Eternity Street: Violence and Justice in Frontier Los Angeles

by John Mack Faragher

Overview

“John Mack Faragher is one fine writer, bringing early L.A. to life as the setting for all manner of horrific killings and gruesome justice. Eternity Street will keep you up at night ruminating on the roots of American violence.”—Richard Wightman Fox, University of Southern California, author of Lincoln’s Body: A Cultural History

Eternity Street tells the story of a violent place in a violent time: the rise of Los Angeles from its origins as a small Mexican pueblo. In a masterful narrative, John Mack Faragher relates a dramatic history of conquest and ethnic suppression, of collective disorder and interpersonal conflict. Eternity Street recounts the struggle to achieve justice amid the turmoil of a loosely governed frontier, and it delivers a piercing look at the birth of this quintessentially American city.

In the 1850s, the City of Angels was infamous as one of the most murderous societies in America. Saloons teemed with rowdy crowds of Indians and Californios, Mexicans and Americans. Men ambled down dusty streets, armed with Colt revolvers and Bowie knives. A closer look reveals characters acting in unexpected ways: a newspaper editor advocating lynch law in the name of racial justice; hundreds of Latinos massing to attack the county jail, determined to lynch a hooligan from Texas.

Murder and mayhem in Edenic southern California. "There is no brighter sun…no country where nature is more lavish of her exuberant fullness," an Angeleno wrote in 1853. "And yet, with all our natural beauties and advantages, there is no country where human life is of so little account. Men hack one another to pieces with pistols and other cutlery as if God's image were of no more worth than the life of one of the two or three thousand ownerless dogs that prowl about our streets and make night hideous." This is L.A. noir in the act of becoming.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393051360
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	01/11/2016
Pages:	624
Product dimensions:	6.30(w) x 9.40(h) x 1.70(d)

About the Author

John Mack Faragher is the Howard R. Lamar Professor Emeritus of History and American Studies at Yale. He is the author of many books on American history, including a biography of Daniel Boone that received a Los Angeles Times Book Prize.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Characters xv

Maps xix

Prologue: A Terrible Place for Murders 1

Part 1

1 A People Angry and Armed 21

2 Reduced to Obedience 33

3 A Country Entirely Altered 49

4 Extranjeros 67

5 The Texas Game 85

6 A Territory of the United States 95

7 Iabajo Los Americanos! 109

8 The Old Woman's Gun 125

9 San Pasqual 139

10 Poor Californios 157

11 The Grab Game 173

12 Military Occupation 185

Part 2

13 Mob Law 201

14 Violence Begins at Home 213

15 The Lugo Case 225

16 War for a Whole Life 245

17 La Ley De Linch 263

18 The Cult of Violence 277

19 City Of Demons 295

20 Vindicta Publica 315

Part 3

21 We Have Got You Now. Don Santiago 337

22 The Crime Must Be Avenged 351

23 Dueling, Shooting, and Killing 373

24 The Plague is Upon Us 389

25 Master in the House 403

26 A Refined Piece of Villainy 419

27 The Home Guard Vigilance Committee 439

28 Chinatown 459

29 Imperfect Justice 481

30 Fists Doubled Up 493

Epilogue: Forgive Me, I Have Killed Your Brother 507

Notes 515

Acknowledgments 555

Permissions 559

Index 565

Editorial Reviews

11/09/2015
Faragher (Out of Many), a professor of history at Yale and a Southern California native, skillfully explores the history of California and Los Angeles during the middle of the 19th century. Following California’s establishment of statehood in 1850, Los Angeles “was one of the most violent towns in America.” Fascinated with court records and old newspapers, and taking for granted the violence of the frontier, Faragher devotes his attention to investigating “the structure, the culture, and the reproduction” of that violence, as well as the meaning it held. The greater Los Angeles area circa 1830 was an agricultural region of fewer than 3,000 people where Spanish-speaking, predominantly Catholic landowners (Californios) ruled a turbulent underclass of emancipados (converted natives) and a sprinkling of migrants. California’s government in distant Monterey was feeble; central authority in Mexico City was feebler still, making “outlaw justice” the norm. Matters hardly improved after the U.S.’s 1848 conquest, when U.S. laws and immigrants provided another source of conflict. The book begins with a murder and closes with another at the turn of the century, when increasing confidence in the legal system modestly reduced violence. The tireless violence Faragher chronicles may weary some readers, but persistence is rewarded with a vivid, disturbing portrait of early Los Angeles. Maps & photos. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"Gripping and authoritative, this is a masterwork of scholarship and literary grace. Faragher’s dark portrait of L.A. pulls no punches and asks us to consider what grim DNA yet lurks in the City of Angels."

