Notes to self....Pick up on sherman indian school and also combine info from big thesis with brief history into one summary list
The photo above was taken by William Finley in the Sawtelle Neighborhood in 1906 who came to take pictures of birds. See collection here (more birds). The photo below is an even earlier image of downtown Los Angeles.
Before Uni High
When Tongva women "held" on the missions had husbands who died or left, the padres would marry them off again, which might explain why this woman was married NINE TIMES. I'm having a hard time imagining she just fell head over heels for nine men -or that these men provided any security she couldn't have gotten more easily for herself in less barbaric world.
Image linked to my source.
Image linked to my source.
Some written resources Toypurina (also links to video) Library of Congress California as I saw it: First Person Narratives History of California Before 1900 Wikipedia |
Tongva's were Called Gabrielinos by the Spanish in the name of the San Gabriel Mission. Tongva is the preferred name by the people themselves. The Image above links to images, and The image below links to a very nice history by Humanities Professor Roseanne Welch of the tongva people of the Puente Hills Preserve. I have summarized some of the major points below as well. In addition to having studied humanities, Roseanne welch is a screenwriter, so this paper has a pretty interesting, not overly academic sounding flow.
This is an easy read that provides a nice overview of how the Tongva people lost what was theirs.
1. Early maps of Tongva villages made by Spanish Missionaries have been lost. 2. Missions were used by Spanish to strengthen their claim to the land as they feared Russia would claim it for themselves. 3. Tongva societies were egalitarian with female chiefs, work split by (binary) gender roles that was valued equally. Women were responsible for agriculture. There were not traditional farms, but women acted as horticulturalists to tend plants that they gathered in order to ensure yield. 4. Spanish set up missions by either kidnapping or inviting Tongva people - depending upon who is writing the history. 5. Tongva people had to convert to Catholicism and work the land. Women and boys suffered |
sexual assault in the missions.
6. Marriages were decided by the padres.
7. Toypurina helped to organize an attack on the San Gabriel Mission. Though failed, she is rememberers as a hero.
8. After Mexican Revolution, Mexico mostly gives land grants to Californios and did not return it to Tongva. According to Alan Taylor in American Republics, "Casting California's missions as backward and repressive, the republic dissolved them during the late 1820s and early 1830s. Wealthy men bought the mission lands for transformation in ranchos. In theory, secularization liberated the Indian residents. In fact, they lost their community and became impoverished and indebted laborers on ranchos." And in Lothrop, "by the mid 1840s many grants were awarded to close associates of the territorial administration in anticipation of the expected rise in land values following American occupation. The total number of named and unnamed ranches granted by the Spanish and Mexican governments reached approximately eight hundred and ranged in size from one to eleven leagues, a league being 4.426 acres. It is worthy of note that fifty-five of these grants were made to women, many of whom were married."
9. Last Mexican governor of California, Pio Pico, sells off massive amounts of land to get money for faltering state, parcelling them off to his people of his choosing, again not returning the land to the Tongva as the missions had promised would occur.
10. Some land did end up in Tongva hands around the time that the Yankees fought the Mexican-American war, but that did not last long.
11. Between 1851-53, treaties were signed setting aside 8.5 million acres for Tongva people..but the political pressure as a result of the Gold Rush kept the treaties from being ratified. They were hidden in a secret drawer.
12. Eventually those who had been granted land under Spanish and Mexican rule lost their land grants as well. That is explained in a bit more detail further down on this page.
12. In the 1950s and 1960's Dawes Act is passed, which persuaded tribal members to sign away their status in exchange for small plots of land, which were often later seized when occupants couldn't afford property taxes.
13. In 1959, the Court of Claims recognize the Tongva's title to a large swathe of land and in 1972 paid them $633 each. They were no longer Tongva tribal people in the eyes of the state.
14. It is hard for Tongva's as they are not considered "real Indians" by the U.S. government as a result of the Dawes Act, and they can't get recognition as such without genealogy documentation that they don't have. This recognition would allow them to enjoy their land and have the right to open a casino.
15. Leaders are still working to lobby for federal recognition of their tribal rights.
Uni was probably not a large encampment, and the careless manner that Uni's founders treated the land, the artifacts, and the remains that were found here has deprived us and the Tongva people, in particular, of a more detailed history.
6. Marriages were decided by the padres.
7. Toypurina helped to organize an attack on the San Gabriel Mission. Though failed, she is rememberers as a hero.
8. After Mexican Revolution, Mexico mostly gives land grants to Californios and did not return it to Tongva. According to Alan Taylor in American Republics, "Casting California's missions as backward and repressive, the republic dissolved them during the late 1820s and early 1830s. Wealthy men bought the mission lands for transformation in ranchos. In theory, secularization liberated the Indian residents. In fact, they lost their community and became impoverished and indebted laborers on ranchos." And in Lothrop, "by the mid 1840s many grants were awarded to close associates of the territorial administration in anticipation of the expected rise in land values following American occupation. The total number of named and unnamed ranches granted by the Spanish and Mexican governments reached approximately eight hundred and ranged in size from one to eleven leagues, a league being 4.426 acres. It is worthy of note that fifty-five of these grants were made to women, many of whom were married."
