Sword & the Cross

Sword and the Cross

The Hispanic era in San Ramon Valley from 1772-1830

Written by Beverly Lane to accompany the 1993 exhibit mounted by the Museum of the San Ramon Valley.

The year was 1772. That spring Europeans traveled into the San Ramon Valley for the first time, camping overnight in Danville and continuing south to Monterey. In their diaries they noted the Valley's oaks, plentiful water and numerous Indian villages. For those Indians and others of the East Bay this visit presaged the end to their traditional way of life.

Major Sources and Acknowledgments

• Jose Maria Amador, ND Land Case Number 322, Berkeley: The Bancroft Library, 1855.
• Juan Crespi, "Return Journey from the Exploration of the Harbor of Our Seraphic Father San Francisco", The Fages-Crespi Expedition of 1772, Pleasanton: Amador-Livermore Historical Society, 1972.
• Father Narciso Duran, Plano Topographico de la Mision de San .1osq Berkeley: The Bancroft Library, 1824.
• Father Francis McCarthy, The History of Mission San Jose 1797-1835, Fresno: Academy Library Guild, 1958.
• Randall T. Milliken, An Ethnohistory of the Indian People of the San Francisco Bay Area from 1770 to 1810, Berkeley: Dissertation, 1991.
• A Time of Little Choice The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769-1810, Menlo Park: Ballena Press, 1995.
• Malcom Margolin, Illustrated by Michael Harney, The Ohlone Way, Heyday Books, Berkley, 1978.
• Drawing of Vaquero and Mission Ranch Outpost by Al Greger
• Graphic design by John Hamel.