Elkhorn Bay

Along the central Californian coast, sheltered waters and tidal wetlands supported Indigenous communities long before Spanish settlement. The wider Monterey and San Francisco coastal region was home to peoples commonly grouped under the name Ohlone. Fishing, shellfish gathering, hunting and the collection of acorns sustained communities whose exchange networks reached beyond individual bays. Boats and coastal paths connected settlements, while seasonal movement linked the shore with inland valleys and wooded hills.

Spanish expansion altered this coastal world during the later eighteenth century. Monterey became an administrative and military centre, and a chain of missions extended through California. Mission communities introduced livestock, new crops and unfamiliar demands on Indigenous labour and residence. Ships supplied the coastal establishments and carried news across the Pacific and along the American shore. After Mexican independence, California remained a distant northern territory whose settlements depended on maritime contact as well as local production. These regional changes surrounded the bays and estuaries of the central coast, where food products and protected landing places continued to shape everyday activity.