Los Angeles Under the Spanish Flag
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Los Angeles Under The Spanish Flag — Spain’s New World — By William M. Mason Produced as a complement to: Spanish~Mexican Families of Early California Volume III Southern California Genealogical Society, Inc. Burbank, California 2004 1 Los Angeles Under The Spanish Flag — Spain’s New World — Mason, William 1922—2000 Southern California Genealogical Society, Inc. Burbank, California 2004 1. Los Angeles History 2. Heritage, historical I. Title Spanish~Mexican Families of Early California, Volume III ISBN: 0-9617773-3-8 Library of Congress PCN: 2004114976 Copyright © 2004 Southern California Genealogical Society, Inc. All Rights Reserved No part of this work may be reproduced in any form without the previous written consent of the publisher. 2k•r1 Printed in the USA 2 FOREWORD William M. Mason, for many years the historian at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, has written a highly readable history of the Los Angeles area, enriched with translations of contemporary documents. His account contains a background of Spanish colonial policy, and traces the founding of the pueblo, and its growth and development through the Spanish period to Mexican Independence in 1822. Also added are eighteen different lists – padrones (censuses), militia lists, and others – many of which have never been published before. These enable the reader to trace movement of people to and from the pueblo of Los Angeles, from its founding in 1781 until the spring of 1823. Mason along with Marie E. Northrop, have written a book and a compact disc for that period of time that historians, genealogists, and descendants will carefully study and enjoy. Mary Triplett Ayers, President, Los Californios August 1993 (Editors note: It took a decade to complete the information gathering and preparing the data and index for publishing.) 3 BIOGRAPHY WILLIAM M. MASON William M. Mason, distinguished Los Angeles and Early California historian, opened our eyes to the ethnic richness of La Reina de los Angeles through his extensive personal research. Mr. Mason, one of three founders of the Los Angeles Historical Society in 1976, found time to author six books and several articles regarding the early history and cultures around Southern California. It is said he held more knowledge concerning the many Southern California individual citizens of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries than he ever found time to write about. To any audience he spoke of the Los Angeles pobladores and their families with the familiarity of a long time personal friend. His enthusiasm for the topic was contagious and via midnight telephone calls to colleagues he might share a research discovery. His immense knowledge and loyal friendship to the historical community was greatly missed. This presentation of his insightful historical discussion and the accompanying censuses and population listings demonstrate his depth of unique knowledge to be treasured by those who now follow. Christie Miles Bourdet (Note: Marie E. Northrop and William M. Mason initiated a project in 1993 to assemble genealogical and historical reference information relating to the Spanish heritage of Southern California. This is the historical portion containing a narrative plus many census-like tables. The genealogical portion is in book form.) 4 OBITUARY William Mason; California Historian, Author He told us what our little pueblo was like when the 13 colonies of the Atlantic coast created the United States of America. He told us what developed over the seven decades before and the century and a half after that village joined the new nation. But most important, he told us long before the word “multiethnic” came to be intertwined with “Los Angeles” that the pueblo-cum-megalopolis had been multiethnic from its very first encampment in 1781. William M. Mason, veteran California historian and long the curator of Southern California history at the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, died on November 15 (sic 2000) in the city he worked so long to explain. He was 69. As much a resource as any part of the archive he presided over, Mason steadfastly championed the rich blood lines of Los Angeles and the influence of each part of the whole. “Of the 44 original pobladores [colonists] who founded Los Angeles, only two were white,” Mason wrote in an op-ed piece for the Times on September 4, 1975. “Of the other 42, 26 had some degree of African ancestry and 16 were Indians or mestizos [people of mixed Spanish and Indian blood].” Asians’ contributions to local history also received Mason’s attention. He curated several special museum exhibitions to illustrate Los Angeles’ multiethnic character over the past centuries - among them “The Blacks of Los Angeles”, “The Japanese of Los Angeles”, and “The Chinese of Los Angeles”. Photographer Toyo Miyatake credited Mason for focusing the public attention on his extensive photos of the Manzanar internment camp, where many Japanese Americans from Southern California were held during World War II. Mason disputed myriad 19th century histories of the Golden State, asserting that they wrongly maligned various ethnicities as lazy, useless and ignorant. “If history is any judge,” he wrote, “the pobladores were far from useless. In fact, considering their tiny numbers, the early years of their little agricultural colony were remarkably productive. Within four years of its founding, Los Angeles was producing enough grain to enable the governor to halt imports from Mexico. By 1802, the settlement’s grain surplus was large enough for Los Angeles to request permission to export to Mexico itself.” Myrna Oliver Los Angeles Times, 2000 5 CONTENTS Spain’s New World....................................................................................................... 7 Transcribed Lists ............................................................................................... 65 1781: Rivera Expedition Members At San Gabriel Mission ................. 65 Los Angeles Pobladores ................................................................................... 65 Soldiers Who Accompanied Pobladores From Mexico With Zúñiga . 65 Officers And Soldiers Who Accompanied Capitán Rivera ................... 65 1781: First Padron [Census] Of Los Angeles............................................... 66 Padrón De El Pueblo De Los Angeles .......................................................... 66 Escolta (Conjectural) ......................................................................................... 66 December 31, 1785: Padron .................................................................................... 67 1787: Los Angeles Pobladores ........................................................................ 69 31 December 1787 [Dated 24 April 1788]................................................... 69 Pobladores ............................................................................................................ 69 Soldados Y Vecinos ............................................................................................ 69 Vecinos ................................................................................................................... 69 1789: Pueblo De Los Angeles ................................................................................. 70 31 December 1789 ............................................................................................... 70 Pobladores ............................................................................................................ 70 Agregados ............................................................................................................. 70 Militares................................................................................................................. 70 1790: Padrón De Los Angeles ................................................................................ 71 17 De Agosto 1790 .............................................................................................. 71 Padron De Los Angeles 17 Augusto 1790............................................................ 72 1790: Pueblo De Los Angeles .................................................................................. 74 31 December 1790 ............................................................................................... 74 Alcalde ................................................................................................................... 74 Pobladores ............................................................................................................ 74 Agregados ............................................................................................................. 74 Milicias................................................................................................................... 74 1798: Pueblo De Los Angeles ................................................................................. 75 31 December 1798 ............................................................................................... 75 1799: Pueblo De Los Angeles ................................................................................. 76 1799: Pueblo De Los Angeles......................................................................... 76 31 December 179931 December 1799 ............................................................ 76 1804: Easter List ......................................................................................................... 77 1807: List Of Militiamen ..........................................................................................