The voyage of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1542 produced the earliest European descriptions of the Native people of California.
When Cabrillo's ships sailed into San Diego Bay in late September, most of the local Kumeyaay people fled. Within a few days, however, several of the Kumeyaay came on board one of the ships. The journal of the expedition reports that the Indians, using signs, indicated that "people like us were going about in the interior [inland California], bearded, clothed, and armed like those on the ships." Historians speculate that the Kumeyaay may have been describing members of the Coronado expedition that had traveled through what is now New Mexico and Arizona two years earlier.
(DETAIL)- "Ansicht des Spanischen Etabisements in St. Francisco," from Georg Heinrich freiherr van Langsdorff, Bemerkungen auf einer Reise u, die Welt in den Jahren 1803 bus 1807..." Frankfurt am Mayn: Friedrich Wilmans, 1812. California Historical Society, North Baker Research Library collection, FN-32172.
As Cabrillo passed along Catalina Island, "many Indians came out of the grass and bushes, shouting, dancing, and making signs to come ashore." Later these hospitable Tongva people "launched a fine canoe carrying eight or ten Indians, and came out to the ships."
The Cabrillo expedition passed through Chumash territory as it entered the Santa Barbara Channel. Cabrillo wrote in his journal: "We saw an Indian town on the land next to the sea, with large houses built much like those of New Spain. Many fine canoes each with twelve or thirteen Indians came to the ships." Cabrillo named the place Pueblo de las Canoas, the Town of the Canoes.
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