Now that eastern annals have been brought down to the end of Mexican rule, it is time to turn again the west, to that portion of our territory known later as Arizona. In Spanish and Mexican times there was no such province, under that or any other name nor was the territory divided by any definite boundaries between adjoining provinces. That portion south of the Gila was part of Pimería Alta, the northern province of Sonora. Except a small district this Pimería, the whole territory was uninhabited, far as any but aborigines were concerned. A small tract in the north-east was generally regarded as belonging to New Mexico, because the Spaniards of the province sometimes visited, and had once for a brief period been recognized as masters of the Moqui pueblos. Not only were no boundaries ever formally indicated, but I have found nothing to show how far in Spanish and Mexican opinion New Mexico was regarded as extending west or Sonora north. Each was deemed to stretch indefinitely out into the despoblado. California, however, while no boundary was ever fixed officially, was not generally considered to extend east of the Rio Colorado. The name Moqui province was sometimes rather vaguely applied to the whole region north of the Gila valley. Arizona—probably Arizonac in its original form—was the name given by the natives to a locality on the modern frontier of Sonora, and was known from just before the middle of the eighteenth century as the name of the mining camp, or district, where the famous bolas de plata were found. It is still applied to a mountain range in that vicinity.

 

ARIZONA IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

 

Nearly all of what we now call Arizona has no other history before 1846 than the record of exploring entradas from the south and east. The exception is the small tract, of not more than sixty miles square, from Tucson southward, mainly in the Santa Cruz valley, which contained all the Spanish establishments, and whose annals are an inseparable part of those pertaining to Pimería Alta as a whole, or to Sonora, which included Pimería. Thus, the only history our territory has in early times belongs to that of other provinces, and is given elsewhere in this or other works of this series. To dispose of the matter here, however, by a mere reference to scattered material to be found elsewhere, would be by no means consistent with the unity I have aimed to give to my work as a whole and to each part. The story must be told, but it may be greatly condensed, reference sufficing for many details. Neither the condensation nor the repetition involved can properly be regarded as a defect, each contributing, if I mistake not, to the completeness, clearness, and interest of the record.

The negro slave Estevan, closely followed by the Spanish friar Marcos de Niza, crossed Arizona from south-west to north-east in 1539; and these earliest explorers were followed in 1540 by Vasquez de Coronado, who, with an army of Spaniards, marched from Sonora to Zuñi, extended his exploration northwest­ward to the Moqui towns and the great canyon of the Colorado, and recrossed Arizona in 1542 on his return from eastern exploits and disasters among the New Mexican pueblos. These expeditions, the beginning of Arizona annals, are fully recorded in the second and third chapters of this volume; and the map, showing also one or two later entradas, is here reproduced. While Coronado’s observations were recorded with tolerable accuracy, no practical use was made of the information gained, and all that was accurate in the reports was soon forgotten. A century and a half was destined to pass before the Arizona line should again be crossed from the south.

But it was only forty years before the territory was again entered by Spaniards from the east. Antonio Espejo, with a few companions, in 1583, coming from the Rio Grande valley by way of Zuñi, marched to the Moqui towns, and thence penetrated some fifty leagues farther west or south-west, listening to tales of great towns said to lie beyond the great river, visiting maize-producing tribes, obtaining samples of rich silver ore in the region forty or fifty miles north of the modern Prescott, and returning by a more direct route to Zuñi. Fifteen years later the eastern line was again crossed by Juan de Oñate, the conqueror of New Mexico, who, at the end of 1598, very nearly repeated Espejo’s Arizona exploration, starting out to reach the South Sea, but called back in haste to Acoma by news that the peñol patriots were in arms to regain their independence. In 1604 Oñate resumed his search for the Mar del Sur, and found it. With thirty men he marched westward, still via Zuñi and Moqui; crossed the Rio Colorado—as he named the branch since known as the Colorado Chiquito; gave the names San Antonio and Sacramento to two branches of the river later called Rio Verde in the region north of Prescott—a considerable portion of his route corresponding in a general way with the line of the Atlantic and Pacific railroad of more modern centuries; and kept on south-westward to and down the San Andres—Santa Maria and Bill Williams fork—to its junction with the Rio Grande de Buena Esperanza, that is, the Colorado. One of the captains went up this river a short distance; and then all followed its course southward, fully understanding its identity with the stream called Rio del Tizón in Coronado’s time, to the head of the gulf. The main eastern branch, or Gila, was named Rio del Nombre de Jesús. In January 1605, they reached tide-water and named a fine harbor Puerto de la Conversion de San Pablo; and then they returned by the same route to New Mexico. Nearly two centuries passed before the region between Moqui and Mojave was revisited by Spaniards. Oñate’s expedition to the South Sea, though of the greatest importance and accurately narrated, like that of Coronado had slight effect on real knowledge of geography, its chief effects being to complicate the vagaries of the Northern Mystery.

