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129-518: Black Star Canyon is perhaps best known to historians as an important archaeological site as much information concerning the daily lives of the Tongva-Gabrieliño people has been uncovered through studies of artifacts found in the canyon. It is known that many of the native Tongva people fled to the mountains in the summer, searching not only for relief from the heat, but also for acorns , their main source of food, which were easy to find among

258-658: A Jesuit expansion into California was funded and the Misión de Nuestra Señora de Loreto Conchó was established that same year. Plans in 1715 by Juan Manuel de Oliván Rebolledo resulted in a 1716 decree for extension of the conquest (of Baja California) which came to nothing. Juan Bautista de Anssa proposed an expedition from Sonora in 1737 and the Council of the Indies planned settlements in 1744, although these plans did not take action. Don Fernando Sánchez Salvador researched

387-435: A republican government in 1824, Alta California, like many northern territories, was not recognized as one of the constituent States of Mexico because of its small population. The 1824 Constitution of Mexico refers to Alta California as a "territory". Resentment was increasing toward appointed territorial governors sent from Mexico City, who came with little knowledge of local conditions and concerns. Laws were imposed by

516-619: A California Senate Bill of 2008 asserted that the US government signed treaties with the Gabrieleño, promising 8.5 million acres (3,400,000 ha) of land for reservations , and that these treaties were never ratified, a paper published in 1972 by Robert Heizer of the University of California at Berkeley , shows that the eighteen treaties made between April 29, 1851, and August 22, 1852, were negotiated with persons who did not represent

645-599: A Justice of the Peace punishable by fine, any white person may, by consent of the Justice, give bond for said Indian, conditioned for the payment of said fine and costs, and in such case the Indian shall be compelled to work for the person so bailing, until he has discharged or cancelled the fine assessed against him. Native men were disproportionately criminalized and swept into this legalized system of indentured servitude . As

774-475: A ceasefire was arranged. After an unsettled period, Alvarado agreed to support the 1839 constitution, and Mexico City appointed him to serve as governor from 1837 to 1842. Other Californio governors followed, including Carlos Antonio Carrillo , and Pío Pico . The last non-Californian governor, Manuel Micheltorena , was driven out after another rebellion in 1845. Micheltorena was replaced by Pío Pico, last Mexican governor of California , who served until 1846 when

903-607: A city which saw an increase in the Native population from 200 in 1820 to 553 in 1836 (out of a total population of 1,088). As stated by scholar Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval, "while they should have been owners, the Tongva became workers, performing strenuous, back-breaking labor just as they had done ever since settler colonialism emerged in Southern California." As described by researcher Heather Valdez Singleton, Los Angeles

1032-478: A divide between Mexican Los Angeles and the nearest Native community. However, "Native men, women, and children continued to live (not just work) in the city. On Saturday Nights, they even held parties, danced, and gambled at the removed Yaanga village and also at the plaza at the center of town." In response, the Californios continued to attempt to control Native lives, issuing Alta California governor Pio Pico

1161-496: A failed attempt to kill the mission's priests in 1779 and organized eight foothill villages in a revolt in October 1785 with Toypurina , who further organized the villages, which "demonstrated a previously undocumented level of regional political unification both within and well beyond the mission." However, divided loyalties among the natives contributed to the failure of the 1785 attempt as well as mission soldiers being alerted of

1290-406: A land base in the Tongva traditional homeland. In 2008, more than 1,700 people identified as Tongva or claimed partial ancestry. In 2013, it was reported that the four Tongva groups that have applied for federal recognition had more than 3,900 members in total. The Tongva Taraxat Paxaavxa Conservancy was established to campaign for the rematriation of Tongva homelands. In 2022, a 1-acre site

1419-483: A little valley with grassy slopes and hillsides [today called Hidden Ranch], upon which horses were quietly grazing. Smoke was coming from fires in the age-old campground of the Indians at the lower end of the valley. The Indians were feasting on juicy horseflesh. Perhaps it was the crack of a long rifle, the staggering of a mortally wounded Indian that gave the natives their first warning of the presence of an enemy. Among

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1548-441: A long history of Indigenous belonging in the basin." While in 1848, Los Angeles had been a small town largely of Mexicans and Natives, by 1880 it was home to an Anglo-American majority following waves of white migration in the 1870s from the completion of the transcontinental railroad . As stated by research Heather Valdez Singleton, newcomers "took advantage of the fact that many Gabrieleño families, who had cultivated and lived on

1677-533: A miserable existence by days' work." However, even though Jackson's report would become the impetus for the Mission Indian Relief Act of 1891, the Gabrieleño were "overlooked by the commission charged with setting aside lands for Mission Indians." It is speculated that this may have been attributed to what was perceived as their compliance with the government, which caused them to be neglected, as noted earlier by Indian agent J. Q. Stanley. By

1806-437: A model proposed by archaeologist Mark Q. Sutton, these migrants either absorbed or pushed out the earlier Hokan -speaking inhabitants. By 500 AD, one source estimates the Tongva may have come to occupy all the lands now associated with them, although this is unclear and contested among scholars. In 1811, the priests of Mission San Gabriel recorded at least four languages; Kokomcar, Guiguitamcar, Corbonamga, and Sibanga. During

1935-491: A narrow but well-graded road up Black Star Canyon and down the eastern slope of the mountains to Corona, thus opening the ranchlands of the upper canyon to hikers. Today, public access to the canyon's upper reaches in the Cleveland National Forest is currently allowed via a county easement through the lower section of the canyon, although Orange County officials do not maintain the road. The lower part of

2064-468: A petition in 1846 stating: "We ask that the Indians be placed under strict police surveillance or the persons for whom the Indians work give [the Indians] quarter at the employer's rancho." In 1847, a law was passed that prohibited Gabrielenos from entering the city without proof of employment. A part of the proclamation read: Indians who have no masters but are self-sustaining, shall be lodged outside of

2193-607: A petition to the governor in 1782 which stated that the Mission Indians owned both the land and cattle and represented the Ohlone against the Spanish settlers in nearby San José. The priests reported that Indians' crops were being damaged by the pueblo settlers' livestock and that the settlers' livestock was also "getting mixed up with the livestock belonging to the Indians from the mission" causing losses. They advocated that

