Charting the Coast of California B 121
and for this reason they were afraid.” Cabrillo
heard such stories repeatedly as he ventured
up the coast.
Leaving the mainland, Cabrillo set off for
islands that were visible in the distance. He
named them San Salvador and Victoria, after
his ships. (Today the islands, northwest of San
Diego, are known as Santa Catalina and San
Clemente.) When Cabrillo returned to the
mainland, just south of present-day Los Ange-
les, the air was thick with smoke. During their
progress north, the Spaniards had encountered
smoke from fires set by Indians, who were
improving the land for autumn crops and thin-
ning the landscape for hunting game. The
smoke drifting from hills overlooking San
Pedro Bay was so thick that Cabrillo named the
harbor Bahía de los Fumos, or “Bay of Smokes.”
Cabrillo discovered that the coastline of
California was heavily inhabited by various
tribes of friendly Indians, who approached in
canoes to exchange sardines for glass beads
and other trading items with which the Span-
ish had stocked their ships. When a storm
drove Cabrillo back to a village named Ciucut,
where he had earlier anchored near present-
day Santa Barbara, he noted in his logs that
the Spaniards and Indians—probably the
Chumash—celebrated together:
The ruler of these pueblos is an old Indian
woman, who came to the ships and slept for
two nights on the captain’sship, as did
many Indians. The pueblo of Ciucut
appeared to be the capital of the rest, for
they came there from other pueblos at the
call of this ruler.After several days of music and dancing,
the Spaniards replenished their supplies and
resumed the voyage north. The waters there
werenot as welcoming. A storm separated
Cabrillo’s flagship, the San Salvador,from the
rest of the fleet off the treacherously rocky
coast south of Monterey. Like every other
explorer of his time, Cabrillo missed the
entrance to San Francisco Bay. He did, how-
ever, round Point Reyes, which he named
Cabo de Pinos (Cape of Pines) because of the
conifer forests blanketing the headlands. The
San Salvadorsailed alone up the coast as far
as the Russian River (opposite present-day
Santa Rosa) before turning back and finding
the other ships near Monterey Bay. By then
winter had begun, making the frigid seas too
dangerous for travel in sailing ships. Cabrillo
ordered a retreat south to the calmer harbors
at San Salvador (Santa Catalina) and other
islands off the Bay of Smokes.
Upon his return, however, relations with
Indian tribes on the islands deteriorated
because of unceasing Spanish demands for
food and shelter. Constant skirmishes indi-
rectly took Cabrillo’s life. Around Christmas in
1542, rushing to help his men during an
Indian attack, Cabrillo jumped out of a boat
and broke either his leg or his arm. The wound
became gangrenous. Cabrillo died on January
3, 1543, after passing command to his pilot,
Bartolomé Ferrer.
Carrying out Cabrillo’s last orders, Ferrer
resumed the voyage north in January 1543.
The little fleet succeeded in passing the most
northerly point they had reached earlier and
struggled as far as 42°north latitude,just
above the modern boundary between Califor-
nia and Oregon. In the end the wooden fleet
was no match for the tumultuous wintry seas,
which dispersed the ships and continually
threatened to send them to the ocean bottom.
Cold, hungry, and ill after weeks of being buf-
feted by stormy seas, the survivors reunited
and found their way back to Navidad, Mexico,
arriving on April 14, 1543.
The expedition had explored about 1,500
miles of California coastline. The Spanish