There were no more explorations from any direction in the seventeenth century, and Arizona annals for the whole period are confined to a few meagre items about the Moqui district as gathered from earlier chapters of this volume. It may be well to state here, however, that the name of Arizona’s chief river is apparently used for the first time in a report of 1630, being applied to a New Mexican province of Gila, or Xila, where the river has its source. At the beginning of the century the Moquis, like the other pueblos, accepted Christianity, were often visited by the friars from the first, and probably were under resident missionaries almost continuously for eighty years; yet of all this period we know only that Fray Francisco Porras, who worked long in this field, converting some 800 souls at Aguatuvi, was killed by poison at his post in 1633; that Governor Peñalosa is said to have visited the pueblos in 1661-4; and that in 1680 four Franciscans were serving the five towns, or three missions. These were José Figueroa at San Bernardino de Aguatuvi, José Trujillo at San Bartolome de Jougopavi, with the visita of Moxainavi, and José Espeleta, with Agustin de Santa María, at San Francisco de Oraibe and Gualpi, all of whom lost their lives in the great revolt. From that time the valiant Moquis maintained their independence of all Spanish or Christian control. It is not clear that they sent their warriors to take part in the wars of 1680-96 in New Mexico, but they probably did so, and certainly afforded protection to fugitives from the other pueblos, the Tehuas and others even building a new town adjoining those of the Moquis in which part of the tribe lived from that period. In 1692 they had, like the other nations, professed their willingness to submit to Governor Vargas; but in the following years no attempt to compel their submission is recorded. In 1700, however, fearing an invasion, they affected penitence, permitted a friar to baptize a few children, and negotiated in vain with the Spaniards for a treaty that should permit each nation to retain its own religion.

Meanwhile, during this century and a half, though, as I have said, the Arizona line was not crossed from the south, the Spanish occupation was extended nearly to that line. In Coronado’s time the northern limit of settlement was San Miguel de Culiacan. The villa of San Felipe de Sinaloa was founded in 1584, after the failure of several attempts, a little farther north. It was in 1591 that the Jesuits began their missionary work in Sinaloa, but they had no permanent establishments north of that province before 1600. The Fuerte de Montesclaros, giving name to the Río del Fuerte, was built in 1610, and in the same year Captain Hurdaide, after a series of hard-fought battles and several reverses, made peace with the Yaqui Indians. In 1613 and 1617 respectively, missions were established among the Mayos and Yaquia, and a beginning was thus made of Jesuit work in Sonora. From 1621 eleven padres served 60,000 converts in the northern, or Sonora, mission district, called San Ignacio; in 1639 the spiritual conquest had extended to the Sonora valley proper, the region of Urea, among the Opatas, where the district of San Francisco Javier was organized; by 1658 this district had been extended so as to include missions as far north as Arispe and Cuquiarachi; and by 1688 these northern missions—beyond Batuco and Nacori, in Pimería Baja, eighteen pueblos in six missions—had been formed into the new district, or rectorado, of Santos Mártires de Japón. The next advance of missionary work northward will bring us to the subject proper of this chapter. It should be noted here that in 1640-50 there was a temporary division of the province, northern Sonora above the Yaqui River being called Nueva Andalucía. In consequence of a quarrel with the Jesuits, the governor of the new province attempted to put the missions in charge of Franciscans; out, though a small party of friars came to the country, nothing was accomplished; and all trace of the change, secular and religious, disappeared about the middle of the century.

