The land was occupied for thousands of years by the Yokuts. Beginning in the eighteenth century, Spain established missions to colonize California and convert the American Indians to Christianity. Comandante Pedro Fages, while hunting for deserters in the Central Valley in 1772, discovered a great lake surrounded by marshes and filled with rushes; he named it "Los Tules" (the tules). It is from this lake that the county derives its name. The root of the name "Tulare" is found in the Nahuatl word "tullin", designating cattail or similar reeds.