Early Explorers

Early Explorers. . Even though California and the Sacramento Valley were remote to the rest of the world, the area was a focus of exploration in the first half of the 19th century by the Spanish, Americans, British, French, Germans, Russians, and many others. Gabriel Moraga, leaving the San Francisco Bay, rounded Mt. Diablo to become the first European to view the Sacramento Valley and name the Sacramento River. In 1827, Jedediah Smith was the first American trapper to enter the Sacramento area in search of beaver. He crossed a river near what is now California State University, Sacramento, and camped at the crossing. Afterward, the river was called the American River. In the 1830s, the Hudson’s Bay Company of England tried to discourage other trappers by capturing and destroying as many beavers as possible along the length of the Central Valley, leading to an unintentional tragedy: European trappers introduced malaria to Native Americans in the Valley. The Nisenan had no immunity, and 90,000 people – approximately 60 percent of their population – died from the disease.