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Chumash Before Spanish Contact                9000 BC-1542 AD

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Chumash Before Spanish Contact                9000 BC-1542 AD

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Prior to Spanish contact, the Chumash lived in multiple communities in modern day Santa Barbara County and on the Channel Islands. They were hunters and gatherers, but were able to establish complex political and social hierarchies due to the abundance of the land that they lived on.  Their advanced canoe technology allowed them to hunt large marine life such as seals and tuna. Their religion was heavily influenced by their use of a naturally occuring hallucinogen they called datura, and was lead by shamans known as paxa.

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The first European to come into contact with the Chumash was Juan Cabrillo, who wintered in the Santa Barbara Channel in 1542. This was a breif interaction, as Cabrillo died that winter and his crew buried him on San Miguel Island and then left.

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Boats and boating--Equipment and supplies

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The next Spanish expedition to Chumash land came in 1770, when the Spanish were creating their system of missions across the California coast. This time, they brought missionaries to convert Chumash and all other Native Americans in the region to Christianity. Their goal was to indoctrinate the Chumash into their religion in order to prepare them to be lower class citizens in the society they dreamed of constructing on the Chumash land. Because of the large influence of the missionaries, most Chumash villages migrated to the missions by 1817. Due to the Spanish hope of Christianizing the Chumash, any Chumash found to be practicing their traditional religious rituals or celebrations could be severly punished. Priests used confessionals to find out who was still practicing Chumash religion.

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In 1820, in response to a threat of invasion from an Argentinian privateer, the Spanish missionaries armed and trained a battalion of Chumash warriors. While nothing came of the invasion, this gave the Chumash the knowledge and abilities they needed to organize and fight back against the Spanish. At the same time, the missionaries were redoubling their efforts to extinguish Chumash culture and religion entirely. With the stage set for a Chumash revolt, the final straw came years later in 1824, when a neophyte, or converted Native American, was whipped for visiting a relative being held prisoner at the Santa Ynez mission. In response, Chumash at both the Santa Ynez and La Purisma missions revolted and laid seige to the soldiers and priests in the missions. Most of the Santa Ynez was burned. Eventually, the soldiers at La Purisma were granted safe passage to Santa Ynez, and the Chumash took over La Purisma and readied it for seige. Eventually, after a few more scirmishes, and almost a month later, the Governer of California sent a force of 400 well armed Spanish Soldiers to quell the rebellion, and the Chumash dispersed.

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After being forced out of the La Purisma mission, the Indians fled to the surrounding hills, and the Spanish sent multiple expeditionary forces to gather them up and bring them back to the missions. In an attempt to mend their relationship, the missionaries held a ceremonial Thanksgiving dinner.

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After Mexico won its independence from Spain, and gained the territory of modern day California, they passed a law in 1833 secularizing and ending the mission system. The struggles of the Chumash and other Native Americans in the region were far from over, however, as disease and other factors had decimated over 90% of their population, and gold would soon be discovered in California, bringing more settlers, leaving even still less land for the Indians.