2322-482: A project in 2017 to dedicate wooden statues in local Ganesha Park to the Indigenous people of the area, they disagreed over which name, Tongva or Kizh , should be used on the dedication plaque. Tribal officials tentatively agreed to use the term Gabrieleño. The Act of September 21, 1968, introduced this concept of the affiliation of an applicant's ancestors in order to exclude certain individuals from receiving

2451-564: A requirement for inclusion on, the judgment roll. The act of 1968 stated that the Secretary of the Interior would distribute an equal share of the award to the individuals on the judgment roll “regardless of group affiliation.” Many lines of evidence suggest that the Tongva are descended from Uto-Aztecan -speaking peoples who originated in what is now Nevada , and moved southwest into coastal Southern California 3,500 years ago. According to

2580-477: A reservation for the Gabrieleño in 1907 failed. Soon it began to be perpetuated in the local press that the Gabrieleño were extinct. In February 1921, the Los Angeles Times declared that the death of Jose de los Santos Juncos, an Indigenous man who lived at Mission San Gabriel and was 106 years old at his time of passing, "marked the passing of a vanished race." In 1925, Alfred Kroeber declared that

2709-612: A series of letters for the Los Angeles Star from the center of the Gabrieleño community in San Gabriel township, describing Gabrieleño life and culture. Reid himself was married to a Gabrieleño woman by the name of Bartolomea Cumicrabit, who he renamed "Victoria." Reid wrote the following: "Their chiefs still exist. In San Gabriel remain only four, and those young... They have no jurisdiction more than to appoint times for holding of Feasts and regulating affairs connected with

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2838-507: A share of the award to the “Indians of California” who chose to receive a share of any awards to certain tribes in California that had splintered off from the generic group. The members or ancestors of the petitioning group were not affected by the exclusion in the Act. Individuals with lineal or collateral descent from an Indian tribe who resided in California in 1852, would, if not excluded by

2967-426: A shooting occurred at Hidden Ranch that would forever change Orange County's early political scene. Perhaps no death by violence touched the public career of any man in the county so much as did the killing of James Gregg on June 9, 1899, affect the career of its superior court judge, the late J. W. Ballard. The Hidden Ranch at that time was in the hands of Henry Hungerford of Norwalk and George M. Howard of Anaheim. At

3096-401: A trial of this kind created an interest that was widespread and intense. Public sentiment was against the defendants. Following conviction, a new trial was sought, and unexpectedly Judge Ballard granted the motion on the ground that not enough evidence had been produced to warrant the verdict. Having presented all the evidence available there was nothing for the district attorney to do but ask for

3225-661: A village, which was the center of Tongva life. The Tongva spoke a language of the Uto-Aztecan family (the remote ancestors of the Tongva probably coalesced as a people in the Sonoran Desert , between perhaps 3,000 and 5,000 years ago). The diversity within the Takic group is "moderately deep"; rough estimates by comparative linguists place the breakup of common Takic into the Luiseño-Juaneño on one hand, and

3354-482: Is commonly believed to be San Pedro Bay , near present-day San Pedro . The Gaspar de Portolá land expedition in 1769 resulted in the founding of Mission San Gabriel by Catholic missionary Junipero Serra in 1771. Under the mission system, the Spanish initiated an era of forced relocation and virtual enslavement of the peoples to secure their labor. In addition, the Native Americans were exposed to

3483-515: Is constant communication with ancestors. On October 7, 1542, an exploratory expedition led by Spanish explorer Juan Cabrillo reached Santa Catalina in the Channel Islands, where his ships were greeted by Tongva in a canoe. The following day, Cabrillo and his men, the first Europeans known to have interacted with the Gabrieleño people, entered a large bay on the mainland, which they named "Baya de los Fumos" ("Bay of Smokes") on account of

3612-466: Is now Villa Park and up the Santiago Canyon to the mouth of Canyon de los Indios... Here, the trail turned into mountain fastnesses, into the unknown mountains, covered heavily with brush. With every turn a favorable spot for ambush, the frontiersmen made their way carefully. The trail took the men up a steep mountainside, and, after two or three hours of climbing there was laid out before them

3741-461: Is possible there were as many as half a dozen dialects rather than the two which the existence of the missions has lent the appearance of being standard. The demarcation of the Fernandeño and the Gabrieleño territories is mostly conjectural and there is no known point in which the two groups differed markedly in customs. The wider Gabrieleño group occupied what is now Los Angeles County south of

3870-533: Is the most widely circulated endonym among the people, used by Narcisa Higuera in 1905 to refer to inhabitants in the vicinity of Mission San Gabriel. Some people who identify as direct lineal descendants of the people advocate the use of their ancestral name Kizh as an endonym . Along with the neighboring Chumash , the Tongva were the most influential people at the time of European encounter. They had developed an extensive trade network through te'aats (plank-built boats). Their food and material culture

3999-493: The Alta California region. Scientific analysis of the village's midden found that no horse or European livestock remains were present. Under Spanish, and later Mexican rule, the canyon was called Cañada de los Indios . Much of grassy foothill terrain to the west (across Irvine Lake ) was part of the expansive Mexican land grant of " Rancho Lomas de Santiago (Ranch of Saint James' Hills)". The rancho later fell into

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4128-650: The Baja California peninsula , it had previously comprised the province of Las Californias , but was made a separate province in 1804 (named Nueva California ). Following the Mexican War of Independence , it became a territory of Mexico in April 1822 and was renamed Alta California in 1824. The territory included all of the present-day U.S. states of California , Nevada , and Utah , and parts of Arizona , Wyoming , and Colorado . The territory

4257-672: The Franciscan friar Junípero Serra and Gaspar de Portolá in San Diego in 1769. Similar to the site of this mission, subsequent missions and presidios were often founded at the site of Indigenous villages. Mission San Gabriel Arcángel was founded at the Tongva village Toviscanga and the Pueblo de Los Ángeles at the village of Yaanga . The first settlers of Los Angeles were African and mulatto Catholics, including at least ten of