 

Missions of Arizona, 1768-1846.

 

Pimería Alta, home of the Pimas, but also including that of the Pápagos, Sobas, and Sobaipuris, besides other tribes in the north, was bounded on the south by the rivers Altar and San Ignacio with the latter’s southern affluents, on the north in a general way by the Gila valley, on the west by the gulf and Rio Colorado, and on the east by the San Pedro, the country farther east being the home of Apaches and other savage tribes. This broad region was explored within a period of twenty years at the close of the seventeenth century and beginning of the eighteenth by the famous Jesuit, Father Eusebio Francisco Kino. Over and over again, often alone, sometimes with associates, guides, and a guard, this indefatigable missionary traversed the valleys bounding the region on the south, east, and north, and more than once crossed in different directions the comparatively desert interior, besides giving special attention to the gulf shore and Colorado mouth, for his original purpose was to reach and convert the Californians from this direction. He found the natives, grouped in a hundred or more rancherías, most docile and friendly, displaying from the first a childish eagerness to entertain the padre, to listen to his teachings, to have their names entered on his register, and to have their children baptized. They were, above all, desirous of being formed into regular mission communities, with resident padres of their own; and at many rancherías they built rude but neatly cared for churches, planted fields, and tended herds of live-stock in patient waiting for missionaries who, in most cases, never came. Kino’s great work began in 1687, when he founded the frontier mission of Dolores, his home or headquarters for the rest of his life. For six years he toiled alone, till fathers Campos and Januske came in 1693 to take charge of San Ignacio and Tubutama; and only eight padres besides Kino worked in this field during the latter’s life, there being rarely, if ever, more than four at the same time. Missions were, however, established, besides the three named, at Caborca, Suamca, and Cocóspera, with a dozen or more of the other rancherías as visitas. Those which became missions or visitas before 1800, with the presidios and other settlements, are best indicated on the appended map. The great difficulty, and one that caused Kino no end of anxiety and sorrow, but never discouragement, was that, besides the zealous padre himself, no one seemed really to believe in the docility and good faith of the Pimas, who were accused of being treacherous, hostile, and in league with the Apaches. Even Jesuit visitors, when once they were beyond the reach of Kino’s magnetism and importunity, were disposed to regard the padre’s projects as visionary and dangerous, thus furnishing the Spanish authorities a plausible pretext for withholding pecuniary support There were no other establishments in these times except a garrison, or presidio, at Fronteras, or Corodeguachi; this and a compañía volante being charged with resisting the almost constant raids of savage tribes in the north-east, and often requiring assistance from other presidios. All this region was under a comandante de armas, residing generally at San Juan Bautista, farther south, and there was no other government in the north. Captain Juan Mateo Mange was detailed with a part of the flying company from 1694 to protect the padres in their tours, and his excellent diaries consti­tute our best authority for events to 1702. There was a revolt in 1695, in which Padre Saeta, of Caborca, lost his life, several servants were killed, and many of the churches were sacked or destroyed. Yet notwithstanding the oppressive acts of military men and Spanish employees, which, according to the Jesuits, provoked the revolt, and the murderous slaughter by which it was avenged and the natives were forced to sue for peace, the padres seem to have had no difficulty in regaining all their earlier influence in a year or two; and the Pimas and Sobaipuris soon proved their fidelity by aiding the Spaniards most effectually in warfare against the Apaches, who in turn often raided the Pima rancherías, destroying the mission of Cocóspera in 1698. Still, by a perplexing combination of satanic influences, missionaries could not be obtained for the far north; and the old prejudice against the Pimas was no sooner partially conquered than it was transferred in full force to the Gila tribes, where Padre Eusebio, with a view to his Californian projects, desired to establish missions. Kino died at his post in 1711.

