Spanish period of Arizona
Encyclopedia
In the late 18th century, colonists began steadily entering the region
of northern New Spain
that is the modern-day U.S. state
of Arizona
. They were attracted by reports of the discovery of deposits of silver around the Arizonac mining camp. Most of the colonists left after Juan Bautista de Anza
announced it had merely been buried treasure
, however several stayed and became substinence farmers. During the mid-18th century, the pioneers
of Arizona
tried to expand their territory
northward. Their settlements included missions and presideos in the traditional lands of the Tohono O'odham
and Apache
Indians.
In 1765, the Bourbon Reforms began, and Charles III of Spain
did a major rearranging of the presidios on the northern frontier
. The Jesuits were expelled from the area and the Franciscans took their place at their missions
. For the most part, Spanish Arizona had a subsistence economy
with occasional small gold and silver mining operations. Relations with the native Americans went through cycles of mutual peaceful trading to raiding each other. The Spanish period ended with the signing of the Treaty of Córdoba
at the conclusion of the War of Independence
in 1821.
at the southern end of the Huachuca Mountains. A prominent Spanish rancher and miner
, he may have been Arizona's first Hispanic pioneer.
More colonists trickled into the region after the Jesuits reestablished the missions of Bac
and Guevavi in 1732, but the most important impetus to Spanish settlement was the discovery of large chunks and slabs of silver lying on the ground near a ranch called Arizona, which was located in Sonora a few miles southwest of modern Nogales
.
The name Arizona has been proposed to come from the Spanish words 'zona arida' (arid zone) shortened to Arizona, or the O'odham phrase , meaning "small spring". Another possible source for the name is the Basque
phrase aritz ona, meaning "good oak"; since the ranch was the property of Bernardo de Urrea, one of the several Basque residents of Sonora. The treasure of Arizona was a popular story, and eventually became the name of the territory.
The discovery of the silver itself was made by a Yaqui Indian in 1736. Prospectors streamed into the region, creating Arizona's first mining boom, but a legal dispute ensued to determine if the silver was a buried treasure
or a natural deposit. If the former case was true, the king
was entitled to the whole treasure, but only one fifth in the case of a natural deposit. Juan Bautista de Anza senior, father of the famous explorer and soldier, was the commander of the Fronteras presidio
and the chief justice
of Sonora, and was ordered to seize the silver until the issue was resolved. After investigation, the silver was declared a natural deposit, and the miners were allowed to keep their share of their discoveries. The owner of a huge 2500-pound chunk of pure silver, Lorenzo Velasco, became Sonora's largest rancher.
Like Espejo's ore, the treasure of Arizona added to the mining myths
that would attract prospectors
in later years, and cause railroad speculators to pressure U.S. President James Buchanan
to buy southern Arizona from Mexico in the early 1850s.
Most of the pioneers who remained in Arizona made their living as subsistence farmers, not miners. These were families
that cleared the fields, built up the herds, and constructed homes for themselves along the Santa Cruz and its tributaries. The mission registers of Guevavi recorded their names, Ortega, Bohórquez, Gallego, and Covarrubias. They also chronicled ceremonies that marked the end of one generation
and the beginning of another.
The generations faced extinction on several occasions. The first was in 1751, when O'odham led by Luis Oacpicagigua rebelled against the harsh discipline of several Jesuit missionaries. Luis and his followers killed two priests and more than two hundred Spanish settlers before the revolt dissipated and Luis surrendered to the Spaniards at the Pima community of Tubac along the Santa Cruz River. The rebels received pardon, but Luis would die in prison a few years later for preparing another rebellion. To prevent further uprisings among the O'odham, the Spanish Crown established a new garrison of professional soldiers at Tubac in 1752. It was the first permanent Spanish settlement in Arizona and the northernmost military outpost of Spanish Sonora.
