[2] The 75,000-acre Tejon Reservation (30,000 ha) was within the private Rancho El Tejón Mexican land grant.

To gain support for his efforts, Beale named the reservation after United States Senator William K. Sebastian of Arkansas, Chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee.

[2] He supported Beale's plans to form a series of reservations, garrisoned by a military post, on government owned land.

[2] The newly constructed Stockton – Los Angeles Road, replacing El Camino Viejo, skirted the western and northern sides of the reservation.

[3] Among the tribes of Mission Indians the reservation held, were 300 Emigdiano Chumash, whose homeland had included Tejon Canyon.

[2] Farm equipment, cattle and sheep were brought to Tejon Reservation, and a staff of white employees hired to teach the Indians agriculture and supervise their activities.

From the forest in upper Tejon Canyon Indians hauled timber from which they sawed the lumber needed at the reservation.

Settlers in the San Joaquin Valley resented the agricultural competition from the Indians, and claimed that too much land had been set aside for them.

In 1855, some of the reservation's Indian residents fled, and Vineyard requested assistance from Fort Tejon to find them and force their return.

[2] In 1857, drought continued, resulting in crop failure except were irrigation reached them and those grapevines and fruit trees that began to yield a harvest.

You and our great father at Washington do not know how bad we fare, or you would give us food or let us go back to our lands where we can get plenty of fish and game.

I do not think we get the provisions intended for us by our Great Father; the agents keep it from us, and sell it to make themselves rich, while we and our children are very poor and hungry and naked."