 

Missions of Pimeria Alta

Having thus presented a general view of the Pimería missions, it is necessary to notice somewhat more in detail explorations north of the Arizona line, where there was no mission with resident padre during Kino’s life, though there were churches at several rancherías in the Santa Cruz valley. Kino may have crossed the line as far as Tumacácori with Salvatierra in 1691, and he is said to have reached Bac in 1692; but the records of these earliest entradas are vague, and doubtless some of his later tours in the Santa Cruz valley have left no trace. In 1694, however, he penetrated alone to the Gila valley in quest of ruins reported by the Indians, reaching and saying mass in the Casa Grande, an adobe structure that had probably been visited by Niza and Coronado in 1539-40, and still standing as I write in 1886. In 1696 another visit to Bac is mentioned. Thus far, however, we have no particulars.

In November 1697 was undertaken the first formal exploration in this direction of which any detailed record has survived. Lieutenant Cristobal Martin Bernal, with Alférez Francisco Acuña, a sergeant, and twenty soldiers, marched from Fronteras via Terrenate and Suamca, while Kino and Mange with ten servants came from Dolores. The two parties united at Quiburi, not far from the site of the modern Tombstone; Coro, a Sobaipuri chief, with thirty warriors, joined the expedition; and all marched down the Rio Quiburi, since called the San Pedro, to its junction with the Gila, now so called in the records for the first time, though, as we have seen, the Gila province of New Mexico was named as early as 1630. Down the main river went the explorers to and a little beyond the Casa Grande, which is for the first time described and pictured by simple drawings in the diaries. From the Gila they returned southward up the river, since called the Santa Cruz, by way of Bac and Guevavi, reaching Dolores at the beginning of December. They had marched 260 leagues, had been warmly welcomed everywhere, had registered 4,700 natives and baptized 89, besides conferring badges of office on many chieftains.

Again, in 1698, Kino returned by way of Bac to the Gila; and from San Andres, the limit of the previous trip, or from the region of the Pima villages of modern maps, he crossed the country southwestwardly to Sonoita and the gulf shore; but unfortunately, Mange’s place was taken by Captain Carrasco, and no particulars affecting Arizona are extant. In the next tour of 1699 with Mange, he went first to Sonoita via Saric; and thence crossed north-westward to the Gila at a point about ten miles above the Colorado junction. The natives refused to guide him down the river where he had intended to go; therefore he went up the river eastward, cutting off the big bend, sighting and naming the Salado and Verde rivers, from a mountain top, reaching San Andres Coata where he had been before, and returning home by the old route via Encarnación, San Clemente, San Agustin, and Bac. In this trip he called the Colorado Rio de los Mártires, the Gila Rio de los Apóstoles, and the four branches of the latter—that is, the Salado, Verde, Santa Cruz, and San Pedro—Los Evangelistas. In October of the same year, with Padres Leal and Gonzalez from abroad, they went again to Bac. Here the moving of a stone, thought at first to be an idol, uncovered a hole on the top of a hill, and produced a hurricane which lasted till the stone was replaced over the entrance to this home of the winds. From Bac, they took a south­west coarse to Sonoita, registering 1,800 Papabotes. Padre Francisco Gonzalez was delighted with Bac, declaring it to be fit, not only for a mission of 3,000 converts, but for a city of 30,000 inhabitants; and he promised to return as a missionary. Manse states that he did come ‘mucho después’, or much later, bat that he remained only till 1702, being driven away by the hostilities of two rancherías not far away. It would seem that this must be an error. In April and May 1700, Kino went again to Bac and laid the foundation of a large church, which the natives were eager to build, but respecting the further progress of which nothing is known. In September he reached the Gila, by a route for the most part new, striking the river east of the bend, following it down to the Yuma country, thence following the north bank to the Colorado, and giving the name San Dionisio to a Yuma ranchería at the junction. The diaries are not extant, and such details as we have relate mainly to Californian geography, having little interest for our present purpose.

