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was founded and conversion to Catholicism began, with ensuing conflicts between Native
communities and the Spanish missionaries. At the Tongva village site of Yaangna along
the present-day Los Angeles River, missionaries and Indian 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 an assistant Mission, the Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles
Asistencia, also was founded at the Gabrielino village of Yaanga.
In 1797, the Mission San Fernando Rey de España was founded near the contemporary
community of Mission Hills. Of the people baptized at the San Fernando Mission, 37% of
them were from Gabrielino speaking villages (Johnson 2006:11). However, the Missions
were plagued with problems. Although the Missions were trying to assimilate the local
Native American population, the Native population was dying off. The population
declined during the recorded Mission period (1781-1831) due to measles, influenza,
tuberculosis, syphilis, dysentary, bad food, ill treatment, and generally slave-like
conditions (McCawley 1996:197). The Missions effectively were unable to sustain the
numbers of converts since they died at a high rate. When Natives revolted, the
missionaries were forced to move their San Gabriel church in 1775-76 to the present
historical location at the Gabrielino village of Sibangna. As the Anza expedition
journeyed across the Los Angeles region, they stopped at the Missions in the area and in
the next decade, many Natives were forcibly converted to Christianity.
Protests continued, with one of the most famous being the revolt in 1785 in which
Gabrielinos angry at the suppression of their ceremonies attempted to ambush and slay
the Franciscan missionaries. Unsuccessful, the revolt leaders, including a woman named
Toypurina, were exiled (Hackel 2003). By 1800, the Natives of the region became largely
a serf population, working on behalf of the missions and ranch owners. The 19th century
witnessed many episodes of cultural genocide for indigenous peoples of the Los Angeles
region. When California became a state, European settlers poured into the region. They
killed many Indians and some bounty hunters even collected money for murdering
Indians. At the same time population was decreasing, the natural resource base of the
Gabrielino economy was altered by the ranching and mining industries. Gabrielinos
found food collecting increasingly difficult as cattle ate their plants and miners poisoned
the rivers. By 1900, only isolated families managed to survive and maintain their
traditions. Ethnographers such as C. Hart Merriam, A.L. Kroeber, Constance DuBois, and
J.P. Harrington recorded some of the culture practices of the remaining Gabrielino
survivors. Interviews and memoirs by these people form the primary ethnographic
documentation for understanding Gabrielino-Tongva cultural practices.

3.0 Tongva Communities in the Project Region

3.1 Introduction

The Tongva, “people belonging to the earth,” represent the main Native American
community of the Los Angeles county region. Historically, they are known as the
Gabrielino following the Spanish colonial custom of naming native acolytes and bonded
laborers who worked at the former Mission San Gabriel Arcangel until it was secularized

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