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Commodore Robert Field Stockton Takes Charge

The very first view of LA, from 1847, looking down from Fort Hill to La Placita church and the Plaza. This was the enemy capital as Stockton saw it — and took it. On August 13, his Marines camped on the Plaza.

On August 13, 1846, Commodore Stockton led his footsore Marines, joined almost at the last minute by Maj. Fremont’s mounted California Battalion, into the nearly deserted capital of Alta California, El Ciudad de Los Angeles. Ten years later, in 1856, Fremont was the popular hero, a gold millionaire, a former California Senator, and running for President — the first, and very controversially anti-slavery, candidate of the Republican Party. During that election year, Stockton threw out a ghost-written pamphlet telling his own story as Fremont’s (nominal) commanding officer, and highlighting his own role as the true kick-ass hero of the California Theatre of the Mexican War. From the moment he took command of the Pacific Squadron in Monterey Bay, Stockton began planning his conquest of California. (Note that the following account of Stockton’s “pivot to aggression” was intended to be highly flattering of the Commodore’s independent character:)

“It must be admitted that it took great moral courage to assume the responsibility of the enterprise which Cmdr. Stockton thought it his duty to undertake. He had no precedent in U.S. history to guide him. He had no instructions which applied to the emergency. And we are informed that he held no council, with whose deliberations he might divide the responsibility of his decisions. His decisions were the result of his own patriotic sense of duty. Indeed, we have been informed that he has said, that from his departure from the United States, in the fall of 1845, to the close of his career in California, he never asked the advice of anyone, nor took any counsel in relation to any measure of importance…Having determined upon the most decisive measures, Commodore Stockton, assuming the command-in-chief, civil and military, issued his proclamation (at Monterey, July 23, 1846) placing the country under martial law.”
— A Sketch of the Life of Commodore Robert F. Stockton, With an Appendix, Etc. 1856

Stockton’s Monterey martial-law proclamation shocked the Californios. It came on the heels of Commodore Sloat’s friendly proclamation of American possession-as-protectorate. California had been abandoned by Mexico, and Monterey had accepted Sloat’s gunboats without a murmur of resistance. But suddenly the benign, reassuring Sloat retired, and was replaced by Stockton. Acting entirely on his own initiative and out of his own prejudice against the Mexican nation, Stockton immediately insisted Alta California had committed bellicose outrages against the United States, chief amongst which was that:

“General [Jose] Castro, the commander-in-chief of the military forces of California, has violated every principle of international law and national hospitality (sic) by hunting and pursuing with several hundred soldiers, and with wicked intent (sic), Captain Fremont, of the United States Army, who came here to refresh his men, (about forty in number), after a perilous journey across the mountains on a scientific survey.”

[In other words, California deserved conquest, because her officers had dared to defend her against conquest. Remember, Patient Reader, that Capt. Fremont’s brigade had spent the last few months taunting Castro, refusing to leave the territory, leading him on a wild goose chase around Northern California, massacring and stirring up the Indians, and then stirring up any American “emigrants” they could find with tales that Castro and the Indians were planning to slaughter them. Fremont even seized the heights of Gavilan Peak, in sight of Castro’s camp, to run up the Stars and Stripes as a pre-emptive act of conquest-by-discovery — tee hee! — then pulled the flag down and – tee hee! — slipped away into the tules.]

“On assuming command of the forces of the United States on the coast of California, both by sea and land [a presumptuous assumption, Gen. Kearny of the Army would later declare] I find myself [sic] in possession of the ports of Monterey and San Francisco, with daily reports from the interior of scenes of rapine, blood and murder…I am constrained by every principle of national honor…to put an end at once, and by force, to the lawless depredations daily committed by General Castro’s men upon the persons and property of peaceful and unoffending [American] inhabitants…I cannot, therefore, confine my operations to the quiet and undisturbed possession of the defenceless ports of Monterey and San Francisco, while the people elsewhere are suffering from lawless violence, but will immediately march against those boasting and abusive chiefs, who…unless driven out, will with the aid of the hostile Indians, keep this beautiful country in a constant state of revolution and blood, as well as against all others who may be found in arms, or aiding and abetting General Castro.”