In 1701 Kino and Salvatierra went by way of Sonoita to the coast, but could not carry out their intention of reaching the Colorado. On the return, however, parting from Salvatierra at Sonoita, Kino and Mange crossed the country to Bac, and returned home by the old route. Later in this year the venerable explorer crossed from Sonoita to San Pedro on the Gila, went down to San Dionisio, and thence down the Colorado past Santa Isabel, the last Yuma ranchería, to the country of the Quiquimas, whence he crossed into California; and on his return he may be supposed to have made the map which I append. Early in 1702, Father Kino made his last trip to the Gila and Colorado, very nearly repeating the tour of 1701, but reaching the head of the gulf; and it was also, so far as can be known, the last time he crossed the Arizona line. The rest of his life was devoted to constant efforts, with the aid of padres Campos and Velarde, to prevent the abandonment of the old establishments, and to obtain missionaries for new ones, who, though sometimes promised, never came. The obstacles in his way seem to have been increased by the unwise policy of a new commander of the flying company, whose oppressive acts were a severe test, not only of the padre’s patience, but of the Pimas’ good faith and desire for mission life. As I have said, there is no satisfactory evidence that Arizona had either a regular mission or a resident Jesuit before Kino’s death in 1711.

 

KINO'S MAP OF 1701.

 

 

After Kino’s death, for more than twenty years no Spaniard is known to have entered Arizona. It is not unlikely that a padre may have visited the rancherías of the Santa Cruz valley, or that parties of soldiers from Fronteras may have crossed the line in pursuit of Apache foes, but no such entradas are recorded. Padres Campos and Velarde were left for the most part alone in Pimería Alta, and though zealous workers, they had all they could do, and more, to maintain the prosperity of the old missions, without attempting new enterprises. They could not visit the northern rancherías, and they could not give much encouragement to visitors from distant tribes, who came to inquire why the padres did not come as promised. All communication gradually ceased, the Gila tribes forgot what Kino had taught them, and even the nearer Pimas and Sobaipuris lost much of their zeal for mission life. Only two or three other padres are known to have worked in the field before 1730. Yet there were spasms of interest in the north; the bishop became interested in the subject; some favorable orders were elicited from the king; a presidio was talked of on the Gila; and, as we shall presently see, there was a project for reaching the Moquis from this direction.

In 1731, however, there came a small reenforcement of missionaries, and two of them were in 1732 sent to the north, effecting what may be regarded as the first Spanish settlement of Arizona. Father Felipe Segesser took charge of San Javier del Bac, and Juan Bautista Grashoffer of San Miguel de Guevavi, which from this time may be regarded as regular missions, the other rancherías becoming visitas. It is probable that during the rest of the Jesuit period the two missions were but rarely without padres, though annals of the establishments are almost a blank. Grashoffer soon died; Gaspar Steiger was at Bac in 1733-6, and in 1750 the missionaries were Padre José Garrucho at Guevavi and Francisco Paver at San Javier. In 1736-7 Padre Ignacio Javier Keller of Suamca made two trips to the Gila, visiting the Casa Grande, seeing from a hill the rivers Verde and Salado, which united to form what he seems to have named the Asuncion, and finding that many of the rancherías of Kino’s time had been broken up. It was also in 1736-41 that occurred the mining excitement of the famous and wonderful Bolas de Plata at Arizonac. The site was between Guevavi and Saric, but apparently just south of the Arizona line. The unparalleled richness of the silver deposits brought a crowd of treasure-seekers, and caused the king to claim it as his own, it being not a mine, but a criadero de plata; but the supply of nuggets was soon exhausted, and the place was in a few years well-nigh forgotten. North of the line I find no records of mining operations in these early times, though prospecting may have been prosecuted to some extent, and though popular but wholly unfounded traditions have been current of rich mines worked by the Jesuits. In 1741 the presidio of Terrenate was founded, but the site was changed more than once, and for a time before 1750 the garrison was apparently stationed at or near Guevavi. In 1750 occurred the second revolt of the Pima tribes, in which two missionaries at Caborca and Sonoita were killed, as were about 100 Spaniards in all. Bac and Guevavi were plundered and abandoned, but the two padres escaped to Suamca, which, on account of the nearness of the presidio, was not attacked. Peace was restored in 1752, and the missions were reoccupied; but a bitter controversy between the Jesuits and their foes respecting the causes of the trouble did much to increase the demoralization arising from the revolt itself, and all semblance of real prosperity in the establishments of Pimería Alta was forever at an end.

Meanwhile the Moquis of the north-east maintained their independence of all Spanish or Christian control. The proud chieftains of the cliff towns were willing to make a treaty of peace with the king of Spain, but they would not become his subjects, and they would not give up their aboriginal faith. At intervals of a few years from 1700 there were visits of Franciscan friars, to explore the field for a spiritual reconquest, or of military detachments, with threats of war, but nothing could be effected. At the first town of Aguatuvi, the Spaniards generally received some encouragement; but Oraibe, the most distant and largest of the pueblos, was always closed to them. The refugee Tehuas, Tanos, and Tiguas of the new pueblo were even more hostile than the Moquis proper; and by reason of their intrigues even Zuñi had more than once to be abandoned by the Spaniards. In 1701 Governor Cubero in a raid killed and captured a few of the Moquis. In 1706 Captain Holguin attacked and defeated the Tehua pueblo, but was in turn attacked by the Moquis and driven out of the country. In 1715 several soi-disant ambassadors came to Santa Fé with offers of submission, and negotiations made most favorable progress until Spanish messengers were sent, and then the truth came out—that all had been a hoax, devised by cunning Moqui traders seeking only a safe pretext for commercial visits to New Mexico. The governor thereupon made a campaign, but in two battles effected nothing. From about 1719 the Franciscans understood that the Jesuits were intriguing for the Moqui Held, but beyond visiting Aguatuvi and obtaining some favorable assurances for the future, they did nothing—except, perhaps, with their pens in Europe—in self-defence until 1742, when, the danger becoming somewhat more imminent two friars went to the far north-west and brought out 441 apostate Tiguas, with whom they shortly reestablished the old pueblo of Sandia. Again, in 1745, three friars visited and preached to the Moquis, counting 10.846 natives, obtaining satisfactory indications of aversion to the Jesuits, and above all, reporting what had been achieved, with mention of the Sierra Azul and Teguayo. and the riches there to be found. Their efforts were entirely successful: and the king, convinced that he had been deceived—that a people from among whom two lone friars could bring out 441 converts could be neither so far away nor so hostile to the Franciscans as had been represented—revoked all he had conceded to the Jesuits. With the danger of rivalry ended the new born zeal of the padres azules, and for 30 years no attention was given to the Moquis!

The project of extending the Jesuit field from Pimería to the Moqui province was perhaps at first but a device for drawing the attention of the government to the northern missions, and securing a presidio in the Gila valley with a view to the ultimate occupation of California Kino and his associates moreover greatly underrated the distance of the Moquis from the Gila and correspondingly distorted their geographical relations to New Mexico. From about 1711 various reports are said to have been received, through native messengers across the mountains, and also from New Mexican sources, that the Moquis desired Jesuit missionaries, and had a horror of the Franciscans. The project was greatly strengthened by the support of the bishop of Durango, whose quarrel with the Franciscans of New Mexico is recorded elsewhere in this volume, and who in 1716, with authority of the viceroy, attempted to put the Jesuits in charge, but failed. The king, however, in a cédula of 1719 approved the bishop’s views, and ordered the viceroy to make the change, the viceregal orders to that effect being issued in 1725, and approved conditionally by the king the next year. There seems to be but little truth in the statement of Jesuit writers, that the company declined to interfere in territory claimed by another order; but delays ensued, which were largely due to various schemes for conquering the Moquis by force of arms, and also, perhaps, to a change of opinion on the bishop’s part. The viceroy having in 1730 reported such conquest to be impracticable, and additional testimony having been obtained respecting different phases of the subject, the king by a cédula of 1741 positively repeated his orders of 1719. How this incited the New Mexican friars to renewed effort I have already told.

