The first settlers of the region were a gentle people called the Chumash. They lived along the Pacific Ocean from Malibu on the south to San Luis Obispo on the north and offshore on the Channel Islands.
The Chumash lived on an abundance of shellfish and other seafood, small wild game, berries, and other vegetation. The are credited with being the architects of the first plank canoe, called a tomol, and with having complex religious and community customs. The were particuarly adept at craftsmanship and noted for their basketry.
When the Spanish explorer Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo sailed up the coast of California in 1542, he discovered numerous Chumash villages. Anthropologists and archaeologists have placed the age of some Chumash artifacts found in the Santa Barbara area at about 1,000 years old.Early hunting peoples are believed to have inhabited the area 9,000 years ago.
Cabrillo's was the first documented contact with the Chumash, and until the mid-1700s, there were only three others-in 1587, 1595, and 1602.
Santa Barbara got its name during an expedition by Sebastian Vizcaino in 1602. Vizcaino's ship sailed into the channel between the mainland and the islands after a violent storm. A thankful monk on board the ship, noting that it was the eve of the feast day of Saint Barbara, December 5, bestowed her name upon the channel.
In 1769, the explorer Gaspar de Portola, at the behest of the king of Spain, led an expedition from Mexico to establish presidios, or forts, and missions in Alta California. The striking Santa Barbara Mission and the city's presidio, now under restoration, were part of this effort, which eventually led to the founding of 21 missions between San Diego and Sonoma, north of San Francisco.
The founding of the Santa Barbara Mission and Spanish presidio, in April 1782, jointly signaled the creation of the city that would become modern-day Santa Barbara. The governor of California, Felipe de Neve, had received directions in 1775 from the king of Spain to estalish Monterey as the seat of Alta California's government. Because none of the missions between San Diego and Monterey had the protection of a presidio, Neve decided to found one along the coastline near the Channel Islands.
Neve and Father Junipero Serra, the father of most of California's missions, were accompanied by Captain Jose Francisco Ortega on that April trip. Ortega ultimately became comandante of the newly established Santa Barbara Presidio, founded at the corner of what are now Santa Barbara and Canon Perdido Streets.