For thousands of years, members of the Tongva and Juaneño/Luiseño nations long inhabited this area. In 1542, Juan Cabrillo first sailed the coast of California for New Spain and in 1602, Sebastián Vizcaíno mapped the coast for the Spanish Empire. Jose Antonio Yorba (1746–1825), known also as Don José Antonio Yorba I, was one of the important early settlers of Spanish California (then known as Alta California). Born in San Sadurni de Noya in the Spanish province of Catalonia, Yorba first came to the New World as an officer in the Gaspar de Portolà Expedition of 1769. For his service, Yorba was awarded with an enormous land grant from the Spanish Empire in 1801 that comprised a significant portion of today's Orange County in Southern California. Covering some 62,512 acres (252.98 km2), Yorba's great rancho included the lands where the cities of Olive, Orange, Villa Park, Santa Ana, Tustin, Costa Mesa and Newport Beach stand today.
From this Spanish period, the Ranchos began trading hides with US merchants in Boston for goods from New England, sailing around South America. The Ranchos also traded with English and European merchants. This trade continued through the Mexican period (1823–1848) as immigrants were offered land if they converted to the Catholic religion and became Mexican citizens, which many did. Many Anglo immigrants married into Spanish families, becoming Californios inheriting and acquiring lands and ranchos.
Famous quotes containing the words history of, history and/or beach:
“The history of the genesis or the old mythology repeats itself in the experience of every child. He too is a demon or god thrown into a particular chaos, where he strives ever to lead things from disorder into order.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“When the inhabitants of some sequestered island first descry the “big canoe” of the European rolling through the blue waters towards their shores, they rush down to the beach in crowds, and with open arms stand ready to embrace the strangers. Fatal embrace! They fold to their bosoms the vipers whose sting is destined to poison all their joys; and the instinctive feeling of love within their breasts is soon converted into the bitterest hate.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)