Pueblo de Los Ángeles

In 1542 Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, with a commission from Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, was the first European to sail along and explore the California coast.

Concerned about colonizing efforts by the Russians and French, Spain set plans in motion in the 1760s to establish a presence and defend its claim to the territory.

The first Spanish governor of Las Californias, Felipe de Neve had, as well, recommended to Viceroy Bucareli Father Crespí's location on the Río Porciúncula (Los Angeles River) for a mission.

Instead, in 1781, King Charles III mandated that a pueblo be built on the site instead, which would be the second town in Alta California, after San José de Guadalupe in 1777.

The monarch, disregarding the production and trade roles of the missions, saw a greater need for secular pueblos to be established as the centers of agriculture and commerce to supply the crown's ever-growing military presence in "Nueva California."

The priests at the missions ignored the royal mandate and continued their ranching, trading and production of tallow, soap, hides, and beef, often in competition with new pueblo ventures.

Since the government of Las Californias had a strong military orientation in this early phase of colonization, the civilian cabildo was originally supervised by a commisionado (commissioner) appointed by the comandante (commander) of the Presidio of Santa Barbara, who was charged with making sure the alcalde and regidores carried out their duties correctly.

[13] On 18 August 1814 Father Luis Gíl y Taboada placed the cornerstone of a new Franciscan church amidst the ruins of the original asistencia.

His book, Two Years Before the Mast, includes a brief depiction of the pueblo and area, then dependent on the export of cattle hides and tallow.

In 1836–1838, it was the headquarters of Carlos Antonio Carrillo, a legally named but never de facto governor of California, whose jurisdiction was never recognized in the north; and, in 1845–1847, it was the actual capital.

United States troops then took control of the presidios at Monterey and San Francisco, and proclaimed the invading "conquest" complete.

The small Mexican forces of Los Angeles fled at the approach of US troops, and August 13, 1846 the American flag was raised over the city.

Gillespie's garrison was compelled to withdraw in October when the residents, Californio Lancers, vaqueros on horseback without firearms, only lances, revolted and chased the US occupying force back to the San Pedro Harbor.

These battles, in which the Californios were greatly outmanned and outgunned, represented the important overt resistance to the establishment of the American regime in the Los Angeles Basin.

Under the later comprehensive 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico formally ceded nearly half its nation's total territory, including Alta California, to the United States.

[17] Across Olvera Street stands the 1887 Eloisa Martinez de Sepulveda House, that now is the Los Angeles Plaza Historic District Visitors Center.

The 1939 construction of the significant transit hub and architectural landmark, the Los Angeles Union Station east of the old Plaza, added to the Pueblo area's reinvigoration.

Of archaeological interest is the discovery of sections of the original brick lined Zanja Madre-the Mother Ditch, which was a "surface and underground" gravity fed canal and aqueduct, that brought water from the Rio Porciuncula-Los Angeles River near the Arroyo Seco confluence, to the colonial pueblo and later the American city into the latter 19th century.