1870 Antonio Peralta House: Peralta Land Loss

What's it about?

Between 1848 and 1900, the Peraltas' lost their land and status, and Native Americans continued losing their land and place in society to near annihilation.

The U.S. Mexican War, Gold Rush and California Statehood occurred in quick succession. The U.S. legal system favored squatters, speculators and other buyers coming from the East, who eventually took all of the Peraltas' land.

Few records and even fewer artifacts are left to illustrate the lives which the Peraltas and their Native workers lived in Fruitvale. In the following century, the land became a fruit orchard, and then an urban neighborhood in Oakland.
 

Tour of the Ear

Voices of the Gold Rush & Beyond (audio index)
Audio Scripts
 
Melodeon pieces by musicologist Dawn Kooyumjian
 

Tour of the Eye

Room Tour