What was the Fate of the Chumash Islanders?
John R. Johnson, Ph.D. Curator of Anthropology, Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History From the outset of Spanish colonization of upper California in 1769, the government moved slowly in its attempts to “missionize” the Chumash islanders. The Viceroy of New Spain, Francisco Carlos de Croix, wrote Friar Junipero Serra that the Indians were not to be transferred to mainland missions, in part because their presence prevented other nations from settling off the California coast. Forty-five years passed before the islanders joined their linguistic relatives at missions established on the mainland. By that time their numbers had been greatly diminished because of disease epidemics. In particular, the measles outbreak of 1806 may have taken the lives of one-fifth or more of the northern Channel Islands’ population. The immediate cause for the massive wave of migration of islanders to the mainland missions in 1814-1816 was apparently related to food shortages. These years were characterized b
