The Indians that Cabrillo encountered along the Santa Barbara coast
were the village-dwelling Chumash. Their villages were groupings of
houses, according to a later traveler, with a sweat-house,
store-rooms, a ceremonial plaza, a gaming area, and a cemetery some
distance off. The houses were cone-shaped, spacious and comfortable. A
hole in the roof admitted light and vented smoke from cook fires.
Apart from the brief skirmish at San Diego Bay, Cabrillo found the
California Indians a gentle, friendly people.
Two views of the Chumash:
[Illustration: An early illustration of two fishermen, from George
Shelvocke’s _Voyage Around the World_, 1726.]
[Illustration: Artist Louis S. Glanzman’s drawing of a woman with a
garment. “They were dressed in skins,” said Cabrillo’s diarist, “and
wore their hair very long and tied up with long strings interwoven
with the hair ... attached to the strings were many gewgaws of
flint, bone, and wood.”]
[Illustration: This stone found on Santa Rosa Island may have once
marked the burial place of Cabrillo.]
And then there is the testimony of Cárdenas and Vargas in 1560. They
said, without giving dates, that Cabrillo decided to winter on Posesión,
which the witnesses called La Capitana, and that on stepping ashore from
the ship’s boats he fell between some rocks, broke his shin bone, and
died 12 days later. Vargas adds that the fall resulted from Cabrillo’s
hurry to help some of his men, who were battling Indians. A splintered
shin bone with its possibilities for gangrene sounds more deadly than a
broken arm.
On February 18, 1543, after beating around the Santa Barbara Channel for
more than a month, exploring and taking on wood and water, Ferrer
resumed the trip, as Cabrillo had asked. Standing well out to sea, he
scudded north until on March 1 he was opposite—who knows? Cape
Mendocino? The California-Oregon border? The mouth of the Rogue River?
Wherever they were, the sea, breaking over the little ships with
terrifying fury, was driving them irresistibly toward the
rock-punctuated shore. They prayed fervently, and suddenly the wind
shifted, driving them south “with a sea so high they became crazed.” The
storm separated the ships, _San Salvador_ ran out of food, and the
sailors were in dire straits until they were able to land at Ventura and
later San Diego, where, in addition to food, they also picked up a half
a dozen Indian boys to train as interpreters in case of a repeat
journey.
Miraculously, the ships rejoined at Cedros Island off Baja California,
and on April 14, 1543, they reached Navidad, nine and a half months
after their departure. There was no repeat journey. Like De Soto and
Coronado, they had located neither treasure nor shortcuts to the Orient.
After that, no one else wanted to try, and Spain’s first great era of
exploration of the United States came to an end.
[Illustration: Mission churches were the vanguard of Spanish
civilization in the Southwest. They softened the imperatives of the
state and eased inexorable cultural transitions. San Jose Mission
was established along the San Antonio River in 1720. Still an active
parish, the mission today is a unit of San Antonio National
Historical Park, Texas.]