1850s Vigilantism in Los Angeles via Comedy Central's "Drunk History"

Click here for a pretty funny spoof from Comedy Central's "Drunk History" on violence and vigilantism in 1850s Los Angeles, complete with a naive, law-abiding Benjamin Hayes and a shoot-first, ask-questions-later Andrés Pico on polar opposites of the spectrum.

There are references to actual history, including the county and city jail that had a log across the room with staples attached for securing prisoners (though the log was probably slightly more finished than the rough example in the skit) and what appears to be a loosely-based reenactment of a February 1853 Washington's Birthday celebration at Abel Stearns' El Palacio adobe house, at which party crashers were shot and killed--though not by Don Andrés as shown.

The clip on the link is about 3 1/2 minutes after the obligatory ad, but is worth a look for anyone who has an interest in early Los Angeles and its struggles with crime and violence.

The Los Angeles County Courthouse, November 1856

There were several Los Angeles County courthouses in the first dozen years or so of the American era.  For a few months after the formation of the county in 1850, the adobe house of longtime merchant Abel Stearns, called El Palacio, was used.  The large one-story structure sat on the east side of Main Street and later was razed by Stearns' widow, Arcadia Bandini, and her second husband Robert Baker for the construction of the ornate Arcadia Block.  The site is now where Main crosses the 101 Freeway.

Then, the county contracted with another prominent American, Benjamin D. Wilson and his partner Albert Packard, to use a portion of the Bella Union Hotel, also on Main Street, but a bit south of El Palacio, for court uses.  The hotel served in this function from Summer 1850 to early in 1852.

From there, the courthouse relocated to the adobe house of Benjamin Hayes, who was a city attorney and, for a dozen years, the District Court judge.  From early January 1852 to November 1853, the courthouse actually functioned in the former home of one of its own judges.

The county had explored the idea of building its own courthouse and would do so for years to come, but the only feasible financial option was to acquire another adobe building.  The Rocha Adobe was acquired from yet another prominent American, merchant Jonathan Temple, in August 1853 for just over $3,000.

The Rocha Adobe, situated on the west side of Spring Street, between Temple and First streets, needed some work, so the county budgeted $1,000 for repairs and renovations.  It was also decided to construct a new county and city jail in the courtyard of the adobe, but more on that in a subsequent post.

Despite the moderate improvements to the adobe, the deplorable condition of the building sometimes elicited comment in the press.  None of these was more pungent and potent than an editorial in the Los Angeles Star, dated 29 November 1856.  Likely the piece was penned by the paper's colorful editor, Henry Hamilton, though there is no way to know for sure.  In any case, this jeremiad is worth some attention.

The article began by asking "who was the architect . . . or in what age it was built."  After mockingly observing that the structure bore "marks of genius," he went on to say that "no other man than the projector could have succeeded in placing his victims in positions ensuring them such torture, as the judges, jurors, lawyers and officers must endure, condemned to long sessions in this terrestrial purgatory."

The first paragraph of a Los Angeles Star editorial concerning the decrepit condition of the county courthouse, 29 November 1856.

The court room was denoted as a "hog-pen" in the form of a "compressed parallelogram . . . with the smallest possible modicum of breadth."  In the northern portion, there was "a crib . . . in which the Judge is condemned to ruminate, chewing the cud of bitter fancy."  It was suggested that a judge would be so bitter to toil from that locale that "God help the poor sufferer who is condemned from that box—the verdict of a jury is bad enough, but when it comes, double-distilled, from that judgment-seat, the acrimony of misanthropy must, unwittingly, mix itself up with the gall of defeat."

After expressing the hope that a judge may someday have quarters befitting the name of a true courthouse, instead of an "augean stable," the piece continued that the bench was so cramped that "if he shifts his position, his heels must go up and his head down" and that "set him right side up . . . [and] nothing can be seen but the tip of his nose, or two keen eyes."

In sympathy, the editorial lamented, "Alas, poor judge, often have we silently sympathized with you, in your solitary cell."

Yet, it appears the judge had it fairly easy compared to the gentlement of the jury, according to the piece.

But the jury box, Gracious powers!  The man who constructed the "iron cage," was tender-hearted as a woman, in comparison with the projector of this device of Satan.  The builder must have been fresh from the culprit's doom—a verdict of guilty,  That's certain.

In fact, the article went on, those who concocted the concept of the jury box "should be, in the first place, convicted under the statute against cruelty to animals" and then sentenced to "occupy the same position for double the length of time [as jury service]—if they survive that, they should be excused from jury duty for the remainder of their natural lives."

As for the clerk, his space was "in a cage just big enough for one side of his record book—the other half has to trespass on his neighbor's grounds."  There was no discernible means of entering and exiting, evidently, and the author asked "why a clerk of a court, who is supposed to require, and usually has ceded to him, considerable space for his books and papers, should be thus cooped up, no one but the renowned architect of this building could conceive."

The end of the mocking jeremiad about the deplorable state of the Rocha Adobe.

