Yaanga
Yaanga was a large Tongva village, originally located near what is now downtown Los Angeles, just west of the Los Angeles River and beneath U.S. Route 101. People from the village were recorded as Yabit in missionary records although they were known as Yaangavit, Yavitam, or Yavitem among the people. It is unclear what the exact population of Yaanga was prior to colonization, although it was recorded as the largest and most influential village in the region.
Yaangavit were treated as slave laborers during the Mission period by Franciscan padres to construct and work at San Gabriel Mission and Nuestra Señora Reina de los Ángeles Asistencia and forced laborers for the Spanish, Mexican, and American settlers to construct and expand Los Angeles. The colonizers' dependency on Yaanga for forced labor is thought to be a reason for its ability to survive longer than most Indigenous villages in the region. However, after the founding of Pueblo de Los Ángeles in 1781, Yaanga increasingly "began to look more like a refugee camp than a traditional community," and following relentless pressure on the inhabitants to assimilate, the community was eventually dispersed.
The original village seems to have only remained intact until about 1813. After being forcibly relocated several times, eventually eastward across the Los Angeles River, it was razed to the ground by the Los Angeles City Council under American occupation in 1847. Buried intact deposits from Yaanga have been found throughout downtown Los Angeles, such as in the vicinity of Alameda Street, Bella Union Hotel, Union Station, Plaza Church, and the Metropolitan Water District Headquarters.
Etymology
Yaanga, was described in contemporary sources as being a Tongva word meaning "place of the poison oak."Location
The original exact site of Yaanga is unclear because the village was evicted, forcibly relocated, destroyed and is now covered by downtown Los Angeles. However, it is known to have existed near downtown Los Angeles, just west of the Los Angeles River, and beneath U.S. Route 101. One article located the original village site of Yaanga "about 1.4 miles southwest of the current N. Broadway Street at the Los Angeles River in the neighborhood of Los Angeles Street between the current Plaza south towards Temple Street... would have placed the village in close proximity to the pueblo’s earliest plaza and church. The pueblo was established immediately adjacent to Yaanga in 1781 in the area north of the current Los Angeles Plaza Church."Some historians position Yaanga as located slightly south of Los Angeles Plaza, near or underneath where the Bella Union Hotel was located. One historian concludes that "it is highly unlikely that Yaanga would have been located east of the present course of Alameda Street because these areas would have periodically scoured during flood stages of the Los Angeles River, and higher, drier ground could be found farther west."
Several records within the English translations of the early era ayuntamiento or village council held relate that the council formally apportioned a triangular site for use by the Yaanga natives for their village, as well as subsequent attempts by Juan Domingo against this village. The former record indicates that the triangular site apparently was a portion of the Second Settlement Plaza which possibly had been cut through by the historic flood of 1815. The date upon which the site was dedicated for use by Tongva natives is not given in the council translations, but the apportionment took place within fifteen years following the 1825 flood. More than one history of Los Angeles makes claims that in the westward shift of the river in the flood of 1815, the river destroyed both the Natives' village as well as the recently established second pueblo settlement, including the pueblo chapel. The plaza of the second pueblo settlement was located on the north side of Aliso Street a short distance west of El AliSo, the aged totem/signal tree of the Tongva Nation. The river continued to flow westward to Ballona Flats for a ten-year period which lasted until the great flood of spring 1825. The river shifted eastward and cut against the hillside beyond/above which Boyle Heights eventually was settled. The now-empty riverbed of the ten year interregnum was utilized to form a northern passage by which the citizens could easily ford the river north of the juncture of the creek which still combines the drainages of Arroyo de Los Posas and Canada de Los Abilas within the broad valley north of present Boyle Heights.
The triangular site of 'Yaanga' was the remainder of the southeast portion of the plaza of the second settlement. The juncture of the original Aliso Street with the new route to the northeast, which followed the empty riverbed, was at the second settlement plaza. The reason why pueblo inhabitants abandoned the first settlement site to the northwest may have been due to destruction and fear resulting from two great earthquakes that occurred ten days apart in December 1812. The third site of the Los Angeles Pueblo was then arrived at following the flood of 1815.
