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. Historian James Sandos argues that the Chumash rebellion was planned with a desire to create a new society, independent and outside of the missions, designed with a mixture of Chumash and Christian religious ideas and using European style farming and ranching as their means of economic support. First Stage of the Conflict It was in this environment of economic stresses, social changes and ethnic conflict that the rebellion began. On February 21, 1824, a young Chumash boy from Mission La Purisima was severely beaten by a Mexican soldier when he was visiting a relative imprisoned inside the Mission Santa Inés guardhouse. 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. Approximately 554 Natives participated in the revolt at Mission Santa Ines. 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. In the struggle at Mission Santa Ines on the first day, 15 Chumash women and children died, 4 men died in the fires, and one Mexican soldier was killed. Most of the Chumash fled to the two nearest missions, Santa Barbara and La Purisima, to inform their fellow Chumash of the revolt, and to join them. Approximately 722 of the Chumash at La Purisima had joined the rebellion. Mission La Purisima was captured by the Chumash; the soldiers and their families and two Franciscans took shelter in a storeroom. One Chumash man was killed in the initial fighting at La Purisima. Four Mexican settlers passing by the mission seemingly by chance were killed by the Chumash. As many as 1,270 Chumash fortified La Purisima, erecting wooden palisades and cutting gun