Mission San José is a Spanish mission located in the present-day city of Fremont, California, United States. It was founded on June 11, 1797, by the Franciscan order and was the fourteenth Spanish mission established in California. The mission is the namesake of the Mission San José district of Fremont, which was an independent town subsumed into the city when it was incorporated in 1957. The Mission entered a long period of gradual decline after Mexican secularization act of 1833. After suffering decline, neglect and earthquakes most of the mission was in ruins. Restoration efforts in the intervening periods have reconstructed many of the original structures. The old mission church remains in use as a chapel of Saint Joseph Catholic Church, a parish of the Diocese of Oakland. The museum also features a visitor center, museum, and slide show telling the history of the mission.
Stanislaus County is a county located in the San Joaquin Valley of the U.S. state of California. As of 2023, its estimated population is 564,404. The county seat is Modesto.
Don Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo was a Californio general, statesman, and public figure. He was born a subject of Spain, performed his military duties as an officer of the Republic of Mexico, and shaped the transition of Alta California from a territory of Mexico to the U.S. state of California. He served in the first session of the California State Senate. The city of Vallejo, California, is named after him, and the nearby city of Benicia is named after his wife.
Californio is a term used to designate a Hispanic Californian, especially those descended from Spanish and Mexican settlers of the 17th through 19th centuries. California's Spanish-speaking community has resided there since 1683 and is made up of varying Spanish and Mexican origins, including criollos, Mestizos, Indigenous Californian peoples, and small numbers of Mulatos. Alongside the Tejanos of Texas and Neomexicanos of New Mexico and Colorado, Californios are part of the larger Spanish-American/Mexican-American/Hispano community of the United States, which has inhabited the American Southwest and the West Coast since the 16th century. Some may also identify as Chicanos, a term that came about in the 1960s.
Gabriel Moraga was a Sonoran-born Californio explorer and army officer. He was the son of the expeditionary José Joaquín Moraga who helped lead the de Anza Expedition to California in 1774, Like his father, Moraga is one of the most notable Spanish expeditionaries in the history of Alta California and the origin of the names of many of the most notable rivers and cities of Northern California and the Central Valley.
The Yokuts are an ethnic group of Native Americans native to central California. Before European contact, the Yokuts consisted of up to 60 tribes speaking several related languages. Yokuts is both plural and singular; Yokut, while common, is erroneous. 'Yokut' should only be used when referring specifically to the Tachi Yokut Tribe of Lemoore. Some of their descendants prefer to refer to themselves by their respective tribal names; they reject the term Yokuts, saying that it is an exonym invented by English-speaking settlers and historians. Conventional sub-groupings include the Foothill Yokuts, Northern Valley Yokuts, and Southern Valley Yokuts.
Juan Bautista Valentín Alvarado y Vallejo usually known as Juan Bautista Alvarado, was a Californio politician that served as Governor of Alta California from 1837-42. Prior to his term as governor, Alvarado briefly led a movement for independence of Alta California from 1836-37, in which he successfully deposed interim governor Nicolás Gutiérrez, declared independence, and created a new flag and constitution, before negotiating an agreement with the Mexican government resulting in his recognition as governor and the end of the independence movement.
William Edward Petty Hartnell, later known by his Spanish name Don Guillermo Arnel, was a merchant, schoolmaster, and government official in California. He arrived in California in 1822 as a trader, where he married into the prominent Guerra family of California and became a Mexican citizen. He held several public roles during the Mexican era and after the American Conquest of California, notably serving as the official translator at the Monterey Constitutional Convention.
Cucunuchi, baptized as Estanislao, was an indigenous alcalde of Mission San José and a member and leader of the Lakisamni tribe of the Yokuts people of northern California. He is famous for leading bands of armed Native Americans in revolt against the Mexican government and Mission establishments.
José María de Echeandía (?–1871) was twice Mexican governor of Alta California from 1825 to 1831 and again from 1832 to 1833. He was the only governor of California that lived in San Diego.
The Plains and Sierra Miwok were once the largest group of California Indian Miwok people, indigenous to California. Their homeland included regions of the Sacramento Valley, San Joaquin Valley, and the Sierra Nevada.
Manuel Victoria was governor of the Mexican-ruled territory of Alta California from January 1831 to December 6, 1831. He died in exile. He was appointed governor on March 8, 1830 by Lucas Alamán.
Tamcan or Tammukan was a local tribe of Delta Yokuts-speaking natives in the U.S. that once lived on the lower reaches of California's San Joaquin River in what is now eastern Contra Costa County and western San Joaquin County, California. The Tamcans were absorbed into the system of the Spanish missions in California in the early nineteenth century; they moved to Mission San José, near the shore of San Francisco Bay, between 1806 and 1811. At the mission, they and their descendants intermarried with speakers of the San Francisco Bay Ohlone, Plains Miwok, and Patwin Indian languages. Mission Indian survivors of these mixed groups gathered at Alisal, near Pleasanton in Contra Costa County, in the late nineteenth century.
Rancho Agua Caliente was a 3,219-acre (13.03 km2) Mexican land grant in present day Sonoma County, California given in 1840 by Governor Juan Alvarado to Lázaro Piña. The name means "warm water" and refers to the hot springs in the area. The grant extended two and one half leagues to the north of Sonoma and was one quarter league wide, and included present day Glen Ellen, Fetters Hot Springs, and Agua Caliente.
Rancho El Alisal was a 8,912-acre (36.07 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Monterey County, California, given in 1833 by Governor José Figueroa to the brothers Feliciano and Mariano Soberanes and to William Edward Petty Hartnell. Alisal means Alder tree (sycamore) in Spanish. The land is approximately four miles southeast of present-day Salinas.
Rancho Suey was a 48,834-acre (197.62 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day southern San Luis Obispo County and northern Santa Barbara County, California given in 1837 by Governor Juan B. Alvarado to María Ramona Carrillo de Pacheco. The grant was east of present-day Santa Maria and extended along the San Luis Obispo-Santa Barbara County line, and between the Santa Maria River and the Cuyama River.
Rancho del Río Estanislao was a 48,887-acre (197.84 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Stanislaus County and Calaveras County, California given in 1843 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Francisco Rico and José Castro. The grant was located on the north side of the Stanislaus River, which was called Rio Estanislao during the Mexican era, and the grant encompassed present-day Knights Ferry.
Rancho Omochumnes, also known as "Rancho Río de los Cosumnes al Norte", was a 18,662-acre (75.52 km2) Mexican land grant in present day Sacramento County, California.
The Lazar, or alternately Laquisimne, are one of the divisions of the Yokuts people, indigenous to the Stanislaus River area in California.
Doña Francisca Benicia Carrillo de Vallejo (1815-1891) was a Californio pioneer. A member of the Carrillo family of California, Carrillo was the wife of Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo. Carrillo was an early settler of Sonoma, California, the town founded by her husband. She survived the Bear Flag Rebellion and went on to oversee the Vallejo estate, Lachryma Montis, until her death in 1891. The city of Benicia, California is named after her.