Excavations
In 1962, Bernice Johnston noted that "...some characteristic items were unearthed during the building of Union Station in 1939, and considerably more... when the historic Bella Union Hotel was built ."In 1992, Joan Brown indicated archaeological materials were found in the vicinity of Union Station:
Previous archaeological studies conducted at and near Union Station indicate that buried intact prehistoric and historic deposits exist in-situ beneath and in the vicinity of Union Station. The extent of the archaeological deposits is unknown at this time. Union Station was constructed on three to twenty feet of fill dirt placed over the original Los Angeles Chinatown. Chinatown, in turn, had been built over the remains of an Indian village, tentatively identified as the village of Yangna.Excavations at the Metropolitan Water District Headquarters in 1999 revealed "a protohistoric cemetery associated with Yabit." It has been reported that excavations near the Plaza Church have "recovered beads and other artifacts used during the period of mission recruitment."
History
Before the mission period
Yaanga was recorded to be one of the most powerful villages in the region. The people who were from Yaanga referred to themselves as Yaangavit. People from the village were recorded as Yabit in missionary records although were known as Yaangavit, Yavitam, or Yavitem among the people.At the center of the village was a large sycamore tree referred to by the Spanish and later settlers as El Aliso, which is believed to have started growing in the late fifteenth century as part of an extensive riparian forest that "thrived alongside the Los Angeles River and the region's inland wetlands" until around 1825, following a large flood which destroyed most of the trees. The massive tree was a gathering place for the local people and was so significant that the Tongva reportedly measured distances in relation to it "and traders from as far away as present-day Yuma knew the tree as a landmark." By the mid-eighteenth century, "the mighty sycamore stood at the center" of Yaanga.
In 1769, the Portolà expedition reached Yaanga. Father Juan Crespí recorded his first interaction with an expedition camp of Yaangavit on August 2:
As soon as we arrived about eight heathen from a good village came to visit us; they live in this delightful place among the trees on the River. They presented us with some baskets of pinole made from the seeds of sage and other grasses. Their chief brought some strings of beads made of shells, and they threw us three handfuls of them. Some of the old men were smoking pipes well made of baked clay and they puffed at us three mouthfuls of smoke. We gave them a little tobacco and glass beads, and they went away well pleased.
On August 3rd, 1769, Crespí reached the village and described his interaction as follows: As they drew near us they began to howl like Wolves; they greeted us and wished to give us seeds, but as we had nothing at hand in which to carry them we did not accept them. Seeing this, they threw some handfuls of them on the ground and the rest in the air.
Mission period
With the founding of Mission San Gabriel in 1771, the Spanish began to the refer to Yaangavit as "Gabrieleños." Mission records indicated that about 179 Yaangavit were baptized at San Gabriel, the highest of any Tongva village, and 1 at San Fernando Mission.The first town of Los Angeles was built next to Yaanga along the Los Angeles River by missionaries and Indian neophytes, or baptized converts, in 1781. It was called El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora la Reina de los Ángeles de Porciúncula. Yaanga was used as a reference point by the pobladores of Los Angeles in the establishment of the pueblo. After the arrival of the colonizers, Yaanga soon ceased to function as it had for thousands of years.
In 1781, tensions emerged between the founders of Los Angeles and the Franciscan padres at Mission San Gabriel over who would have control over newly converted Christian villagers. Felipe de Neve, one of the founders of Los Angeles, traveled to Yaanga to select children for conversion to Christianity with the intent of transplanting villagers from the Mission to the secular pueblo, only having them "return to the missions periodically for religious instruction." Neve "personally acted as padrino, or godfather, at twelve of the baptisms" and renamed one couple Felipe and Phelipa Theresa de Neve and remarried them "in the eyes of the church." In 1784, a sister mission, the Nuestra Señora Reina de los Ángeles Asistencia was founded at Yaanga as well.
Yaangavit were treated as slave laborers by Franciscan padres to construct and work at San Gabriel Mission and Nuestra Señora Reina de los Ángeles Asistencia and forced laborers for the Spanish, Mexican, and American settlers to construct and expand Los Angeles. In 1803, Yaanga's population was reported to be 200. As the demand for "Indian labor" grew, the village became more of a place for refugees of surrounding villages destroyed or otherwise depleted from colonization. Historian William David Estrada states that during this time the village attracted people from local villages, "from the islands, as well as laborers from Missions San Diego and San Luis Rey and beyond... this symbiotic interdependency may have helped Yaanga survive longer than most rancherías."