Feb. 21, 2024, is the 200th anniversary of perhaps the biggest and deadliest battle in Santa Barbara County history, and by far the biggest rebellion that occurred throughout the 60 years of California’s mission system.

The 1824 Chumash Revolt rocked our region like nothing before and like nothing since.

On this day in 1824, the Chumash began a major uprising, burning most of one local mission, and completely taking over another mission for an entire month.

Before the rebellion was over, several Chumash were ultimately killed at yet a third mission.

Today we look back at the 1824 Chumash Revolt as a major event that not only wreaked havoc throughout parts of our community, but also led to change for the Chumash and the missions.

The rebellion is known for its planning, its tragedies and its impacts, from today’s Lompoc to Santa Ynez, and from Santa Barbara to areas beyond.

When talking about the Revolt, we often hear that it was the soldiers’ mistreatment of the natives that led to the rebellion. Specifically, the tipping point was a presidio soldier, Valentín Cota, who reportedly whipped a Chumash who was upset that he couldn’t visit a detained relative at Mission Santa Inés.

The Revolt soon started. It quickly spread to Mission La Purísima near what is now Lompoc, and later had a devastating impact on the Chumash at Mission Santa Bárbara.

“The Indians first set fire to buildings at Mission Santa Inés, and then at Mission La Purísima, they took over the whole mission for several weeks,” said John Johnson Ph.D., who has conducted research over a 50-year period regarding the history and archaeology of Chumash and other indigenous peoples of California.

“There was a rebellion at Santa Bárbara, too, after news arrived of the uprising at Santa Inés. The presidio soldiers fought the Indians at the Mission and also where the dam is at what is now the (Santa Barbara) Botanic Garden.”

Ultimately, nine Chumash lost their lives at Mission Santa Bárbara after soldiers stormed the complex.

Many Chumash fled inland, as far as 60 miles, and were eventually persuaded to return to the mission.

“A group of about 400 Chumash fled from Santa Bárbara Mission, and established a fugitive community in the interior near Tejon Pass,” said Robert Jackson, an independent scholar and mission history expert.

“Some of the Chumash returned to Santa Bárbara Mission, but some remained until they were wiped out in an epidemic in the 1830s.”

Ernestine Ygnacio-De Soto is a Barbareño Chumash elder and a direct descendent of those at Mission Santa Bárbara.

“The Revolt makes me very sad that the Chumash had to leave the Mission and that it involved children and elders,” she said. “It is unfortunate that conquest brought so much loss and destruction.

“We didn’t do anything to warrant that response. The soldiers had no heart or conscience. But that’s conquest and we are the collateral damage.”

According to historians, the 1824 Chumash Revolt had been many years in the making, and came at the end of indirectly related major events and developments as far away as Spain, but also in Mexico and Alta California.

For the 15 years leading up to the Chumash Revolt, funding and support from Spain and Mexico for the California presidios and missions had vanished.

To make up for the sudden economic shortfall, presidio soldiers pushed the native population to work harder and produce more on mission land.

Tensions grew as a hard work situation became even harder.

The spiral that ended with the devastating Chumash Revolt actually started in Spain in 1808. Spain’s King Ferdinand VII was exiled for six years to France during the Napoleonic Wars.

With Spain now in chaos, the door opened for eventual countries like Mexico to begin a multiyear independence movement. This soon led to a Mexican civil war between those for and those against independence.

Financial support for California and other mission regions was quickly cut off.

At first, the California presidios felt it the most, with a lack of income or salaries for the soldiers or soldados. The presidios soon turned to the missions and their vast agricultural lands to produce more for trade, in order to make up for dwindling support from Mexico and Spain.

In the Santa Barbara area, the Chumash were forced to work very long hours, which, according to Johnson, put greater stress on a declining Mission Indian population.

“The forces fighting for independence had taken over the ports on the west coast of Mexico, so there were no longer provisions coming northward by ships,” Johnson said.

“Also, Chumash Indians by 1824 wanted to use the occupational skills that they had acquired under several decades of living under the mission system to become free citizens like the Spanish Californians.”

Many people look at the California missions as only Spanish, which they were for many years.

But that changed with Mexico’s independence from Spain in 1821 — three years before the Chumash Revolt. With Mexico now independent, the California missions and presidios had become property of the newly formed country of Mexico. There was a new sheriff in town.

There’s a big misconception about the Chumash Revolt, according to Kristina Foss, who has taught Native American studies at Santa Barbara City College for 52 years.

“Everyone says the Revolt was against the missionaries, but it was actually against the presidio soldiers,” Foss said. “The Mexican soldiers were about to take away all of the land that was supposed to go to the Indians.”

This led to fear and anxiety among the Chumash.

“Here in Santa Barbara we weren’t mad at the Mission — it was Mexico ruling then, Spain was gone,” Ygnacio-De Soto said. “My family loved the Franciscans and the Mission.

“But this is a horrible incident that should be in all the history books but it isn’t. It is sad that what Mexico did is not in the history books. We lost our land … it makes me sad.”

From Day One, mission life under Spanish rule for the Chumash and other native communities throughout Alta California was tough. Harsh labor, discipline and sometimes punishment.

But there was a good side in the eyes of the missionaries, as well: providing housing, food, clothes, a “better” way of life and protection for the natives.

But as Spain slowly lost its control over much of the Americas, mission life became harder, and unbearable at times, as the Chumash and other native groups throughout California were overworked.

These reasons and more eventually led to the 1824 uprising, which hit the breaking point with what many call the unnecessary whipping of a Chumash at Mission Santa Inés.

It’s for these reasons and more that we look back at the 1824 Chumash Revolt as a historic rebellion with multiple causes. The mission system soon changed significantly.

“(José María de) Echeandía arrived as governor the following year and soon issued his emancipation decree allowing Mission Indians to apply to leave their missions if certain conditions were met,” Johnson explained.

“He soon ordered the establishment of schools to teach the children at the missions, taught in some instances by neophytes who could read and write. His administration was followed by that of Governor (José) Figueroa, who oversaw the secularization of all missions in 1833-35.”

Spain’s original mission plan was to eventually give the land back to the now-Christian Chumash. The new independent Mexico, though, had a different idea. The vast mission lands were gifted and sold as rancho or ranch land to friends of and supporters of the new Mexico.

The Chumash were absorbed into society as citizens. There is a growing effort to keep alive their culture, language and traditions.