Security Guard in Long Beach, CA

Indigenous people have lived in coastal Southern California for over 10,000 years, and several successive cultures have inhabited the present-day area of Long Beach. By the 16th-century arrival of Spanish explorers, the dominant group was the Tongva, who had established at least three major settlements within the present-day city. Tevaaxa’anga was an inland settlement near the Los Angeles River, while Ahwaanga and Povuu’nga were coastal villages. Povuu’nga was particularly important to the Tongva, not only as a regional trading center and hub for fishermen, but for its deep ceremonial significance, being understood as their place of emergence as a people from which their lives began.

Don Juan Temple purchased Rancho Los Cerritos, covering modern-day Long Beach, in 1843. In 1844, Juan Temple built the Casa de los Cerritos, the oldest building in Long Beach, in a Monterey Colonial style.

In 1784, the Spanish Empire’s King Carlos III granted Rancho Los Nietos to Spanish soldier Manuel Nieto. The Rancho Los Cerritos and Rancho Los Alamitos were divided from this territory. The boundary between the two ranchos ran through the center of Signal Hill on a southwest to northeast diagonal. A portion of western Long Beach was originally part of the Rancho San Pedro. Its boundaries were in dispute for years, due to flooding changing the Los Angeles River boundary between Rancho San Pedro and Rancho Los Nietos.

By 1805, what had been the major Tongva village of Puvunga was thoroughly depleted of villagers, most of whom were brought to Mission San Gabriel for conversion and as a labor force. Many villagers died at the mission, which had a high rate of death, particularly among children, attributed to many factors like diseases that spread quickly in the close quarters of the mission’s walls, as well as torture, malnourishment, and overworking.

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