Roofer in Oakland, CA

The earliest known inhabitants were the Huchiun natives, who lived there for thousands of years. The Huchiun belonged to a linguistic grouping later called the Ohlone (a Miwok word meaning “western people”). In Oakland, they were concentrated around Lake Merritt and Temescal Creek, a stream that enters the San Francisco Bay at Emeryville. Throughout Oakland, Colleges, community organizations and companies have dedicated their respects to the Ohlone tribe by doing land acknowledgements.

Oakland and much of the East Bay was part of Rancho San Antonio, granted to Luís María Peralta in 1820. Here the Peralta family is pictured at their hacienda in Oakland, c. 1840.

In 1772, the area that later became Oakland was colonized, along with the rest of California, by Spanish settlers for the King of Spain. In the early 19th century, the Spanish crown granted the East Bay area to Luis María Peralta for his Rancho San Antonio. The grant was confirmed by the successor Mexican republic upon its independence from Spain. Upon his death in 1842, Peralta divided his land among his four sons. Most of Oakland was within the shares given to Antonio Maria and Vicente. The portion of the parcel that is now Oakland was called Encinar (misrendered at an early date and carried forward as “encinal”) -Spanish for “oak grove”-due to the large oak forest that covered the area, which eventually led to the city’s name.

According to Stanford University historian Albert Camarillo, the Peralta family struggled to keep their land after the incorporation of California into the United States after the Mexican-American War. Camarillo claims the family was the victim of targeted racial violence. He writes in Chicanos in California, “They lost everything when squatters cut down their fruit trees, killed their cattle, destroyed their buildings, and even fenced off the roads leading to the rancho. Especially insidious were the actions of attorney Horace Carpentier, who tricked Vicente Peralta into signing a ‘lease’ which turned out to be a mortgage against the 19,000-acre rancho. The lands became Carpentier’s when Peralta refused to repay the loan he believed was fraudulently incurred. The Peraltas had no choice but to abandon the homesite they had occupied for two generations.”

Learn more about Oakland.