Pueblo de Los Ángeles

El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles (the Town of Our Lady the Queen of the Angels) was the Spanish civilian pueblo founded in 1781, which by the 20th century became the American metropolis of Los Angeles.

Official settlements in Alta California were of three types: presidio (military), mission (religious) and pueblo (civil). The Pueblo de los Ángeles was the second pueblo (town) created during the Spanish colonization of California (the first was San Jose, in 1777). El Pueblo de la Reina de los Ángeles—'The Town of the Queen of Angels' was founded twelve years after the first presidio and mission, the Presidio of San Diego and the Mission San Diego de Alcalá (1769). The original settlement consisted of forty-four people in eleven families, recruited mostly from Estado de Occidente. As new settlers arrived and soldiers retired to civilian life in Los Angeles, the town became the principal urban center of southern Alta California, whose social and economic life revolved around the raising of livestock on the expansive ranchos.

In 1542 Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, with a commission from Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, was the first European to sail along and explore the California coast. Although he claimed all he saw as territory of the Spanish Empire, no efforts at colonization were made for over two hundred years. Concerned about colonizing efforts by the Russians and French, Spain set plans in motion in the 1760s to establish a presence and defend its claim to the territory.

The Spanish settlement did not reach Alta California until 1769, when explorer Gaspar de Portolà reached the San Diego area via the first land route from Mexico. Accompanying him were two Franciscan Padres, Junípero Serra and Juan Crespí, who recorded the expedition. As they came through today's Elysian Park, they were awed by a river that flowed from the northwest, past their point and on southward. Crespí named the river El Río de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula, meaning, in Spanish, "the River of Our Lady Queen of the Angels of Porciuncula". The name derives from Santa Maria degli Angeli (Italian: "St. Mary of the Angels") which is the name of the small town in Italy housing the Porciuncula, the church where St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Franciscan order, carried out his religious life. The river that was called the Porciuncula is today's Los Angeles River. Because the future town's name was a take on this "Queen of Heaven" Marian title, various versions of Crespí's formula would be used for the town, including the exceedingly long El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora Reina de los Ángeles sobre el Río Porciúncula.

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