Discovering Mission San Gabriel Arcángel

Discovering Mission San Gabriel Arcángel — page 3 — expedition later reached as far north as today’s Oregon before returning to Navidad on April 14 1543 By the 1760s King Carlos III of Spain wanted to ensure his claim on this land before Russian or English people settled there In 1768 the king told the viceroy a person chosen to rule for the king in a new land of New Spain today’s Mexico to start settling the northern frontier of New Spain using the mission In the 1760s King Carlos III sent friars and soldiers to Alta California to start missions system The king sent his officer Inspector General José de Gálvez to help Spain had already used the mission system to take over land in New Spain Florida Texas and Baja or lower California In the spring of 1769 the governor of Baja California an army captain named Gaspár de Portolá led a group of soldiers missionaries and some Christian Native Americans from the Baja California missions into Alta California Some traveled in three ships Others including the president of the missions Fray Junípero Serra traveled the 715 miles by land Their destination was the San Diego harbor discovered more than 225 years earlier by Cabrillo Nearly half of the 219-member expedition died or deserted before reaching their destination in early July One of the three ships was lost at sea On July 16 1769 Fray Serra founded the first of the twenty-one missions near the harbor He named it San Diego de Alcalá 6

Discovering Mission San Gabriel Arcángel — page 4 — 2 The Tongva The Native Californians near Mission San Gabriel Arcángel belonged to the Tongva tribe There were many villages as many as thirty-one known sites spread over a wide area There were an estimated 5,000 Tongva in the region when the Spanish arrived Each village was ruled by a group of elders The Tongva leaders could be men or women and were called wots Each Tongva village also had a religious leader and healer called a shaman Ocean traveler The Tongva and the Chumash their neighbors to the north and west were among the few indigenous populations that navigated the ocean They made plank canoes called ti’ats or tomols which were up to 30 feet long The tomols were large enough to hold twelve men and their goods and strong enough for ocean travel These canoes were made from planks held Like the Tongva the Chumash used seashells to make jewelry 7

Discovering Mission San Gabriel Arcángel — page 5 — together with hemp or dowels They were then coated with pine pitch and tar which could be found at the La Brea Tar Pits or asphaltum that washed ashore from natural oil seeps These canoes helped the Tongva and the Chumash to trade with their neighbors including groups living on Santa Catalina and other Channel Islands The Tongva which means people of the earth knew how to survive by living off the land Their ancestors had lived in the Los Angeles basin for as many as 10,000 years The women gathered berries mushrooms seeds oats pine nuts seaweed and acorns to eat They ground the acorns into a mush and cooked it The men 8

Discovering Mission San Gabriel Arcángel — page 6 — The Chumash created boats that they used to fish and travel on the waters hunted birds and small animals using bows and arrows sticks and traps They caught fish in the rivers and in the sea and believed they were the Lords of the Ocean They were also skilled at making baskets of different shapes and sizes wood carvings boxes and tools from stone Their skills brought them great benefits In fact anthropologist Lowell John Bean described the Tongva who occupied most of present-day Los Angeles County as the wealthiest most populous and most powerful group in Southern California after the Chumash The Tongva like many of the tribes native to California were thankful to the land for giving them what they needed to live 9

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