Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
When English sea captain Sir Francis Drake harbored briefly on Miwok land north of
San Francisco in 1579, the English were taken to be the dead returned from the afterworld,
and shamans saw the arrival as a warning of apocalypse. The omens weren't far wrong:
within a century after the arrival of Spanish colonists in 1769, California's indigenous pop-
ulation would be decimated by 80 percent to just 20,000 due to foreign diseases, conscrip-
ted labor, violence, hunger and culture shock.
HOW CALIFORNIA (MAYBE) GOT ITS NAME
Gold is the usual reason given for the madcap course of Californian history, but it all actu-
ally started with a dazzling pack of lies. Have you heard the one about the sunny island of
Amazon women armed with gold weapons, who flew griffins fed with their own sons? No,
this isn't a twisted Hollywood Wonder Woman remake. It's the plot of Garcí Rodríguez de
Montalvo's 16th-century Spanish novel Las Sergas de Esplandíanthat inspired Spanish
adventurers, including Hernán Cortés, who said in a 1524 letter from Mexico that he
hoped to find the island a couple of days' sail to the northwest.
Apart from the mythical bird-beasts and filicidal wonder women, Montalvo and Cortés
weren't entirely wrong. Across the water from mainland Mexico was a peninsula that
Spanish colonists called Baja (Lower) California, after Queen Calafía, Montalvo's le-
gendary queen of the Amazons. Above it was Alta (Upper) California - not exactly an is-
land, though certainly rich in gold. But in Montalvo's tale, the warrior Queen Calafía will-
ingly changed her wild ways, settled down and converted to Christianity - which is not
quite how it really happened in California.
Learn About Native Californians
Indian Canyons & Tahquitz Canyon, Palm Springs
Autry National Center, Griffith Park, LA
Indian Grinding Rock State Historic Park, Gold Country
California State Indian Museum, Sacramento
Maidu Museum & Historical Site, Roseville
Patrick's Point State Park, North Coast