9. Last Mexican governor of California, Pio Pico, sells off massive amounts of land to get money for faltering state, parcelling them off to his people of his choosing, again not returning the land to the Tongva as the missions had promised would occur.
10. Some land did end up in Tongva hands around the time that the Yankees fought the Mexican-American war, but that did not last long.
11. Between 1851-53, treaties were signed setting aside 8.5 million acres for Tongva people..but the political pressure as a result of the Gold Rush kept the treaties from being ratified. They were hidden in a secret drawer.
12. Eventually those who had been granted land under Spanish and Mexican rule lost their land grants as well. That is explained in a bit more detail further down on this page.
12. In the 1950s and 1960's Dawes Act is passed, which persuaded tribal members to sign away their status in exchange for small plots of land, which were often later seized when occupants couldn't afford property taxes.
13. In 1959, the Court of Claims recognize the Tongva's title to a large swathe of land and in 1972 paid them $633 each. They were no longer Tongva tribal people in the eyes of the state.
14. It is hard for Tongva's as they are not considered "real Indians" by the U.S. government as a result of the Dawes Act, and they can't get recognition as such without genealogy documentation that they don't have. This recognition would allow them to enjoy their land and have the right to open a casino.
15. Leaders are still working to lobby for federal recognition of their tribal rights.
Uni was probably not a large encampment, and the careless manner that Uni's founders treated the land, the artifacts, and the remains that were found here has deprived us and the Tongva people, in particular, of a more detailed history.
Portola was sent by Spain to secure its claims to the land in California. Their main competitor for land in the 1760s came from Russians and not English colonists. In his walk from Baja to Monterey, it is believed he stopped at the Kuruvungna Springs at Uni, where he was given assistance by Native people. The text below is linked to the account of their journey kept by Crespi.
A Sweeping History From Mason And More Specialized info in Reddy
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.
|
History of our springs: Below you can find but a few page excerpt from a much longer paper by Brian Curtis Zachary explaining more precisely how the land changed hands after Mexico gained independence from spain. It's a bit confusing because uni sits on land that was disputed by the owners of two different Ranchos. This paper helps to clarify what happened (Summarized below).
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.
The full 168 page Master's thesis is Here. If someone is interested in the field of historic preservation, it would be worth scanning. The vocabulary and syntax are easy enough for anyone to read .
|
1.Rancho Santa Monica De Boca was first owned by Francisco Alvarado and Antonio Machado.
2. Alvarado's descendants got the land and sold them to Francisco Marquez (think Marquez Elementary/Palisades area) and Ysidro Reyes. 3. They had to apply to the Governor in Monterey and were given title to the land. 4. BUT there was a dispute over whether or not the land belonged to another owner, Francisco Sepulveda, from an earlier land grant titled Rancho San Vicente. 5. In 1872 during the dispute, Colonel R.S. Baker bought some of the land including the land Uni is on. Legal disputes are expensive and often resulted in people having to sell the very land for which they were fighting. 6. Baker, who was married to a Californio socialite and heiress, Arcadia Bandini de Stearns joined forces with John Percival Jones (who made his money in silver mines in Nevada) to form the Santa Monica Water Company. 7. The Los Angeles School District bought the land from the Santa Monica Water Company in 1924. |
8. Perhaps the most telling passage from the pages excerpted above is this:
"August 16, 1850, an ordinance was passed in Los Angeles, which allowed Indians arrested for drunkenness to be auctioned to private parties for one week of labor. The city received two-thirds of their pay to cover the fine, and the Indians received their third in alcohol! This insured a steady supply of labor but was known to kill a person in two or three years." (Some things don't change much.)
"August 16, 1850, an ordinance was passed in Los Angeles, which allowed Indians arrested for drunkenness to be auctioned to private parties for one week of labor. The city received two-thirds of their pay to cover the fine, and the Indians received their third in alcohol! This insured a steady supply of labor but was known to kill a person in two or three years." (Some things don't change much.)
RAnchos
If you expand the colorful 1929 map below, you can see the names of the Ranchos that were large areas of land granted first by the Spanish and then by the Mexican governments to people to settle the land and be loyal to each of those governments. Eventually, after the Mexican-American war, many of those who held the title to these Ranchos lost their ownership as they were forced to go to court to prove they really owned the land. Many people had to sell the land to pay these court costs. An example of how this happened was described in the Lothrop article:
" In the course of denfending the claims of the wide Dona Josefa Cota de Nieto and Ramon Yorba to portions of Rancho Santa Gertrudis, Abel Stearns [who went on to be one of this area's wealthiest citizens] lent them the land commission fee of fifty young cows He also lent money to members of the family at the rate 5 percent compounded monthly, a fairly common practice. As a result, the debt doubled within a year. In 1861, Rancho Los Bolsas was sol at auction to satisfy the $28,043 note Stearns held. He acquired the ranch land for a bid of $15,000."
