Page 9 - lareina1929

LA REINA LOS ANGELES IN THREE CENTURIES

This picture, taken in the sixties is the earliest known photograph of the Plaza. The
building in its center is the city reservoir The Carrillo home faces on the
south, and the Lugo and Del Valle homes face on the east

s pain, England and Russia Eye California

NIMATED by dreams of a far-flung empire to be established on the North
A American Continent, three European nations laid plans for spreading their civi-
lization over the unexplored regions of its interior By the middle of the eighteenth
century their plans were fairly well advanced and they were proceeding under the
banners of church and state to bring them to a happy consummation.
Each eyed the other jealously Each feared that the other might advance too
far into the heart of the continent and menace the holdings of the other
Earlier in the century France had already given way to England as a colonizing
force. There still remained Spain with its fervent missionary spirit, its gospel backed
by the sword, and Russia, the Slavic giant.
Russia was moving down from its Northwestern trading posts toward California.
The English Colonies on the Atlantic Coast were growing restless under the policy
of inertia which the English Parliament had enunciated for them in the Proclamation
of 1763. They felt the urge to spread into the Valley of the Ohio River and even
farther perhaps to the banks of the Mississippi. Spain feared the English Colonies
might jump the traces any moment, disregard the guiding hand of the Mother
Country and push on for themselves to the very borders of Spain's own Mexico, the
brightest jewel in the crown of the Ferdinands.
Menaced by the ambitions of her rivals, Spain felt the need for outposts to
ward off the expected blows from north and east. So it came about that Don Jose
de Galves caused Louisiana, Texas and California-a vast and uncharted territory-
to be established as buffer states. Governor Gaspar de Portola and Father Junipero
Serra were commissioned by Galvez to build a new Northwest frontier. They
extended it to the mouth of the Sacramento River. Alta California as a Spanish
province had its inception with the founding of Mission San Diego de Alcala on
July 16th, 1769 Twenty-one missions in all were established, stretching from San
Diego to Sonoma. Mission San Gabriel, destined to be the largest and richest of
these Franciscan establishments, came into being on September 8, 1771 Ten years
later to the week, a procession of soldiers, priests and laymen, headed by Governor
De Neve, marched nine miles across the valley from that Mission and founded the
Pueblo of Los Angeles.