Santiago Creek - History - Pre-19th Century - Spanish Colonization

Spanish Colonization

In 1769 the Portolá expedition, the first Spanish overland journey to upper Las Californias, crossed the Santa Ana River very near the confluence with Santiago Creek on July 25. They named the creek for the Apostle Santiago el Mayor, as it was the saint's Feast Day. They named the canyon Cañada de Madera (timber canyon). The mountain whose southwestern flank is the creek's headwaters, known as Kalawpa by the indigenous peoples, was renamed Santiago Peak, after the creek.

The Spanish left accounts mentioning the Juaneño, the name given to the Acjachemen by the Spanish missionaries after the founding of Mission San Juan Capistrano, located to the southeast at the confluence of San Juan and Trabuco Creeks.

One of the first settlers in the Santiago Creek watershed was Jose Pablo Grijalva, a former Spanish soldier, who arrived in 1784. He and his son-in-law,José Antonio Yorba, began grazing cattle in Santiago Creek Canyon in the 1790s. He built an adobe house beside Santiago Creek in 1796. Later settlers included the Peraltas and Sepúlvedas.

Ranchos

Three adjoining ranchos were granted within the creek's drainage. The Spanish era Rancho Santiago de Santa Ana (1810), extending from the Santa Ana River to the Santa Ana Mountains, was 25-mile (40 km)-long, 2.5-to-6.5-mile (4.0 to 10.5 km). The later Mexican era land grants were Rancho San Joaquin (1837) and Rancho Lomas de Santiago (1846). Portions of all later became part of the Irvine Ranch.

A well-known massacre of Native Americans occurred in 1831, in present-day Black Star Canyon, which was called Cañada de los Indios (Indian Canyon) in Spanish. The retaliation was one in a series against local Tongva (Gabrielino) Native Americans taking horses from the Mexican ranchos. A party of American fur trappers set out to retrieve stolen horses. They followed hoofprints into Cañada de los Indios, came upon a Tongva village, massacred the native residents, and took the remaining horses. Though some managed to escape, many Indians were killed in the massacre. The village's site is designated as California Historical Landmark #217.