankee to see LA was also the first one to stay. Joseph John Chapman was arrested as a pirate, but he proved to be a skilled Jack-of-all-trades, with talents as a carpenter, blacksmith and amateur surgeon. He converted to Catholicism, married into a prominent Mexican family and was welcomed among the gente de razon, society’s upper crust.
Other Anglos followed. John Temple and George Rice opened the town’s first general store in 1828 (at the corner of today’s Temple and Main streets). According to the census, there were more than 2,000 residents, but only 250 women. Temple labeled 15 of those working girls as “M.V.” (Mala Vida—Bad Life.)
Another Anglo who could write was Richard Henry Dana, Jr., a sailor in the 1830s. He penned the classic Two Years Before the Mast, recounting his two-year journey from Boston to Alta California, around the tip of South America. Highly critical of the relaxed Californio culture, he found rancheros to be “thriftless, proud and extravagant, and very much given to gaming.” Dana anticipated the culture clash that was to come: “Yankees can’t afford the time to be Catholics …. In the hands of an enterprising people, what a country this might be!”
From left: Joseph John Chapman and Gaudalupe Ortega y Sánchez c. 1847; Pio Pico family: Marianita Alvarado (niece), Señora Pico, Pio Pico, Trinidad Ortega (niece), c. 1850
His words proved to be prophetic. Governor Pio Pico saw the firestorm approaching, too. He urged secession from “the mock republic of Mexico,” advocating alignment with England or France, “the two great powers in Europe,” but he failed to rally support. On May 13, 1846, America declared war with Mexico. Ninety days later, American troops led by Captain John C. Frémont and Commodore Robert F. Stockton took control of Los Angeles, the state capital, without firing a single shot. With 50 men left in charge, Commodore Stockton chuckled over the bloodless “Siege of Los Angeles” as the American flag with 28 stars (not yet including a star for California) was raised over the Plaza.
Battle of Rio San Gabriel, Mexican-American War, 1847
To make friends, Stockton’s military band provided the first full concert in California during the next sunset on the Plaza. As wide-eyed children and stunned adults peered from their darkened homes, the delight was apparent. The following sunset, they performed again, and this time a large circle of Californios surrounded the musicians, offering more heartfelt ¡Vivas! at each song’s conclusion. An elderly priest sat by the church door, near tears. He disclosed that he hadn’t heard a real band since he left Spain 50 years earlier. “Ah,” he admitted, “that music will do more service to the conquest of California than a thousand bayonets.”
He was right. As the crowd was enraptured by the one-hour concert, Stockton’s men assessed the adobe on the Plaza that was left unoccupied by the widow Ávila, who fled to safety away from the Plaza. They promptly commandeered the place for Stockton’s new home and central headquarters for the remainder of the war.
Abruptly, there was a new kind of party in town, and it was no longer a fandango. Governor Pio Pico is remembered as the last Mexican governor of California. Today, a major thoroughfare bears his name. (An entire town is named for Captain Frémont.) The Mexican-American War raged for nearly two years, with just one skirmish in Los Angeles that was suppressed when Captain Frémont returned with reinforcements. There were no additional conflicts in the conquest for Los Angeles.
Los Angeles (looking northeast), 1850
When the war ended in 1848, Stockton’s music stopped. For Californios in Los Angeles, the party was over.
Today, Olvera Street and the Plaza are national landmarks open to the public daily. For free guided tours of LA’s historic pueblo, visit elpueblo.lacity.org to make reservations.
IN THE MOVIES:
Restored Olvera Street is seen in Runaway Jury (2003), Death Wish II (1982), and on the hit TV series Beverly Hills 90210 (1993).
CHAPTER 3.
CULTURE CLASH
THE RACIAL TENSIONS OF STATEHOOD
1850s—1860s
“Eureka!” was the cry in 1848: Gold in California! It was the beginning of a new era, drastically reinventing the state.
Dreamers from around the world plotted their routes to reach remote California. Miners from New Mexico, from Ireland, from China; they came on boats or on the backs of mules. On their way to fortune, thousands of prospectors passed through Los
Angeles, a Spanish-speaking town similar to Tucson or Santa Fe, with about 1,600 residents and a reputation as the toughest town in the nation. Blood flowed when four diverse cultures converged, violently, on the Wild West Coast.
