Atlases and Maps
Hayes, Derek. 2007. Historical Atlas of California. University of California Press.
Indian Settlement
In 1776 probably 15,000 to 20,000 indians lived in the nine-county Bay Area. At the time there were two major indian groups in the Bay Area: the Ohlone (or Costanoan) people, numbering about 10,000, and the Coast Miwok, numbering about 3,000 (not to be confused with other Miwoks in the interior of California).
The social and political basis of Bay Area indian life was organized into a few hundred people occupying one or two villages in a well-defined territory that provided game and edible plants. The languages of the indian communities of the Bay Area varied to an extraordinary degree.
The area that would become Alameda County was occupied by Ohlone "triblets".
Bowman, J.N. 1958. "Resident Neophytes of the California Missions." Historical Society of Southern California Quarterly.
Brown, Alan K. 1994. "The European Contact of 1772 and Some Later Documentation." In Ohlone Past and Present: Native Americans of the San Francisco Bay Region, Lowell John Bean, ed., pp. 1-42, Ballena Press, Menlo Park, Calif. (Anthropological Papers No. 42)
Galvan, P. Michael. 1967-68. "People of the West, the Ohlone Story." Indian Historian 1(2):9-13.
Hart, J.D. 1978. A Companion to California. Oxford University Press, New York.
Heizer, Robert F., ed. 1974. The Costanoan Indians. De Anza College, Cupertino, Calif. (Local History Studies Vol. 18)
Heizer, Robert F., and M.A. Whipple. 1971. The California Indians: A Source Book, 2d ed. University of California Press.
Heizer, Robert F., and Albert B. Elsasser. 1980. The Natural World of the California Indians. University of California Press (California Natural History Guides: 46)
Kroeber, A.L. 1925. Handbook of the Indians of California. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 78. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C.
Levy, R. 1978. "Costanoan." In Handbook of North American Indians, W.G. Sturtevant, general ed., Volume 8: California, R.F. Heizer, ed., pp. 485-497. Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.
Margolin, M. 1978. The Ohlone Way: Indian Life in the San Francisco - Monterey Bay Area. Heyday Books, Berkeley.
Milliken, R.T. 1995. A Time of Little Choice: The Disintegration of Tribal Culture in the San Francisco Bay Area 1769-1810. Ballena Press, Menlo Park, Calif. (Anthropological Papers No. 43)
Nelson, Nels C. "Shellmounds of the San Francisco Bay Region." University of California Publications in American Archaeology and Ethnology 7(4).
Teixeira, Lauren S. 1997. The Costanoan/Ohlone Indians of the San Francisco and Monterey Bay Area: A Research Guide. Ballena Press, Menlo Park, Calif. (Anthropological Papers No. 46)
Vane, Sylvia Brakke, and Lowell John Bean. California Indians: Primary Resources, A Guide to Manuscripts, Artifacts, Documents, Serials, Music and Illustrations. Ballena Press, Menlo Park, Calif. (Anthropological Papers No. 36)
Wollenberg, Charles. 1985. Golden Gate Metropolis: Perspectives on Bay Area History. Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley. (See chapter 3, "First People.")
Settlement under Spain and Mexico
Non-indian settlement of the Bay Area began with the arrival of Catholic priests and soldiers from Spain, who established a series of missions and military camps (presidios). Soldiers who retired and were willing to stay in California were granted large tracts of lands called ranchos.
Under Spanish rule California was functionally part of Mexico, which the Spanish also controlled. In fact, many of the "Spanish" settlers were actually natives of Mexico. After Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, California became part of the new Mexican nation, and remained so until the American conquest in 1846. Like Spain, Mexico gave residents vast tracts of land (up to 50,000 acres) to encourage settlement. The period between 1821 and 1846 is known as the Californio Period. During this time the Spanish-speaking settlers, or Californios, developed a unique culture, economy, and government, and their loyalty was to each other rather than to Mexico. (In this they were much like the English colonial settlers in America, whose interests diverged from England, eventually leading the colonists to armed rebellion against English rule.)
Pitt, Leonard. 1966. The Decline of the Californios: A Social History of the Spanish-Speaking Californians, 1846-1890. University of California Press.
Wollenberg, Charles. 1985. Golden Gate Metropolis: Perspectives on Bay Area History. Institute of Governmental Studies, University of California, Berkeley. (See chapters 4 and 5 covering the Spanish and Mexican periods.)