Like most frontier communities, Tubac was an ethnic melting pot, its population composed of Spaniards, Spanish-Indian offspring, mulattos, Spanish-mulatto offspring, and Indians from various tribal groups. The captains of the presidio
s may have been peninsular Spaniards or criollos (Spaniards born in the New World). Most non-Indians had a mixture of European, Indian, and African backgrounds. For the next century, these Hispanic pioneers would fight a battle for survival along the Santa Cruz River.
In 1775, Juan Bautita de Anza led a group of Spanish colonists from Tubac to San Francisco Bay
, dreaming of northward expansion. The Spaniards tried to secure that route five years later by settling along the lower Colorado
, but the Yuman-speaking Quechan
Indians soon grew tired of Spanish livestock trampling their fields and Franciscan missionaries attempting to alter their lifestyle. The Quechans bided their time until the morning of July 17, 1781. They surprised the Spaniards during mass
and slaughtered them, including the Franciscan missionary Francisco Garcés. According to historian David Weber, the Yuma revolt turned California into an "island" and Arizona into a "cul de sac", severing Arizona-California connections before they could be firmly established. José de Züñiga
, captain of the Tucson presidio, blazed a trail between Tucson and the Zuni pueblos in 1795, but Apache hostilities prevented that route from becoming well-traveled. In the Southwest, Hispanic pioneers moved north-south, not east-west, sealing the isolation of the northwestern provinces.
The failure to open these routes left Arizona exposed and surrounded on the edge of a twisted upthrust of mountain range
s and river gorges known as the Apachería.
was to realign their presidios. In 1765, Charles III of Spain
commissioned the marqués
de Rubí to make a sweeping inspection of the northern presidios. Rubí's recommendations resulted in the Reglamento of 1772, a major reorganization of the presidial system carried out by Hugo O'Conor, one of the "Wild Geese" who fled Protestant-controlled Ireland to fight for the Catholic kings of Spain. O'Conor transferred the presidio of Terrenate north to the west bank of the San Pedro in 1776. It survived for less than five years before the garrison limped back to Sonora, decimated by the Apache attacks. O'Conor was more successful in 1775 when he relocated the presidio of Tubac forty miles to the north. There, at the new site of San Agustín de Tucson, the soldiers were closer to the Western Apaches, enabling them to mount offensive campaigns into Apache territory more easily. They also had wood, water, and the comforting presence of several nearby O'odham communities. Hispanic residents of Tucson and Pimas fought Apaches together for the next hundred years.
The presidial reforms were part of broader shifts in Spanish policy
that were known as the Bourbon Reforms, which took place under the Bourbon kings of Spain. In 1776, Carlos III placed the Provincias Internas
, or the northern "Interior Provinces", including Sonora, under the direct jurisdiction
of the Spanish Crown rather than the viceroy
in Mexico City. The king streamlined the administration the Provincias Internas by creating one official
, the comandante general
, who had broad civil and military power and direct access to the crown. The commandante general was supposed to take decisive action against both Indian and European antagonists, including the Russians
on the Pacific coast and the British in the Mississippi Valley. Spanish officials were worried that the expansion of the Russians and the British might not only threaten the northern provinces, but also the rich silver-mining areas of Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí
. Militarization replaced missionization as the dominant policy of conquest along the frontier.
The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1765 foreshadowed that change. Missionaries from the Society of Jesus first entered northwestern New Spain in the 1590s. Believing that most soldiers were bad influences on Native Americans, they tried to establish autonomous mission communities where they could isolate and protect their Indian converts. In areas where they were successful, such as the valley of Río Yaqui and the Pimería Alta, they also dominated Indian land and labor
. As Spanish ranchers and miners settled along the mission frontier, competition for Indian resources broke out between the missionaries and the colonists. The Jesuits won many of the skirmishes with colonial officials, but in 1767 they lost the war.
The Spanish Crown allowed gray-robed Franciscans to replace the Jesuits, but the friars never had a chance to exercise the power that their black-robed predecessors had. Immediately after the expulsion of the Jesuits, Spanish officials toyed with the idea of abolishing missions once and for all. They abandoned the idea when they realized that the missions were the cheapest and most effective way to control the Christianized Indians. As the world economy
grew more capitalistic, resources such as land and labor became more commonplace in the marketplace
rather than rights and duties locked in a feudal order. Jesuit dreams of independent missions contradicted the entrepreneurial dream of abundant land and a mobile labor force
. With the Jesuits gone and the Franciscans weakened, it became much easier for Spanish settlers to exploit that land and labor for private gain.
