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About Carmel-by-the-Sea, CA

Carmel-by-the-Sea is in an area permeated by Native American, Spanish, Mexican and American history. Most scholars believe that the Esselen-speaking people were the first Native Americans to inhabit the area of Carmel, but the Ohlone people pushed them south into the mountains of Big Sur around the 6th century. The first Europeans to see this land were Spanish mariners led by Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542, who sailed up the California coast without landing. Another sixty years passed before another Spanish explorer, Sebastián Vizcaíno, and a Carmelite friar discovered for Spain what is now known as Carmel Valley in 1602, which he named for his patron saint, Our Lady of Mount Carmel. [ citation needed ] The Spanish did not attempt to colonize the area until 1770, when Gaspar de Portolà, along with Franciscan priests Junípero Serra and Juan Crespí, visited the area in search of a mission site.