4386-482: The Gabrieleño . This was not their autonym, or their name for themselves. Because of historical uses, the term is part of every official tribe's name in this area, spelled either as "Gabrieleño" or "Gabrielino." Because tribal groups have disagreed about appropriate use of the term Tongva , they have adopted Gabrieleño as a mediating term. For example, when Debra Martin, a city council member from Pomona , led

4515-712: The Los Angeles Basin and the Southern Channel Islands , an area covering approximately 4,000 square miles (10,000 km ). In the precolonial era, the people lived in as many as 100 villages and primarily identified by their village rather than by a pan-tribal name. During colonization , the Spanish referred to these people as Gabrieleño and Fernandeño , names derived from the Spanish missions built on their land: Mission San Gabriel Arcángel and Mission San Fernando Rey de España . Tongva

4644-495: The Old World diseases endemic among the colonists. As they lacked any acquired immunity, the Native Americans suffered epidemics with high mortality, leading to the rapid collapse of Tongva society and lifeways . They retaliated by way of resistance and rebellions, including an unsuccessful rebellion in 1785 by Nicolás José and female chief Toypurina . In 1821, Mexico gained its independence from Spain and secularized

4773-533: The Presidio of San Diego at the site of the Kumeyaay village of Kosa'aay , which became the first European settlement in the present state of California. At first contact, the villagers provided food and water for the expedition, who were suffering from scurvy and water deprivation . The first Alta California mission was founded that same year adjacent to the village Mission San Diego de Alcalá , founded by

4902-583: The San Gabriel township , which became "the cultural and geographic center of the Gabrieleño community." Yaanga also diversified and increased in size, with peoples of various Native backgrounds coming to live together shortly following secularization. However, the government had instituted a system dependent on Native labor and servitude and increasingly eliminated any alternatives within the Los Angeles area. As explained by Kelly Lytle Hernández, "there

5031-566: The Sierra Madre and half of Orange County , as well as the islands of Santa Catalina and San Clemente . The Spanish oversaw the construction of Mission San Gabriel in 1771. The Spanish colonizers used slave labor from local villages to construct the Missions. Following the destruction of the original mission, probably due to El Niño flooding, the Spanish ordered the mission relocated five miles north in 1774 and began referring to

5160-470: The "Gabrieleño" labor population at the mission was recorded to be 1,201. It jumped to 1,636 in 1820 and then declined to 1,320 in 1830. Resistance to this system of forced labor continued into the early 19th century. In 1817, the San Gabriel Mission recorded that there were "473 Indian fugitives." In 1828, a German immigrant purchased the land on which the village of Yang-Na stood and evicted

5289-532: The 1768 naval expedition of Pyotr Krenitsyn and Mikhail Levashov alarmed the Spanish government and served to justify Gálvez's vision. The Portolá expedition was the first European land-entry expedition into the area that is now California. The missionaries and soldiers encountered numerous Indigenous peoples of the area , who became the primary subjects of the expanding Jesuit and Franciscan missions that were already established in Baja California and Baja California Sur . The expedition first established

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5418-400: The 1769 Portola expedition first established a military/civil government, and the local political structures were unchanged. The friction came to a head in 1836, when Monterey-born Juan Bautista Alvarado led a revolt against the 1836 constitution, seizing control of Monterey from Nicolás Gutiérrez . Alvarado's actions nearly led to a civil war with loyalist forces based in Los Angeles, but

5547-737: The Californios. In 1846, following reports of the annexation of Texas to the United States, American settlers in inland Northern California took up arms, captured the Mexican garrison town of Sonoma, and declared independence there as the California Republic . At the same time, the United States and Mexico had gone to war, and forces of the United States Navy entered into Alta California and took possession of

5676-623: The City limits in localities widely separated... All vagrant Indians of either sex who have not tried to secure a situation within four days and are found unemployed, shall be put to work on public works or sent to the house of correction. In 1848, Los Angeles formally became a town of the United States following the Mexican-American War . Landless and unrecognized, the people faced continued violence, subjugation, and enslavement (through convict labor ) under American occupation. Some of

5805-564: The Gabrieleño culture was extinct, stating "they have melted away so completely that we know more of the finer facts of the culture of ruder tribes." Scholars have noted that this extinction myth has proven to be "remarkably resilient," yet is untrue. Despite being declared extinct, Gabrieleño children were still being assimilated by federal agents who encouraged enrollment at Sherman Indian School in Riverside, California . Between 1890 and 1920, at least 50 Gabrieleño children were recorded at

5934-537: The Great Basin , and the Pueblo peoples in the establishment of Alta California. Evidence of Alta California remains in the numerous Spanish place names of American cities such as Las Vegas , Los Angeles , Sacramento , San Bernardino , San Diego , San Francisco , San Jose , Santa Ana , and Santa Rosa . Father Eusebio Kino missionized the Pimería Alta from 1687 until his death in 1711. In 1697,

6063-545: The Indigenous people be allowed to own property and have the right to defend it. In 1804, due to the growth of the Spanish population in new northern settlements, the province of Las Californias was divided just south of San Diego, following mission president Francisco Palóu's division between the Dominican and Franciscan jurisdictions. Governor Diego de Borica is credited with defining the border between Alta (upper) and Baja (lower) California 's as Palóu's division , while

6192-654: The Irvine Ranch. Promptly losing interest in the mine, James Irvine sold the operation back to its former owners, destroying any possibility of profit. The Black Star mining operation was later replaced by the Santa Clara Mine, a more successful enterprise that sustained the town of Carbondale (once existed at the mouth of Silverado canyon), before it was taken over by AT&SF Railroad . The armed conflict in 1831 between trappers led by William Wolfskill and Native Americans has led to many urban legends stating

6321-413: The Los Angeles basin area, only 20 former neophytes from San Gabriel Mission received any land from secularization. What they received were relatively small plots of land. A "Gabrieleño" by the name of Prospero Elias Dominguez was granted a 22-acre plot near the mission while Mexican authorities granted the remainder of the mission land, approximately 1.5 million acres, to a few colonist families. In 1846, it

