In 1769, Spanish priest Junipero Serra established the first mission in territory along the San Diego River. Initially, the Kumeyaay were interested in trading goods with the Spanish; however, the missionaries wanted more land to grow large crops and to support their cattle and livestock. The Spanish wanted more Native people to work a larger mission. To do that, they moved closer to the Kumeyaay villages. The Kumeyaay were upset with the Spanish for taking land without permission, destroying plants and food-gathering places, enslaving Native people to work at the mission, and harming Native women and children.1 In November 1775, Kumeyaay villages joined forces to attack Mission San Diego.
According to historian James Sandos, “Indians needed to learn more about the working of the mission before acting against it, and that could only happen if Kumeyaay villagers agreed to join it. They began in 1775 by coming to the mission seeking baptism in ever greater numbers. . . . The Indians observed everything. Village and [doctors] plotted a two-pronged attack on the and the mission. Out of twenty-five located within thirty-one miles of the presidio, fifteen contributed warriors, and throughout the second half of October Indians stockpiled weapons at selected sites and gathered information on the foreigners' movements.”2 The Kumeyaay killed three people, including Luis Jayme, injured several, and set fire to the mission. The mission was eventually rebuilt, but the revolt was one of the largest and most successful attacks against the Spanish missions in California. In this excerpt, Father Vincente Fuster of Mission San Diego describes the attack in a letter to Father Junipero Serra.
Source
On the fifth day of this present month of November, about one o’clock at night, there was such a [large group] of Indians, both [non-Christians] and Christians, who came to the mission, that as far as the soldiers could judge they must have numbered more than six hundred. The first thing they did was to circle the rancheria, then the mission, from the four sides; then they [robbed] the church of its precious articles, and after that they set fire to it. . . . Amid the yelling and discharges of the guns, half asleep, I made my way out of the building, hardly knowing what it was all about. . . . I asked the soldiers, ‘What is this about?’
Hardly were the words out of my mouth when I saw on all sides around me so many arrows that you could not possibly count them. The only thing I did was to drop my cloak and stand flat against the wall of the guardhouse, . . so that no arrows might hit me. . . . There we were, surrounded on all sides by flames.3
—Father Vicente Fuster, Mission San Diego
Source Analysis Questions
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Based on information in the introduction, why did the Kumeyaay plan a revolt? How did they plan and prepare for the attack?
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How does Father Vicente Fuster describe the attack? How many Kumeyaay attacked the mission? What did they do?
Learn More
Handwritten copy of Father Vincente Fuster’s letter to Junipero Serra.
Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian 8/4101
An 1846 print of Mission San Diego. Formally called Mission San Diego de Alcalá and founded in 1769 by Father Junipero Serra, this was the first mission established by the Spanish missionaries in present-day California.
Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian 8/4101
