High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The history of Sacramento, California began with its founding by Samuel Brannan and John Augustus Sutter, Jr. in 1848 around an embarcadero that John Augustus Sutter, Jr. constructed at the confluence of the American and Sacramento Rivers a few years prior. After the arrival of Europeans, the Nisenan branch of the Native American Maidu inhabited the Sacramento Valley area. The Spanish were the first to explore the area, and Sacramento fell into the Alta California province of New Spain when the conquistadors claimed Central America and the American Southwest for the Spanish Empire.