Eternity Street Read online

  FOR MICHELE HOFFNUNG.

  CONTENTS

  PREFACE

  CHARACTERS

  MAPS

  PROLOGUE: A TERRIBLE PLACE FOR MURDERS

  PART ONE

  1. A PEOPLE ANGRY AND ARMED

  2. REDUCED TO OBEDIENCE

  3. A COUNTRY ENTIRELY ALTERED

  4. EXTRANJEROS

  5. THE TEXAS GAME

  6. A TERRITORY OF THE UNITED STATES

  7. ¡ABAJO LOS AMERICANOS!

  8. THE OLD WOMAN’S GUN

  9. SAN PASQUAL

  10. POOR CALIFORNIOS

  11. THE GRAB GAME

  12. MILITARY OCCUPATION

  PART TWO

  13. MOB LAW

  14. VIOLENCE BEGINS AT HOME

  15. THE LUGO CASE

  16. WAR FOR A WHOLE LIFE

  17. LA LEY DE LINCH

  18. THE CULT OF VIOLENCE

  19. CITY OF DEMONS

  20. VINDICTA PÚBLICA

  PART THREE

  21. WE HAVE GOT YOU NOW, DON SANTIAGO

  22. THE CRIME MUST BE AVENGED

  23. DUELING, SHOOTING, AND KILLING

  24. THE PLAGUE IS UPON US

  25. MASTER IN THE HOUSE

  26. A REFINED PIECE OF VILLAINY

  27. THE HOME GUARD VIGILANCE COMMITTEE

  28. CHINATOWN

  29. IMPERFECT JUSTICE

  30. FISTS DOUBLED UP

  EPILOGUE: FORGIVE ME, I HAVE KILLED YOUR BROTHER

  NOTES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PERMISSIONS

  ILLUSTRATIONS

  INDEX

  PREFACE

  THIS BOOK TELLS A STORY of a violent place in a violent time: Los Angeles and southern California in the mid-nineteenth century. It relates a history of conquest and ethnic suppression. It examines collective disorder and interpersonal conflict, component parts of a culture of violence. It charts a lengthy struggle to achieve justice amid the turmoil of a remote and loosely governed frontier society.

  This project began with a personal experience. Several years ago I served as a juror in the trial of a man accused of murder. A woman had been bludgeoned to death in the backyard of an abandoned property in New Haven, Connecticut. The crime scene was only two blocks from the house where my wife and I had raised our three children, which magnified the horror. But what brought home the devastating impact lethal violence has on people’s lives was listening to the witness testimony, examining the forensic evidence, and noting the presence and deportment of the members of the victim’s family who attended court each day. We the jury labored to make sense of it all, which required us to reconstruct and recount the story of the murder in an attempt to resolve the question of guilt. It was a searing experience, especially when the judge declared a mistrial after we failed to reach agreement. Afterward I found myself reading about violence and justice in literature, social science, and history. I began teaching an interdisciplinary seminar on violence in America. Gradually this study took shape.

  Earlier historical work tended to ask a perennial either-or question, “Was the American frontier violent?” I chose instead to investigate the structure, the culture, and the reproduction of violence. Frontiers were the sites of invasion and dispossession. They were beyond the sphere of the routine action of central authorities, places where no state was able to assert and maintain a monopoly of violence. The right of individuals to armed self-defense and the right of communities to enforce “popular justice” were essential elements of the weak-state frontier. Order and a semblance of justice were maintained through honor culture, a kind of middle ground between pure anarchic mayhem and the control of violence by the state. The fundamental underpinning of honor culture was the male domination of women. Domestic violence was commonplace. Violent homes acted as nurseries of violent behavior, training men and women to think of violence as the most appropriate and effective way of resolving social conflict.

  This was the perspective I brought to an investigation of the early history of Los Angeles. I was raised in southern California, and while I now reside on the other side of the country, my wife and I go to Los Angeles frequently to visit family and friends. I consider myself a native, and I have long been fascinated with southern California history. According to historians, frontier Los Angeles was a very violent place. But would the historical archives support my approach to the topic? Local librarians and curators directed me to a remarkable collection of judicial records that stretched from the period of Mexican jurisdiction through the first thirty years of American rule. A series of criminal case files offered detailed accounts of homicide and other violent crimes, including court papers, lawyers’ briefs, and the affidavits or testimony of witnesses. These sources enabled me to build on the pioneering work of late historian Eric Monkkonen, compiling a comprehensive list of all the homicides committed in the Los Angeles area from 1830 to 1875. Other legal sources, including justice of the peace ledgers and divorce case files, offered harrowing descriptions of intimate and domestic violence. I found a great deal of additional evidence in other official records, as well as contemporary newspapers, personal papers, memoirs, and autobiographies.

