 On a return trip from Northern California in January 1770, a group of men led by Gaspar de Portola are believed to be the first Europeans to encounter the Chumash Indians in the Conejo Valley.Father Juan Crespi, chaplain and diarist of the expedition, wrote about El Triumfo, a Chumash village.He wrote that there was plenty of water and firewood in the village, and that the land was covered with pastures.