The Apacheria region was both a homeland
and refuge for the Apaches, to whom livestock raiding became as important as gathering agave or harvesting corn. The Apaches even referred to the people of northern Mexico as their "shepherds." Because of their bloodthirsty reputation, however, the Apaches had been largely misrepresented. Raiding "to search out enemy property
" in the language of the Western Apaches was an economic activity usually carried out by five to fifteen men. Raids were designed to run off livestock and not to harm the stock raisers themselves, though Apaches and Navajos
killed many Spaniards, raiding livestock, during the battles
for Tucson
. Apaches waged war in order to seek revenge for the death of a kinsman, and blood vengeance was a common theme in Native American cultures across North America.
Apache autonomy ultimately proved to be a fatal weakness. Clan affliction only partially counterbalanced intense loyalty
to the local group. The various Apache bands never forged a common identity strong enough to drive the Spaniards, Mexicans, or Anglo-America
ns out of the Southwest. The Spaniards, and later the Americans, defeated the Apaches by exploiting divisions among the natives themselves. The strategy
did not evolve until late in the colonial period. Throughout most of the 18th century, the Spaniards had to overcome other threats to their northwestern frontier: the Yaqui revolt of 1740, the Pima rebellion of 1751, and the guerrilla warfare
of the Seris and Lower Pimas during the 1750s and 1760s. Not until the Seris were worn down by the military campaign in Sonoran colonial history were the Spaniards able to turn their full attention to the Apaches. Even then, it took more than twenty years of intense military pressure before the Spaniards and the Apaches achieved peace.
and fought
the Seris during his career
, capping it in Tucson by impaling the heads of his Apache enemies on the palisade
s of the presidio walls.
As governor of New Mexico during the 1780s, Juan Bautista de Anza
severed an alliance between the Navajos and the Western Apaches. He then employed Navajos as auxiliaries in his campaigns against Apache groups living among the headwaters of the Gila River. Other Spanish commander
s formally incorporated Native Americans into the military as well, with Opatas manning the flying company at Bavispe and Pimas serving as the reinstated garrison of Tubac. The use of one Indian group to fight another was a very old strategy in northern New Spain, one that dated from the Chichimec wars of the 16th century. In addition to the Navajos, Anza persuaded the Utes and the Comanches to stop fighting the Spaniards and carry the battle
to their Apache foes.
. This approach led to a full-fledged rationing system in 1792, when a native of the Canary Islands
named Pedro de Nava became Commandant General of the Provincias Internas. Apaches were already living in the 'peace camps' near the garrisons of Janos, Fronteras, Bacoachi, Santa Cruz, and Tucson, but Nava made the 'peace camps' a prime component of Spanish Apache policy. At the camps the Indians received cattle, flour, brown sugar
, and tobacco
from the Spanish, who hoped that the rations would take the place of raids.
and sued for peace at Tucson presidio. José Ignacio Morago, the officer in command, gave chief Nautil Nilché a suit of clothes in honor of the occasion. The Apache leader reciprocated by handing Morago six pairs of enemy Apache ears. Common currency
on the frontier, the trophies symbolized Nautil Nilché's new loyalties. He and his kinsmen and kinswomen settled north of the presidio along the floodplain
of the Santa Cruz River, where they formed the nucleus of an Apache Manso (Tame Apache) community that remained a part of Tucson's frontier population for the next half century.
, the total non-Indian population of Arizona hovered around 1,000, with 300 to 500 people at Tucson, 300 to 400 at Tubac, and less than 100 at Tumacacori. The rest of Arizona remained Native American. A few pioneers grew crops, raised livestock, or operated small gold and silver mines in outlying areas such as Arivaca and the San Pedro Valley, but most Spaniards continued to live along the Santa Cruz.
