Historic Towns of the Western States

by Unknown

Great efforts were at this time made to beautify the city, and there were gay scenes in these days in the old pueblo. The owners of the great ranches entertained largely, visiting from house to house, dressing gayly, and engaging in all sorts of equestrian sports. The men lived in their saddles; the women were the gayest and sweetest of hostesses, while they were yet domestic, and brought up large families easily in the free, open-air life which the conditions of fine climate and rich soil made possible. When Micheltorena in 1842 made his capital in Los Angeles, the gayeties reached their height; he was received with enthusiasm by the Ayuntamiento; there were speeches, salutes, and illuminations; balls and sports alternated with juntas and revolutions. Yet Los Angeles was glad to be rid of Micheltorena when he removed to Monterey, and its citizens were foremost in a revolt against him in 1845, and fought him without the city in a battle where there was much cannonading and no bloodshed. Pio Pico was head of the Commission which met in Los Angeles and banished Micheltorena.

The city remained the capital of the department of the South, and Pio Pico was Governor while José Castro acted as General. Castro again went to the North and soon joined Carrillo against Pico in a new quarrel of North and South.

It was in 1846, when California was rent with the controversy between Castro, representing the military, and Pico, the civil power, and the March Assembly was in session at Los Angeles, that the approach of the forces of the United States, under Stockton and Frémont, forced the contending commanders to unite at Los Angeles in opposition to a common foe.

Abel Stearns, the confidential agent of the United States in the South, owned a warehouse in San Pedro. John Forster was made, in 1843, captain of the port; in 1845 Commodore Jones landed here to make his apologies to Micheltorena for his premature raising of the Stars and Stripes at Monterey. Here Micheltorena embarked for exile; and here, in 1846, Commodore Stockton disembarked with his sailors for the capture of Los Angeles, having already raised the American flag at Monterey. Refusing all the attempts at conciliation offered by Pico and Castro, Stockton united his forces with those of the California battalion under Frémont, who had landed at San Diego, entered Los Angeles, and raised the American flag at 4 P.M. of August 13, 1846.

Pico and Castro had left the city to escape the dishonor of surrender, and the frightened inhabitants had fled to the neighboring ranchos, but returned to their homes before night, attracted by the irresistible strains of a brass band, and assured that they would be left unharmed.

JOHN C. FRÉMONT.

Stockton ordered the election of new alcaldes, and appointed Frémont military commander of the district. When both commanders returned to the North, Gillespie, with a garrison of fifty men, was left in charge of Los Angeles. He seems to have interfered with the amusements of the people, and to have made himself needlessly unpopular. A revolt was organized, and Flores, one of Castro's generals, appeared, with three hundred men at his back, and summoned the garrison to surrender. This Gillespie did, after bravely holding Fort Hill for a time. The Americans took ship from San Pedro on October 4th.

The reconquest of Los Angeles took place on January 18th. General Kearny, with Kit Carson as guide, had succeeded in joining Stockton at San Diego, and the united forces, after a two-hours' engagement at San Gabriel and another brief skirmish without the city, entered Los Angeles, while the leaders of the revolt fled to Cahuenga, and surrendered to Frémont, who made generous terms of capitulation with Andres Pico, Flores, and Manuel. This clemency endeared him to the Californians. It became his boast that he could ride unharmed alone from one end of the conquered country to the other. Stockton made him Governor of Los Angeles while the controversy between Kearny and Stockton, as to which was the chief authority in the conduct of affairs in the new country, was in progress. Frémont chose to obey Stockton, with whom he had worked in unison during the Northern conquests and before the arrival of Kearny. Kearny was technically in the right in demanding the submission of Frémont, as the court-martial of the latter (in Washington, at a later day) made evident; but under the circumstances of the quarrel of the two leaders at Los Angeles, Frémont's allegiance to Stockton seems to have been his only manly course.

This was an era in which Los Angeles grew from an easy-going Spanish pueblo into a progressive American city. Nowhere have Americans stood more completely in the position of conquerors in a new land. Called upon to improvise hastily a government for a large body of strangers, these citizens showed, together with carelessness and over-hastiness—and an indifference to the rights of strangers, both Indians and Spaniards, of which we cannot be proud—some of our best national traits. From the first, the pioneers were courageous and teachable, and succeeded, after many mistakes, in building up a permanent, well-organized, and progressive municipality. General Frémont was undoubtedly most popular among the Spanish people. His youth enabled him to enter in a large degree into their sports; his clemency in pardoning Flores and the other generals of the rebellion won their applause.