6450-584: The Padres and the others of the Mission, because they had come to live and establish themselves in her land.’’ In June 1788, nearly three years later, their sentences arrived from Mexico City : Nicolás José was banned from San Gabriel and sentenced to six years of hard labor in irons at the most distant penitentiary in the region. Toypurina was banished from Mission San Gabriel and sent to the most distant Spanish mission. Resistance to Spanish rule demonstrated how

6579-468: The Senate. The US had negotiated with people who did not represent the Tongva and had no authority to cede their land. During the following occupation by Americans, many of the Tongva and other Indigenous peoples were targeted with arrest . Unable to pay fines, they were used as convict laborers in a system of legalized slavery to expand the city of Los Angeles for Anglo-American settlers, who became

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6708-516: The Spanish Crown's claims to California were both insecure and contested. By the 1800s, San Gabriel was the richest in the entire colonial mission system, supplying cattle, sheep, goats, hogs, horses, mules, and other supplies for settlers and settlements throughout Alta California . The mission functioned as a slave plantation. Latter-day ethnologist Hugo Reid reported, “Indian children were taken from their parents to be raised behind bars at

6837-674: The Tongva as "Gabrieleno." At the Gabrieleño settlement of Yaanga along the Los Angeles River , missionaries and Indian neophytes, or baptized converts, built the first town of Los Angeles in 1781. It was called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula (The Village of Our Lady, the Queen of the Angels of Porziuncola). In 1784, a sister mission, the Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles Asistencia ,

6966-482: The Tongva people and that none of these persons had authority to cede lands that belonged to the people. An 1852 editorial in the Los Angeles Star revealed the public's anger towards any possibility of the Gabrieleño receiving recognition and exercising sovereignty: To place upon our most fertile soil the most degraded race of aborigines upon the North American Continent, to invest them with

7095-727: The Tongva- Serrano on the other, at about 2,000 years ago. (This is comparable to the differentiation of the Romance languages of Europe). The division of the Tongva/Serrano group into the separate Tongva and Serrano peoples is more recent, and may have been influenced by Spanish missionary activity . The majority of Tongva territory was located in what has been referred to as the Sonoran life zone, with rich ecological resources of acorn, pine nut, small game, and deer. On

7224-630: The U.S. military occupation began. In the final decades of Mexican rule, American and European immigrants arrived and settled in the former Alta California. Those in Southern California mainly settled in and around the established coastal settlements and tended to intermarry with the Californios. In Northern California, they mainly formed new settlements further inland, especially in the Sacramento Valley , and these immigrants focused on fur-trapping and farming and kept apart from

7353-425: The United States and Spain, established the northern limit of Alta California at latitude 42°N, which remains the boundary between the states of California, Nevada and Utah (to the south) and Oregon and Idaho (to the north) to this day. Mexico won independence in 1821, and Alta California became a territory of Mexico the next year. Mexico gained independence from Spain on August 24, 1821, upon conclusion of

7482-543: The age of two. The precolonial Indigenous population of California is estimated to have numbered around 340,000 people, who were diverse culturally and linguistically. From 1769–1832, at least 87,787 baptisms and 63,789 deaths of Indigenous peoples occurred, demonstrating the immense death rate at the missions in Alta California. Conversion to Christianity at the colonial missions was often resisted by Indigenous peoples in Alta California. Many missionaries in

7611-422: The attempt by converts or neophytes. Toypurina, José and two other leaders of the rebellion, Chief Tomasajaquichi of Juvit village and a man named Alijivit, from nearby village of Jajamovit, were put on trial for the 1785 rebellion. At his trial, José stated that he participated because the ban at the mission on dances and ceremony instituted by the missionaries, and enforced by the governor of California in 1782,

7740-501: The basin, along its rivers and on its shoreline, stretching from the deserts and to the sea." Only a few villages led by tomyaars (chiefs) were "in the mountains, where Chengiichngech 's avengers, serpents, and bears lived," as described by historian Kelly Lytle Hernández. However, "the grand jury dismissed the depths of Indigenous claims to life, land, and sovereignty in the region and, instead, chose to frame Indigenous peoples as drunks and vagrants loitering in Los Angeles... disavowing

7869-445: The battle, not one of the frontiersmen was wounded. This event has more recently been identified as a communal massacre . More recent in-depth research has revealed flaws in this memorialization of the villagers both in relation to the size of the village and the activities of the villagers. The claim that villagers were consuming horse flesh has been identified as a common trope promoted by Spanish colonial authorities, particularly in

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7998-507: The boy slept on the ground in front of the house. When Gregg was rolling up his blankets the next morning, Henry Hungerford came out and the dispute resumed. It ended in shooting. The Hungerfords, each armed with a shotgun, and Gregg, with a revolver, fought it out. When the shooting ceased, Gregg was on the ground with charges of birdshot and buckshot through him. The Hungerfords hitched up a horse and drove down Black Star and on into Santa Ana, where they gave themselves up to Sheriff Theo Lacy. In

8127-406: The canyon's few residents. While the operation lasted, six to ten tons of medium- to low-grade coal were extracted each day from the mine's 900 feet of tunnel. From there, mule teams hauled the cargo to Anaheim or Los Angeles by wagon. However, a survey was run of the mine in the late 1870s, previously thought to be operating on government land, and it was found that the land actually belonged to

8256-468: The canyon's many mature oak trees. It is very likely that the settlement – located in the upper part of the canyon – was inhabited for only part of the year. The site of the settlement is now California Historical Landmark number 217. Indian settlements were very sporadic, as the grizzly bear population of the Santa Anas was comparatively high for such a small mountain range. The village of Puhú

8385-569: The canyon, along both sides of Black Star Canyon Road from Santiago Canyon Road, is OC Parks property. The area is open for scheduled programs only, managed by Irvine Ranch Conservancy. This portion of the canyon is part of a National Natural Landmark, known as the Irvine Ranch Natural Landmarks. A listing of programs is available on the Landmarks' website . The beginning of the canyon is marked with signs which declare