The Californios thus discovered they were not, in fact, going to be brought into the Union by a peaceful stroke of republican independence, which had been promised by Cmdr. Sloat, and anyway long-since negotiated between Gen. Vallejo and the U.S. consul Thomas Larkin. Stockton overruled all that patient diplomacy, in favor of a full-scale invasion and ravaging of the country, at his own behest and under his own personal direction, hostilities to be ended only upon his own personal satisfaction.

The Californians were further alarmed by the report that, at a party that night on the quarterdeck of the U.S.S. Congress, over cigars and brandy, Stockton got expansive, stared up at the stars twinkling through the lacy Monterey pines, and outlined his plans to punish, chastise, put the boot to, and in every way scorch the earth of California. If the Southern Californians dared keep up an insolent resistance, Stockton boasted, he looked forward to hoisting the flag over the capital of the territory, even if he had to wade through the Los Angeles Plaza with the blood of slain Mexicans lapping at the top of his boots. Or words to that effect. This report came from the Mexican officer Juan Maria Flores, who was standing right there when Stockton said it.

Southern California’s coast, with the port of “Pedro” and the town of “Angeles” marked, along with El Camino Real leading up from San Diego past “Sn. Luci Rey” and “Sn. Campistrano.”. The Homestead Museum reckons this as the oldest extant U.S. military map of the territory, found among the papers of an adjutant at Monterey, and dated July 17, 1847.

“On the 1st of August Commodore Stockton sailed with the Congress to…San Pedro, on the coast about thirty miles distant from the Ciudad de Los Angeles. He landed at once 350 sailors and Marines, established them in camp, and commenced drilling them for the service contemplated. [Upon receiving Castro’s offer of a parley and a truce until Washington and Mexico City worked out a peace, Stockton] …directed the messengers to return to their master, and inform him that the American commander intended to march immediately to Ciudad de Los Angeles; that General Castro should prepare to surrender his arms, disperse his forces, and require his men to return to their homes and demean themselves peaceably, under penalty of being dealt with in the most rigorous manner. He ordered them to tell Castro that he would not negotiate with him on any other terms than those of absolute submission to the authority of the President of the United States. Having, through an interpreter, delivered this message in the most fierce and offensive manner, and in a tone of voice significant of the most implacable and hostile determination, he waved them from his presence imperiously with the insulting imperative, “Vamose!”
On the 11th of August, Stockton commenced his march upon Delos Angeles. The enemy were often in sight, hovering on the brows of adjacent hills. The artillery and ammunition carts were dragged along by the sailors over hills and through tedious valleys of sand, but without complaint or reluctance. [The Marines camped that night at Rancho Cerritos, owned by American Jonathan “Don Juan” Temple.] On the 12th, as they approached within a few miles of Castro’s position, another courier arrived…with a pompous message: “that if he marched upon the town he would find it the grave of his men.” “Then,” said Stockton, “tell your general to have the bells ready to toll in the morning at eight o’clock, as I shall be there at that time.” He was there at that time; but the California general of couriers and despatches was unwilling to risk a battle. Evidently panic-stricken, without firing a gun, Castro broke up his camp, dispersed his forces…and fled in the direction of Sonora. His artillery fell into the hands of the Americans. His principal officers…Don Andres Pico and Don Juan Maria Flores, surrendered, and were set at liberty on their parole of honor not to serve against the United States in the war. Ciudad de Los Angeles capitulated without any specifications of terms, and on the 13th of August, Commodore Stockton took possession of the capital of California.”
— A Sketch of the Life of Commodore Robert F. Stockton, With an Appendix, Etc. (Derby & Jackson, 1856)– A Sketch of the Life of Commodore Robert F. Stockton, With an Appendix, Etc.