William Deverell

"In Eternity Street, John Mack Faragher has unearthed a blood-soaked history of nineteenth-century Los Angeles that blows away ‘Wild West’ fantasies. Faragher’s masterwork should be read by all who wish to understand more about the violence that has shaped the American past."

Stephen Aron

"Faragher’s stories evoke Cormac McCarthy. In a grim but riveting narrative, languid preconceptions of Edenic California’s birth give way to murder and mayhem, carnage and cruelty. Eternity Street describes human beings at their worst, but this is American history at its best."

Elizabeth Fenn

"[A] fascinating account of the twisted threads of murder, ethnic violence and mob justice in 19th century Southern California. . . . The sheer power of these events. . . burn up these pages. . . . The insights gained may help dissect gang violence, drug violence, honor killings, witch killings — even the unseen internal disputes of the various peoples subjected to recent counter-insurgency and state-building projects."

It's a killer of a read - Jill Leovy

"Eye-opening … As you read, you may regret that There Will Be Blood was already taken, but Faragher’s book is the ideal prequel to Paul Thomas Anderson’s 2007 epic about SoCal’s formative years in the early twentieth century."

Bookforum - Tom Carson

"Hugely readable ... Faragher is one of the great living American historians, and his area of expertise is the American frontier. His 1992 biography, “Daniel Boone: The Life and Legend of an American Pioneer,” is a modern classic, and “Eternity Street” is destined to become one."

Chicago Tribune - Allen Barra

"Through chilling anecdote and skilled storytelling, John Mack Faragher explores the experience of frontier violence for L.A.’s Mexican, Anglo, Indian, Black, and Chinese residents. This may just be the true origin story for L.A. noir."

Amy Greenberg

2015-09-03
Faragher (History/Yale Univ.; A Great and Noble Scheme: The Tragic Story of the Expulsion of the French Acadians from Their American Homeland, 2005, etc.) investigates the most lethal place on the planet during the mid-19th century: Los Angeles. The author provides a concise and edifying history of the California territory, beginning with the Spanish missionaries who tapped the expertise of converted mission Indians as their workforce. Their promise was to secularize the land and return it to the Indians; of course, that never happened. The rich landowners hired the Indians because they were the only ones capable of making the land productive. It was a time of rapid social change, with Indian workers and migrants from the south coming into the town to work. This change increased incidents of violence: Indian against Indian and incoming Mexicans against Californios. As Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821 and the Americans fought to annex California after the Mexican-American War, more migrants arrived, mostly Southerners accustomed to the brutalities of slavery. In the absence of a legitimate justice system, vigilance committees grew up based on codes of honor and vengeance. The Los Angeles Common Council accepted corrupt and ineffective law enforcement rather than hire more deputies and raise taxes to support them. The first deportation of undocumented immigrants occurred in 1840, and there were strict regulations against Indians and an abundance of men who were angry, volatile, and homicidal. Justice was parochial, dealing with the values and interests of groups, not the community. Vigilantism was an institutional feature encouraged by the press and condoned by authorities. Threading through this midcentury mayhem is the career of Judge Benjamin Hayes, whose strength of character and attempts to diffuse mob justice provided a small ray of hope. For fans of the Old West and frontier literature, Faragher provides a vivid and readable history. A solid study of violence and an even better study of the beginnings of California and its social makeup.

Kirkus Reviews

"Every page of Eternity Street is hardcore, bloody, scabrous, fascinating…This aptly titled, instant classic now revives the ragged and angry old ghosts, permanently…This is one of the most enjoyable books you will ever read."

LA Weekly - Tony Mostrom

"An achievement…Eternity Street shades the history of Los Angeles in a way no other book has…[A] testament to [Faragher’s] capacity as a historian and a writer…I recommend it to natives of any place."

Vox - Emmett Rensin

"Eternity Street will be an enduring landmark. Faragher’s stories are not happy ones, but they are ones we need to remember if we hope to embrace the West’s full history and cope with the legacy that continues to bedevil us."

Elliott West

"Groundbreaking…[I]f you read Professor Faragher’s Eternity Street you will be enlightened to discover the violent story of the West—real and imagined—today’s and yesterday’s—begins and ends in Los Angeles."

True West - Stuart Rosebrook