Planning Commission Supplemental Materials 11-12-25 (2)

CULTURAL RESOURCES SURVEY REPORT 4400 Black Ave 8 HISTORIC CONTEXT MISSION PERIOD The establishment of a mission system by Franciscan priests in Alta California was part of a strategic effort to extend Spanish power northward into Alta California to counteract the ongoing Russian advance down the Pacific Coast. The missions, supported with small military detachments, were to convert local Native Americans and establish agricultural plantations using their labor (Shoup and Milliken 1999:17). Though Mission Dolores and the Pueblo of San José were established in 1776, it was not until 1795 that the East Bay was considered for a mission site. Mission San José, located approximately 9.5 miles southwest of the project area, was founded June 11, 1797, and became one of the largest and most prosperous of California missions (Hoover et al. 1990:6). Native people came into the missions through a mixture of choice, persuasion, and force. Missionized Ohlone (neophytes) received instruction in Christianity and were compelled to work at agricultural tasks that must have appeared strange to them; more difficult was the loss of personal freedoms, brutal treatment by soldiers and priests, and forcible imposition of Catholic beliefs (Milliken 1995:88, 274). Neophytes at the mission grew grain and tree crops; managed herds of cattle, sheep, and horses; and practiced European crafts including tanning, milling, and blacksmithing (Jackson and Castillo 1995:162; Hoover et al. 1990:7). Between 1797 and 1808, 124 Pelnen were baptized at Mission San José (Milliken et al. 2009:311). As the only Spanish or Mexican settlement in the East Bay, Mission San José’s lands extended far beyond the Mission itself into the coastal plain and inland hills, including the Sunol Valley, Vallecitos Valley, Dublin, Pleasanton, and Livermore. However, the advent of Mexican independence from Spain in 1821 led to the growth of the Californio rancho class and increased competition for land in the 1820s and 1830s. In 1834, the missions were secularized, Native American neophytes formally emancipated, and mission lands confiscated (Jackson and Castillo 1995:100). Many of the former mission properties were then distributed to prominent Mexican citizens as land grants. RANCHO VALLE DE SAN JOSÉ Rancho Valle de San José was granted in 1839 to four relatives: brothers Augustín and Juan Pablo Bernal and their brothers-in-law, Antonio María Pico (married to María Pilar Bernal) and Antonio María Suñol (married to María Dolores Bernal). María Dolores Bernal de Suñol and María Pilar Bernal de Pico are sometimes named as the grantees instead of their spouses (Stuart and Stuart 1966:64, MacLennan 2014:23). The Rancho encompassed 48,000 acres in the inland valleys formerly used by the Mission, bordered roughly by the La Costa Valley to the south, downtown Livermore to the east, Pleasanton Ridge to the west, and including the southern half of the Amador and Livermore valleys to the north. The Bernals received the northern portion of the rancho, including the project area, while the Suñols received the southern portion, including the area around Sunol village and the watersheds of Vallecitos Valley and San Antonio Creek. The rancho was patented to Juan Pablo Bernal and Antonio María Suñol in 1865 (Hoover et al. 1966:16).