Large Lagoon
There was a major community of Chumash at the edge of Isla Vista
around a large lagoon. This lagoon once covered what is now
the Santa Barbara Municipal Airport, and streched west almost
to Stork Road and south across El Colegio Road. This Lagoon
was deep enough to be navigable by early Spanish and English
schooners (goletas in Spanish). Many historians believe
that Sir Francis Drake stopped here in 1579, losing an anchor
that was found about 100 years ago, and perhaps even some cannons
discovered more recently. Juan Cabrillo and Jasper de Portola
were other early visitors to this lagoon.
The Chumash community was centered on an island in the lagoon
that at one time held over 100 homes and 800 inhabitants. There
were several other villages around the edge of the lagoon and
the Spanish called all of these "Mescalitan." Mescalitan Island
was a prominent landmark until 1941 when the Army Corps of Engineers
leveled it to provide fill for a Navy airport.
To the Chumash, "Anisq'Oyo" was an oak-covered, coastal mesa
between the villages along the lagoon and the ocean, which is
Isla Vista today, including the UC Santa Barbara campus. While
they did not locate their huts in Anisq'Oyo, they did use the
tar still found on its beaches as caulking for their ocean-going
canoes. A model of such a canoe can be seen in the entrance
to the Santa Barbara County Courthouse in downtown Santa Barbara.
Isla Vista has retained this connection to the Chumash period
through naming its central park Anisq'Oyo. Although considered
to be one of the largest and most culturally advanced Indian
populations along the Pacific Ocean, only a few hundred Chumash
survived the Spanish Period (1567-1822). In addition to the
devastation of European diseases, the Chumash were typically
enslaved, turning out candles and blankets that were exported
to the far reaches of the Spanish Empire. La Purisma Mission
near Lompoc, about 50 miles west and north of Isla Vista, is
a particularly graphic example of the economic/military lifestyle
of the Spanish era.
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