General History (for detailed chronology, see Historical Timeline below)
Indigenous Hunters
The Hunt by San Francisco Bay by Louis Choris, 1816 Image: The Bancroft Library.
Primarily acorn-gatherers and hunters, the
Ohlone lived in small villages of about 200
people around the Bay. Colonized by the
Spanish Franciscans starting in 1776 with
the arrival of the Anza Expedition, many lost
their lives due to disease. Those surviving
built the missions — the buildings, the fields,
the stables. When the Spanish land grants
were established starting around 1820,
many became vaqueros and worked the
ranchos.