8514-628: The central government without much consideration of local conditions, such as the Mexican secularization act of 1833 , causing friction between governors and the people. In 1836, Mexico repealed the 1824 federalist constitution and adopted a more centralist political organization (under the " Seven Laws ") that reunited Alta and Baja California in a single California Department ( Departamento de las Californias ). The change, however, had little practical effect in far-off Alta California. The capital of Alta California remained Monterey, as it had been since

8643-399: The church [traditional structure made of brush]." There is some speculation that Reid was campaigning for the position of Indian agent in Southern California, but died before he could be appointed. Instead, in 1852, Benjamin D. Wilson was appointed, who maintained the status quo. The letters of Hugo Reid revealed the names of 28 Gabrielino villages. In 1855, the Gabrieleño were reported by

8772-689: The city streets clean in the 1850s and 1860s but increasingly included road construction projects as well. Although federal officials reported that there were an estimated 16,930 California Indians and 1,050 at Mission San Gabriel, "the federal agents ignored them and those living in Los Angeles" because they were viewed as "friendly to the whites," as revealed in the personal diaries of Commissioner George W. Barbour . In 1852, superintendent of Indian affairs Edward Fitzgerald Beale echoed this sentiment, reporting that "because these Indians were Christians, with many holding ranch jobs and having interacted with whites," that "they are not much to be dreaded." Although

8901-424: The coast, shellfish, sea mammals, and fish were available. Prior to Christianization , the prevailing Tongva worldview was that humans were not the apex of creation, but were rather one strand in the web of life . Humans, along with plants, animals, and the land were in a reciprocal relationship of mutual respect and care, which is evident in their creation stories. The Tongva understand time as nonlinear and there

9030-478: The decade-long Mexican War of Independence . As the successor state to the Viceroyalty of New Spain, Mexico automatically included the provinces of Alta California and Baja California as territories. Alta California declared allegiance to the new Mexican nation and elected a representative to be sent to Mexico City. On November 9, 1822, the first legislature of California was created. With the establishment of

9159-627: The dismissal of the case. Soon afterward, Judge Ballard came up for re-election, with Z. B. West as his opponent. Judge Ballard’s decision in the Hungerford case was the outstanding issue of the campaign, which was vigorous and which resulted in the defeat of Judge Ballard. Many people claim to see the ghosts of these incidents, however, due to the culture of the canyon, many of these ghost stories are written off as hallucinations. Tongva people The Tongva ( / ˈ t ɒ ŋ v ə / TONG -və ) are an Indigenous people of California from

9288-502: The division became the political reality under José Joaquín de Arrillaga , who would become the first governor of Alta California. The cortes (legislature) of New Spain issued a decree in 1813 for at least partial secularization that affected all missions in America and was to apply to all outposts that had operated for ten years or more; however, the decree was never enforced in California. The Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, between

9417-671: The earlier proposals and suggested the area of the Gila and Colorado Rivers as the locale for forts or presidios preventing the French or the English from "occupying Monterey and invading the neighboring coasts of California which are at the mouth of the Carmel River ." Alta California was not easily accessible from New Spain: land routes were cut off by deserts and Indigenous peoples who were hostile to invasion. Sea routes ran counter to

9546-411: The early twentieth century, Gabrieleño identity had suffered greatly under American occupation. Most Gabrieleño publicly identified as Mexican, learned Spanish, and adopted Catholicism while keeping their identity a secret. In schools, students were punished for mentioning that they were "Indian" and many of the people assimilated into Mexican-American or Chicano culture. Further attempts to establish

9675-582: The endonym would be pronounced / ˈ t ɒ ŋ v eɪ / , TONG -vay . Some descendants prefer the endonym Kizh , which they argue is an earlier and more historically accurate name that was well documented by records of the Smithsonian Institution, Congress, the Catholic Church, the San Gabriel Mission, and other historical scholars. The Spanish referred to the Indigenous peoples surrounding Mission San Gabriel as

9804-454: The entire community with the help of Mexican officials. The mission period ended in 1834 with secularization under Mexican rule. Some "Gabrieleño" absorbed into Mexican society as a result of secularization, which emancipated the neophytes. Tongva and other California Natives largely became workers while former Spanish elites were granted huge land grants. Land was systemically denied to California Natives by Californio land owning men. In

9933-487: The first laws passed targeted Natives for arrest, imprisonment, and convict labor. The 1850 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians "targeted Native peoples for easy arrest by stipulating that they could be arrested on vagrancy charges based 'on the complaint of any reasonable citizen'" and Gabrieleños faced the brunt of this policy. Section 14 of the act stated: When an Indian is convicted of any offence before

10062-786: The flag of the State of California. After the United States Navy's seizure of the cities of southern California, the Californios formed irregular units, which were victorious in the Siege of Los Angeles , and after the arrival of the United States Army , fought in the Battle of San Pasqual and the Battle of Domínguez Rancho . But the Californios were defeated in subsequent encounters, the battles of Río San Gabriel and La Mesa . The southern Californios formally surrendered with

10191-523: The hands of the pioneer and horticulturalist William Wolfskill , and finally James Irvine, before becoming part of the Cleveland National Forest in the late 1880s. After discovering coal deposits in the canyon, August Witte founded the Black Star Coal Mining Company in 1879, which gave the canyon its current name. The coal was originally dug from a shallow pit on the hill just east of the canyon mouth, used almost exclusively by

10320-484: The jail and convict labor crews in Mexican Los Angeles." By 1844, most Natives in Los Angeles worked as servants in a perpetual system of servitude, tending to the land and serving settlers, invaders, and colonizers. The ayuntamiunto forced the Native settlement of Yaanga to move farther away from town. By the mid-1840s, the settlement was forcibly moved eastward across the Los Angeles River , placing

10449-405: The mainland). European contact was first made in 1542 by Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo , who was greeted at Santa Catalina by people in a canoe. The following day, Cabrillo and his men entered a large bay on the mainland, which they named Baya de los Fumos ("Bay of Smokes") because of the many smoke fires they saw there. The Indigenous people smoked their fish for preservation. This

