Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles Asistencia

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Another mission bearing the name Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles is the
Mission Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles de Porciúncula de los Pecos in Pecos, New Mexico.

**Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles Asistencia**
Location	Los Angeles, California
"Los Angeles Plaza" circa 1847. The "Plaza Church" (foreground, seen from the rear) occupies what remains of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel asistencia site.
Name as Founded	Asistencia de la Misión San Gabriel, Arcángel ^[1]
English Translation	Sub-Mission of the Mission San Gabriel Arcángel
Founding Date	1784 ^[1]
Military District	First
Native Tribe(s) Spanish Name(s)	Tongva Gabrieliño
Native Place Name(s)	Yaanga ^[2]
Current Use	Nonextant
Coordinates	34°05′69″N, 118°23′90″W

Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles Asistencia was originally founded in early 1784 within the burgeoning Pueblo de Los Angeles as an asistencia (or "sub-mission") to the nearby Mission San Gabriel Arcángel.^[3] The assistant mission fell into disuse over time and a Catholic chapel, La Iglesia Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles, was constructed in its place a mere thirty years later.

1 Precontact
2 History
- 2.1 Asistencia de la Misión San Gabriel, Arcángel
- 2.2 La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles
3 Notes
4 References
5 See also

[edit] Precontact

The current prevailing theory postulates that Paleo-Indians entered the Americas from Asia via a land bridge called "Beringia" that connected eastern Siberia with present-day Alaska (when sea levels were significantly lower, due to widespread glaciation) between about 15,000 to 35,000 years ago. The remains of Arlington Springs Man on Santa Rosa Island are among the traces of a very early habitation in California, dated to the last ice age (Wisconsin glaciation) about 13,000 years ago. The first humans are therefore thought to have made their homes among the southern valleys of California's coastal mountain ranges some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago; the earliest of these people are known only from archaeological evidence.^[4] The cultural impacts resulting from climactic changes and other natural events during this broad expanse of time were negligible; conversely, European contact was a momentous event, which profoundly affected California's native peoples.^[5]

[edit] History

[edit] Asistencia de la Misión San Gabriel, Arcángel

In the first months of 1784, priests from San Gabriel established an assistant mission in the neighboring Pueblo de Los Angeles along the banks of El Rio de Nuestra Señora La Reina de Los Angeles de Porciúncula, in an area with a high concentration of potential converts. At a half-a-day's ride to the east, the mother mission was too distant to serve the area effectively. Father Presidente Junípero Serra had the opportunity to visit the asistencia on March 18, 1784, just five months before his untimely death. Perhaps more important than its duty to provide religious instruction to the local natives was the settlement's role in growing crops and grazing livestock to feed the inhabitants of Mission San Gabriel, whose padres divided their time between that outpost and the new site.^[6] The abundant water supply allowed for the planting of citrus orchards and raising of cattle in abundant numbers.

In time, however, the priests abandoned the site as the pueblo grew in population and the native poblanos moved away (few of the nuevos cristianos were welcomed in the pueblo). Relatively little of the site's physical record remains today.

[edit] La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles

Main article: La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles

On August 18, 1814 Fray Luis Gíl y Taboada placed the cornerstone of a new church amidst the ruins of the former asistencia to serve the local pobladores (settlers); the completed structure was dedicated on December 8, 1822.^[1] The padres of San Gabriel donated 7 barrels of brandy to help establish the new chapel.^[7] A replacement chapel, named for Mary, mother of Jesus (La Iglesia de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles, or "The Church of Our Lady of the Angels") was rebuilt utilizing materials of the original church in 1861; Reina, meaning "Queen," was added later.^[8] For years the little chapel, which collected the nicknames "La Placita" and "Plaza Church," served as the sole Roman Catholic church in Los Angeles. The Plaza area today is popularly known as Olvera Street.

[edit] Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c Ruscin, p. 49
^ Ruscin, p. 195
^ California Mission Studies Association
^ Paddison, p. 333: The first undisputable archaeological evidence of human presence in California dates back to circa 8,000 BCE.
^ Jones and Klar 2005, p. 53: "Understanding how and when humans first settled California is intimately linked to the initial colonization of the Americas."
^ Harley
^ Krell, p. 125
^ Ruscin, p. 50

[edit] References

Directory for Missions and other Hispanic Sites. California Mission Studies Association. Retrieved on May 30, 2007.
Jones, Terry L. and Kathryn A. Klar (eds.) (2007). California Prehistory: Colonization, Culture, and Complexity. Altimira Press, Landham, MD. ISBN 0-759-10872-2.
Krell, Dorothy (ed.) (1979). The California Missions. Sunset Books, Menlo Park, CA. ISBN 0-376-05172-8.
Paddison, Joshua (ed.) (1999). A World Transformed: Firsthand Accounts of California Before the Gold Rush. Heyday Books, Berkeley, CA. ISBN 1-890771-13-9.
Ruscin, Terry (1999). Mission Memoirs. Sunbelt Publications, San Diego, CA. ISBN 0-932653-30-8.
The San Bernardino Asistencias by R. Bruce Harley. California Mission Studies Association. Retrieved on November 21, 2006.