Images Of America: Native Americans Of Riverside County: Riverside Demographics

Riverside County is a county located in the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2010 census, the population was 2,189,641, making it the fourth-most populous county in California and the 10th-most populous in the United States. The Colorado Desert lands that became Riverside County in the 19th century were home to diverse bands of California Indian people, including the Cahuilla, Gabrielino, Serrano, Luise-o, Chemehuevi, and Mojave tribes. Other Native Americans call the county home, including urban Indians who moved here in the 20th century. The tribes of Riverside County are survivors, descendants of sovereign people who left their mark on the county's history eons before the first European explorers entered the land. Riverside County encompasses more than two million people and most of the width of California, from Los Angeles's eastern suburbs to the Arizona state line at the Colorado River. Historian Steve Loch captures the vanished past of this vast swath of deserts and mountains--the eras of Spanish and then Mexican rule and the exploits of the earliest settlers of the American period. Juan Bautista de Anza, Louis Robidoux, and many other namesake figures of today's geography are described in this unabridged excerpt of the author's comprehensive and masterly history Along the Old Roads.