For its first 70 years, Los Angeles was a Mexican city, part of a serene and confident nation long established in the arts and letters. Fifty years before Jamestown and Plymouth Rock, the people of Mexico had founded a university and printed books on their own presses.The city changed rapidly after 1848, when California was transferred to the U.S. as a result of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo that ended the Mexican-American War. Much greater changes were to come from the completion of the trans-continental railroad in 1876. For the next 120 years of the city s growth, it was plagued by often violent ethnic and class conflict, reflected in the struggle over who would control the city s identity, image, geography and historyThe Los Angeles Pobladores ( townspeople ) is the name given to the 44 original settlers, 22 adults and 22 children, who founded the town.In December, 1877, Viceroy Antionio Mar��a de Bucareli y Urusa and Commandant General Teodoro de Croix gave approval for the founding of a civic municipality at Los Angeles and a new presidio at Santa Barbara. Croix put the California lieutenant governor Fernando Rivera y Moncada in charge of recruiting colonists for the new settlements. He was originally instructed to recruit 55 soldiers, 22 settlers with families and 1,000 head of livestock that included horses for the military. After an exhausting search that took him to Mazatlan, Rosario, and Durango, Rivera y Moncada only recruited 12 settlers and 45 soldiers. Like the people of most towns in New Spain, they were a mix of Indian, Spanish, and African backgrounds. Croix instructed Rivera y Moncada to delay no longer and proceed north. The soldiers, settlers, and livestock were assembled at Alamos, Sonora, before departure