Although the soldiers in Arizona belonged to almost every racial category, most presidial officers were full-blooded Spaniards or their descendants. As anthropologist
James Officer notes, the Elías González, Urrea, Comadurán, Zúñiga, and Pesqueira families belonged to an elite
that linked Hispanic Arizona with Arispe, Altar, Alamos, and other important Sonoran centers of power. Members of this aristocracy
intermarried, formed business partnerships, and helped one another fight for control over Sonora's military and economic affairs. One native Tucsonese, José de Urrea
, nearly became president of Mexico itself during the civil wars following independence
from Spain.
The lives of most Hispanic residents of Arizona, on the other hand, were constricted by river, desert
, and the Apaches. They had a largely subsistence economy
and their most important crop was wheat, followed by corn, beans, and squash. The most important animals were cattle and horses, although a herd of 5,000 sheep at Tubac produced enough wool
for 600 blankets in 1804. During times of relative peace, farming and ranching expanded along the Santa Cruz and other watershed
s.
Region
Region is most commonly found as a term used in terrestrial and astrophysics sciences also an area, notably among the different sub-disciplines of geography, studied by regional geographers. Regions consist of subregions that contain clusters of like areas that are distinctive by their uniformity...
of northern New Spain
New Spain
New Spain, formally called the Viceroyalty of New Spain , was a viceroyalty of the Spanish colonial empire, comprising primarily territories in what was known then as 'América Septentrional' or North America. Its capital was Mexico City, formerly Tenochtitlan, capital of the Aztec Empire...
that is the modern-day U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
of Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
. They were attracted by reports of the discovery of deposits of silver around the Arizonac mining camp. Most of the colonists left after Juan Bautista de Anza
Juan Bautista de Anza
Juan Bautista de Anza Bezerra Nieto was a Novo-Spanish explorer and Governor of New Mexico for the Spanish Empire.-Early life:...
announced it had merely been buried treasure
Buried treasure
A buried treasure is an important part of the popular beliefs surrounding pirates and Old West outlaws. According to popular conception, criminals and others often buried their stolen fortunes in remote places, intending to return for them later, often with the use of treasure maps.-Pirate...
, however several stayed and became substinence farmers. During the mid-18th century, the pioneers
Settler
A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. Settlers are generally people who take up residence on land and cultivate it, as opposed to nomads...
of Arizona
Arizona
Arizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
tried to expand their territory
Arizona Territory
The Territory of Arizona was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from February 24, 1863 until February 14, 1912, when it was admitted to the Union as the 48th state....
northward. Their settlements included missions and presideos in the traditional lands of the Tohono O'odham
Tohono O'odham
The Tohono O'odham are a group of Native American people who reside primarily in the Sonoran Desert of the southeastern Arizona and northwest Mexico...
and Apache
Apache
Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans in the United States originally from the Southwest United States. These indigenous peoples of North America speak a Southern Athabaskan language, which is related linguistically to the languages of Athabaskan...
Indians.
In 1765, the Bourbon Reforms began, and Charles III of Spain
Charles III of Spain
Charles III was the King of Spain and the Spanish Indies from 1759 to 1788. He was the eldest son of Philip V of Spain and his second wife, the Princess Elisabeth Farnese...
did a major rearranging of the presidios on the northern frontier
Frontier
A frontier is a political and geographical term referring to areas near or beyond a boundary. 'Frontier' was absorbed into English from French in the 15th century, with the meaning "borderland"--the region of a country that fronts on another country .The use of "frontier" to mean "a region at the...
. The Jesuits were expelled from the area and the Franciscans took their place at their missions
Mission (Christian)
Christian missionary activities often involve sending individuals and groups , to foreign countries and to places in their own homeland. This has frequently involved not only evangelization , but also humanitarian work, especially among the poor and disadvantaged...
