The Temecula Massacre: Native American Casualties of the War between Mexico and the United States

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Hidden Battlefields: Power, Memory, and Preservation of Sites of Armed Conflict" , at the 2021 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

The 1846 Temecula Massacre is among the few deadly conflicts associated with events tied directly to the Battle of San Pasqual, a skirmish of the Mexican-American War in California. Fought on December 7 and 8 between U.S. Col. Stephen Kearny’s military and the Californios, it is considered to be the bloodiest conflict of the War, with 18 Americans killed. However, the loss of Native American lives during the Temecula Massacre, which occurred a few weeks after the Battle, claimed four times that number. The ambush led by Californio officials and orchestrated by members of a neighboring Tribe, reportedly killed 100 Temecula/Pechanga Indians. Accounts of these events are found piecemeal in various documents, diaries, and oral accounts, but have never had a dedicated study of the events. The Tribe was successful in obtaining a NPS ABPP Grant to document the Massacre from the Tribal perspective.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Hidden Battlefields: Power, Memory, and Preservation of Sites of Armed Conflict   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2021

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Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology