Pre-1769 (1769) (1800-1850)(1828) Table of Contents
Harry Carr Los Angeles City of Dreams (Illustrated by E.H. Suydam), D. Appleton-Century Co.: NY, 1935, 402 pp., 1935, 1902, pre-1769 See Text
Ingersoll's Century History Santa Monica Bay Cities (Being Book Number Two of Ingersoll's Century Series of California Local History Annals), 1908, 1908a, pre-1769, See Text
Tom Moran and Tom Sewell Fantasy by the Sea Peace Press: Culver City, CA, 1980 (1979) (Originally published by Beyond Baroque Foundation with a grant from the Visual Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts) pre-1768 See Text
Les Storrs Santa Monica Portrait of a City Yesterday and Today, Santa Monica Bank: Santa Monica, CA, 1974, 67 pp., pre-1769 See Text
Betty Lou Young and Randy Young Santa Monica Canyon: A Walk Through History Casa Vieja Press: Pacific Palisades, CA, 1997, 182pp., See Text
Documents
Harry Carr Los Angeles City of Dreams (Illustrated by E.H. Suydam), D. Appleton-Century Co.: NY, 1935, 402 pp., 1935, 1902, pre-1769
Chapter VI Ranches That Are Now Los Angeles
"[p. 64] The movie summer colony at Malibu lives on the beach front of Rancho Malibu Sequet. With its 13,315 acres it was traded by José Bartolome to Leon Victor Prudhomme for four hundred dollars, of which two hundred dollars were [p. 65] to be taken out in groceries,
". . . Its values now run into hundreds of millions. From the summer colony, running back through the hills and canyons-along the north slopes of Antelope Valley -to Nevada and so on all the way to the Dakotas, is a prehistoric trail along which moccasioned feet padded for centuries; they came to with the Indians of Santa Catalina for cosmetics. The movie girls at Malibu were not the first girls there who used lip-sticks and manufactured the complexions you love to touch.
. . .
Chapter XXIII Los Angeles Is Somewhere Else
"[p. 307] On up the beach in the Malibu, the summer cottages of the movie stars . . . although in latter years they have been moving out to other places, discouraged by disastrous fires. The Malibu movie colony lies near the mouth of Topanga Canyon through which ran a prehistoric trail, cut deep into the rocks by the scuff of bare feet and moccasins through the ages. From the pipe-stone relics it is judged that it finally ran all the way to the Dakotas; it has been traced to Newhall-along the north hills of Antelope Valley-out through the Nevada desert to the "lost city" -evidently at that time a salt trading-post. They came to the Malibu to trade with the Santa Catalina Indians for cosmetics, fruits of two solid mountains of iron oxide form which they made rouge. [p. 3081
"[p. 308] Off Los Angeles are San Nicolas, San Clemente and Santa Catalina. In times past all have supported large populations of Indians. Only Santa Catalina is a summer resort.
"When Cabrillo discovered the island in 1542 it swarmed with natives; they had fine canoes and were expert watermen . . . intelligent and friendly. Cabrillo named it Victoria after his flag-ship but Vizcaino changed the name to Santa Catalina on account of the holy day upon which he dropped anchor.
"Relics dug up indicate that there must have been a people earlier than the natives Cabrillo found. Some of these relics are so strange that archaeologists made no attempt at interpretation. . . .
"[p. 309] . . .
"It is doubtful if so many prehistoric relics were ever dug up from an area of similar size. Car-loads, train-loads of ancient mortars, shell necklaces, skulls, weapons, harpoons have been shipped to the ends of the earth. They are still being dug. At one place on the isthmus it is still possible to unearth relics with one's foot. "
" . . .
Ingersoll's Century History Santa Monica Bay Cities (Being Book Number Two of Ingersoll's Century Series of California Local History Annals), 1908, 1908a,, pre-1769
The waters of the bay were sometimes disturbed by the rude boats of the Santa Barbara Channel and Island Indians; the valleys adjacent to the coast and the Santa Monica mountains were the homes of a people who have long since disappeared and of whose existence we know only by the occasional uncovering of skeltons and relics. Several caves and mounds containing curious collections of implements, weapons and bones have been found on the Malibu ranch at various times. These Indians roamed over the plains and through the cienegas, killing rabbits and small game and gathering acorns and grasses, roots and berries. They also fished along the shore, mostly with nets, and gathered shells-their most prized possession. It is said that these shells were particularly abundant along the shore where Ocean Park and Venice now [p. 123] stand and that the Indians from the interior and from Catalina used to visit this spot to secure shells which took the place of money with them.
Vizcaino describes the Indians seen along the coast of California during his explorations early in the seventeenth century as of good form and of active character, the men wearing a short cloak made of rabbit or deer skins, heavily fringed, the more industrious having their garments embroidered with shells. He describes a rancheria seen along the shore in this vicinity as composed of about twenty houses made of rushes over a frame of poles driven into the ground . These were very like the brush ramadas still constructed by the Indians of California. Bancroft states that the Indians of Los Angeles county ate coyotes, skunks, wildcats and all sorts of small animals. They would not eat bear meat or the flesh of large game for superstitious reasons. They were poor hunters having no effective weapons, and hunted deer by hiding themselves under a skin with the head and horn intact, until they were within bowshot. They made fishhooks, needles and other small articles of bone and shell, ground their acorns and seeds in a metate, or stone mill, and constructed wooden boats or tule rafts for their fishing expeditions, using seines made of tough bark.
Tom Moran and Tom Sewell Fantasy by the Sea Peace Press: Culver City, CA, 1980 (1979) (Originally published by Beyond Baroque Foundation with a grant from the Visual Arts Program of the National Endowment for the Arts) pre-1768
The Land
"Marshland and unstable sand dunes made up most of the property that Abbot Kinney owned. A century earlier [1805], Indians from the offshore islands had regularly visited the area to collect decorative marine shells. The Los Angeles River had once flowed through on its way to the sea, but had long since meandered south to a new outlet."
Les Storrs Santa Monica Portrait of a City Yesterday and Today, Santa Monica Bank: Santa Monica, CA, 1974, 67 pp., pre-1769
Chapter One: The Very Early Days
"These early inhabitants lived not only in the Santa Monica Mountains, but also in what is now Santa Monica proper. In fact, it has been discovered that the present grounds of Santa Monica High School are fairly rich in Indian artifacts."
Betty Lou Young and Randy Young Santa Monica Canyon: A Walk Through History Casa Vieja Press: Pacific Palisades, CA, 1997, 182pp.
1. Santa Monica Canyon: The Land and Its Peoples
" . . . the voyage of Juan Cabrillo up the coast from Baja in 1542, . . . sailed into Santa Monica Bay on October 5. . . .
"After Cabrillo, only the yearly passage of the Manila galleons disturbed the coastal waters. For two-and-a-half centuries, these great sailing ships carried passengers and cargoes of gold and silver from Acapulco to Manila and returned laden with the riches of the Orient, crossing the ocean to a point near Cape Mendocino and sailing down the California coast to Acapulco . . . " p. 4