The book that contains this fold-out map is in the library. If you are very careful, you can come look at the map and read some of the book called The Romance of the Ranchos. While the book paints a false and rosy picture of history, it paints a very clear picture of why most people (myself included) can live here much of their lives without ever understanding the history of how California came to be what it is today. There is another great map like this that is easier to Zoom in from the Library of Congress.
" In the course of denfending the claims of the wide Dona Josefa Cota de Nieto and Ramon Yorba to portions of Rancho Santa Gertrudis, Abel Stearns [who went on to be one of this area's wealthiest citizens] lent them the land commission fee of fifty young cows He also lent money to members of the family at the rate 5 percent compounded monthly, a fairly common practice. As a result, the debt doubled within a year. In 1861, Rancho Los Bolsas was sol at auction to satisfy the $28,043 note Stearns held. He acquired the ranch land for a bid of $15,000."
The book that contains this fold-out map is in the library. If you are very careful, you can come look at the map and read some of the book called The Romance of the Ranchos. While the book paints a false and rosy picture of history, it paints a very clear picture of why most people (myself included) can live here much of their lives without ever understanding the history of how California came to be what it is today. There is another great map like this that is easier to Zoom in from the Library of Congress.
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.
Click on the image on the left below and scroll down to this interactive map that will tell you who owned the land in Los Angeles. You can see that Uni was on the Rancho San Vincente y Santa Monica.
The image above is from Wikipedia with the following description Dating from the era of the Pueblo de Los Angeles, The Plaza and "Old Plaza Church" (Mission Nuestra Señora Reina de los Angeles) in 1869. There is a square main brick reservoir in the middle of the Plaza at the right, which was the terminus of the town's historic lifeline: the Zanja Madre. The Plaza itself was rounded and turned into a traditional ornate plaza, with a fountain that later became a bandstand. The building in the top right background was the Lugo House: first home to St. Vincent's College (now Loyola Marymount University). They are now a part of Olvera Street.
How the descendants of Spanish mexico lost the land
The Los Angeles Times article Rancho Boca de Santa Monica's Family Connections contains the photo from the Ernie Marquez collection. The article explains how the Marquez family ultimately lost their land to the Santa Monica Water Company, which also owned the land next to Uni. For a general overview of what took place, this historical essay by Nancy J. Olmstead is easy to read and describes a pattern of what happened in California. Marriages between white/Anglo settlers and Spanish/Mexican women played a large role in how California land became "Anglicized" in the 19th Century. Ms. Juarez is your go-to person on campus for that. She majored in history at U.C. Berkeley and her very focus was how marriages impacted land ownership in California.
If you one of the highest order nerds, you can read about the history of education in these parts before there ever was an LAUSD of even the state of California below. The weirdest part to me was that the teacher were often fresh out of the mines or the battlefield. They were pretty angry and violent, and one even got fired for not using corporal punishment. Another was a botanist who couldn't learn fractions and spent too much time with flowers. I thought it was interesting to read, but you know...
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.
These pages from The book Panorama: A Picture History of Southern California, put out by the Title Insurance and Trust Company in 1953, explains how The end of the California gold rush also contributed to a change of land ownership. Moreover, it shows how the completion of the railroad allow those who are able to acquire the land in tough times profited from those tough times for generations to come.
OLD SOLDIER'S HOME
HIstory of Uni
Uni in 1924 |
Uni in 1927 |
Uni in 1932 |
Photos are from the University High Education Foundation archives.
Think about what you know about changing neighborhoods. Click on the photos and notice the changes over time. What do you think were the causes and effects of these changes? Also think about the history of the land around Uni. Consider that prior to Uni being here the land these groups lived on the land: Gabrielino-Tongva Indians; people who were awarded land grants by the Spanish and Mexican government (which were mostly not honored after the Mexican-American War); poor Civil War veterans who came to the Sawtelle neighborhood to live cheaply; and finally Mexican-American (many of whom lived here when California was still part of Mexico, Japanese-Americans, and white folks. Samuel Dórame, local historian, has put together and incredible blog chronicling the history of this neighborhood.
THE TWENTIES
The Harding Warrior. From Ms. Kay Harthan, 1842 Purdue Avenue, Los Angeles 25, California
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.
