Returning to the starting point and then going along the foot of the hills for 2 leagues, as Sal says in the "Informe," they reached Alameda Creek very close to Niles. They then went upstream to the junction of Stonybrook Creek in the hills and then retraced their steps to Niles. The water disappeared just southwest of the town (1/4 league from the hills) and reappeared one league below, perhaps a mile southwest of Decoto and 3 miles east of Alvarado and on the edge of the salt marshes.
On the 24th the party proceeded 3 leagues northward to the stream called San Juan de la Cruz. From the distances, this can have been no other than San Lorenzo Creek. If so, they went on out to the shore of the Bay and saw San Francisco from a point just west of San Lorenzo. A few miles now to the southward would have brought them to the salt marshes just southwest of Mt. Eden. The hills they ascended were the Coyote Hills near Newark. From this point they crossed the plain directly to Mission San José and thence to Santa Clara.
Danti notes on Mission Creek the presence of three empty houses, indicating at least transient occupation by a few natives. Toward the end of the "Diario" he says that the unconverted heathen are "fairly numerous" and that on the plain there are three "moderate-sized" rancherias. Actually, therefore, he saw no indigenous heathen, and could find traces of no more than would inhabit three rancherias of dubious size. It will be remembered that Crespi reported in 1772 that there were five villages between Milpitas and San Lorenzo, whereas Anza in 1776 found six. Danti, in a much more exhaustive survey, located only three. It is evident that during the intervening twenty years the native population in southwestern Alameda County had been seriously depleted, reduced perhaps more than half. Accordingly it must be recognized that the documents relating to the Danti-Sal expedition (and all later ones) are of little value for estimating the preconquest population of the East Bay. The reduction was due, of course, to conversion by the missions and disturbance of the native economy, as well as to introduced diseases.
RAYMUNDO EL CALIFORNIO'S TRIP
Activity along the Contra Costa was again intensified in 1797. This time, as in 1795, the reason for attention in the official records was a minor expedition which got into trouble. Reference to the purely routine correspondence is here omitted and citation is made only of those letters containing matter of intrinsic interest.
On June 20, 1797, the commandant, José Arguello, wrote from San Francisco to the missionaries at San José (Bancroft Trans., Prov. St. Pap., XV: 213). He had just learned that a Christian Indian, named Raymundo el Californio, had left the mission at the head of about 30 or 40 other Indians in pursuit of fugitive Christians on the other shore. He asked for confirmation of this report. Within a few days he had his answer. In an undated letter, probably subsequent to June 22, from San Francisco he informed Governor Borica what had happened (Bancroft Trans., Prov. St. Pap., XV: 216-217).
The Indians under Raymundo el Californio returned, completely dispersed because the winds and high waves swamped many of them. Since they did not tell the same story, he [Arguello] questioned Raymundo, who declared: having reached the other shore he found in three rancherias of the Cuchillones several Christians, men, women and children. On retreating to the beach with them, he was attacked by the other Indians of the place, but he succeeded in embarking in the boats without their having started a battle. Two of his group who had lagged behind were pursued by the Indians and were forced to jump into the water. Soon they were rescued by a boat, one of them having received a spear wound in the head, but of little severity. While they [the whole party] were all retiring, a storm came up which dispersed them widely. When they tried to follow Raymundo, they were twice forced back to the territory of the Cuchillones. Seeing that their boats were being broken up and thinking themselves lost, they abandoned the boats and went by land, without leaving the edge of the beach until they arrived opposite San Francisco, where they came upon a rancheria of heathen, named Santa Anna. The inhabitants made them welcome and furnished them with tules from their own houses, with which they constructed other boats and crossed to this shore.
The expedition sailed across, apparently to the region of Richmond or San Pablo. Later, the fugitives followed the beach to the vicinity of Oakland and San Leandro. The existence of a rancheria of heathen, bearing the name of Santa Anna, is peculiar. The name was familiarly applied without church sanction, or it was a village containing Christian converts rather than heathen. In either event, complete absorption of the natives into the Spanish Colonial system as far north as Oakland is implied. Also noteworthy is the casual manner in which the Mission Indians crossed and recrossed the Bay at its widest point in tule rafts.
PEDRO AMADOR'S EXPEDITIONS
On July 8, Sergeant Pedro Amador reported from San José to the Governor (Bancroft Trans., Prov. St. Pap., XV: 371-373) that two heathen, or wild, Indians were trying to stir up a revolt among the Christians of San José. "These two Gentiles are from the rancherias of the Sacalanes, from those which committed the offenses against the Christians of San Francisco. All of them are neighbors of those of the valley of San José in that part of the shore opposite San Francisco." Since the Valley of San José was the valley of upper Alameda Creek, extending from Sunol to above Pleasanton, this statement tends to place the Sacalanes in the general area west of Livermore and in the hills to the northward.