10578-739: The many smoke fires they saw there. This is commonly believed to be San Pedro Bay , near present-day San Pedro . The Gaspar de Portola expedition in 1769 was the first contact by land to reach Tongva territory, marking the beginning of Spanish colonization. Franciscan padre Junipero Serra accompanied Portola. Within two years of the expedition, Serra had founded four missions, including Mission San Gabriel , founded in 1771 and rebuilt in 1774, and Mission San Fernando , founded in 1797. The people enslaved at San Gabriel were referred to as Gabrieleños , while those enslaved at San Fernando were referred to as Fernandeños . Although their language idioms were distinguishable, they did not diverge greatly, and it

10707-601: The meantime, Gregg was laid in a spring wagon by Harris and the boy and was being taken to a doctor when, near the Irvine Park in Santiago canyon, the wagon was met by Sheriff Lacy and District Attorney R. Y. Williams. A doctor was found at El Modena and it was at a house in El Modena that Gregg died. The trial before Judge Ballard resulted in the conviction of Henry Hungerford. In those days killings were infrequent and

10836-626: The mine is haunted to this day. The mine has operated on and off until it closed for good in the early 20th century. Traces of the Black Star mining operation can still be found, including rusted mining equipment, abandoned shafts, and piles of low-grade coal scattered about the floor of the canyon (similar to those found in Fremont Canyon to the north). In the early 1920s, the United States Forest Service built

10965-418: The mission system. Many individuals returned to their village at time of death. Many converts retained their traditional practices in both domestic and spiritual contexts, despite the attempts by the padres and missionaries to control them. Traditional foods were incorporated into the mission diet and lithic and shell bead production and use persisted. More overt strategies of resistance such as refusal to enter

11094-438: The mission. They were allowed outside the locked dormitories only to attend to church business and their assigned chores. When they were old enough, boys and girls were put to work in the vast vineyards and orchards owned by the missions. Soldiers watched, ready to hunt down any who tried to escape.” Writing in 1852, Reid said he knew of Tongva who “had an ear lopped off or were branded on the lip for trying to get away.” In 1810,

11223-457: The missions . They sold the mission lands , known as ranchos, to elite ranchers and forced the Tongva to assimilate. Most became landless refugees during this time. In 1848, California was ceded to the United States following the Mexican-American War . The US government signed 18 treaties between 1851 and 1852 promising 8.5 million acres (3.4 million ha) of land for reservations . However, these treaties were never ratified by

11352-630: The missions until they were secularized, beginning in 1833. The transfer of property never occurred under the Franciscans. As the number of Spanish settlers grew in Alta California, the boundaries and natural resources of the mission properties became disputed. Conflicts between the Crown and the Church arose over land. State and ecclesiastical bureaucrats debated over authority of the missions. The Franciscan priests of Mission Santa Clara de Asís sent

11481-461: The names and addresses of several Gabrieleño living in San Gabriel, showing that contact between the group at Tejon Reservation and the group at San Gabriel township, which are more than 70 miles apart, was being maintained into the 1920s and 1930s. Alta California Alta California ('Upper California'), also known as Nueva California ('New California') among other names, was a province of New Spain formally established in 1804. Along with

11610-404: The new majority in the area by 1880. In the early 20th century, an extinction myth was purported about the Gabrieleño, who largely identified publicly as Mexican-American by this time. However, a close-knit community of the people remained in contact with one another between Tejon Pass and San Gabriel township into the 20th century. Since 2006, four organizations have claimed to represent

11739-416: The northern boundary was somewhere between Topanga and Malibu (perhaps the vicinity of Malibu Creek ) and the southern boundary was Orange County's Aliso Creek . The word Tongva was coined by C. Hart Merriam in 1905 from numerous informants. These included Mrs. James Rosemyre (née Narcisa Higuera) (Gabrileño), who lived around Fort Tejon , near Bakersfield. Merriam's orthography makes it clear that

11868-552: The northern port cities of Monterey and San Francisco. The forces of the California Republic, upon encountering the United States Navy and, from them, learning of the state of war between Mexico and the United States, abandoned their independence and proceeded to assist the United States forces in securing the remainder of Alta California. The California Republic was never recognized by any nation and existed for less than one month, but its flag (the "Bear Flag") survives as

11997-522: The oaks and boulders an unequal battle was fought. There were no better marksmen on earth than these trappers. They had killed buffalo. They had fought the Comanche and Apache . They were a hardy, fearless lot, else they would not have made their way across the hundreds of miles of unknown mountain and desert that laid between New Mexico and California. The Indians were armed with a few old Spanish blunderbuss muskets and with bows and arrows. The battle

12126-479: The people living in San Gabriel during this time. In 1859, amidst increasing criminalization and absorption into the city's burgeoning convict labor system, the county grand jury declared "stringent vagrant laws should be enacted and enforced compelling such persons ['Indians'] to obtain an honest livelihood or seek their old homes in the mountains." This declaration ignored Reid's research, which stated that most Tongva villages, including Yaanga , "were located in

12255-516: The people were displaced to small Mexican and Native communities in the Eagle Rock and Highland Park districts of Los Angeles as well as Pauma , Pala , Temecula , Pechanga , and San Jacinto . Imprisonment of Natives in Los Angeles was a symbol of establishing the new "rule of law." The city's vigilante community would routinely "invade" the jail and hang the accused in the streets. Once congress granted statehood to California in 1850, many of

12384-669: The people: Two of the groups, the hyphen and the slash group, were founded after a hostile split over the question of building an Indian casino . In 1994, the state of California recognized the Gabrielino "as the aboriginal tribe of the Los Angeles Basin." No organized group representing the Tongva has attained recognition as a tribe by the federal government . The lack of federal recognition has prevented self-identified Tongva descendants from having control over Tongva ancestral remains, artifacts, and has left them without

12513-596: The province wrote of their frustrations with teaching Indigenous people to internalize Catholic scripture and practice. Many Indigenous people learned to navigate religious expectations at the missions with complex social behaviors in order to maintain their cultural and religious practices. In 1784, the Spanish established the first rancho, Rancho San Pedro , as a 48,000 acre site for cattle grazing . Nine ranchos were subsequently established before 1800. Spanish, and later Mexican, governments rewarded retired soldados de cuera with large land grants, known as ranchos , for