The king’s order of 1741 also inspired an attempt on the part of the Jesuits to reach the Moqui towns from Pimería. Padre Keller went up to the Gila in 1743, and attempted to penetrate the country northward; but he was attacked by the Apaches, lost most of his horses and supplies, had one of his nine soldiers killed, and was forced to return. This disaster was known to the Moquis, and through them to the New Mexican friars. In the same year Padre Jacobo Sedelmair of Tubutama reached the Gila by way of Sonoita; and in 1744 the same explorer set out to visit the Moquis. He reached the Gila in the region of the Casa Grande, but the Indians could not be induced to guide him northward by a direct course, and therefore he went down the river on the north bank, for the first time exploring the big bend, and crossed over some forty leagues to the Colorado. At the point of departure from the Gila was a warm spring, probably that still known as Agua Caliente, and a fine spring, called San Rafael Otaigui, was found where the trail struck the Colorado, perhaps near the modern Ehrenberg. Sedelmair went on up the river to near the junction of another rio azul, near the boundaries of the Moqui province, where the main river seemed to emerge from an opening in the sierra and turn to the south-west. The Moquis were understood to live not more than two- or three-days’ journey away, having frequent commercial intercourse with the Colorado tribes; but for some reason not clearly set forth, perhaps the refusal of the natives to serve as guides, the padre had to return without reaching the object of his tour. His branch river was clearly the Bill Williams fork of modern maps.

In a cédula of 1744, the king called for new information, Sedelmair was summoned to Mexico, and elaborate reports on the northern projects were prepared, both by the Jesuit provincial and the Franciscan procurador general. Without attaching much importance to the Jesuit claim that the company had no intention of interfering with Franciscan missionary work, I still find in the evidence strong indications that the principal aim was to secure the establishment of missions and a presidio in the lower Gila valley, with a view to a further advance to the north-west or north-east, as circumstances might decide. But the argument of Padre Oliva, representing the Franciscans, proved altogether conclusive so far as the Moquis were concerned; for in a cédula of November 23,1745, the king confessed that he had been deceived by false testimony respecting the geographical position, the hostile disposition, the strength, and the apostasy of the Moquis, as well as the lack of zeal and facilities for their reduction on the part of the friars; and he accordingly revoked the order of 1741, thus putting an end to the company’s project. As I have said before, the Moquis were now left to their own salvation by missionary orders for some thirty years. The Gila and Colorado field still remained open to Jesuit effort, but various obstacles prevented any notable success. An effort seems to have been made to reach Moqui in connection with the military movement of 1747, but nothing was effected. Sedelmair, however, made two more entradas in 1748 and 1750. In the first, from Tubutama, by a route not described, he reached the Gila at a point near the ranchería previously called San Felipe Uparch, and went down the river, noting the ‘painted rocks’, to the point where in 1744 he had turned off to the north-west. Here he named the warm spring ranchería, in a fine site for a mission, Santa Maria del Agua Caliente.

Thence he went on for the first time on the northern bank to the Yuma country, and finally crossed over to the Colorado at a point about two leagues above the junction, subsequently going down to the last Yuma ranchería below the Gila. But the Yumas were not very friendly, and it had been a year of drought for all the friendly Cocomaricopa tribes. The padre’s return was by the same route. His second and last tour was made at the end of 1750, and about it we known only that he went farther down the Colorado to the Quiquima or Quimac rancherías. found the natives hostile, and returned across the desert by way of Sonoita.

