We begin our story with acknowledging the long legacy of our family’s contribution to California. Inspecific Santa Barbara County. Including the city of Santa Barbara, Montecito, Goleta, Gaviota and Santa Ynez. Despite many of the myths surrounding our family’s history, we share our true account of our Ortega ancestors, the (Indigenous Nobles). We, the Ortega’s of Nuestra Señora del Refugio, are an organized Chumash family who are lineal descendants of one of California's most notable historical figures, José Francisco Ortega. Contrary to popular narratives that conflate the story of the Ortegas into a romanticized Spanish fantasy past, our family history tells of the important leadership roles Indigenous people played in the early formations of California. Our family history, like those of many Indigenous families, is imbued with loss, including the dispossession of our land, the historical erasure of our ancestors’ contributions, and the ongoing invisibility of our family today. Despite our losses, the historic strength and resilience of our family brings us a vision of hope that we wish to share with future generations of our family.
We, the Ortegas of Rancho Nuestra Señora del Refugio, represent the kinship between various Chumash lineages from four Channel Island villages and six Chumash mainland villages, through our shared Ortega name. José Francisco Ortega was the progenitor of our family name, a man of mixed Indigenous and Spanish heritage, originally from Guanajuato, Mexico, born in 1734. He became one of the leading figures that first led the colonization from Mexico into Baja and Alta California, establishing the presidios and missions along the coast. By the late 1500’s our Chumash matrilineal bloodlines began to marry into the Ortega's and became the Indigenous Nobles of California and the founding family of Santa Barbara. By the early nineteenth century The Nuestra Senora del Refugio Ortega family had established a monarchy through their continuity of selected intermarriages and regional ceremonial participation. In our family line, 5th generation descendants of José Francsico Ortega would be documented in the original registry of Santa Ynez Indians, when the Indian census arrived in the region during the late nineteenth century.
We have organized ourselves as the Chumash Ortega family to bring awareness to our ancestors’ historical land grant, Rancho Nuestra Señora del Refugio, which was awarded to our ancestor José Francsico Ortega in 1794. Because of his historical leadership in the founding of Santa Barbara and moral virtue, he was awarded this land by the Catholic Church and the Spanish Crown. Rancho Nuestra Señora del Refugio covered thousands of acres covering present day Santa Barbara County, From Santa Barbara, along the Gaviota coast, to about Point Conception, and along the foothills of the mountains. Upon Jose Francisco Ortega’s death in 1798, his sons José Antonio María Ortega and José Vicente continued to operate the family rancho. When Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, the Rancho Nuestra Señora del Refugio regained its formal title and was granted again to the Ortega family. Within three decades, the results of the Mexican-American War ended in the appropriation of the previously held Mexican land into American hands in 1848. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo resulted in the cessation of the northern Mexican regions, while containing clauses recognizing the former property rights of Mexican citizens living within those territories. As supreme law of the land, the treaty did reestablish the property rights to the 26,529 acres that made up Rancho Nuestra Señora del Refugio to the Ortega Family. Our ancestor, a third generation lineal descendant of José Francisco Ortega, Antonio María Ortega and his aunt, Magdalena Cota, were granted a legal patent to the territory by the United States government in 1853 that was to be handed down to their heirs and assigns forever, forging the Ortega family as a sole corporation.
At the beginning of the American colonial period, many Indigenous families found themselves forced into various forms of survivalism, like hiding from major settlements, changing one’s identity, and conforming to a rapidly changing world. Between 1850 and 1862, the State of California sanctioned the genocide of the Indigenous people, which resulted in fraud, bribery, loss of land, and the enslavement of the “Indian” population in Santa Barbara County. Quickly the law of the land became lawless, bounty hunters chased after brown skinned people, and the changing political landscape disenfranchised the noble Ortega family into the margins of society. White American settlers began to lay false claims to our Ortega family’s land and the invasion of Rancho Nuestra Señora del Refugio ensued. Over the course of the next century, the land, the cultural property, and landmarks pertaining to our family have become in the hands of settler families who have profited immensely from their historical thievery, while our Indigenous families continue to exist in the margins. Since that time, Rancho Nuestra Señora del Refugio has been illegally encumbered by the State of California, the County of Santa Barbara, and major corporations like Exxon and other oil interests looking to extract resources from our land.
We, the Ortegas of Rancho Nuestra Señora del Refugio, hope that by sharing our history, a true history of Santa Barbara and California will emerge, where the acknowledgement of historical wrongdoings can begin steps towards healing and reconciliation.
As the original stewards of this land, we, as a family, envision the ecological restoration of the flora and fauna on our ancestral lands, and the restoration of their food ways, ceremonial ways, and other lifeways. The complex histories of the three waves of colonization in California––Spanish, Mexican, and American––made it difficult to maintain our Chumash way of life, but our ancestors were resilient people who left us a fierce historical legacy. Through the recuperation of our cultural practices, our ancestral lands, and our traditional kinship systems, we seek to restore the legacy of our family. The resilient spirit of our ancestors continues to be strong and we hope that through our efforts this spirit can empower future generations of the Ortega family, the Chumash people, and all our Indigenous relatives.