Historical Society of Southern California Volume 30, Issue 1 Spring 2018 SOUTHERN CALIFORNIAN HSSC Board of Directors (2017-2018) ESSAGE ROM THE Officers M F Donna Schuele President HSSC PRESIDENT James Tranquada First Vice President This President’s Column brings both Marguerite “Peggy” Renner of the Society’s programming, and Second Vice President good news and a challenge. over the past two years the Board of Directors has worked to further es- Jeremiah Axelrod First, the good news. The Society is tablish and guarantee its award pro- Secretary pleased to announce that long-time gram. In particular, the Board has member Jasper Schaad has generous- Lara Godbille designated assets so as to endow all Treasurer ly bequested a gift for the establish- awards and created a committee ment of a new award in honor of structure that enlarges opportunities Directors Merry Ovnick, the editor of the for service to the Society. To that William Cowan Southern California Quarterly. The end, we reach out to you, our mem- David Hayes-Bautista Kristen Hayashi Robert Glass Cleland Best Article bers, for further participation in this Andrew Krastins Award will be given to the top article program. You may make further do- Kenneth Marcus published in the Quarterly in the pre- nations to any of the award funds, Linda Mollno vious year, as determined by the and as well we seek participation Eileen Wallis SCQ Editor and Board of Editors. from HSSC members and those in Kim Walters The establishment of this award is the scholarly community to serve on particularly fitting as we celebrate award committees. Positions on the 100th volume of the Southern these committees are for a three-year Executive Director California Quarterly. We are so term and are rotating. Please do not Amy Essington very grateful to Mr. Schad for this hesitate to contact us if you would Email: executivedirector bequest, which recognizes both the like to take advantage of these oppor- @thehssc.org high quality of our flagship publica- tunities, or if you would like to nomi- tion and the tireless editorial efforts nate a book or individual for a rele- of Merry Ovnick, who has gone vant award. The Southern Californian is above and beyond to provide a forum published quarterly by the HSSC, a California non-profit for path-breaking scholarship on the And, speaking of the Southern Cali- 501(c)3 organization. history of Los Angeles and the larger fornia Quarterly’s latest milestone, Southern California region. the University of California Press’s April edition of ICYMI (“in case you The Cleland Award joins a myriad of missed it”) honored Merry Ovnick’s others given by HSSC, including for post in its UC Press Blog with the top books, articles, teaching, and contri- mention. Merry’s contribution, enti- butions to the historical profession tled “Archive Dive: Revisiting 134 and the Southern California commu- Years of California History in the nity. These awards are a vital aspect (Continued on page 10) Page 2 Volume 30, Issue 1 TREASURES OF THE HSSC ARTIFACT COLLECTION: AN 1880 MAP OF A PORTION OF RANCHO LA CIENEGA O PASO DE LA TIJERA It’s definitely seen bet- invasion took place. His ed an American force at ter days in its more than grandson Tómas was a San Pasqual near San A staunch Democrat a century of existence, noted participant in de- Diego in December and firmly allied with but an 1880 map from fending the region. 1846. In 1851-52, he Americans, mainly the Society’s holdings, Tómas Sánchez as- served a single term on Southerners, who con- showing a portion of sumed ownership of La the Los Angeles Com- trolled regional politics the Rancho La Cienega Cienega o Paso de la mon [City] Council. at the time, Sánchez o Paso de la Tijera and Tijera, though he lived During a tense period in was elected to three long owned by the on the Rancho San Ra- 1857 following the kill- successive one-year HSSC, has survived the fael, in modern Glen- ing of Sheriff James R. terms, from 1857 to ravages of time. The dale, which was owned Barton and a posse 1859, to the county map, now a bit torn and by his wife, María hunting a bandits in Board of Supervisors. brittle, has several sto- Sepulveda. what became south Or- This was followed by ries attached to it that ange County, Sánchez his election as the first are of interest to histori- Tómas became a major played a prominent Californio sheriff of ans of our region. Californio figure in role, along with Pico Los Angeles County greater Los Angeles, and others, in the fren- and he served in this The rancho’s lengthy serving with