Because the government feared his influence among Native American peoples, tribal and federal forces attempted to arrest Machita in October for this resistance.

[2] Pia Machita (O'odham: Pi ’Am Maccuḍḍam, meaning He Has no Metate), was born around 1860 and was eighty to eighty-four years old when the trouble began.

Known as a chief and medicine man of the Tohono O'odham tribe, he lived with his small band of about thirty people in the northwestern area of the Hickiwan District, at an isolated village called Stoa Pitk.

In the 1930s, some members had conducted non-violent resistance to the Bureau of Indian Affairs construction of water wells on the Papago Reservation, and were concerned about the loss of communal land.

[2][5] After the Selective Training and Service Act was passed in 1940, agents of the BIA worked to draft Native American men into the armed forces.

[4] On October 13, 1940, Indian agents arrived at Stoa Pitk to register eligible men of the village for the draft, but the O'odham refused to comply.

After a few days, the tribal chief of police and a force of United States Marshals under the command of Ben McKinney raided Stoa Pitk to arrest Machita.

Entering with guns drawn and tear gas grenades at the ready, the law enforcement force captured Machita without a shot fired.

For instance, Alison Bernstein described this as the "most dramatic of Indian resistance" efforts to United States policies during the World War II-era.