Spring, 1926 Literary Magazine, Los Angeles History, University High School. You can read about the.history of the land and the school. Pay attention to History of the Warren G. Harding High Campus. What is included? What might be omitted? Notice the article "Patriotism" by Karn Singh (page 11 of the scanned SCRIBD document). In what ways is that particular student author's thoughts more complex? What do you notice about the all the students' writing?
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.
Also if you read the article "How the Eastside Lives" on page 24 of the SCRIBD document above, you might follow it up with the article below about the Russian community and watch the video below about the plague that hit the Mexican-American part of Los Angeles in 1924. I kind of think she summarized (plagiarized) the article. Sigh. But I would never have found the original article without her "summary."
Look carefully at the image and then read the full article below. How does the article in the newspaper compare with "How the Eastside Lives" in the Uni Literary Magazine? How do you think using illustrations rather than photographs in the newspaper impacts the readers?
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.
When the plague came to Los Angeles. Just as developers were trying to gentrify Los Angeles and characterize it as a city of the future, the plague came to Los Angeles' and hit a hispanic neighborhood very hard. What similarities and differences do notice as compared to today's pandemic?
The forties
Uni's first principal, Angus L. Cavanaugh, writes the history of the campus in 1945. He credits Walter Armacost with helping to found the school
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.
Watch the video below to learn more about Uni High's World War II Veterans, Fallen Soldiers, and Japanese Internment Camp Survivors and More on the Odahara Family. Please note: For clarification, Internment Camp is just another word for concentration camp. What I meant to say is that they were not death camps, although there were guards who did shoot without cause and people were murdered there without justice being served. For more on that sad reality listen to the Fences episode of the Campus podcast here: https://densho.org/campu/ George's Essay in Manzanar https://cdm16855.contentdm.oclc.org/d... Info from this amazing blog: https://sawtelle1897to1950.wordpress.com Thanks to John Wilson of the Pacific Palisades for sharing about Ah Wing Young and his fond memories about the House of Lee.
Above: Propaganda picture taken of Kay Odahara in New York City. Click on the image to see her niece's post about this image.
|
Above: A student's image of the House of Lee restaurant started by Kay and her husband Ah Wing Young. He became one of the first Asian-Americans to join and then lead the Chamber of Commerce in Pacific Palisades. Click on the image to see where it came from.
|
A few images of Students who served in WWII and more about Kay Odahara who was forced to go to Manzanar Prison camp. (tooo long...I need to redo this one).
If you click on the image of the notebook below, you can read from George's essay. He was Kazuko's younger brother who wrote about his time at Emerson Jr. High and Uni. He described how much he loved both the printshop and horticulture programs. Kazuko, his sister, illustrated the printing press in the 1938 yearbook. You can see her drawing below. You can see all the yearbooks online by clicking here.

The fifties
A History of Uni HIgh Campus by Mr. Henley, 1950: On page 2, Mr. Henley mentions there is a gap in the history, and that he might take it up later. What has been omitted? Why do you think he chose to omit it? What is the effect of omitting the events that occurred between 1769 and 1924?
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.
The Sixties
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.
THE SEVENTIES
In May of 1970, students from around the city talk about their feelings about being in school. The title Prison Notes gives you idea of how they felt about it. What similarities and differences do you notice about the concerns expressed by the different students? How do the students' complaints at the various schools differ from one another?
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.
In the 1970s, the revolutionary students started an underground newspaper. They were suspended for their activities. On the students -Michael Letwin- had a father was a law professor who defended Angela Davis. The rest is history.
And then there was the Innovative Program School. You can click on the image below to learn more. #OnlyInTheSeventies(andEighties)

Environmental Impact Report, Third Addition Project, 1974
Interesting for urban planning, construction work, environmental science students, or people who hope to work in an executive capacity and need to develop familiarity with a wide-range of issues.
Interesting for urban planning, construction work, environmental science students, or people who hope to work in an executive capacity and need to develop familiarity with a wide-range of issues.
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.
Dedication of Springs as Colonial Spanish Landmark, John Borton Chapter of Sons of American Colonists, Paul Godfrey, John W. Von Douris 1975-1977. John Von Douris is intent on making the springs a Spanish Colonial landmark. Do you see any tensions expressed in the next two sets of documents around that request. How are they handled? Do you think they would be handled differently today? What other questions do you have?
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.
Westwood Park Dedication Fiesta May 23, 1976...Can you spot the very interesting omission in the dates included for the area's history?
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.
Groundbreaking on Stivelman Theater, January 27, 1977
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.
THE EIGHTIES
Ethnography of Iranians at Uni High, April 18, 1986 by Diane Hoffman from Stanford University. What does the author of this ethnographic report describe about Iranian students perspectives on learning, authority figures, and the social life at unity? What recommendations does she provide to teachers toward the end of the report? Do you think this report is valuable? Why or why not? Should we study more groups in this way? Explain your thinking.
Your browser does not support viewing this document. Click here to download the document.