Santos Manual was born in a village in the Bear Valley region of the San Bernardino Mountains in the 1810s.
[3] An alternative account from a visitor to the reservation in 1896 gave his age as 57, which would make his birth year closer to 1839.
However, the settlers did not distinguish between the Native Americans, causing heavy losses to Yuhaaviatam in the thirty-two day campaign.
[1][6] In 1866, Santos Manuel led the remaining members of the clan (fewer than 30)[1] to the San Bernardino Valley floor to the banks of Warm Creek (a tributary of the Santa Ana River).
[1] Later, the tribe moved to Harlem Springs (roughly near the intersection of Victoria and Base Line in Highland, California).
Santos Manuel would sometimes participate in society off the reservation, like when he, his son Thomas and his interpreter Pete Brown attended the 30th Anniversary meeting of the Pioneer Society of San Bernardino[13] About a year before his death, he was taken to Bear Valley by a party of men who were looking to locate some old monuments.