People
Spanish & Mexicans
[We came upon a] spacious plain toward the west-by-northwest, finding that the valley continues of good land with much pasturage and very thickly grown with oaks.
Portrait
of a Mexican family, c. 1860The first Spaniards to arrive in the area camped at the base of the San Juan Bautista Hills in 1774, noting “nothing but ground and grass” from the summit view. They described “a great amount of trees running along the hills on the north side,” a sure sign of a water source. The grasses were native perennial bunchgrasses and the trees were oaks. The oaks likely bordered the Guadalupe River, the largest and most reliable water source in the Valley. Along the river the Spanish founded their first civil settlement in Alta California – El Pueblo de San José de Guadalupe.
The pueblo provided food for the soldiers at the presidios in Monterey and San Francisco. Pobladores (settlers) raised wheat, corn and livestock to be sent to the presidios. The pueblo had only a few dozen head of beef cattle in 1777; by 1800, it boasted several hundred, which roamed freely throughout the valley. The cattle ranged far and wide, often up to 15 miles from the pueblo center. In their explorations, the cattle disturbed the balance of native ecological systems, eating up native grasses and destroying the soil in which they grew.