distinction zied search for what is position from 1860 to moniker refers to ciene- as a member of the lan- known as the Flores- 1867. His tenure includ- ga, or marsh lands, and ceros commanded by Daniel Gang. (Continued on page 4) paso de la tijera, which Andrés Pico that defeat- might either refer to a open scissor shaped pass or one that had a water course through it (the Los Angeles River flowed through the area before floods in 1825 changed its course.) In 1843, it was granted by Manuel Micheltorena, a very unpopular “outsider” sent from Mexico to govern the department of Alta Cal- ifornia, to Vicente Sánchez, who was al- calde (more or less equivalent to a mayor) of Los Angeles in the early 1830s and again in 1845. Sánchez died in 1846, just as the American Southern Californian Page 3 THE AMERICAN CIVIL WAR ORIGINS OF CINCO DE MAYO This column is a reprint of an editorial written by HSSC board member David E. Hayes-Bautista, PhD. Da- vid is a Distinguished Professor of Medicine and Director of the Center for the Study of Latino Health and Culture at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is the author of the book upon which this com- mentary is based, El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition (University of California Press, 2012.) Why is the Cinco de Latino delegates suc- in units of Spanish- Mayo so widely cele- cessfully pushed the speaking U.S. Cavalry: brated in the United 1849 California Consti- the first full admiral of States, when it is tutional Convention to the US navy was a bi- scarcely noticed in honor Mexico’s earlier lingual, bicultural Lati- Mexico? The answer to abolition of slavery, to no, David Farragut. that question is to be allow non-white per- Yet, from the very first found in the lived expe- sons to become voting Battle of Bull Run, the rience of tens of thou- citizens, and to do so in slave state armies rode sands of Spanish speak- both Spanish and Eng- a streak of luck, win- ers residing in what is lish. California’s entry ning highly visible bat- now the American West to the U.S. as a free tles in the Virginia The- during the American state, without an ac- ater of War, while Lin- Civil War. companying slave state coln’s army appeared as mandated by the unable to win the big 1820 Missouri Compro- Francisco and Los An- What? Latinos in the battles. geles. When the French mise, nearly led to slave American Civil War? state secession and civil army was only about war immediately. The Then, things got worse. three days’ march away Compromise of 1850 Taking advantage of from Mexico City, the When Hidalgo pro- future for dark-skinned claimed Mexico’s inde- staved off this war for a Lincoln’s preoccupa- tion with the Civil War, mestizos who might fall pendence from Spain in decade, and during that Napoleon III, the Em- under the power of the 1810, he also an- time tens of thousands peror of France, sent his Confederacy appeared nounced racial equality of Spanish-speakers army into Mexico for to be bleak. in citizenship and the from every corner of the purpose of destroy- abolition of slavery in Latin America poured the new republic. When into California and Ne- ing a republic with its Like a streak of light- the U.S. seized control vada seeking gold and constitutional values ning in the dark night of the northern half of silver. and installing Maximil- sky, the news arrived, Mexico in 1848, it also ian of Austria as a new and it was electrifying: emperor, who would acquired a large, Span- When the Civil War did the French did not make ish-speaking, racially then be free to make an it Mexico City to create erupt in 1861, Latinos alliance with the rebel- mixed (mestizo) popu- a slave state friend in the American West ling slave states. lation that was largely south of the border--- overwhelmingly sup- uncomfortable with the ported Abraham Lin- they were stopped dead new U.S. constitutional coln and the United Latinos in the American at the Battle of Puebla values that permitted States against the slave West followed the ad- fought on Cinco de slavery and denied citi- state Confederacy. La- vance of the French ar- Mayo of 1862, and zenship to non-white tinos joined the United my through Mexico via thrown back to the persons. the lively Spanish lan- States Army, and rode (Continued on page 11) guage press in San Page 4 Volume 30, Issue 1 TREASURES OF THE HSSC ARTIFACT COLLECTION CONTINUED (Continued from page 2) City of Los Angeles to San Francisco and in San Francisco, where Historic-Cultural Mon- then relocated to Los he was a bank cashier.