Before the arrival of the Spanish, the area was inhabited by the Nisenan, Maidu and other indigenous peoples of California. Spanish cavalryman Gabriel Moraga surveyed and named the "Rio del Santísimo Sacramento" (Sacramento River) in 1808, after the Blessed Sacrament, referring to the Eucharist in the Catholic Church. In 1839, Juan Bautista Alvarado, Mexican governor of Alta California, granted the responsibility of colonizing the Sacramento Valley to Swiss-born Mexican citizen John Augustus Sutter, who subsequently established Sutter's Fort and the settlement at the "Rancho Nueva Helvetia." Following the American Conquest of California and the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, the waterfront developed by Sutter began to be developed, and incorporated in 1850 as the City of Sacramento.