12642-416: The provisions of the Act of 1968, remain on the list of the “Indians of California.” To comply with the Act, the Secretary of Interior would have to collect information about the group affiliation of an applicant's Indian ancestors. That information would be used to identify applicants who could share in another award. The group affiliation of an applicant's ancestors was thus a basis for exclusion from, but not

12771-461: The raising of cattle and sheep . Hides and tallow from the livestock were the primary exports of California until the mid-19th century. Similar to the missions, the construction, ranching and domestic work on these vast estates was primarily done by Indigenous peoples , who learned to speak Spanish and ride horses. Under Spanish and Mexican rule, the ranchos prospered and grew. Rancheros (cattle ranchers) and pobladores (townspeople) evolved into

12900-498: The ranch with them was Hungerford’s brother, Thomas L. Hungerford. On the evening of June 8, James M. Gregg of Centralia and his brother-in-law, Decatur Harris, and a 13-year-old boy, Clinton Hunt, arrived for the purpose of driving out some stock that Gregg owned. Gregg and Henry Hungerford quarreled. It seems that Howard owed Gregg $ 10 on a horse trade, and Gregg insisted that Hungerford and Howard accept $ 7.50 in settlement of their pasturage bill of $ 17.50. That night, Gregg, Harris and

13029-565: The recently re-discovered Los Pobladores . Mission San Juan Capistrano was founded at the Acjachemen village of Acjacheme . Mission San Fernando was founded at Achooykomenga . As the Spanish and civilian settlers further intruded into Indigenous lands and imposed their practices, ideas of property, and religion onto them backed by the force of soldiers and settlers, Indigenous peoples formed rebellions on Spanish missions and settlements. A major rebellion at Mission San Gabriel in 1785

13158-541: The rights of sovereignty, and to teach them that they are to be treated as powerful and independent nations, is planting the seeds of future disaster and ruin... We hope that the general government will let us alone—that it will neither undertake to feed, settle or remove the Indians amongst whome we in the South reside, and that they leave everything just as it now exists, except affording us the protection which two or three cavalry companies would give. In 1852, Hugo Reid wrote

13287-415: The road as private, which is half-true since the lower part of the road is privately maintained, although the county and, therefore the forest service, have an easement of public right-of-passage on the road, and have had that right for many decades. The canyon would find itself the scene of a second murder . In 1899, long after the canyon had been settled by both Anglo-American and Mexican homesteaders,

13416-533: The same land for generations, did not hold legal title to the land, and used the law to evict Indian families." The Gabrieleño became vocal about this and notified former Indian agent J. Q. Stanley, who referred to them as "half-civilized" yet lobbied to protect the Gabrieleño "against the lawless whites living amongst them," arguing that they would become " vagabonds " otherwise. However, active Indian agent Augustus P. Greene's recommendation took precedent, arguing that "Mission Indians in southern California were slowing

13545-580: The same time, three languages were recorded in Mission San Fernando. Prior to Russian and Spanish colonization in what is now referred to California, the Tongva primarily identified by their associated villages ( Topanga , Cahuenga , Tujunga , Cucamonga , etc.) For example, individuals from Yaanga were known as Yaangavit among the people (in mission records, they were recorded as Yabit ). The Tongva lived in as many as one hundred villages. One or two clans would usually constitute

13674-487: The sawmill." A missionary during this period reported that three out of four children died at Mission San Gabriel before reaching the age of 2. Nearly 6,000 Tongva lie buried in the grounds of the San Gabriel Mission. Carey McWilliams characterized it as follows: "the Franciscan padres eliminated Indians with the effectiveness of Nazis operating concentration camps...." There is much evidence of Tongva resistance to

13803-492: The school. Between 1910 and 1920, the establishment of the Mission Indian Federation, of which the Gabrieleño joined, led to the 1928 California Indians Jurisdictional Act, which created official enrollment records for those who could prove ancestry from a California Indian living in the state in 1852. Over 150 people self-identified as Gabrieleño on this roll. A Gabrieleño woman at Tejon Reservation provided

13932-609: The settlement of this portion of the country for non-Indians and suggested that the Indians be completely assimilated," as summarized by Singleton. In 1882, Helen Hunt Jackson was sent by the federal government to document the condition of the Mission Indians in southern California. She reported that there were a considerable number of people "in the colonies in the San Gabriel Valley, where they live like gypsies in brush huts, here today, gone tomorrow, eking out

14061-532: The sight of Spanish sticks that spit fire and death, nor [to] retch at the evil smell of gunsmoke—and be done with you white invaders!’ This quote, from Thomas Workman Temple II's article “Toypurina the Witch and the Indian Uprising at San Gabriel” is arguably a mistranslation and embellishment of her actual testimony. According to the soldier who recorded her words, she stated simply that she ‘‘was angry with

14190-622: The southerly currents of the distant northwestern Pacific. Ultimately, New Spain did not have the economic resources nor population to settle such a far northern outpost. Spanish interest in colonizing Alta California was revived under the visita of José de Gálvez as part of his plans to completely reorganize the governance of the Interior Provinces and push Spanish settlement further north. In subsequent decades, news of Russian colonization and maritime fur trading in Alaska, and

14319-506: The superintendent of Indian affairs Thomas J. Henley to be in "a miserable and degraded condition." However, Henley admitted that moving them to a reservation, potentially at Sebastian Reserve in Tejon Pass , would be opposed by the citizens because "in the vineyards, especially during the grape season, their labor is made useful and is obtained at a cheap rate." A few Gabrieleño were in fact at Sebastian Reserve and maintained contact with

14448-695: The supernatural." As stated by scholars John Dietler, Heather Gibson, and Benjamin Vargas, "Catholic enterprises of proselytization , acceptance into a mission as a convert, in theory, required abandoning most, if not all, traditional lifeways." Various strategies of control were implemented to retain control, such as use of violence, segregation by age and gender, and using new converts as instruments of control over others. For example, Mission San Gabriel's Father Zalvidea punished suspected shamans "with frequent flogging and by chaining traditional religious practitioners together in pairs and sentencing them to hard labor in