Thus Stockton took Los Angeles quietly, in the morning, without firing a shot. He marched his Marine band around the Plaza; did the honors with the colors; and set up his H.Q. in “Government House,” the old Isaac Williams adobe on Main Street. This casa had been bought by Pio Pico when he removed the political capital to LA in 1845, so the administration would have offices. It was also conveniently next door to “El Palacio”, the grand courtyard adobe of the wealthy American Don Abel Stearns, who was at that time serving as L.A.’s alcalde. Doubtless Dona Arcadia offered the Commodore and his officers the fine bedchambers. That evening the band took formation in the Plaza, and gave a lengthy pops concert. The music lured the wary Angelenos back from the hills and ravines where they had fled, and LA slept quietly that night,

But things would not remain quiet; Stockton’s rude taunts and baseless accusations of crimes against humanity, his self-serving saber-rattling, and his deliberate insults to their patriotic honor, had hardened the Southern Californios’ hearts to Yankee rule. They endured a month under the thumb of the officer that Stockton left in charge of the city, Marine Capt. Archibald Gillespie; then hot-head Sebula Varela issued his pronunciamiento, Generals Flores and Pico responded by renouncing their parole, and the Californios revolted against their overlords. It has been argued that Gillespie was no martinet, but that he was just following Stockton’s gall-and-wormwood orders: prohibiting LA’s duennas from accompanying their muchachas on the traditional posada around the Plaza, for instance, because it was “unlawful assembly.” The California Lancers constituted themselves under Flores, besieged the Marines up on treeless, waterless, Fort Hill, received their surrender, and marched them at gunpoint back onto their ships and out of the harbor at San Pedro. Stockton had underestimated the Californios, and over the next four months, this mistake would be paid for with American blood, as well as Mexican.

The El Camino Real bell on the Plaza, placed 1906.

Francisco Avila’s Adobe — Cmdr. Stockton’s HQ — Christine Sterling’s Castle in Spain — LA’s Oldest House, 1818

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Thank Western States Jewish History for this outstanding map of historic streets and sites around the Plaza. Avila’s casa is #14 on the right. Note that an ell appears stretched out lazily into Vines Street, which became Olvera Street. Maybe Francisco wanted to have an indoor tap over the Zanja Madre, which flows right down the alley. In the sleepy Pueblo property lines were fluid, and needs-based. Under American rule, the ayuntamiento realized that to participate in the new Yankee land speculation game, they’d need gridded lots. So the City hired Edward Ord to prepare a four-square survey. This started to fix LA’s modern street plan, and the Avila-Rimpau family may have had to tear down half their casa. Still, regular streets enabled the real beginnings of LA Wheel Estate. See the “Camino Para San Fernando,” now Hill Street through Chinatown, then San Fernando Road; and “Calle Aliso”, which going east, forded the muddy River at El Aliso Vineyards, then tracked through the plains of East LA towards San Gabriel Mission. To the west, Aliso was extended and in the 1950s, was turned into the 101 Freeway, obliterating the entire left-hand-side of this map. It’s Progress.

The adobe is shaded by an ancient California pepper tree. Originally Peruvian, they were first planted at Mission San Luis Rey in 1825. The tree’s pretty shade and spicy berries made it very popular with all the Californios; it has become naturalized here, and remains an emblem of Old California. It seems that Christine Sterling planted this one, maybe 90 years ago.

Music was central to life in early Los Angeles. Musician-farmers were actively recruited – “a beneficial profession” – by Gov. Felipe de Neve to be among the pobladores of LA. Music was played and sung by all classes of people daily at home. Richard Henry Dana wrote that he’d never heard people with such beautiful voices as in Alta California. And in church, the Mission Indian choirs became famous among amazed European visitors for their perfect pitch and Roman Latin in the masses and motets. Traditional Mexican tunes were at the center of all civic ceremonies and events; a wedding or a fandango could go on for a week.

The Avila Adobe curators have done a fine job of displaying the musicophilia of early Los Angeles.The guitar and castanets were caballero arts that connected a striving frontier Don and Dona with the graces of Hispanic traditional culture. Violins, concertinas, flutes and fiddles came on Boston ships and with Boston sailors to San Pedro, and brought in French and German and Italian and English classical dance music, galops and intermezzi, airs and reels. Of pianos, there were only one or two in the whole province, until the wealthy ranching period after the Gold Rush put them in many salas, where they would be eagerly shown off to visitors hoping to find someone who could play them.

COME FOLLOW THE BAND — HOW CMDR. STOCKTON MOVED IN

In January, 1847, the house served as headquarters for Naval Commander Robert F. Stockton, when he retook the enemy capital, “The Angels,” after a bloody march up from San Diego. Like most Angelenos, Encarnacion Avila had fled with her family as the Norte Americanos marched in to occupy Alta California’s capital to the martial swing of a Marine Band.

The legend goes that Dona Avila left the shuttered house in the care of a servant boy, warning him strictly not to let anyone in. As the lively marches, polkas and airs drifted down Vines Street from the Plaza, the spellbound boy, who had never heard a brass band or Yankee music before, couldn’t help himself. He crept out and drifted up to the Plaza to watch the Mexican colors torn down and the Stars and Stripes run up. Just then, Stockton’s quartermaster stalked down Vines Street, hunting for provender; he saw the open door, and peeked into the sumptuous sala. By ancient common law — the law of the unlocked door — he entered and commandeered the adobe on the spot for Stockton’s personal bivouac.

As downtown Los Angeles boomed and degenerated into “Los Diablos” in the 1860s, 70’s, and 80’s, the Avila-Sepulveda-Rimpau family reluctantly abandoned downtown (like all the old Californio families). They thus became unwitting absentee landlords of an urban slum, renting out the adobe as a cheap flop-house and more or less forgetting it existed. The City finally condemned the property in 1928. (For more on “absentee landlordism in California”I refer Patient Reader to Henry George’s “Progress and Poverty.”)

CHRISTINE STERLING MOVES IN — “MOTHER OF OLVERA STREET”

“Today I stood in the silent rooms, saw the crumbling walls, the boarded-up windows, the dirt and neglect. I remember taking from the public library a book on the “History of Los Angeles.” It was a picture of this old house labeled “American headquarters in 1847.” I walked out into the patio. The fine old pepper trees were now just barren stumps. A pile of rotting garbage replaced the flowers which once blossomed there. But in spite of it all, the spirit of those men and women who lived and loved here in this old home still lingered about the place.“

— Christine Sterling’s diary, 1928

Christina Sterling, late 20s
Olvera St., late 20s

Patient Reader might remember the story of how Christine Sterling, an educated and artistic San Francisco widow/divorcee, came upon the Avila Adobe with a sign declaring it “Condemned by Order of the City.” Remember how all her romantic swirling dreams of Old California, what Carey McWilliams dubbed “the Spanish Fantasy Past,” became crystalized in that moment, in her fight to save the Avila Adobe, and preserve Olvera Street. “I closed my eyes,” she wrote later, “and thought of the Plaza as a Spanish-American social and commercial center, a spot of beauty as a gesture of appreciation to México and Spain for our historical past.” Desperate to save the adobe from demolition, she posted her own hand-written sign beside the red-tag.
“Let the people of Los Angeles show honor and respect to the history of their city by making sacred and inviolate the last of the old landmarks and that spot where the city of Los Angeles was born.”

Recall how she convinced the Rimpau heirs to give her a long-term lease on very generous terms. Ponder how her vision became diluted and adulterated by racism and commercialism and ego. Then recall how Ms. Sterling, essentially by the same “Open Door” policy that served Stockton, subtly just moved in to the Avila Adobe when her own times got hard, and lived in its cool shady recesses until her death in 1962. She was certainly the longest-dwelling tenant the building ever knew. Since she kept it more or less open as a living museum during her residence, I don’t think anybody really minded. But it was her “cultural appropriation” that justified the actual appropriation. The acceptance of Anglo Los Angeles that it has always been the historic center of Mexican culture in America, began when Christine Sterling felt the spirits of Old California stomping around the Avila Adobe, as they always have.