Latinos
First, the American Army captured Mexico City in the Mexican-American War; now the Mexicans had surrendered. They set the date to sign the treaty that would cede all territory north of the Rio Grande, the new national border. The U.S. was about to annex all or part of 10 states in this massive Mexican Cession, but nine days before the signing, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill on the American River, not far from Sacramento.
Suddenly, all eyes turned to Northern California, where dreams of personal fortune overtook national allegiance. It was every man for himself.
Anglos, Native Americans, Latinos and Chinese engaged in gold prospecting, c. 1850
In 1850, California became America’s 31st state. More than 100,000 English-speaking Americans arrived, vastly outnumbering the 13,000 Spanish-speaking residents. Banks, gambling dens, gun shops and prostitutes all set up business. The Californios were treated as a conquered people. They chafed at the injustices, but also joined the fray, dropping their genteel lifestyle for even greater wealth. Somebody had to feed those 100,000 Anglos, and the Californios controlled all the property and the food supply now that the missionaries were gone. The price of beef skyrocketed; cattle went from $2 a head in 1848 to $70 a head in 1849.
Racial hostility escalated at the gold mines. Hateful mobs harassed Mexican miners and burned their living quarters. Passing the Foreign Miners Tax Law of 1850, the new state government legally extorted $16 from every Spanish-speaking miner (that’s more than $400 today), even if they were born in California. Legalized racial profiling drove the Latinos from the northern California mines. Where did they land? Many chose Los Angeles, which soon became home to both extremes, the wealthiest and the most desperate Mexican expatriates in the U.S.
Anglos
“Manifest Destiny” was the lofty term used by journalists, intellectuals and politicians: the belief that America was on a divine mission to build a free nation “from sea to shining sea.” The acquisition of California served as proof; the nation now spanned the entire continent. Anglos were in charge, as destined by God. The alcalde was out, and the Mayor was in.
In the first years of statehood, industrious new overlords were determined to suffocate Californio culture. Bullfights were out; baseball was in. The first building erected with public funds was a jail. Next, the Anglos built the first public school, the first post office, the first Protestant church and the first synagogue; they established the first newspapers and opened the first stagecoach company.
Not everyone was so civic minded, however. Anglos also introduced extraordinary violence. The New York Volunteers who kept the peace at the end of the Mexican-American War were inner-city thugs from the Bowery and the Five Points in Manhattan. When their battalion disbanded at the war’s end, many chose to stay in Los Angeles. Some found responsible positions in society; the rest were sharpshooting thugs. They mixed with another brawling crowd of Anglos—the con men and swindlers driven out of the gold mines in northern California. All of them populated a place that the Los Angeles Times called “the wickedest street on earth.”
A short distance from the Plaza was the Calle de los Negros, Street of the Blacks, allegedly named for the dark-skinned pobladores who first settled there. With statehood, many street names were Anglicized. The place was renamed Nigger Alley, a moniker that stuck for more than 40 years. The street was lined with saloons, gambling halls, dance houses and brothels. America’s rowdiest slum averaged one homicide a day, not including Indians. Stabbings and gunfights were so common that even the local law officials didn’t attempt to make an arrest there.
When Samuel Colt invented his new six-shot revolver “for civilian use,” the violence spread. Lawyers and judges proved to be reckless with firearms, too. California’s first attorney general, Edward J. C. Kewen, tried to shoot the opposing lawyer during a criminal trial. Instead, he wounded a spectator, which sent the jury fleeing to the streets. In another incident in 1855, the mayor quit his job so he could take part in a lynching, after which he was immediately re-elected.
The Colt Caliber .45, Model 1873, was used by lawmen and outlaws alike in the Wild West. It garnered the nickname ‘Peacemaker.’
By 1860, Los Angeles was squalid. A force of only six officers could not keep the peace. Stray dogs roamed the streets. The open ditches that irrigated the town now served as laundry stations, hog wallows, even latrines. The unpaved roads were dusty in summer, then turned to mud troughs when the rains came. And, everyone avoided the plaza at night for fear of being robbed or assaulted. Californios had to ask: Was this part of America’s Manifest Destiny, too?
