On a cool, autumn day in October 1902, a group of Indians, known as Cupenos, noticed a white man approaching their village of Agua Caliente, located in a beautiful mountain valley in southern California. The unexpected guest was a farmer, a federal employee assigned to teach Native Americans how to raise crops. The stranger apparently came to assist the Cupenos and other local Indians in preparing to leave their homelands and remove to the Pala Reservation, over fifty miles away. On the following day, Cupenos, along with their Luiseno and Kumeyaay neighbors, gathered together to discuss the...