Editing Millbrae, California (section)

=== 1700s ===
The [[San Francisco Bay]] may have been explored and mapped in the early 1700s. José Cabrera Bueno's 1734 ''Navegación Espéculativa y Práctica'' describe it with the following:<blockquote>Through the opening in the center enters an estuary of salt water without any breaking of the waves at all, and by going in one will find friendly Indians and can easily take on water and wood.</blockquote>On November 4, 1769, the [[Portolá expedition|Portolà expedition]] climbed [[Sweeney Ridge]] and descended southeast parallel to [[San Andreas Creek]] before camping overnight near what is today [[San Andreas Lake]] and Millbrae's western border. The Portolà expedition continued southeast along the peninsula before turning back and returning to [[San Diego]].

[[Gaspar de Portolá]] returned to the Bay Area the following year, accompanied by [[Junípero Serra]], who established [[Mission San Carlos Borromeo de Carmelo]]—the second [[Spanish missions in California|Spanish mission in Alta California]]—in what is today [[Monterey, California|Monterey]] on June 3, 1770. Between 1769 and 1824 a total of 21 missions were established across Alta California.

The sixth Spanish mission in Alta California, [[Mission San Francisco de Asís]] was established on October 9, 1776, in what is today [[Mission District, San Francisco|San Francisco's Mission District]], about 10 miles north of Millbrae. Over the next few decades, many of the Ohlone people who lived in and around what is today Millbrae relocated to Mission San Francisco de Asís, where they were baptized. Nearly all the Indigenous people of the area around what is today Millbrae were baptized between 1777 and 1783, and by 1793, the 8 village sites in what are today San Francisco and northern San Mateo county had been abandoned and most of the Indigenous people of that area had relocated to Mission San Francisco.<ref name=":10" />

The missions maintained authority over much of Alta California even after [[Mexican War of Independence|Mexico's independence from Spain]] 1821.