POPULATION ESTIMATES
Since we have no other information and since there is no obvious tribal designation associated with the region, the geographical description will have to suffice to designate the area.
The aboriginal population of the East Bay was tentatively estimated from the village counts of the Fages and Anza expeditions as 2,400 and 2,150, respectively. It is possible to arrive at a new and independent estimate by means of the mission statistics.
The missionaries, or their agents, entered the area in question and sought converts to Christianity, who were immediately baptized and entered in the mission archive as Christians. Alameda and Contra Costa counties, except for the extreme eastern border in the San Joaquin Valley, were completely Christianized by 1810. Theoretically, therefore, the total baptisms should equal the population. However, during the process of conversion a serious population decline was in progress for other reasons. Disease, fugitivism to the deep interior, depression of the birth rate, economic and social upheaval, military butchery, all took such a toll of the nonmissionized, or surviving, Indians that certainly no more than one-half of the aboriginal number could have been actually baptized. At all events, the total number of baptisms represents a subminimal estimate of population.
The baptisms are here tabulated according to the mission and according to the five areas described previously. No attempt is made to segregate the entries by year, since we are interested in the total, not the annual increment. Certain particular problems deserve comment.
The San Francisco record is very precise, since it allocates each neophyte to his rancheria, or at least to the local region of his origin. Santa Clara, however, as noted previously, gives no indication of the origin before 1805. By this time, all the local natives had been exhausted and only valley tribes are mentioned. It is probable that from 1777 to 1789 the natives in the immediate vicinity were being converted. From 1790 to 1801, inclusive, 1,392 baptisms of gentiles were recorded. Some of these came from the south and the southwest, some from the hills to the east, and probably some represented early conquests in the San Joaquin Valley. Many, however, must have come from the north and northeast, in particular, before the foundation of San José in 1797. A conservative guess for this fraction would be 400, and this figure will be adopted.
San José, from 1797 to 1802 inclusive, indicates the origin of its converts only by general area or direction, as previously pointed out. Some arbitrary allocation is demanded. Hence, as a reasonable solution, those natives from "Palos colorados," "de la Alameda," "del Estero," and "del Sur" are assigned to area 1. Those from "del Norte" are considered Huchiun and those "del Este" are allocated to area 5. After 1802, the San José records specify the villages, which are all from area 5. The tabulated totals are shown at bottom of page.
The total for San Francisco and San José equals 1,848 baptisms. Adding an estimated 400 for Santa Clara makes 2,248. This figure, which has to be regarded as a minimum for population since it covers only mission baptisms from the region, is as great as the estimates based on the expeditions of the first decade of settlement, and proves beyond question that those estimates were highly conservative. If we assume that the aboriginal population was twice the value of the baptisms, the total would have reached 4,496. If it be allowed that conversion close to the missions was exceptionally rapid and thorough, a somewhat lower figure may be accepted, say 3,000. This estimate, however, must be regarded as the lowest consistent with the known facts.
| Area 1 | Area 2 | Area 3 | Area 4 | Area 5 | Total | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| San Francisco | 33 | 206 | 211 | 297 | 15 | 762 |
| Santa Clara | 400 | |||||
| San José | 347 | 136 | 603 | 1,086 | ||
| ———— | ———— | ———— | ———— | ———— | ———— | |
| Total | 380 | 342 | 211 | 297 | 618 | 2,248 |
Although little direct information pertaining to population can be secured, it is nevertheless interesting to consider the prehistoric sites in the East Bay which have been noted by California archaeologists. Most of those which can be regarded as habitation mounds have been recorded by the University of California Archaeological Survey, and have been plotted on map 1.