Pauma massacre
The Pauma massacre occurred in December 1846, at Pauma Valley north of Escondido, California. Luiseño Indians killed eleven Mexicans, Californio lancers who had stolen horses from them. The action was related to a series of regional conflicts during the Mexican–American War and followed the Battle of San Pasqual in California. Fundamentally, it was also related to the appropriation of Mission Luiseno land from the Luiseño after the successful mission with a population of 3,000 was secularized in 1833. Gov. José Figueroa had granted the Luiseño three pueblos including Las Flores and San Pascual. Pío Pico was to hold the mission land in trust for the government as administrator pending a decision on what to do with it. Eventually, Pico took Las Flores as his personal ranch. Pico was the man who led the Mexicans at the battle of San Pascual. The Kumeyaay Indians lived at San Pascual, though the Kumeyaay were from the next mission, San Diego, they also viewed Pio Pico with distrust, and their sympathies for the Americans may have been decisive, given their knowledge of the terrain in which they lived. The Mexicans lost and afterwards took 11 horses from a nearby Luiseño community, which then retaliated