Governor de Neve identified Santa Barbara, San Jose, and Los Angeles as sites for his new pueblos. At the same time, they promoted the development of industry and agriculture. The new pueblos reduced the secular power of the missions by reducing the military's dependence on them. In 1777, Governor Felipe de Neve toured Alta California and decided to establish civic pueblos for the support of the military presidios. Plans for the pueblo Īlthough Los Angeles was a town that was founded by Mexican families from Sonora, it was the Spanish governor of California who named the settlement. The first permanent non-native presence began when the Portolá expedition arrived on August 2, 1769. In 15, the first Europeans to visit the region were Captain Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo and Captain Sebastián Vizcaíno. The brick reservoir in the middle of the Plaza was the original terminus of the Zanja Madre. Spanish era: 1769–1821 įurther information: Pueblo de Los Angeles The ' Old Plaza Church' facing the Plaza, 1869. They often intermarried with the Mexican colonists.

For pay, they dug ditches, hauled water, and provided domestic help.

Its residents provided the colonists with seafood, fish, bowls, pelts, and baskets. The survival and success of Los Angeles depended greatly on the presence of a nearby and prosperous Tongva village called Yaanga, which was located by the freshwater artesian aquifer of the Los Angeles River. Generations before the arrival of the Europeans, the Tongva had identified and lived in the best sites for human occupation. Their language was called Kizh or Kij, and they practiced cremation. In a purification ritual, they drank tolguache, a hallucinogenic made from jimson weed and salt water. Their Great Morning Ceremony was based on a belief in the afterlife. They worshipped Chinigchinix, a creator god, and Chukit, a female virgin god. The lives of the Tongva were governed by a set of religious and cultural practices that included belief in creative supernatural forces. Their trade extended to the Colorado River and included slavery. They were part of a sophisticated group of trading partners that included the Chumash to the west, the Cahuilla and Mojave to the east, and the Juaneños and Luiseños to the south. It included the enormous floodplain drained by the Los Angeles and San Gabriel rivers and the southern Channel Islands, including the Santa Barbara, San Clemente, Santa Catalina, and San Nicolas Islands. The land occupied and used by the Tongva covered about 4,000 square miles (10,000 km 2). īy the 1700s CE, there were 250,000 to 300,000 native people in California and 5,000 in the Los Angeles basin. The Tongva people called the Los Angeles region Yaa in that tongue. They were later replaced by migrants-possibly fleeing drought in the Great Basin-who spoke a Uto-Aztecan language called Tongva. Early times īy 3000 BCE, the area was occupied by the Hokan-speaking people of the Milling Stone Period who fished, hunted sea mammals, and gathered wild seeds. Over time, droughts and wildfires have increased in frequency and become less seasonal and more year-round, further straining the city's water security. Old industries have declined, including farming, oil, military and aircraft, but tourism, entertainment and high-tech remain strong. New arrivals, especially from Mexico and Asia, have transformed the demographic base since the 1960s. Los Angeles was a pioneer in freeway development as the public transit system deteriorated. Since the 1960s, growth has slowed-and traffic delays have become infamous. Politically the city was moderately conservative, with a weak labor union sector. Its motion picture industry made the city world-famous, and World War II brought new industry, especially high-tech aircraft construction. It grew rapidly with many suburban areas inside and outside the city limits. Los Angeles had a strong economic base in farming, oil, tourism, real estate and movies. 'Overlanders' flooded in, mostly white Protestants from the Lower Midwest and South. After sovereignty changed from Mexico to the United States in 1849, great changes came from the completion of the Santa Fe railroad line from Chicago to Los Angeles in 1885. The history of Los Angeles began in 1781 when 44 settlers from central New Spain (modern Mexico) established a permanent settlement in what is now Downtown Los Angeles, as instructed by Spanish Governor of Las Californias, Felipe de Neve, and authorized by Viceroy Antonio María de Bucareli.

Los angeles weather history