  Recalling my service as a juror, I chose to narrate this history by telling stories. They are true stories, constructed with evidence drawn directly from the primary sources. Part One recounts the conquest of southern California, first by the Spanish, then by the Americans, noting the ways violence reverberated throughout the frontier social order. Part Two details the struggle of Angelenos to come to terms with that violence through the contending forces of official justice and vigilantism. Part Three explains the triumph of lynch law, with its disastrous consequences, which finally resulted in a turn toward a system of state-sanctioned justice.

  Violence is the dark force of our national history. The United States has long had the highest homicide rate of any industrial democracy in the world, an order of magnitude greater than Europe, Japan, or Canada. Our pattern of violence is much closer to our southern neighbor, Mexico. We are a first-world nation with a third-world violence problem. But that problem has historically been associated with particular regions of the country. Numerous statistical studies demonstrate that since the nineteenth century the states with homicide rates higher than the national mean were all located in the West or the South. Los Angeles, settled mainly by migrants from Mexico and the American South, plays an important part in this history.

  Violence is chaotic, disruptive, and destructive. But even the most irrational violence has meaning. In the judgment of psychologist James Gilligan, who spent a career working with violent offenders, “all violence is an attempt to achieve justice.” What people consider to be just or unjust, of course, depends on their point of view, on the things they value and the values of their culture. And because, as political philosopher Hannah Arendt writes, “violence always needs justification,” it tends to generate a complicated and instructive discourse about those values. The residents of frontier Los Angeles argued continually over the nature, causes, and consequences of the murder and mayhem occurring in their midst. Their words and deeds not only reveal a great deal about themselves and their world but speak to the enduring problem of violence in America.

  CHARACTERS

  (in order of appearance)

