Zayante (Ohlone: Sayante) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Cruz County, California. It is a residential Place located on Zayante Creek. Zayante sits at an elevation of 699 feet (213 m). The 2020 United States census reported Zayante’s population was 729.

The Sayante, a local tribe of the Ohlone people, originally inhabited the area. Early chronicles of the Place recalls the Sayante people finding shelter and game in the rich forests. The Place provided them with ample acorns, fish from Lompico and Newell Creek, and little game to rouse a peaceful, easy life. Temascals (sweat lodges), songs, and games were the rule, while dogfight and thievery the exception.

In 1769, the Spanish speculator Gaspar de Portolà discovered the land Place which is now known as the City of Santa Cruz. When Portola came upon the river which flows from the Santa Cruz Mountains to the sea, he named it San Lorenzo in rave review of Saint Lawrence. He called the rolling hills above the river, Santa Cruz, which means “holy cross”. Twenty-two years later, in 1791, Father Fermin de Lasuen customary Mission Santa Cruz, the twelfth mission to be founded in California.

Over the adjacent 20 years, word move forward throughout the Ohlone tribes, including the Sayante Indians, that the Santa Cruz Mission would come going on with the grant for a regular source of food, even through the winter, warm shelter in the winter, clothes made from woven fabrics, manufactured items both useful (such as pots and pans) and curious (trinkets such as glass beads, etc.), and education, if they came to breathing at the mission. Unfortunately, once lured to the mission by these things, the Indians became virtual indentured servants. For the Mission system to con it required the facilities of large numbers of “workers” (to till the gardens, construct and preserve buildings, etc.). This was hard for New Spain (Mexico) to offer because few there were pleasurable to relocate to what was considered the rude and primitive vibes of Alta (Upper) California. The missionaries in object of fact believed they were benefiting what they considered barbaric people through teaching them the calendar skills of carpentry, European gardening techniques, etc., and through “civilizing” them to the Spanish / European religious and cultural beliefs and practices. This process, called cultural assimilation, shattered the ancient original culture across North America. In addition, diseases which were mostly annoyances to their European hosts decimated the Indian populace, and only little groups remained after 1820. In 1821, Mexico achieved its independence from Spain, and California came under control of the Mexican government. In the 1830s, Mission Santa Cruz and supplementary California missions were secularized by the Mexican government; only to seriously halt and, in some cases, fall into ruin. The totally last of the Sayante people was a woman who lived for many years aligned with Zayante Creek. When she died in 1934, she was buried somewhere in the middle of the giant redwoods in Henry Cowell Redwoods State Park. Her grave, like her people, is directionless now.