During the remaining years of the Jesuit period, 1751-67, the missions of Pimería Alta barely maintained a precarious existence. The Spanish Jesuits in many cases had been replaced by Germans, and all were more or less discouraged and disgusted by the complicated and fruitless controversies of earlier years. There was no progress, but constant decadence. As I have said in another volume, a few neophytes were induced, by the persuasions of the padres, and by the hope of occasional protection from the presidios against the Apaches, to remain faithful; the missions were, moreover, convenient places for the Pimas, Sobas, Pápagos, and Sobaipuris in which to leave their women, children, old, and infirm, while living themselves in the mountains, or, perhaps, aiding the Seris or Pimas Bajos in their ever-increasing depredations— convenient resorts for food when other sources failed, and even well enough to live in occasionally for brief periods. The natives lived for the most part as they pleased, not openly rebellious nor disposed to molest the padres, so long as the latter attempted no control of their actions, and were willing to take their part in quarrels with settlers or soldiers. Missionary work proper was at a standstill; the Jesuit establishments had only a nominal existence; the mission period of Sonora history was practically ended. But for the hostility between Pimas and Apaches the Spanish occupation of Pimería Alta would probably have been confined to the four garrisons, with a few bands of adventurous miners risking an occasional sortie beyond the protection of the presidios.

These general remarks from the annals of Sonora may be applied especially to the northern establishments of the later Arizona; but particulars relating to the latter, which I would gladly present here in full, are extremely meagre. A presidio of fifty men was established in 1752 at Tubac, or San Ignacio; and under its protection the two missions of Guevavi and Bac with their half-dozen pueblos de visita were enabled to exist, as was Suainca, some of whose visitas were also north of the line. Exactly how long they had been abandoned after the revolt of 1750 is not known; but in 1763 Padre Alonso Espinosa was in charge of Bac, as he was still at the time of the Jesuit expulsion of 1767. At Guevavi the minister was Ignacio Pfefferkorn in 1763, Padre Jimeno in 1764, and Pedro Rafael Diez in 1767. At Suamca Padre José Barrera was in charge in 1760-7, while his predecessors from 1751, according to fragments of the mission register before me—some of them doubtless mere visitors—were Keller, Vega, Nentoig, Diaz, Alava, and Labora. The ranchería of Tucson was a visita of Bac in these years, and a few Spanish settlers seem to have lived there; but in 1763 it was, like the mission, abandoned by all but a few sick and infirm Indians. This state of things, especially on account of the gente de razón at Tucson, called out much correspondence and several plans for relief which brought no relief. There were also nearly 200 gente de razón at Guevavi, Santa Barbara, and Buenavista. The visitas of Tumacócori and Calabazas were composed of Pima and Pápago neophytes, but the latter had run away in 1763. Respecting the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, nothing is known except the names of the three padres, Espinosa, Diez, and Barrera. The whole number of Arizona neophytes in 1764-7 seems to have been only about 1,250.

The Apaches were continuously troublesome, and many campaigns were undertaken against them by forces from the presidios of Fronteras, Terrenate, and Tubac. One of these expeditions seems to have been almost exactly like another, but only a few are recorded at all, and those very meagrely. The only success achieved was the killing of a few warriors, and the capture of their women and children; but often while one band of savages ran away from the soldiers another band attacked some point near the presidios; and it finally came to be seriously questioned by many whether these campaigns were of the slightest advantage. If the diaries were extant, they would furnish some interesting items of early geographic knowledge and nomenclature; but as it is, the mere mention in fragmentary reports is of slight value. Several of these entradas in 1756-8 and 1765—6, directed to the upper Gila in the regions about the later boundary between New Mexico and Arizona, are somewhat fully reported, but so confusedly as to yield nothing more satisfactory than a mere list of names. These campaigns were made by forces under the captains of Fronteras and Janos, Captain Anza of Tubac, and Governor Mendoza. They had some success in killing and capturing Apaches, found several groups of ruins, and satisfied themselves that the Moqui towns might conveniently be reached by that route if deemed desirable.

 

VENEGAS' MAP OF 1757.