On this date… 4 September 1781
Los Angeles Founded
It’s home to the Dodgers, Rams, Lakers, and countless other sports teams. It’s the largest city in California. Known for the razzle-dazzle of Hollywood, it’s also home to the West Coast music industry. Before it became known for all of those things, Los Angeles, the City of Angles, was founded on this date, 4 September 1781.
The area had long been inhabited by the indigenous Chumash and Tongva (sometimes also referred to as Kizh or Gabrieleño) peoples. Natives had roamed the California coastal areas for almost 10,000 years, and the Chumash and Tongva had established trade networks with other tribes as far away as Arizona, acquiring pottery and textiles in exchange for shell beads.
Europeans first made contact with the peoples in the area in the autumn of 1542 when Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo was sailing along the coast and was greeted at Santa Catalina island by people in a canoe. The next day Cabrillo entered the mainland in what is believed to be San Pedro. Over the ensuing two centuries, the Spanish colonized large swaths of the Pacific coast (as well as parts of the Caribbean, Mexico and Central America, Florida, and the Philippines, amongst others), relying on three types of institutions. The religious order created misiones, or missions, which were churches with farms, usually built through enslaved Native labor. There was a large military presence at presidios, royal fortified bases to deter piracy and raiding. Civilian settlers were granted areas of land that were known as pueblos, or towns.
So it was that a small group of 44 settlers of Native, African, and European established a farming community they called “El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula," which translates to “The Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porciúncula,” in September 1781, twelve years after the first first presidio (Presidio of San Diego) and mision (the Mission San Diego de Alcalá), which were both established in 1769. The new “Pueblo de los Ángeles,” the city of Angels, remained a small ranch town for decades, but by 1820 the population had increased to about 650 residents, including more civilian settlers and retired soldiers.
In 1821, Mexico – then including California and much of the Southwest of Arizona and New Mexico – gained independence from Spain. The new Mexican government secularized the missions and sold the lands to elite ranchers. Any Native Chumash and Tongva who had not already died due to Old World diseases, been enslaved, or fled, were forced to assimilate, and most became landless refugees, ensuring the collapse of any remnants of Native society.
After the Mexican-American War of 1848, California was ceded to the United States as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. It gained statehood in 1850 soon after the discovery of gold at Sutter’s Mill in the Central Valley. By 1880, Anglo-American settlers had become the majority in Los Angeles, and that growth was further increased with the discovery of oil in the 1890s. The Los Angeles Aqueduct was completed in 1913, under the supervision of William Mulholland, and allowed the city to grow even more. This was driven, in part, because of clauses in the city's charter that prevented the City of Los Angeles from selling or providing water from the aqueduct to any area outside its borders. Thus communities that had until that point been separate entities joined Los Angeles to gain access to the water.
The sunny climate, and to get away from patent infringements from Thomas Edison, allowed for the budding movie industry to thrive. By 1921, more than 80 percent of the world's films industry was concentrated in LA. During WWII the city became a major manufacturing hub, and throughout the latter half of the 20th century it continued to grow. It became the second largest city in the United States in early 1984 after it surpassed Chicago in population. When the residents elected Karen Bass as its first female mayor, Los Angeles became the largest US city to have ever had a woman as mayor. The city was awarded hosting duties for the 2028 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games, making Los Angeles the third city to host the Olympics three times (it previously hosted in 1932 and 1984).
By then I hope to be making movies and TV shows in the city (or at least consulting on them); or possibly on vacation during the games. Like Colin Meloy of the Decemberists wrote, “Los Angeles, I’m Yours.”