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European Exploration on the Channel Islands - Cabrillo and the Chumash
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On June 27, 1542, an explorer under Spanish command, named Juan Rodrigues Cabrillo, left the port of Navidad on the Pacific Coast of what is now Mexico and headed north. The general outline of North America had yet to be determined, and Cabrillo’s task as commander of the expedition was to search for an alternative route to reach the treasures of China, thought to be just beyond the last outpost of Spanish discovery on the coast of Baja California.

Cabrillo never made it to Asia, but he did discover a large portion of the western edge of the continent. He was the first European to sail into the California Channels - both the San Pedro and Santa Barbara Channels - and to visit the Channel Island archipelago. He and his crew were also the first Europeans to have contact with the Native Americans - Pimugans on Catalina, and Chumash in the Santa Barbara area .

Cabrillo was a soldier, sailor, shipbuilder, slaveholder, and the first published secular author in the New World. He served the Spanish military during the conquest of Cuba, and later served under Herman Cortez in the final conquering of the Aztecs in the Valley of Mexico. As a reward for his services, Cabrillo received an *encomienda*, an estate on Guatemala where he settled before undertaking his final expedition.

Cabrillo’s party set sail with some 250 men in at least three ships, plus several smaller vessels. Exact details of the voyage are not available to historians as his original log book was lost, and the accounts we have today are interpretations recorded by other authors. The lead flagship was the San Salvador, a 200 ton galleon, 100 feet long, with a slim hull and square stern, built in Guatemala. Also sailing was the Victoria, a smaller round-bellied vessel weighing 100 tons. They took along staples to last for two years - wine, olive oil, hard breads, beans, salt, and salt fish.

Traveling around the tip of Baja California, Cabrillo and his small fleet retraced the route of an earlier explorer, Francisco de Ulloa. As they sailed northward, passing Rosario Bay, they entered uncharted waters. Sailing north, along the coastline of what is now San Diego and Los Angeles, and stopping at the southern Channel Islands, Cabrillo then ventured further north to the Santa Barbara Channel.

On the mainland, Cabrillo and his men saw broad savannas with occasional groves of trees. In the Carpinteria Valley they found a beautiful flat land filled with people clad in animal skins, their hair tied with cords. Indians in canoes flocked out to their ships with fresh sardines to trade for beads and other gifts Cabrillo’s group had brought along with them. The canoes impressed the Spanish so much that they called several villages in the area Pueblo de las Canoas.

The European explorer’s first encounters with the Native Channel inhabitants were congenial. It impressed the Spanish that the Indian’s homeland, with its wooded hillsides, lush grasslands and coastal marshes, was so rich in resources that they need not depend on agriculture. To Cabrillo, it seemed to be the sort of country that could be settled, marking the beginning of the movement towards European colonization.

After traveling up the coast to Point Conception, foul weather forced Cabrillo’s expedition to turn back south where they probably sheltered on San Miguel Island. When that storm passed, they again headed north, this time traveling north of San Francisco Bay to what is thought to have been the mouth of the Russian River. Turning south again, Cabrillo’s expedition returned to the Channel Islands.

Upon their return to the Channel Islands, possibly landing to winter on Catalina, the Europeans were no longer welcome by the Native inhabitants and a series of battles occurred. During one of these encounters, Cabrillo slipped on a rock and his injuries resulted in a gangrene infection from which he died, January 3, 1543.

No maps were ever published from the Cabrillo voyage, and it was sixty years before another explorer was given the task of sailing, charting, and mapping the coastal area of western New World. Sebastiano Vizcaino was commissioned to create a master chart of New Spain in 1602 and drew up the first lasting chart of the coast and determined many of the names we use today for the Channel Islands and geographic land marks.

It is also thought by historians that an English explorer, Sir Francis Drake, also sailed the California coastal waters in 1579, and when his ship returned to England, it was missing five canon and one anchor. As we will learn further in our Camp Internet Expedition, five canon and anchor from the same time period have recently been discovered in the Santa Barbara area … lending credibility to the claim that Sir Francis Drake may have landed near present day UC Santa Barbara, making him the second European explorer to navigate the Channel waters.

Adapted from Window on the Channel, a guide to the resources of the Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary.