He was one of the founders of El Cerrito. San Pablo was granted to Don Víctor Castro in 1834 and Rancho El Sobrante in 1841.Rancho Monte del Diablo was granted to Don Salvio Pacheco in 1834.Between 18, during the era when California was a province of independent Mexico, the following 15 land grants were made in Contra Costa County. Mission lands extended throughout the Bay Area, including portions of Contra Costa County. While little changed in ranchero life, the Mexican War of Independence resulted in the secularization of the missions with the re-distribution of their lands, and a new system of land grants under the Mexican Federal Law of 1824. In 1821 Mexico gained independence from Spain. Although there were no missions established within this county, Spanish influence here was direct and extensive, through the establishment of land grants from the King of Spain to favored settlers. Most of what is known culturally comes from preserved contemporaneous and excavated artifacts and from inter-generational knowledge passed down through northerly outlying tribes of the larger region.Įarly interaction of these Native Americans with Europeans came with the Spanish colonization via the establishment of missions in this area, with the missions in San Jose, Sonoma, and San Francisco and particularly the establishment of a Presidio (a military establishment) in 1776. Early European settlers in the region, however, did not record much about the culture of the natives. Within these cultures the concept of individual or collective land ownership was nonexistent. Unlike the nomadic Native American of the Great Plains it appears that these tribes did not incorporate warfare into their culture but were instead generally cooperative. ![]() Extensive trading from tribe to tribe transferred exotic materials such as obsidian (useful for the making of arrowheads and other stone tools) throughout the region from far distant Californian tribes. The known settled populations were hunter-gatherer societies that had no knowledge of metals and that produced utilitarian crafts for everyday use (especially woven reed baskets) of the highest quality and with graphic embellishments of great aesthetic appeal. ![]() However, there may have been human presence far earlier, at least as far as non–settling populations are concerned. The earliest definitively established occupation by modern man ( Homo sapiens) appears to have occurred six to ten thousand years ago. There is an extensive but little-recorded human history pre-European settlement in this area, with the present county containing portions of regions populated by a number of Native American tribes. Younger deposits at middle altitudes include pillow lavas, the product of undersea volcanic eruptions. The great local mountain Mount Diablo has been formed and continues to be elevated by compressive forces resulting from the action of plate tectonics and at its upper reaches presents ancient seabed rocks scraped from distant oceanic sedimentation locations and accumulated and lifted by these great forces. This county is an agglomeration of several distinct geologic terranes, as is most of the greater San Francisco Bay Area, which is one of the most geologically complex regions in the world. ![]() Layers of volcanic ash ejected from geologically recent but now extinct volcanoes, compacted and now tilted by compressive forces, may be seen at the site of some road excavations. Other areas of the county have ridges exposing ancient but intact (not fossilized) seashells, embedded in sandstone layers alternating with limestone. In the northern part of the county, significant coal and sand deposits were formed in even earlier geologic eras. In prehistoric times, particularly the Miocene epoch, portions of the landforms now in the area (then marshy and grassy savanna) were populated by a wide range of now extinct mammals, known in modern times by the fossil remains excavated in the southern part of the county.
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