Rose Blooms in Desert Lands: A College’s Story on Brethren Westward-Movements into the San Gabriel Valley

This paper explores religious views of early Brethren on the American Indians forged as they journeyed westward, encountered indigenous peoples, and settled in the San Gabriel Valley in Southern California. Examined here are the challenges with which the Brethren contended concerning indigenous personhood during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries upon founding the Lordsburg or La Verne College (now called the University of La Verne). The paper focuses on artistic representations of Brethren identity, particularly depictions of the Gabrielinos, as portrayed in early historical pageants of the La Verne College between 1927 and 1933.