Nestled in a grove of palm trees in Mission Valley, the white facade of the Mission San Diego de Alcalá presents an idyllic memory of peace and sanctuary. But this monument to delusion was built in the 1930s because what stood before was destroyed by Kumeyaay resistance to settler violence, sexual assault, and starvation.
Before the Spanish landed in what is today San Diego, the Kumeyaay had long sustained life in unpredictable conditions. They developed agricultural technology like irrigation systems and controlled burnings to prepare against sudden droughts, fires, and floods. When the Spanish Franciscan missionaries arrived in 1769 to establish the first mission, they had no interest in or knowledge of the land or its inhabitants. Their goal was to pacify the Kumeyaay through assimilation into Catholicism, while creating an exploitable labor force. Settlers pressured the Kumeyaay for food without any reciprocation and soldiers sexually assaulted Native women. The Spanish introduced livestock and invasive species that, when coupled with a two-year drought, severely threatened the Kumeyaays’ physical and cultural survival. The Kumeyaay resisted by raiding the mission of clothing and other valuables.
In 1774, the mission was moved to its current location to be closer to the Kumeyaay village Nipaguay. It was a means to observe Kumeyaay culture and recruit more convert laborers. This move further escalated tensions that eventually led to revolt. In October 1775, a group of Kumeyaay were flogged for attending a traditional dance ceremony. Flogging was a severe punishment in Kumeyaay culture, second only to expulsion from the community. When Chisli, the Kwaaypaay, or leader of Nipaguay, and his brother were accused of stealing fish from other Kumeyaay, some appealed to the missionaries as a police force. The pursuit of the Kwaaypaay by Spanish forces outside the confines of the mission undermined Kumeyaay sovereignty and culture, making the call to retaliate more palpable. Fourteen villages agreed to form an armed resistance against the mission.
One hundred Kumeyaay requested baptisms to gain access to the mission, gather intelligence and overwhelm the missionaries. Father Luis Jayme, the only missionary who could speak the Kumeyaays’ language, was even told of the revolt — a warning he brushed aside. In the early hours of November 4, 1775, hundreds of Kumeyaay stormed the mission, setting the roof on fire, destroying ceremonial objects, and driving soldiers and missionaries into hiding. Father Jayme was found the next day — his body “pierced like a sieve by the fierce jabs,” and his face bludgeoned by clubs, as described by Father Vicente Fuster in a letter to Junipero Serra. They had chosen to enact the worst brutality upon the main Spaniard responsible for baptisms and communicating with the Kumeyaay. Father Jayme’s “sacrifice” is memorialized by the eternal flame at the Mission San Diego chapel, with little reflection for why the Kumeyaay would have resisted.
Similar acts of resistance occurred at several missions throughout California against Spanish, Mexican and Euro-American settlements, including a revolt at Mission San Gabriel in 1785, a Chumash revolt in what is known as Santa Barbara in 1824, and the poisoning of Father Andrés Quintana who used an iron-tipped whip at Mission Santa Cruz in 1812.
After Kumeyaay land was transferred from Mexico to the U.S. after the Mexican-American War, the Treaty of Santa Ysabel divided Kumeyaay lands and communities. It granted them land stretching from Baja to Ocatillo, but the treaty was never ratified. This is just one of 18 treaties which granted 8.5 million acres of land in California to Indigenous Peoples that were never ratified by the government — a broken and unfulfilled promise that still exists today.
In 1989, Kumeyaay elders and historians were able to thwart attempts to build a multipurpose hall and parking lot over a Kumeyaay burial site on the Mission’s grounds. Despite efforts to hide and misinform the public, Kumeyaay resistance brought an end to construction so that the remains could be properly laid to rest.
The monument which now stands for the Mission San Diego de Alcalá continues to host students and tourists with no mention of the oppression, displacement, and forced labor of the Kumeyaay peoples. Its romanticized narrative betrays the lands and peoples upon whose misery it was transcribed. To learn more about Kumeyaay history, you can enroll in classes at Kumeyaay Community College or visit kumeyaay.com.
Stacey Uy is a member of Asian Solidarity Collective and a graphic designer, writer, amateur historian and zine publisher for Radical History Club.
Sources:
Resurrecting the Past: The California Mission Myth by Michelle M. Lorimer, Ph.D.
“Unvanquished: the Kumeyaay and the 1975 Revolt,” Honors thesis by Catherine Joan Buse