  JAMES R. BARTON, from Missouri, sheriff of Los Angeles County, 1851–55, 1856–57

  FELIPE ALVITRE, Californio, outlaw

  PÍO DE JESÚS PICO, Californio, ranchero, governor of California, 1844–46

  ANDRÉS PICO, his brother, Californio, ranchero and military leader

  ANDREW JACKSON KING, from Georgia, settler of the Monte

  BENJAMIN IGNATIUS HAYES, from Missouri, dis
trict judge, 1852–64

  DAVID BROWN, from Texas, outlaw

  STEPHEN CLARK FOSTER, from Maine, mayor of Los Angeles, 1854–56

  JONATHAN R. SCOTT, from Missouri, attorney, judge, vigilante

  JAMES S. WAITE, from Maine, editor, Los Angeles Star, 1854–55

  JOHN OZIAS WHEELER, from Connecticut, editor, Southern Californian, 1854–55

  FRANCISCO P. RAMÍREZ, Californio, editor, El Clamor Público, 1855–59

  JOHN A. LEWIS, from Massachusetts, founding editor, Los Angeles Star

  JUAN BAUTISTA ALVARADO, Californio, governor of California, 1836–42

  JOSÉ DOMINGO FÉLIZ, Californio, ranchero

  MARÍA DEL ROSARIO VILLA DE FÉLIZ, Californiana, his wife

  GERVASIO ALIPÁS, Californio, her lover, vaquero

  MANUEL REQUENA, from Mexico, merchant, alcalde of Los Angeles, 1836–37

  JONATHAN TEMPLE, from Massachusetts, merchant

  MARÍA RAPHAELA COTA DE TEMPLE, Californiana, his wife

  VICTOR PRUDON, from France, teacher, scribe, political adviser

  JOSÉ ANTONIO CARRILLO, Californio, ranchero, political leader

  ANTONIO F. CORONEL, from Mexico, political leader

  ABEL STEARNS, from Massachusetts, merchant

  JEAN LOUIS VIGNES, from France, vineyardist

  JOSÉ ANTONIO CASTRO, Californio, commandant, California militia

  BENJAMIN DAVIS WILSON, from Tennessee, ranchero

  WILLIAM WORKMAN, from England, ranchero

  JOHN A. ROWLAND, from Missouri, ranchero

  THOMAS O. LARKIN, from Massachusetts, Monterey merchant

  ARCHIBALD H. GILLESPIE, lieutenant, U.S. Marine Corps

  JOHN C. FRÉMONT, captain, U.S. Army Corps of Topographical Engineers

  KIT CARSON, guide, Frémont’s company

  ROBERT STOCKTON, commander, U.S. Pacific Squadron

  JOSÉ SÉRBULO VARELA, Californio, political leader

  JOSÉ MARÍA FLORES, from Mexico, commander, las fuerzas nacionales

  ISAAC WILLIAMS, from Pennsylvania, ranchero

  STEPHEN WATTS KEARNY, commander, U.S. Regiment of Dragoons

  JOHN STROTHER GRIFFIN, from Virginia, surgeon

  JOHN TRUMBULL (JUAN JOSÉ) WARNER, from Connecticut, ranchero

  WILLIAM MARSHALL, from Rhode Island, clerk

  EDWARD STOKES, from England, ranchero

  ANTONIO GARRA, Cupeño, political leader

  AGUSTÍN OLVERA, from Mexico,

  political leader

  JONATHAN D. STEVENSON, commander, New York volunteers

  RICHARD B. MASON, colonel, U.S. Army

  PETER BIGGS, from Missouri, African American barber

  MANUEL CLEMENTE ROJO, from Peru, editor, La Estrella, 1851–54

  JOHN H. PURDY, from Ohio, city marshal, 1850

  G. THOMPSON BURRILL, from New York, sheriff of Los Angeles County, 1850–51

  FRANCISCA MARÍA DE JESÚS PÉREZ, Californiana, ranchera

  ANTONIO MARÍA LUGO, Californio, ranchero

  JOSÉ DEL CÁRMEN LUGO, Californio, one of his sons, ranchero

  JOSÉ MARÍA LUGO, his brother, ranchero

  JOSÉ FRANCISCO “CHICO” LUGO, grandson, vaquero

  FRANCISCO DE PAULA “MENITO” LUGO, his younger brother,

  vaquero

  JUAN ANTONIO, Cahuilla, political leader

  JOHN “RED” IRVING, from Texas, outlaw

  JOSHUA H. BEAN, from Kentucky, major general, California state militia

  ALEXANDER W. HOPE, from Virginia, commander, Los Angeles Rangers

  HORACE BELL, from Indiana, Ranger, memoirist

  WILLIAM B. OSBURN, from New York, undersheriff of Los Angeles County, 1851–54

  JAMES A. “JACK” WATSON, from Scotland, attorney, vigilante

  WILLIAM “UNCLE BILLY” RUBOTTOM, from Arkansas, innkeeper

  DAVID W. ALEXANDER, from Ireland, sheriff of Los Angeles County, 1856

  HENRY DWIGHT BARROWS, from Connecticut, correspondent, San Francisco Bulletin

  WILLIAM GETMAN, from New York, city marshal, 1856–57

  WILLIAM WALLACE, from New Hampshire, teacher, editor, Los Angeles Star, 1855

  HENRY HAMILTON, from Northern Ireland, editor, Los Angeles Star, 1855–64, 1868–71

  MARÍA DEL ESPIRITU SANTO, Cupeño, common-law wife of Sheriff James R. Barton

  JOSÉ SANTIAGO BARTON, their son

  FRANCISCO “PANCHO” DANIEL, Californio, outlaw, Manillas gang

  JUAN FLORES, Californio, outlaw, Manillas gang

  ANDRÉS FUENTES, Californio, outlaw, Manillas gang

  ANTONIO MARÍA “CHINO” VARELA, Californio, son of SÉrbulo Varela, outlaw, Manillas gang

  JOSEPHINE DONNA SMITH, from Missouri, schoolgirl, poet

  MICHAEL WHITE, from England, ranchero

  TOMÁS SÁNCHEZ, Californio, sheriff of Los Angeles County, 1860–68

  EDWARD JOHN CAGE KEWEN, from Kentucky, attorney and political leader

  HILLIARD P. DORSEY, from Mississippi, register, U.S. Land Office

  CIVILITY RUBOTTOM DORSEY, his wife, daughter of “Uncle Billy” Rubottom

  JOHN G. DOWNEY, from Ireland, pharmacist, financier, political leader

  CHARLES R. CONWAY, from Minnesota, editor, Southern News, 1861–67

  ALONZO RIDLEY, from Maine,

  undersheriff of Los Angeles County, 1860–61

  PHINEAS BANNING, from Delaware, transportation magnate

  JOSEPH MESMER, from Ohio, schoolboy

  FELIX SIGNORET, from France, barber, vigilante

  JOHN RAINS, from Alabama, ranchero

  MARÍA MERCED WILLIAMS DE RAINS, Californiana, his wife, daughter of Isaac Williams

