Written by Larry Hunt
When
Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo
sailed from Navidad on Mexico’s west coast, he cruised northward along
the Pacific coast of Lower
California. On September 28, 1542 Cabrillo
discovered "a sheltered port and a very good one, to which they
gave the name San Miguel."* Today this port is
known as San Diego
Bay. Cabrillo’s arrival marks the beginning of
recorded history in California. It was also the first contact of
Europeans with this part of the New World.
Cabrillo's visit was primarily observatory. Sent up the coast by Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza with "his own ship and an armada of two other ships," Cabrillo would view the landscapes, make notes of the flora and fauna and scout for a good place for Spanish settlement. And what is more, on this epic voyage into the Northern Mystery above Mexico, Cabrillo would keep a log of the Indians he would encounter. From his reporting we can gather some idea of what native Americans living in or near Temescal Valley, California might have been like in the 1500s.
The Indians Cabrillo observed along the California coast are described as being "robust people who wore no clothes" and a people who "carried bows and flint-tipped arrows." When they arrived in San Diego Bay, Cabrillo and his men found a few Indians who ran away from them. Three though, remained and received gifts from the visitors. But once night fell, the Indians returned and shot three of Cabrillo's men with arrows while they were fishing with a net. The wounds were apparently small for we are told that relations between the two groups got better after that.
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Monument of Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo at Cabrillo National Monument, San Diego, California. |
Another description reports some as wearing "deerskins and possibly deerskin sandals similar to those worn in Mexico." Later on during the voyage, mid-October and further northward about the Santa Barbara area, Indians were clothed in skins, tying their hair in cords, "with little daggers of flint, bone, and wood stuck into the braids." When the ships returned to these Indians at the beginning of November, some were "painted and decorated themselves with beads and daggers of bone and stone and shell. Colorful feathers were stuck here and there in their coiffures, as style and taste dictated... Canoe owners and the leading chiefs wore capes of elk hide or bear-skin, but most of the people wore nothing at all." During an especially long and festive party of Spaniards and Indians alike, "Indian musicians brought out their pipes and rattling reeds... Dancing and feasting began."
Indian dwellings are described as being round, "made
of reeds tied to a wooden framework over a dirt floor."
Cabrillo documented "one village where fifty Indians lived in one
house." "In the middle of each village there was usually "a
great plaza," surrounded by a plank fence and a stone curbing three palms
high. Inside the enclosures were mastlike posts covered with paintings. The
Indians danced around the enclosures in such a way as to lead the Spaniards to
conclude they were of great religious significance, though no one could
determine their exact meaning."
Although records are limited of what California was like
during the 1500s, it is intriguing to see references to the Indians that lived
along the Pacific Ocean from a Spanish captain's log. The accounts show that
large portions of the coast were heavily populated with Indians and that these
groups stretched back far into the interior of the New World. Some of them
possibly in or near what is now known as Temescal Valley, California. The
amount of attention the region would inevitably get after this initial visit
by the Spaniard Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo would begin to open up the
'mysterious north' to the rest of the world and create overwhelming change for
its people and landscapes.
*All quotes are from the book "Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo" by Harry Kelsey.
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Watch documentary film based on this article at Temescal Valley Television
Satellite Map Where Monument Stands | Map to Cabrillo National Monument | Cabrillo National Monument Web Site | Point Loma, Cabrillo Monument Area Video
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