Achoicomenga; or, Where the Indians Were

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THE THEATRE OF CONVERSION, Part 2

Take in View: Achoicomenga, the Valley’s largest Indian rancheria. It sat at the apex of a vast sunny triangle, on the high ground of a south-east tilting wetland plain. Foothills and canyons were all around, dribbling their creeks. These canyons were cool in the summer. And because the plain, in winter, lies above the shadow of the Santa Monica Mountains, it was a warm spot during the solstice festival. The village was sun-kissed, and excellent for human morale. (The very name “Tataviam” means “people facing the sun,” or “people of the southern slopes.”)

Each side of the Valley was the territorial limit of a different tribe, each with its own language. The Tongva were most numerous, and held the Santa Monica Mountains and the LA River valley. The Tataviam settled around 650 C.E. on the southern slopes of the San Gabriels, but their range extended through the mountain canyons up to their core homeland in the Santa Clara Valley. Both the Tongva and Tataviam languages descend from the Takic, of the Uto-Aztecan family. Tongva and Tataviam were not necessarily mutually intelligible in speech. The band of Chumash that settled in the West Valley, Simi Valley, Calabasas and on the Malibu coast, were the southern-most of the Chumashan peoples. Their main territory extended to Ventura, where the Franciscans had already begun to reduce (sic) the Indians and disrupt the ancient Chumash culture. Achoicomenga contained residents of all three tribes. The town lay just outside each of the tribes’ core territories; or, conversely, just inside each tribe’s frontier. it was a metropolis; it was an expression of the Valley’s geography.

Pacoima, the lush mini-valley surrounding the village, was the southern-most land of the Tataviam. Pasaakogna (Pacoima) means “The Entrance Place,” Entrada, or canyon-mouth. This implies a kind of front yard or porch leading to their home lands. It’s reasonable to conjecture the village was originally a Tataviam settlement, which then attracted Tongva and Chumash; eventually these outnumbered Tataviam.

A house in Achoicomenga was a kije, or kiche, a dome of tule-reed mats tied onto a willow frame. A kije could be sized for an individual, or could be large enough for a family, or several families, on platform-beds. Around the village would be temescals, sweat lodges, and at the center a wamkech — a kind of temple, or dancing-floor for the performance of sacred choreography. Seasonally, or when kijes got filthy or worn out, they were burned; so the town rebuilt itself.

The foothills and canyons supplied abundant game, a pharmacopeia of herbs, basketsful of berries seeds, mineral crystals for amulets, potions and pigments, game animals for meat, skins and feathers for costumes and ceremonies, and bounties of nutritious acorns. The dry/wet Valley floor teemed with rabbits, tule elk, deer and antelope, yuccas and sage. Steelhead ran up the creeks as far as Little Tujunga. Grizzlies prowled everywhere.

Tongva, Tataviam, and Chumash people shared and integrated each others’ cultures at Achoicomenga. This is a generic illustration from the Santa Monica Audubon, but the setting looks just like Pacoima Wash: looking south past the green Lopez hills to the Santa Monica Mountains.

Click below for social historian John R. Johnson’s article “The Indians of Mission San Fernando.”

https://scvhistory.com/scvhistory/hssc97-3_jjohnson.pdf

During the first four years of the mission’s existence, the missionaries concentrated most of their conversion efforts among the Gabrielino/Tongva inhabitants of
rancherías within the San Fernando Valley proper, especially the large rancherías of Cahuenga, Tujunga, Siutcanga, and Jajamonga. In 1802 and 1803 the focus was on Tataviam rancherías of the upper Santa Clara River watershed, while Ventureño Chumash from the
Malibu Creek drainage and Simi Valley were mostly proselytized between 1803 and 1804…
— John R. Johnson, The Indians of Mission San Fernando, So. Cal. Hist. Soc.