  FRANCISCA WILLIAMS DE CARLISLE, Californiana, her sister

  ROBERT S. CARLISLE, from Kentucky, her husband, ranchero

  JOSÉ RAMÓN CARRILLO, Californio, ranchero

  ROBERT MACLAY WIDNEY, from Ohio, vigilante, California district judge, 1871–74

  SAMUEL C. FOY, from Kentucky, saddle and harness maker, vigilante

  JAMES FRANK BURNS, from Michigan, sheriff of Los Angeles County, 1868–72

  ARMAND MICHEL JOSEF LACHENAIS, from France, vineyardist

  CHARLES E. BEANE, from Virginia, editor, Daily News, 1871–72

  YGNACIO SEPÚLVEDA, Californio, California district judge, 1875–79

  SAM YUEN, from China, leader of Chinatown

  YO HING, from China, leader of Chinatown

  MAPS

  ETERNITY STREET

  “My friend,” said a certain well-known old resident, to whom we had applied for information, “it is not so much the known history of this country that requires to be written, as the unknown, the inside history. That never has been written and never will be; but if it was—what a rattling there would be among the dry bones.”

  JOHN ALBERT WILSON,

  History of Los Angeles County (1880)

  These ugly things in our past history ought to be known. . . . They may not be pleasant to read about. They are not pleasant to write about. They do not reflect on many people who are now living. The rascals whom we downed are now passed away. They are about all dead and buried, and of course they have all gone to heaven, or some other place.

  HORACE BELL, “Los Angeles 1882,”

  Horace Bell Papers, Huntington Library

  •

  PROLOGUE •

  A TERRIBLE PLACE

  FOR MURDERS

  YEARS AFTERWARD Angelenos still told of the time Sheriff James R. Barton was called to preserve the peace at Figueroa House, a gambling establishment on Calle de los Negros, center of the pueblo’s notorious vice district. There, on the evening of July 4, 1852, Barton had an altercation with gambler Joe Caddick. The two men stepped out to the dusty street, dimly illuminated by lanterns hanging from porch posts and crowded with drunken revelers. “Defend yourself,” Caddick shouted, pulling his pistol and firing twice in Barton’s direction as bystanders scattered for cover. Barton, displ
aying little concern for his own safety, raised his revolver and squeezed off three rounds, putting a ball through Caddick’s lungs. The gunfight on Negro Alley took place during Barton’s first term as sheriff, the year he turned thirty, and it made his reputation as a “brave but reckless” man of the law. He would be returned to office for four successive terms. He would face danger countless times. Yet on the night of January 11, 1855, preparing for what he feared would be a violent assault on the county jail by an angry mob, reckless James Barton sat down and cautiously wrote out his last will and testament.

  Sheriff Barton kept an office in a row of old adobes on the west side of Spring Street, an unpaved thoroughfare skirting the rolling hills that defined the pueblo’s western boundary. Next door was the county courthouse, a single large room with crumbling walls and leaky roof. Out behind, in the center of a bare yard of swept dirt surrounded by a high plank fence, sat the new jail, the first fired-brick public building in Los Angeles. Behind its heavy iron doors, the dark interior stank of shit and fear. The first floor housed the squalid municipal dungeon, crowded with dozens of drunks every weekend. Upstairs was the county lockup, a large holding tank for ordinary prisoners with half a dozen iron cages for violent felons. On that January night in 1855 those cages held three convicted felons, two of them sentenced to hang the following afternoon. A raging controversy over their pending executions, including threats of violence, was what had Barton spooked.

  Angelenos were agitated and fearful, and for good reason. The pueblo was one of the most violent towns in America. “Los Angeles is a terrible place for murders,” declared the Daily Alta California of San Francisco. “Scarcely a steamer arrives that does not bring an account of one or two.” In the five years following California statehood in 1850, Los Angeles County, with some six thousand residents, suffered more than a hundred felonious homicides, twenty-seven of them in 1854 alone. That amounted to a murder rate fifty times greater than New York City, which in 1854 recorded a total of forty-eight homicides in a population of more than six hundred thousand. For every violent death in frontier Los Angeles there were scores of assaults, batterings, rapes, and other acts of brutality. The county’s legal justice system proved unable to keep up with the carnage. Over that five-year period the state district court in Los Angeles successfully tried, convicted, and executed but one man for the crime of murder. In the absence of state-sanctioned justice, vigilance committees and lynch mobs hanged at least a dozen suspected offenders. Most violent crime went unpunished. In the absence of formal justice, lethal violence ran rampant and outlaw justice prevailed.