Scene I: Missions vs. Ranchos
This scene begins with Pablo growing disappointed and dissatisfied when he learns that the mission that he has grown up on, and worked for years on, will be passed on to a californio rather than himself.
This scene is occurring during the year 1834, following the secularization movement coming from Mexico. Though Pablo no longer identified as a indios or a peones and instead labels himself as a hispanos, his skin color and facial features showed his family’s past. When Pablo heard of the Mexican Secularization Act of 1833, that had been passed by the Mexican Congress to terminate Spanish control of nearby land, he believed that he may have an opportunity to own and farm land. The law implied that each Indian mission community would become a town with their own functioning government. As stated in Directive 5 and Directive 6;
“Directive 5. To each head of a family, and to all over 20 years old, will be given from the mission lands a lot not over 400 nor less than 100 varas square. In common, will be given them enough land to pasture their stock. Ejidos [common lands] shall be assigned for each pueblo, and at the proper time propios [town lands] also.
Directive 6. Among the same individuals there shall be distributed pro rata, according to the judgment of the gefe politico, one half of the live-stock, taking as a basis the latest inventories rendered by the missionaries” (Securitization and the Rancho Era).
Unfortunately, Pablo, along with many other hard working Native American descendants of the mission system, never got the land and livestock that was intended to be given to them. Instead, these resources were divided among the wealthier families, and Spanish missions essentially turned into Mexican Ranchos.
"Secularization, mostly carried out in 1836-7 under Gobernante Figueroa, was supposed to result in distributing land to the neophytes, virtually none of whom actually acquired lands. About 1,250 people of European descent lived in the Pueblo of Los Angeles in the early 1840s, another 430 lived on the ranchos, and possibly 1,100 Gabrielinos lived and worked as on the ranchos as vaqueros (cowboys) and in the city. A majority had shifted from their roles as nyophyte- vassals of the padres, so that only 300 remained on each of the shrunken mission grounds at San Fernando and San Gabriel by 1846." (Ethington, Regime 6).
"Secularization, mostly carried out in 1836-7 under Gobernante Figueroa, was supposed to result in distributing land to the neophytes, virtually none of whom actually acquired lands. About 1,250 people of European descent lived in the Pueblo of Los Angeles in the early 1840s, another 430 lived on the ranchos, and possibly 1,100 Gabrielinos lived and worked as on the ranchos as vaqueros (cowboys) and in the city. A majority had shifted from their roles as nyophyte- vassals of the padres, so that only 300 remained on each of the shrunken mission grounds at San Fernando and San Gabriel by 1846." (Ethington, Regime 6).
Pablo moves to a nearby rancho to begin work tending cattle and working as a farm hand. This rancho is called Rancho de Azusa. This rancho is closer to the up-and-coming city of Los Angeles, and thus Pablo is able to learn more about urban life in Southern California.
Pablo loses his job working on the rancho when the LA river floods and destroys the agriculture on Rancho de Azusa's land in the 1860s and thus he is forced to venture into downtown Los Angeles to seek work. Here, Pablo and his fellow vaqueros meet a family of Mexican immigrants in Los Angeles. Pablo finds love-at-first-sight with an intelligent and beautiful Mexican woman named Eva and they begin to plan out their life together.
