User:Nidaannes/Fremont, California

Early history
The recorded history of the Fremont area began on June 6, 1797, when Mission San José was founded by the Spaniard Father Fermín de Lasuén. The Mission was established at the site of the Ohlone village of Oroysom. The tribe lived between present-day San Francisco and Monterey and more lands towards the East. They lived in dome shaped shelters made out of redwood bark or woven tule. They were primarily hunter-gatherers; men hunted and trapped: waterfowl, rabbits, deer, elk, and bears; women gathered nuts, berries, and root vegetables. The Ohlone tribe lived beside rivers and estuaries because of the natural resources like fish and shellfish. In warm weather, men wore mostly nothing; in the winter, they wore animal-hide or feather capes. Other than weather, ceremonies also decided what the Ohlone men wore. The women wore deerskin aprons over skirts made of tule or shredded bark.

Until 1769, the tribe lived peacefully with their people but Spanish soldiers and missionaries arrived in California to expand Spanish dominion in the Americas and convert the Indians to Catholicism. The Ohlone people weren't intimidated by the Franciscan priests, who welcomed them into their missions to live and work. Before missions, the Natives used tools made of stone, animal bones, and wood. The missionaries taught them how to make metal tools and weapons and priests also showed them how to make adobe bricks. The bricks were then used to build missions rather than for the tribe to utilize. The Spaniards brought cattle, pigs and sheep and encouraged the Ohlone to give up hunting and gathering to try farming and ranching instead. Unfortunately, living in the missions had a negative part to it, which was that the Ohlone people were force into converting to Christianity and told to forget their superstitious beliefs that connected them to nature. Along with that, overpopulation caused food shortages and the Spanish bought diseases to the tribe, causing a lot of deaths and trouble.

On their second day in the area, the Mission party killed a grizzly bear in Niles Canyon. The first English-speaking visitor to Fremont was the renowned trapper and explorer Jedediah Smith in 1827. The Mission prospered, eventually reaching a population of 1,887 inhabitants in 1831. The influence of the missionaries declined after 1834, when the Mexican government enacted secularization.