Chinese
No one of African descent lived on Nigger Alley. (African Americans migrated to Los Angeles in the decades after the Civil War.) Instead, the Chinese population dwelt among the rackety saloons because they were permitted no place else. America may have been founded on principles of religious liberty, but worshipping a different deity was never an option. California’s rejection was swift. The Los Angeles News editorialized that the Chinese, with their hair braided in long, odd queues were “an alien, an inferior, idolatrous race.”
The Chinese weren’t here to seek religious liberty. California was Gum Shan, Gold Mountain. They were dreamers like everyone else from around the world who came to seek their fortunes. When that fortune failed to materialize and hostilities increased, Chinese immigrants sought better conditions elsewhere. Many found their way to Los Angeles. They were joined along the way by Chinese laborers who were set adrift as the Transcontinental Railroad neared completion.
Chinese laundry, c. 1878
Most Chinese men envisioned years of modest living while working and saving in Los Angeles, then retiring on that savings back in China, surrounded by old friends and family. First, they had to find a way to get ahead in LA’s booming economy.
Some Chinese opened shops in their rowdy neighborhood, selling tea, preserves and Chinese goods, mostly to the other Chinese. They made overtures to the local press to broaden their businesses, but faced a harsh reality: Readers only seemed interested in the peculiarities of Chinese culture that could give them a few laughs.
That’s when the Chinese laundry was born. In the mining camps, Chinese were amazed that other miners shipped their clothes all the way to Hawaii for washing and pressing, then waited months for the parcel of clothing to return. With no experience, Chinese men set up hand-laundry shops, providing a faster service at a lower cost. They had no particular affinity for the laundry; it was a business that required a minimal investment. They liked the math: they could earn $4 a month toiling in Chinese rice fields back home, or make $15 to $20 a month working in a Los Angeles laundry. That equation motivated more Chinese laundries to open across America.
Tensions increased within the Chinese community. They adopted the local method for settling disputes: six-shooters. The steady violence even prompted one Chinese man to apply for the first life insurance policy in 1871. Since most Angelenos weren’t in the crosshairs, they dismissed these violent outbursts as entertainment.
Indians
When Mexico signed the Cession treaty, it required the U.S. to grant citizenship to the California Indians, a detail that the U.S. government managed to overlook for 80 years. Instead, the California Constitution considered the Indians to be non-persons, with no protection under the law. It was impossible to bring an Anglo to trial for killing an Indian or for forcing Indians off the land.
With the secularization of the San Gabriel Mission, 3,500 Native Americans in Los Angeles were now crowded into a pueblito between Aliso and First Streets, a block away from Nigger Alley. Thousands of Native American children were kidnapped and put to work as child laborers.
Drunken Indians were sold in a slave mart each week. When Indian laborers i
n the vineyards were paid with aguardiente brandy, those laborers with little tolerance for alcohol wound up inebriated. On Saturday night, the town marshal would round up the drunks, then corral them overnight, awaiting someone to pay their fines. In the morning, they were offered for sale, as slaves for the next week. According to Horace Bell in his Reminiscences of a Ranger, “ … the slave at Los Angeles was sold 52 times a year. Thousands of honest, useful people were absolutely destroyed in this way.”
For Native Americans in Los Angeles, this was the last gasp. With no property, no money, and the laws stacked against them, they relied on others for survival. But their choices were limited to the Spanish-speaking people who treated them like slaves, or the English-speaking people who wanted them to disappear.
The Clash
Before the outbreak of the Civil War, Los Angeles was locked in a race war. Rampant crime led the Anglos to assert themselves with vigilante committees. If law enforcement couldn’t keep the peace, then it was time for civilians to take control. Organizations like the Los Angeles Rangers, 23 men on horseback, including some former Texas Rangers, exerted their form of justice. With Anglos in control of the laws, the courts and the prisons, the only criminals they brought to justice (or lynched, shot or imprisoned) were Latinos and Indians. Public hangings were well attended.
From left: Joaquin Murrieta Carrillo was considered either an infamous bandit or a Mexican patriot in the 1850s; robbing a stage wagon, Hands Up, 1897
Los Angeles Plaza, 1869