14577-548: The system, work slowdowns, abortion and infanticide of children resulting from rape, and fugitivism were also prevalent. Five major uprisings were recorded at Mission San Gabriel alone. Two late-eighteenth century rebellions against the mission system were led by Nicolás José, who was an early convert who had two social identities: "publicly participating in Catholic sacraments at the mission but privately committed to traditional dances, celebrations, and rituals." He participated in

14706-610: The troubled dons a solution to their horse-stealing difficulties. Americans were not any too welcome in the Mexican pueblo of Los Angeles , and it was with a desire to please the Spaniards [Mexicans] in this foreign land a long way from the United States that the American trappers agreed to run down the Indian horsethieves. The trail of the stolen band of horses was followed across the Santa Ana River , eastward through what

14835-584: The union as the 31st state . The El Camino Real trail established by the Spanish extended from Mexico City west to Santa Fe , and California, as well as east to Florida . To the southeast, beyond the deserts and the Colorado River , lay the Spanish settlements in Arizona . Spanish soldiers, settlers, and missionaries invaded the homelands of the Indigenous peoples of California , people of

14964-504: The unique Californio culture. By law, mission land and property were to pass to the Indigenous population after a period of about ten years, when the Indigenous people would become Spanish subjects. In the interim period, the Franciscans were to act as mission administrators who held the land in trust for the Indigenous residents. The Franciscans, however, prolonged their control over the missions even after control of Alta California passed from Spain to independent Mexico, and continued to run

15093-539: Was re-combined with Baja California (as a single departamento ) in Mexico's 1836 Siete Leyes (Seven Laws) constitutional reform, granting it more autonomy. That change was undone in 1846, but rendered moot by the outcome of the Mexican–American War in 1848, when most of the areas formerly comprising Alta California were ceded to the U.S. in the treaty which ended the war . In 1850, California joined

15222-488: Was a major residential area for the Tongva , Acjachemen , Payómkawichum , and Serrano in the area and the site of a massacre in 1831. According to a story recounted by early settler J. E. "Judge" Pleasants, a battle between American fur trappers, led by William Wolfskill , and a group of Tongva Indians occurred as follows: The story of the battle, the bloodiest in the history of the Santa Ana Mountains,

15351-409: Was based on an Indigenous worldview that positioned humans as one strand in a web of life (as expressed in their creation stories ). Over time, different communities came to speak distinct dialects of the Tongva language , part of the Takic subgroup of the Uto-Aztecan language family. There may have been five or more such languages (three on the southernmost Channel Islands and at least two on

15480-438: Was founded at Yaanga as well. Entire villages were baptized and indoctrinated into the mission system with devastating results. For example, from 1788 to 1815, natives of the village of Guaspet were baptized at San Gabriel. Proximity to the missions created mass tension for Native Californians, which initiated "forced transformations in all aspects of daily life, including manners of speaking, eating, working, and connecting with

15609-435: Was heavily dependent on Native labor and "grew slowly on the back of the Gabrieleño laborers." Some of the people became vaqueros on the ranches, highly skilled horsemen or cowboys, herding and caring for the cattle. There was little land available to the Tongva to use for food outside of the ranches. Some crops such as corn and beans were planted on ranchos to sustain the workers. Several Gabrieleño families stayed within

15738-430: Was intolerable as they prevented their mourning ceremonies. When questioned about the attack, Toypurina is famously quoted in as saying that she participated in the instigation because “[she hated] the padres and all of you, for living here on my native soil, for trespassing upon the land of my forefathers and despoiling our tribal domains. … I came [to the mission] to inspire the dirty cowards to fight, and not to quail at

15867-557: Was led by the medicine woman Toypurina . Runaways from the missions were common, where abuse, malnourishment, and overworking were common features of daily life. Runaways would sometimes find shelter at more distant villages, such as a group of runaways who found refuge at the Vanyume village of Wá'peat , the chief of which refused to give them up. Many children died young at the missions. One missionary reported that 3 of every 4 children born at Mission San Gabriel died before reaching

15996-410: Was no place for Natives living but not working in Mexican Los Angeles. In turn, the ayuntamiunto (city council) passed new laws to compel Natives to work or be arrested." In January 1836, the council directed Californios to sweep across Los Angeles to arrest "all drunken Indians." As recorded by Hernández, "Tongva men and women, along with an increasingly diverse set of their Native neighbors, filled

16125-423: Was noted by researcher Kelly Lytle Hernández that 140 Gabrieleños signed a petition demanding access to mission lands and that Californio authorities rejected their petition. Emancipated from enslavement in the missions yet barred from their own land, most Tongva became landless refugees during this period. Entire villages fled inland to escape the invaders and continued devastation. Others moved to Los Angeles,

16254-554: Was recorded by Anglo-American settlers, "'White men, whom the Marshal is too discreet to arrest' ... spilled out of the town's many saloons, streets, and brothels, but the aggressive and targeted enforcement of state and local vagrancy and drunk codes filled the Los Angeles County Jail with Natives, most of whom were men." Most spent their days working on the county chain gang , which was largely involved with keeping

16383-566: Was returned to the conservancy in Altadena , which marked the first time the Tongva had land in Los Angeles County in 200 years. Tongva territories border those of numerous other tribes in the region. The historical Tongva lands made up what is now called "the coastal region of Los Angeles County , the northwest portion of Orange County and off-lying islands." In 1962 Curator Bernice Johnson, of Southwest Museum , asserted that

16512-440: Was soon over. Leaving their dead behind them, the Indians who escaped the bullets of the trappers scrambled down the side of the gorge and disappeared in the oaks and brush. Of those who had begun the fight, but a few got away. The stolen horses were quickly rounded up. Some of them were animals stolen months before. The herd was driven down the trail to the Santiago and a day or two later, the horses were delivered to their owners. In

16641-461: Was told seventy years ago by William Wolfskill to J. E. Pleasants, and was repeated to us by Mr. Pleasants. The Indians were very fond of horseflesh. Ranchos were lacking in means of defense in the days when the missions were breaking up and Indians from the mountains and desert used to have no trouble in stealing herds of horses from the Spaniards. A party of trappers came across from New Mexico in 1831. Their long rifles and evident daring offered to

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