Spanish explorers came to the Kaweah River area in the early 1800s, although it is not clear who first explored the Kaweah Delta (possibly the Gabriel Moraga party in 1806). Early Spanish names for the river included Rio de San Gabriel and Rio San Francisco. Several such expeditions were sent into the region, in order to conscript Native Americans into the mission system. Father Pedro Muñoz wrote that the Kaweah would be a good place for a mission, but none were ever established there, because it was too far from the coast and could not be easily defended. In the following decades, Native American resistance to Spanish colonial government prompted many military raids, killing many of the natives who had not already succumbed to European diseases.