All paled, however, in comprison to "the accomodations for the Bar—the caps the climax."  The space for attorneys "is an immense four-by-nine area.  It can accomodate one man and a chair at a time. If you put in a second man, you must take out the chair."  A table was considered a luxurious item, so an attorney "may write on the crown of his hat, if it be a stovepipe—if not, he must borrow one or do without writing."  Consultations between clients and their counsel had to take place outside the structure.

Finally, there was the matter of cleanliness, or the lack thereof, according to the writer of the tirade.  Aside from the "cribbed, cabined and confined dimensions of the room, is to be considered the quantity of dust and filth . . . which no amount of sweeping or cleansing can keep away."  With all of this in mind, the editorial concluded

we cannot sufficiently admire the ingenuity of the builder in the construction of such a house for such a purpose, nor the patience of the public—judges, jurors, and lawyers, who quietly submit to the infliction.

Whether there was a good deal of exaggeration or not in this piece, the Rocha Adobe continued as the courthouse for a few more years and this will be the subject of the next post.

Insurrection in Los Angeles County, July 1853!

Gold Rush-era Los Angeles was, by any standard, a hotbed of crime and violence.  An underfunded and understaffed criminal justice administration system was hardly equipped to deal with the spasms of criminal activity that frequently rocked the small frontier town.

Exasperation by the press and, presumably, many of the community's citizens, boiled over in an editorial in the 16 July 1853 edition of the Los Angeles Star.  The piece began with a simple observation, "This county is in a state of insurrection, clearly and plainly so."

This was, the article went on, because, "A large gang of outlaws, many of them expelled for crime from the mines are daily committing the most daring murders and robberies."  Obviously showing displeasure with the local legal system, the writer advised that, "Good citizens should devise plans to defend themselves."

This 16 July 1853 editorial in the Los Angeles Star claimed that Los Angeles County was "in a state of insurrenction" because of increased criminal activity.  Whether or not there was an actual revolt against the authorities, as opposed to a plethora of robberies and killings, is questionable, but the sentiment of concern over crime was palpable.

There were only two alternatives the editorialist could see.  One was that "orderly and industrious inhabitants must drive out this worthless scum of humanity."  The other was that citizens "must give way before the pirates [an interesting word choice there] and be driven out themselves."

A notable and rare reference to pre-American times was then invoked:

In the times of Micheltoreno [Governor Manuel Micheltorena, who presided over Alta California from 1842-45], when the country was infested by a horde of Cholos, thieves and murderers, the citizens mustered and drove the scamps to the seaboard, and then shipped them off to Mexico, where they belonged. 

To the author, "This was revolution, and just such another revolution is needed now."  Otherwise, the piece prophesied, it "will be too late when the assassin's knife has deprived the county of half her best citizens."

Consequently, the only real action was to "Let good citizens combine and drive the rascals headlong into the sea."

Now, there was almost certainly no little exaggeration, overrreaction and a faulty sense of history at work in this exercise in exasperation.  The overthrow of Micheltorena by rebels led by Pío Pico took place at Caheunga Pass in early 1845 and was about far more than just Micheltorena's notorious "guard" composed, it was claimed, of recently-released convicts (Cholos) from Mexican jails.

As to the claim that these "Cholos" were "thieves and murderers," that is not clear at all.  The one in-depth study of criminal justice in Mexican California, David Langum's 1987 study Law and Community on the Mexican California Frontier does not make any reference to increased crime during the Micheltorena years.  He did state that "Crime tended to be localized in the rural society of Mexican California."

There is also in the book a table of cases, compiled by Abel Stearns in the main Los Angeles court, that of the "First Instance," for the years from 1830-1846.  Of the 100 cases listed, 14 were for murder and 24 for theft and robbery.  On a percentage basis, these are not that far removed from statistics for the American era, other than the general scale for crime was much lower in the Mexican period.

The same issue of the Star included this account of the killing of Mexican-born Dolores Martinez in "the upper part of the city," an area commonly known as "Sonoratown."  The piece noted that an inquest of Justice of the Peace (later County Judge) William G. Dryden led to a verdict of Martinez being shot "by a person or persons unknown."

The same day as the "insurrection" editorial were short articles about a homicide and the capture of a horse thief by the Los Angeles Rangers para-military organization.  1853 was also when legendary bandit Joaquin Murieta was spotted throughout California, sometimes in several places at one, before his supposed capture and killing.

In general, there were many crimes and acts of violence plaguing Los Angeles and its outlying areas, so the sentiment expressed in the editorial is understandable.  Whether there was an "insurrection," defined in The American Heritage College Dictionary as "an open revolt against civil authority or a government in power, or not is debatable.

However, this wouldn't be the last time that kind of language was used.  In July 1856, after a deputized constable, William W. Jenkins, killed  Antonio Ruiz, who was being served with a writ of attachment for a $50 deby, and after the January 1857 murder of Sheriff James R. Barton and members of a posse riding to capture bandits near San Juan Capistrano, the fears of a revolt against authorities and "whites" generally were bandied about considerably in the press and elsewhere.

Certainly, in times of higher criminal activity, in an area often brimming with ethnic tension, the tendency to react with more emotion and fear is common.  Whether these impressions are based on real or imagined conditions is another matter.