Los Angeles

The Founding of Los Angeles mural at the Los Angeles Central Library; Dean Cornwell, 1933.

The location of the site was already inhabited by Native Americans who Father Crespi described as "very docile and friendly." The town was called Yabit and the attitude of the Natives towards the foreigners did not change over time. Neve arrived to the site in 1779 where he selected three dozen boys and girls for conversion to Christianity and acted as the godfather to twelve of the children. Neve also selected a young married couple, renamed them as Felipe de Neve and Phelipa Theresa de Neve and remarried them.^[11]

Governor de Neve had applied to Viceroy Bucareli for permission to establish a settlement (pueblo) near the Los Angeles River (Río de Porciúncula), where Father Juan Crespí had met local Tongva Indians. The area chosen is described below:

“The habitable spots which border the Camino Real from San Diego to Monterey with sufficient pro- portion of waters for developing cultivation are the river Santa Ana at 28 leagues from San Diego, has abundant water and it is not difficult to draw it out as it proves, at seven leagues is the river San Gabriel with much water and lands for large planting, and to raise water not proven very difficult. One league distant from the Mission of this name, which does not use its waters because they obtain abundant and suf- ficient water for lands from the various springs which flow at the foot of the mountains. At 3 leagues from the Mission is the river of Porsincula [sic] with much water easy of access for both banks and beautiful lands in which we can make use of all."^[13]

With the Viceroy's approval, de Neve was granted authority from The Crown, Charles III of Spain, to found and establish the second pueblo in upper Las Californias, El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles del Río de Porciúncula (The Pueblo of Our Lady Queen of the Angels of the Porciúncula River), the present day city of Los Angeles, California was founded on September 4, 1781. Of the sixteen families Neve planned on moving to the newly established pueblo, only eleven families made it. Throughout the journey some stayed back or became too ill to travel.^[11]

Other Settlements

During Neve's tenure as governor, he quarreled constantly with the missionaries' leader, padre Junípero Serra, over the secularization of the Missions and the redistribution of land to the Mission Indian neophytes and soldiers. During his tenure four missions were founded: Mission San Francisco de Asís also called Mission Dolores (June 29, 1776), Mission San Juan Capistrano (November 1, 1776), Mission Santa Clara de Asís (January 12, 1777) and Mission San Buenaventura (March 31, 1782). Neve was given orders to establish a presidio at Santa Barbara and other pueblos with the goal of obtaining land and water for cultivation purposes.^[14] He also led a campaign against the Yumi Indians in Arizona and Southern California.^[2]

Jean-François de la Pérouse, on his expedition around the world in 1786, describes the ill treatment of natives by the ecclesiastical authorities, comparing the mission to a "plantation at Santo Domingo or any other West Indian island," noting the use of "irons and stocks," lashes of the whip, and the recourse to military authority to repossess any native converts who had chosen to return to their "relations in the independent villages." La Pérouse visited Monterrey under the governorship of Pedro Fages, but has the following to say about de Neve:

The predecessor of Mr. Fages, Mr. Felipe de Neve, commander of the interior provinces of Mexico, a man replete with humanity and a Christian philosopher who died about four years ago, remonstrated against the practice [of corporal punishment]. He thought that the progress of the faith would be more rapid and the prayers of the Indians more agreeable to the Supreme Being if they were not constrained. He desired a constitution less monastic, affording more civil liberty to the Indians and less despotism in the executive power of the presidios, the government of which might fall into the hands of cruel and avaricious men. He thought likewise that it might perhaps be necessary to moderate their authority by the appointment of a magistrate who might be the tribune, as it were, of the Indians, and possess sufficient authority to defend them from harassments. This upright man had borne arms in service of his country from his infancy, but he was exempt from the prejudices of his profession, and well knew that military government is subject to great improprieties when not moderated by an intermediate power. He might, however, have experienced the difficulty of maintaining the conflict of three authorities in a county so remote from the governor-general of Mexico, since the missionaries, though pious and respectable, are already at open variance with the governor, who appears to me to be a worth military character.^[15]