San Diego, California
Nickname: America's Finest City
Motto: Semper Vigilans (Latin: Ever Vigilant)
Location of San Diego
within San Diego County
Country United States
State California
County San Diego
Founded July 16, 1769
As of 2006, the city has an estimated population of 1,256,951. It is the second largest city in California and the eighth largest city in the United States.
San Diego County lies just north of the Mexican border—sharing a border with Tijuana—and lies south of Orange County. It is home to miles of beaches, a mild Mediterranean climate and 16 military facilities hosting the United States Navy, the United States Coast Guard and the United States Marine Corps.
Pacific Beach
The beach area south of Crystal Pier is known as Pacific Beach. This beach continues south for over two miles, becoming Mission Beach and then South Mission Beach, eventually ending at the channel entrance to Mission Bay. This long beach, known as The Strand, lies directly adjacent to the residential and commercial areas of the Pacific Beach and Mission Beach communities. It is the most popular beach in the City of San Diego and draws large crowds in summer. North Pacific Beach continues to the north, but is visually separated by Crystal Pier, a publicly accessible fishing pier.
A somewhat narrow cement boardwalk parallels the entire beach. Walking, biking, bicycling, and related activities are permitted on the boardwalk, but speed is regulated and must be kept to eight miles per hour or less. Cycles with more than two wheels are not permitted except for use by the disabled. At all times, people must use caution and courtesy in using the boardwalk.
Various shops, restaurants, and beach rental outfits can be found bordering the north end of Pacific Beach, north of Pacific Beach drive. The southern end is predominately residential, with commercial areas a block or so from the beach on Mission Boulevard.
Indigenous San Diego
Where did the first people come from?
"The great one above put life into our dirt bodies, which means that some time way back the body was made from dirt and the Great Spirit put the life into it. We call the Great Spirit "Amaayahaa." After man, a woman was made, the life was blown into them. The legend is that there have been times when there was a great teacher on the earth, and he lived (gave life to) things."
Another story is told among the Kumeyaay people of how they first came to live in what is today San Diego, California.
Many years ago all the peoples were united as one and together they traveled west out of the sunrise led by a chief whose wife had died and who had only one daughter. Among the assembled people, was a young boy who, during the migration west, fell in love with the chief's daughter. Before long the young boy and the chiefs daughter made love. When they reached what is today Borrego Springs, the final part of the desert, the boy climbed a mountain (called Hahpowugh) to hunt some deer. After killing a buck, he watched from a distance the birth of their child.
When the chief looked at the new born baby and the girl, he told the boy that he had to give the meat of the deer to the people because of the baby's birth. That night all the people feasted, with songs and dances. During the height of the festivities the chief proclaimed that his heart would not let him continue the journey west and that they should continue without him. So all the people split into different groups, called by the Spanish, the Cocopahs, the Luiseños, the Diegueños, the Cahuillas. The chief stayed behind at the rock near what is today Vallecitos, turning himself to stone
What happened when the first European settlers came?
Two centuries would pass before they would meet another group of strangers. The first of four Spanish colonizing expeditions arrived on April 11, 1769 when the ship the San Antonio commanded by Juan Perez anchored in the bay. That same day, as remembered by Kumeyaay elders but not noted by the Spaniards, an earthquake shook the mountains and the sun was partially eclipsed, ominous signs, perhaps, that the world as they knew it was about to pass away.
The native peoples of San Diego affected who we are today. They contributed their culture and labor to build the first Spanish speaking society in San Diego. At the same time we recognize their independence as a people who were never completely conquered or assimilated by the Spanish and Mexican soldiers and settlers.
What kind of culture did they have?
The Diegueño peoples were the only bands of indigenous peoples in California to trace their origins directly to the pueblo peoples in the greater Southwest. The Kumeyaay did not have corn, beans and squash agriculture as part of their heritage but they did know the use of the metate and mortar to grind grains and plants and the techniques of making coiled and sewn baskets. Climatic conditions, namely the absence of rain during the summer months, made the importation of corn agriculture difficult. In any case the success they had with local plants made such innovation unnecessary. The consumption of acorns as a primary food of high nutritional value was unique to the indigenous peoples of Alta and Baja California. Although acorn trees grew on the lands of the peoples of the greater Southwest and northern Mexico, only the California bands developed the techniques that made them available for food. To make acorns edible, they had to be leached of the tannic acids. This was done by immersing the acorns in water or mud. The Kumeyaay used coiled baskets for the leaching while the Luiseño and Cahuilla used a sand basin or earthen depression. The invention of leaching processes was probably an original invention of the California Indians.
Despite the lack of maize agriculture, the Kumeyaay may have practiced a kind of ecological and plant management with regard to both acorn trees and grasses. Florence Shipek, a leading proponent of this view, has interviewed Kumeyaay elders who told of a tradition of interplanting grain grasses by periodic burnings of chaparral and broadcasting seeds of grain-yielding grasses, such as wild oats and green annuals. Thus the natives increased locations of food producing and medicinal plants. Interplanting insured the survival of some foods during drought. The Kumeyaay elders also reported planting cuttings from oak trees and hybridizing them to produce more acorns. The result was stands of oak trees near villages. The knowledge of these techniques were transmitted by the shamans from generation to generation. The Europeans, used to row type agriculture did not recognize the native grain fields as such, although one Spanish document recorded the harvesting of non-European grain grasses by the local Indians.
