First European Images of the Kumeyaay, Tongva, and Chumash
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.
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.
The Earliest European Artifact in California?
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo anchored his two tiny ships in a sheltered cove on an island along the southern California coast in late November 1542. It was there that Cabrillo decided to spend the winter of 1542-1543, waiting for better weather before continuing his search for the elusive Strait of Anián.
Relations between the wintering Europeans and the local Indian people worsened as the weeks dragged by. One of the sailors reported that "the Indians there never stopped fighting us." Following an Indian attack on a group of sailors, Cabrillo went ashore and was injured as he fell on a rocky ledge. The journal of the expedition reports: "On January 3, 1543, Juan Rodríguez, captain of these ships, departed this life from a fall...in which he broke an arm near the shoulder." Cabrillo's sailors buried their captain's body on the island.
Historians are uncertain where these events took place. Some believe that Cabrillo died and was buried on San Miguel Island in the Santa Barbara Channel. Others think his burial place is much farther south on Santa Catalina Island.
In the spring of 1901 an archaeologist discovered the stone pictured below on Santa Rosa Island, an island just to the south of San Miguel. The stone was placed in the anthropology museum at the University of California, Berkeley. Years later an anthropologist concluded that the markings on the stone said "JRC" and that the stone once marked the grave of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo. If that interpretation is correct, this carved stone is the earliest European artifact in California.
Following the death of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo in 1543, the pilot of the expedition assumed leadership. The journal of the expedition tells us that as Cabrillo lay dying, he "left as captain the chief pilot, Bartolomé Ferrelo." Cabrillo instructed Ferrelo "not to abandon the exploration of as much as possible of all that coast."
Ferrelo continued the fruitless search for the Strait of Anián. The expedition's two small ships left their winter anchorage in February 1543 and headed north. Historians are not sure how far they reached, but perhaps they got as far north as what is now Oregon. Somewhere along the way, the expedition was caught in a terrible storm. Both ships were damaged and several sailors lost their lives. Ferrelo decided to end the search. He arrived back in Navidad on April 14, 1543, nearly nine months after leaving.