Channel Islands

The Channel Islands lie off the coast of southern California. Chumash communities inhabited the northern islands, while Tongva people lived on islands farther south, including Pimu, or Santa Catalina. Both peoples crossed the sea in plank canoes, carrying fish, shell beads and other goods between island and mainland. Soapstone from Pimu was fashioned into bowls and traded beyond the coast. Spanish missions disrupted these maritime communities; by the 1820s the last Island Chumash had moved to the mainland, many to missions around the Santa Barbara Channel.