The Chumash continued to occupy Mission La Purisima until a Mexican military unit attacked people on March 16 and forced them to surrender.

[3] In total, the rebellion involved as many as three hundred Mexican soldiers, six Franciscan missionaries, and two thousand Chumash and Yokuts people of all ages and genders.

[4] Rumors of impending violence among both the soldiers and the Natives were common by the early 1820s, and the Chumash spent months in preparation for the uprising.

[2] The Native Americans were aided in their preparations by having been armed with bows, spears, and machetes and trained in European military tactics to be able to defend the missions against a pirate who attacked Alta California in 1818.

[7] This constitution gave full citizenship rights to all persons in the Spanish colonial holdings, regardless of social or ethnic status.

Fray Payeras recorded that one quarter of the Native Americans in his mission voiced approval for the Mexican message of liberty.

[7] The Chumash people at Missions Santa Inés, Santa Bárbara, and La Purísima had heard both the Spanish and Mexican governments promise them equal treatment under the law; being mistreated by the soldiers of the presidios or the Franciscans of the missions could now incite much more outrage than it previously could, since persons committing wrongs against the Chumash were breaking their own nation's laws.

This act caused the Chumash neophytes in the mission to begin the planned rebellion early, attacking the soldiers with arrows and setting multiple buildings on fire.

[7] After a heated battle with many wounded and the arrival of Chumash reinforcements, the mission's priest and soldiers barricaded themselves inside a building, where they waited to be rescued until the next day by a detachment of Mexican troops from the Presidio of Santa Barbara.

The soldiers forced the Santa Inés rebels into the neophyte housing of the mission, which they promptly burnt down to flush the Chumash out.

The alcalde at Mission Santa Barbara used subterfuge to gain the rebellion there the upper hand since the element of surprise was lost.

[7] As they expected, a small force of Mexican troops and priests arrived at the mission from the presidio, attempting to negotiate the surrender of the Santa Barbara Natives.

[7] The Mexican authorities did not directly respond until March 14, 1824, when 109 soldiers, including infantry, cavalry, and one cannon left San Luis Obispo with the intent to retake Mission La Purisima; two Native Americans from San Luis Obispo left ahead of the military column to warn those occupying La Purisima.

After the Natives had suffered sixteen killed and a number more wounded, they asked Friar Antonio Rodriguez, who had stayed inside the mission with them, to negotiate a truce.

The soldiers accepted the surrender of the Native Americans, seizing "two cannons, sixteen muskets, 150 lances, six machetes, and an incalculable number of bows and arrows.

The missions had very few Native Americans present to perform the manual labor necessary to produce food, while the Yokuts villages had many more mouths to feed than they were accustomed to supporting.

The angle Ripoll's letter took was that the Native Americans were still minors who needed to be taken care of, in the old Franciscan style of viewing themselves as fathers to the "Indians" who were all children.