THE ?ANTAP RELIGION

Achoicomenga was a, or possibly the, center of the ?antap religion, which apparently came from the Chumash. ?antap was a spiritual movement that elaborated and overlay the tribes’ traditional religions; it did not displace their myth cycles, clan totems or seasonal hunting dances, but adapted and re-regulated them. ?antap brought a new class of shamans or spiritual elites, in alliance with a new class of chiefs. The main innovation of ?antap was the ritual consumption of jimsonweed, or moonflower, of the genus Datura. The Spanish word for the plant is “toloache;” the Chumash name is Momoy, same as their moon goddess. Toloacheros, toloache doctors, were a class of mostly Chumash shamans who skilled themselves in preparing doses that would promote visions and altered states of consciousness. (Momoy can be either hallucingenic or deadly poison in nearly equal doses.)

Thus, clan ceremonies that had been traditional, like puberty rites, male initiations, hunting rituals, and mourning ceremonies, took on an element of extreme out-of-body mysticism by adding the goddess Momoy to the myths. It’s also certain that other synergistic drugs were involved, especially various kinds of tobacco. Nicotiana attenuata or Nicotiana glauca were consumed along with Momoy. It is likely that toloacheros might mix different blends for different individuals. Vision questers would meet their guide animals, consult the dead, or meet the great chiefs on a toloache trip.

“Momoy” was the Chumash goddess of the moon, about whom many myths were told. Momoy was also the word for the moonflower. Thus, as in all true myth: the drug you ingested was the body of the goddess, who was the moon, which was the myth.

Many California tribes took toloache sparingly, and in the context of a public ceremony; maybe, only once or twice in a lifetime. But at Achoicomenga around the time of the Spanish invasion, individual seekers seem to have been visiting toloacheros throughout their lives, as a kind of religious self-help cult. It seems to have been a way of coaxing the individual back to the voices of the animals and the gods; righteous voices which affirmed Indian lifeways in the face of great environmental and social change. Momoy helped Indians hear the voices that were no longer so loud and clear.

“In major villages, at least a dozen ?antap operated, performing ceremonies and rituals locally, and traveling to disparate villages to participate in ceremonies there. The ?antap cult helped to integrated Chumash society across geographical boundaries, and membership in the cult enhanced a person’s status… Individuals of all stations used it, including shamans and curers — the latter administering it occasionally to their patients. Chumash of both sexes routinely ingested the drug… Chumash used datura for individual rather than collective reasons; and people consumed it routinely in the village, rather than at a special site. Datura suffused all of Chumash society. It stood at the center of Chumash life, fully integrated into mythology, used in religion, medicine, and personal spiritual growth.”
— James A. Sandos, “Levantamiento! The 1824 Chumash Uprising Reconsidered.”

Richard B. Appelgate’s 1975 article on the Datura cult among the Chumash:

https://escholarship.org/content/qt37r1g44r/qt37r1g44r.pdf

But the most fascinating thing about the religious life of Achoicomenga in 1795, is that, atop the intricate pattern of ancient myth-dances, seasonal or celestial observances, and awe-some hallucination ceremonies, there was a more recent religion, a dynamic revivalist cult that swept over Southern California’s rancherias in the second half of the 18th century. This was the cult of a semi-divine hero, Chinigchinich, who appeared at the moment his tyrant father was overthrown (he had reigned over a Golden Age, but then grew into a corrupt and impotent tyrant). Chinigchinich taught the Indians to BE Indians, it was said; he created them from what they were before into men. He instituted the proper dances and ritualized what foods were good and when to hunt. When he left this realm he danced his way up to the stars, where the good captains [chiefs] go. But he left Raven on Earth to watch people’s behavior. If the laws and ways of Chinigchinich were followed, all the spirit animals would help the Indian find right living and gain enormous supernatural power. But if the values and dances of Chinigchinich were dishonored or ignored, or the Indian became lazy or cruel or unreliable to his friends, then Chinigchinich would send his spirit animals, snake and coyote and scorpion, to torment and chastise the evil-doer.

The Chinigchinch cult grew upon, and into, and out of, and then grew protectively all around, the ?antap religion — just as a mighty oak grows upon, and into, and out of, and finally all around, the boulders in a canyon.

NEXT: THE THEATRE OF CONVERSION, Part 3: Chinigchinich; or, The Curious Franciscan

“What’s Wrong With California?”

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GEOLOGY DEPT.

“Uplift, my dear, it’s all about uplift.” *A piece of Top Hill, cut away to make Hansen Dam. This transected butte is one of the first scrunched-up hills to rise off the Valley floor as “the Foothills” of the San Gabriels.*

In the rainy season, our TV is filled with”Storm Watches” and breathless predictions of floods and mudslides. The apocalyptic neon disaster maps — drizzles in distant mountains — break only for interviews with (stoned) residents in far-flung canyons, teasing out their fears of, or previous experience with, hillside collapse. The constant videos of muddy arroyos and airlifted horses upset Janet. With her New England preference for worn-in mountains and bedrock that doesn’t change for centuries, and her consequent instinct for the sharp razor of moral absolutes, she put to me the Bostonian’s eternal question: “What’s wrong with California?” “Nothing,” I snapped, and left the room.

Of course, I wanted to defend our loosely-affiliated, peripatetic soil against Eastern prejudice, but is there a simple answer to the shifting geology here? My esprit d’escalier whispered “Uplift…tell her it’s all about uplift.”

What do I know about uplift? Bupkus. So I hit the Internets to learn the theory, and went up Little Tujunga Canyon for the field photos.

500 feet higher: not only uplifted, but upended. Compacted layers of mudflows and various intrusions of lava have been broken by faults, tilted and piled into mountains. This petrified alluvium may have been formed as the then-Valley floor, like Rabbit Hill.

My first shock came from finding the map above. More black = more tectonic complexity. Yikes! LOOK at Southern California! This is the youngest land on earth, protean, ad hoc; it’s constantly under pressure from hundreds of different “vectors” at the convergence of three, maybe four, different plates (the North American, the Pacific, and the Cocos Plate of the East Pacific Rise, on which Baja floats, and maybe the tiny Rivera Plate. The map below makes it clear how the whole American West is orogenically “recent,” less than 100 million years.

Southern California is the result of three different plates rubbing up against each other; the North American, Pacific, and Cocos. The Pacific is rotating counter-clockwise, which will roll coastal LA north, towards where San Francisco now sits, in geologic time. This rolling will keep piling up the mountains on the North American plate.

Clearly the View is no rock scientist…er, geologist. But Benjamin F. Howell, Jr., was. Click on the link for his 1949 Northridge master’s thesis on “Structural Geology of the Region Between Pacoima and Little Tujunga Canyons, San Gabriel Mountains, California.” Howell’s descriptions of the land are exactly to be recognized today; only he doesn’t know why. Science hadn’t learned about plate tectonics yet; so Howell’s well-described process of uplift, which is driving the very recent geology of Little Tujunga, remained a mystery.

https://thesis.library.caltech.edu/8208/1/Howell%2C%20Jr%2C%20BF%201949.pdf

Today is a big storm. When the TV news comes on later, I can now calmly reassure Janet:

“Uplift, my dear, it’s all about uplift. Strike-slip faults; you know. Plate tectonics? The Transverse Range? Alluvial fan deposits, and magma batholiths? They rise through eroding sandstone layers, leaving granite domes and ridges. The prevailing westerlies? Fog banks? Monterey Shale? Gneiss, quartz, and dolomite? They erode to pebbles and sand, wash down to the sea at San Pedro, get compressed to rock, and then a million years later, another lurch north of the Pacific Plate scrunches the sea-bed up and up into high mountains, where it splits into fault blocks, then erodes again to boulders that get washed down the creeks, gold bars and placer deposits. They all tumble back into the sandy sea bed, and are uplifted again, and again, ad infinitum.”