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The native people lived in northern California for thousands of years before the Spanish arrived to build Mission Santa Cruz. They had stone and bone tools. They hunted and gathered food. Some of them moved when the seasons changed. Others lived in one place.
These are things we know about them. About 600 people lived in the area between what are now the towns of Davenport and Aptos. There were several villages. The two villages closest to the new mission were Aulintak which was about a mile upstream on the San Lorenzo River and Chaluma, a large settlement in what is now the Westlake area of Santa Cruz. The Indians who lived in these villages were part of a group of Indians called Ohlone (oh LOW knee) who spoke a language called Awaswas. By 1790, the Indians already knew about the missions at Santa Clara and Carmel. Some of them had moved to the Santa Clara Mission.
