Parish History: 2004 Centennial Edition
Blessed Sacrament Parish History Book
Alta California
The first European adventurer to explore the area north of Baja, called Alta California, was Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542, who explored the coastline in search of resources such as gold and to see if a Northwest Passage existed between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Although Cabrillo found neither gold nor a passage, he claimed western North America for Spain and named it California. For hundreds of years California was part of the vast area known as New Spain, which also included modern day Mexico and the New Mexico and Texas territories.
The diverse population of New Spain was made up of criollos, people of Spanish descent who had been born in Spanish America; gachopines, native Spaniards who had come to live in New Spain; Californios, Spanish-speaking Spanish and Mexican settlers who were born in California and the indigenous Indians.
As more Russian fur traders entered the resource-rich area, King Carlos III of Spain was worried he might lose control of his valuable territory. So in 1768 he ordered officials in New Spain to occupy California and establish official Spanish settlements up and down the coast. Gaspar de Portola volunteered to command the expedition and was made acting military governor of California. While on an exploratory expedition a year later, Portola and his men made camp near a river. Accompanying the expedition was Father Juan Crespi, who was deeply impressed by the abundant soil suitable for farming and the available water supply. He named the river El Rio de Nuestra Senora la Reyna de Los Angeles de Porciuncula (The River of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula) and suggested that the area was ideally suited for a settlement.
The task of establishing the colony was given to the then-governor of Alta California, Don Felipe de Neve, who was based up north in Monterey. Neve originally planned to recruit sixty volunteers, primarily farmers, for the new pueblo, or town. They were offered numerous incentives including food, a salary of ten pesos a month, and "two cows, two oxen, two horses, two mares, one mule, two sheep, two goats, all tools and utensils for farming and personal clothing and equipment." Even so, Neve was only able to assemble eleven families to start the settlement, which included twenty two men and women and twenty two children. These settlers were called Los Pobladores.
On September 4, 1781, the Pobladores arrived at their new home, which was named El Pueblo de Nuestra Senora de Los Angeles de Porciuncula, or Village of Our Lady of the Angels. Even though a year later three of the families left, the pueblo, now simply known as the Ciudad de Los Angeles (City of Angels), slowly grew and prospered and by 1820 had 650 residents. After Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, Los Angeles became the market center for cattle hide and tallow, which was traded with the United States.
After the Mexican War, the US gained control of the California and New Mexico territories and encouraged would-be pioneers to go west. When the discovery of gold in 1848 brought a flood of prospectors hoping to strike it rich, the local cattle industry was given a boost supplying fresh meat to the tens of thousands of would-be miners pouring into the San Francisco region. By 1850, when California became the 31st state admitted to the Union, the once small pueblo had become a thriving, if still modestly populated, frontier boom town of 1,600 residents officially named Los Angeles. And just like now, the area was a diverse mixture of cultures and heritages with the criollos and Californios working and living beside Indians, Chinese immigrants, Africans and the gringo settlers from back east.
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