Introduction

This image is a collage of two drawings by the Spanish artist José Cardero who was a member of the Malaspina expedition that came to Monterey in 1791. To the left is Wife of a Monterey Soldier and to the right is A Monterey Soldier. 1791. Muséo Naval, Madrid.

The Pobladores Project

Steven Hackel

University of California, Riverside

Erik Steiner

CESTA, Stanford University

Jacques Renard

Université Paris-Sorbonne

The Pobladores Project is a database of vital information that covers the entire life spans of some 18,000 Spanish-speaking colonists who came to California.  The project follows these individuals from their origins in Mexico and elsewhere to their final days in California.

In Spanish, the word poblador means “inhabitant, settler, or founder.”  Thus, to speak of the pobladores of early California is to speak of the earliest Spanish and Mexican settlers who came to the region.  The primary sources for the Pobladores Project Database (PPD) are the baptism, marriage, and burial registers kept by the Franciscan missionaries of early California as well as genealogical guides that document the family histories of the soldiers and settlers who lived in Mexico before they came to colonial California.

This project has historical and genealogical importance for the present and future study of the non-Indian people and communities of early California.  Now complete, it reveals the complex, dynamic visual dimensions of the waves of Spanish and Mexican migrations into California and within California over more than a century.

Related Projects

Early California Cultural Atlas

The Early California Cultural Atlas (ECCA) visualizes the transformations in California before 1850 by mapping the migration of of Indigenous Californians from their native villages to Franciscan missions, the immigration of soldiers and settlers to California from northern Mexico, the initiation and growth of domestic agriculture and animal husbandry at the missions, and the transfer of huge parcels of land from Native Californians to private Spanish and Mexican landholders.

Early California Population Project

The Early California Population Project (ECPP) is a database developed at Huntington Library providing public access to all the information contained in the California mission registers from 1769–1850. It includes baptism, marriage, and burial records of each of the California missions, providing historical information on the Indians, soldiers, and settlers of Alta California.

Copyright Policy:

Data in the Pobladores Project Database (PPD) is for scholarly use and must not be used for commercial purposes. Users of the database must not attempt to reproduce and disseminate the data in the PPD database. Reports, presentations, websites, or publications that rely upon the database must cite the database in the following form: Steven W. Hackel, The Pobladores Project Database. Edition 1.0, 2020.