The Quintero Family, the Pueblo of Los Angeles and Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas

The Pueblo of Los Angeles was founded September 4^th, 1781. In December of 1779 Lieutenant Governor Don Fernando Rivera y Moncada was sent south to Sinaloa and Sonora to recruit settlers and assemble an escort for the journey to Los Angeles. The two groups, totaling 44 persons (including 22 children), departed for Los Angeles from Los Alamos in April of 1781. One group under Alferez Ramon Laso de la Vega crossed the Gulf of California in launches and travelled overland to San Diego and then onward to the San Gabriel Mission. The second group, under Fernando Rivera y Moncada, took an overland route on the Anza trail 1,200 miles through the desert from Sinaloa, Mexico.

They passed through the new missions on the Colorado River, Mission Puerto de Purisima Concepcion and Mission San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuner. The group arrived at the Colorado River in June of 1781. Rivera y Moncada sent most of his party ahead, but he stayed behind to rest the livestock before continuing their drive across the desert. His party would never reach San Gabriel. In July, Rivera was killed along with the local missionaries, settlers, and travelers with the revolt of the Quechan Indians (The Yuma Revolt) in 1781.

The Quechan and Mojave Indians rose up against the party for encroaching on their farmlands and for the many other abuses inflicted  upon them by the soldiers. From the 17th to the 19th of July in 1781 the Yuma (Quechan) Indians destroyed both the missions and pueblos, they killed 103 soldiers, colonists and the Mission Friars. They captured about 80 more, mostly women and children. Amid the casualties were Fernando Rivera y Moncada and Fray Francisco Garces. The Spanish were able to gather their dead and ransom nearly all the prisoners; but failed to re-open the Anza Trail. The Yuma Crossing and the Anza Trail were closed to Spanish traffic and would stay closed until about 1846. California was largely isolated from land based travel, with the only way into California from Mexico was now a 40 to 60 day sea voyage. According to historian David Weber, the Yuma Revolt turned California into an "island" and Arizona into a "cul de sac", severing Arizona-California and Mexican land connections before they could be firmly established.

Of the original 44 pobladores of El Pueblo de La Reina de Los Angeles; one included my 6th great grandfather, Luis Manuel Quintero (1726-1810); he was an Afro-Mexican tailor from Guadalajara, Jalisco (perhaps the son of an African slave). Quintero was the very last recruit to sign up with Rivera y Moncada. His wife, my 6th great grandmother, Maria Petranila Timotea Rubio (1743-1802), was born in about 1741 from Los Alamos, Sonora; she is described as a mulata, or a person of mixed Spanish and African descent. They were married in about 1760 at Los Alamos, Sonora, Mexico and their eight (or nine) children included, my 5th great grandmother, Maria Faviana Sebastiana Quintero (1766-1822). Luis Manuel Quintero’s decision to join the expedition was likely colored by the January 1781 marriages of 3 of his daughters to 3 of the expeditionary soldiers under Rivera y Moncada; Maria Faviana Sebastiana Quintero to my 5th great grandfather Ysidro German Eugenio Valdez (1755-1838), Maria Catarina Quintero (1766-1798) to Joaquin Rodriquez, and Maria Juana Josefa Quintero (1763-1793) to Jose Rosalino Fernandez.

At age 55, in about 1781, Luis Manuel Quintero, either requested to leave Los Angeles, or was evicted from the pueblo for not performing his appointed duties. One likely scenario was that Quintero, a tailor by trade, wished to continue in his profession rather than becoming a farmer at the Pueblo. Another factor may have been the 110-mile distance between the Pueblo and Santa Barbara Presidio where his three daughters lived with their soldiers husbands. In any event, Quintero did leave Los Angeles for Santa Barbara where he lived for many years. In 1784, he was reunited with an old compadre from Los Alamos when Felipe de Goycoechea was appointed as commander at Santa Barbara. Goycoechea was godfather to Quintero’s son, Jose Clemente Quintero (abt 1778-1803). Jose Clemente married Maria Josefa Andrea Rodriguez (1786-1851), the daughter of Jose Ygnacio Rodriguez (1759-1814) and Juana Paula de la Cruz Parra (1765-1827); her parents also members of the Riviera Expedition.

Jose Ygnacio Rodriguez was a co-recipient of Rancho El Conejo; a 48,572-acre Spanish land grant given in 1803 to Jose Polanco and Jose Ygnacio Rodriguez, it encompassed the area now known as the Conejo Valley in southeastern Ventura and northwestern Los Angeles Counties. El Conejo means "The Rabbit" in Spanish, and refers to the many rabbits common to the region. The rancho is the site of the communities of Newbury Park, Thousand Oaks, and Westlake Village.

Polanco, lost his portion of the rancho due to neglect. In 1822, Santa Barbara army officer Jose de la Guerra y Noriega was granted Polanco's claim by Spanish Governor Pablo Vicente de Sola. The grant was fully patented to Jose de la Guerra y Noriega and Jose Ygnacio Rodriguez’ daughter Maria del Carmen de Rodriguez (1798-1881) in 1873.

The rancho stayed in the de la Guerra and Rodriguez  families until the 1860s, when after drought and disease decimated local cattle, the families began selling off their land. In 1872, H. W. Mills purchased one-half of the Conejo grant from the heirs of Captain Jose de la Guerra, which he called the Triunfo Ranch. Mills went bankrupt and Andrew D. Russell purchased his Triunfo Ranch in 1881. In 1882, 2,200 acres of the Newbury tract were sold. In 1910, Harold and Edwin Janss of the Janss Investment Company purchased about 10,000 acres of land of what is now Thousand Oaks from the heir of John Edwards, who had purchased the land from the de la Guerra heirs.

Luis Manuel Quintero died in 1810 in Santa Barbara, after serving as tailor for the soldiers at the presidio. Some of the Quintero family eventually returned to Los Angeles.

My 5th great grandparents, Maria Faviana Sebastiana Quintero and Ysidro German Eugenio Valdez married on January 21, 1781 at Los Alamos. He was son of my 6th great grand parents Ygnacio Roque Valdez and Maria Manuela Fernandez of El Fuerte, Sinaloa. Ysidro German Eugenio Valdez served as an escort soldier in the 1781 expedition to Los Angeles. Maria Faviana Sebastiana Quintero and her, then retired, soldier husband would later move to Los Angeles. Their daughter,  Maria Rita Quiteria Valdez received the 4,500 acre Rancho Rodeo de las Aguas (Meeting of the Gathering Waters) in the area  now known as Beverly Hills. This was the rancho where two of my 3rd great grandfathers, Ygnacio Maria Palomares (1811-1864) and Juan Nepomuceno Ricardo Vejar (1805-1870) kept their herds of horses and cattle prior to receiving their own Rancho San Jose grant. Ygnacio Maria Palomares married Maria Rita Quiteria Valdez’ neice, my 3rd great grandmother, Maria "China" de la Concepcion Lopez; the daughter of my 4th great grandparents, Maria Jacinta del Sacramenta Valdez and Esteban Ignacio Maria De Los Angeles Lopez.