How California Got Its Name

Did you know that California was named after a fictional island inhabited by beautiful, brave, and very strong Black women?  No? 

Well, here’s how the story goes. A 15th century Spanish novel, The Adventures of Esplandián by Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo, described a fictional island named California inhabited by beautiful, brave, and very strong Black women with robust bodies, and ruled by a Queen named Calafia. 

Montalvo writes…“Know, then, that there is an island called California, peopled by Black women, without any man among them, for they live in the fashion of Amazons. The Californians are of strong and hardy bodies, ardent courage and great force. Their island fortress is the strongest in all the world, their weapons are made of gold, as are the harnesses of the wild beasts which they tame and ride.  Their queen is  “strikingly gorgeous, courageous, strong of limb and large of person,  adorned with lavish jewelry, a crown of feathers and jewels and wore a robe decorated with images of the animals that roamed through her domain.”  Queen Calafia is “a superior fighter, controls an army of women warriors, commands a fleet of ships, and keeps an aerial defense force of griffins trained to kill any man or enemy they find.” 

Despite, european explorers, like Hernan Cortés, were inspired by Montalvo’s tales to search for Queen Calafia’s realm and the riches it contained.   In late 1533, Cortés sent out two ships looking for Calafia’s Californian stronghold.   One ship’s pilot led a mutiny, killing the expedition’s leader and a number of sailors.  The other ship turned back.   Afterwards, the mutineers continued sailing north and, in early 1534, landed at the southern tip of (what is now) Baja California where they found pearls, believed that they had landed on a large island.  In fact, they became the first europeans to set foot in California.  Perhaps it was fate that most of the mutineers were killed by the original native  inhabitants when they went ashore for water.  However, a few lucky sailors survived, made it back to the ship, sailed back to Acapulco and shared the story with Cortés. In 1535, confident that they had reached the mythical island, Cortés led an expedition back to Baja to collect pearls and is credited with naming the region California. And that’s the story of how our state got its name.