Editing Tongva (section)

=== Mexican secularization and occupation (1834–1848) ===
{{Further|Mexican Secularization Act of 1833|Ranchos of California}}[[File:Two Tongva women.jpg|thumb|283x283px|Two Tongva women at the San Fernando Mission, {{Circa|1890|lk=no}}]]The mission period ended in 1834 with secularization under Mexican rule.<ref name=":4" /> Some "Gabrieleño" were absorbed into Mexican society as a result of secularization, which emancipated the neophytes.<ref name=":3" /> Tongva and other California Natives largely became workers while former Spanish elites were granted huge land grants.<ref name=":3" /> Land was systemically denied to California Natives by ''[[Californios|Californio]]'' land-owning men. In the Los Angeles basin area, only 20 former neophytes from San Gabriel Mission received any land from secularization. What they received were relatively small plots of land. A "Gabrieleño" by the name of Prospero Elias Dominguez was granted a 22-acre plot near the mission while Mexican authorities granted the remainder of the mission land, approximately 1.5 million acres, to a few colonist families. In 1846, it was noted by researcher Kelly Lytle Hernández that 140 Gabrieleños signed a petition demanding access to mission lands and that ''Californio'' authorities rejected their petition.<ref name=":6" />

Emancipated from enslavement in the missions yet barred from their own land, most Tongva became [[Landlessness|landless]] refugees during this period. Entire villages fled inland to escape the invaders and continued devastation. Others moved to Los Angeles, a city which saw an increase in the Native population from 200 in 1820 to 553 in 1836 (out of a total population of 1,088).<ref name=":6" /> As stated by scholar Ralph Armbruster-Sandoval, "while they should have been owners, the Tongva became workers, performing strenuous, back-breaking labor just as they had done ever since settler colonialism emerged in Southern California."<ref name=":5" /> As described by researcher Heather Valdez Singleton, Los Angeles was heavily dependent on Native labor and "grew slowly on the back of the Gabrieleño laborers."<ref name=":17" /> Some of the people became ''[[vaquero]]s'' on the ranches, highly skilled horsemen or cowboys, herding and caring for the cattle. There was little land available to the Tongva to use for food outside of the ranches. Some crops such as corn and beans were planted on ranchos to sustain the workers.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Imhoff|first=Christyne|title=One Land: Many Peoples, Many Ways : Teacher Manual|publisher=National Park Service, Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area|year=1998|pages=62–63}}</ref>

Several Gabrieleño families stayed within the [[San Gabriel Township, California|San Gabriel township]], which became "the cultural and geographic center of the Gabrieleño community."<ref name=":17" /> Yaanga also diversified and increased in size, with peoples of various Native backgrounds coming to live together shortly following secularization.<ref name=":6" /> However, the government had instituted a system dependent on Native labor and servitude and increasingly eliminated any alternatives within the Los Angeles area. As explained by Kelly Lytle Hernández, "there was no place for Natives living but not working in Mexican Los Angeles. In turn, the ''ayuntaminto'' (city council) passed new laws to compel Natives to work or be arrested."<ref name=":6" /> In January 1836, the council directed ''Californios'' to sweep across Los Angeles to arrest "all drunken Indians."<ref name=":6" /> As recorded by Hernández, "Tongva men and women, along with an increasingly diverse set of their Native neighbors, filled the jail and convict labor crews in Mexican Los Angeles."<ref name=":6" /> By 1844, most Natives in Los Angeles worked as servants in a perpetual system of servitude, tending to the land and serving settlers, invaders, and colonizers.<ref name=":6" />

The ''ayuntamiunto'' forced the Native settlement of Yaanga to move farther away from town. By the mid-1840s, the settlement was forcibly moved eastward across the [[Los Angeles River]], placing a divide between Mexican Los Angeles and the nearest Native community. However, "Native men, women, and children continued to live (not just work) in the city. On Saturday Nights, they even held parties, danced, and gambled at the removed Yaanga village and also at the plaza at the center of town." In response, the ''Californios'' continued to attempt to control Native lives, issuing Alta California governor [[Pío Pico|Pio Pico]] a petition in 1846 stating: "We ask that the Indians be placed under strict police surveillance or the persons for whom the Indians work give [the Indians] quarter at the employer's rancho."<ref name=":6" /> In 1847, a law was passed that prohibited Gabrielenos from entering the city without proof of employment.<ref name=":7" /> A part of the proclamation read:<ref name=":17" /><blockquote>Indians who have no masters but are self-sustaining, shall be lodged outside of the City limits in localities widely separated... All vagrant Indians of either sex who have not tried to secure a situation within four days and are found unemployed, shall be put to work on public works or sent to the house of correction.</blockquote>In 1848, Los Angeles formally became a town in the United States following the [[Mexican–American War|Mexican-American War]].<ref name=":6" />