[3] Kilchis may have been a descendant of one of the survivors of a Spanish Manila Galleon that wrecked near Neahkahnie Mountain and the mouth of the Nehalem River.
Known as the beeswax wreck, it was probably the Santo Cristo de Burgos, which was lost in 1693 while sailing from the Philippines to Mexico.
Warren Vaughn claimed that Kilchis's father was a "full-blooded negro" who had been a blacksmith on the "wax-ship" and had been taken in into the Tillamook tribe.
Kilchis's mother was, according to Vaughn, a Nehalem Tillamook woman who had married the blacksmith survivor.
[10][9] Anson Dart, the Oregon Superintendent of Indian Affairs, tried to make land cession treaties with the Tillamook under Kilchis, and the Nehalem people, and many others.