Kumeyaay

The Kumeyaay, called Diegueños by the Spanish, are a Yuman-speaking people of the Pacific coast between San Diego and Ensenada, reaching east to the Colorado River. Their name means people of the west, and they comprised northern 'Iipai, southern Tiipai and desert Kamia, divided into autonomous patrilineal bands under hereditary chiefs.

Colonization began only in 1769, when the Portolá expedition built a presidio and the Mission San Diego de Alcalá on the site of the Kumeyaay village of Cosoy. Abuse by soldiers and friars drove the Tiipai villages to revolt: they burned the mission and killed the priest Luis Jayme, though the Spanish rebuilt.

After Mexican independence in 1821 the coastal lands were seized for ranchos. Fighting flared in 1826, when Kumeyaay and Quechan warriors destroyed Fort Romualdo Pacheco after troops killed dozens of their people; later raids confined San Diego's Mexicans behind their walls.