. For the most part, Spanish Arizona had a subsistence economy
Subsistence economy
A subsistence economy is an economy which refers simply to the gathering or amassment of objects of value; the increase in wealth; or the creation of wealth. Capital can be generally defined as assets invested with the expectation that their value will increase, usually because there is the...
with occasional small gold and silver mining operations. Relations with the native Americans went through cycles of mutual peaceful trading to raiding each other. The Spanish period ended with the signing of the Treaty of Córdoba
Treaty of Córdoba
The Treaty of Córdova established Mexican independence from Spain at the conclusion of the Mexican War of Independence. It was signed on August 24, 1821 in Córdoba, Veracruz, Mexico. The signatories were the head of the Army of the Three Guarantees, Agustín de Iturbide, and acting on behalf of the...
at the conclusion of the War of Independence
Mexican War of Independence
The Mexican War of Independence was an armed conflict between the people of Mexico and the Spanish colonial authorities which started on 16 September 1810. The movement, which became known as the Mexican War of Independence, was led by Mexican-born Spaniards, Mestizos and Amerindians who sought...
in 1821.
First Settlements
Spaniards established towns for themselves in southern Arizona in the second half of the 18th century. By the late 17th century, however, a few settlers were grazing their livestock on the lush grasslands drained by the headwaters of Santa Cruz. Ten years before Kino and Manje explored the Pimería Alta, José Romo de Vivar was running cattleCattle
Cattle are the most common type of large domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most commonly classified collectively as Bos primigenius...
at the southern end of the Huachuca Mountains. A prominent Spanish rancher and miner
Miner
A miner is a person whose work or business is to extract ore or minerals from the earth. Mining is one of the most dangerous trades in the world. In some countries miners lack social guarantees and in case of injury may be left to cope without assistance....
, he may have been Arizona's first Hispanic pioneer.
More colonists trickled into the region after the Jesuits reestablished the missions of Bac
Mission San Xavier del Bac
Mission San Xavier del Bac is a historic Spanish Catholic mission located about 10 miles south of downtown Tucson, Arizona, on the Tohono O'odham San Xavier Indian Reservation...
and Guevavi in 1732, but the most important impetus to Spanish settlement was the discovery of large chunks and slabs of silver lying on the ground near a ranch called Arizona, which was located in Sonora a few miles southwest of modern Nogales
Nogales, Sonora
Heroica Nogales , more commonly known as Nogales, is a city and its surrounding municipality on the northern border of the Mexican State of Sonora. The municipality covers an area of 1,675 km², and borders to the north the city of Nogales, Arizona, United States, across the U.S.-Mexico border...
.
The name Arizona has been proposed to come from the Spanish words 'zona arida' (arid zone) shortened to Arizona, or the O'odham phrase , meaning "small spring". Another possible source for the name is the Basque
Basque language
Basque is the ancestral language of the Basque people, who inhabit the Basque Country, a region spanning an area in northeastern Spain and southwestern France. It is spoken by 25.7% of Basques in all territories...
phrase aritz ona, meaning "good oak"; since the ranch was the property of Bernardo de Urrea, one of the several Basque residents of Sonora. The treasure of Arizona was a popular story, and eventually became the name of the territory.
Buried treasure
A buried treasure is an important part of the popular beliefs surrounding pirates and Old West outlaws. According to popular conception, criminals and others often buried their stolen fortunes in remote places, intending to return for them later, often with the use of treasure maps.-Pirate...
or a natural deposit. If the former case was true, the king
King
- Centers of population :* King, Ontario, CanadaIn USA:* King, Indiana* King, North Carolina* King, Lincoln County, Wisconsin* King, Waupaca County, Wisconsin* King County, Washington- Moving-image works :Television:...
was entitled to the whole treasure, but only one fifth in the case of a natural deposit. Juan Bautista de Anza senior, father of the famous explorer and soldier, was the commander of the Fronteras presidio
Presidio
A presidio is a fortified base established by the Spanish in North America between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The fortresses were built to protect against pirates, hostile native Americans and enemy colonists. Other presidios were held by Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth...
and the chief justice
Chief Justice
The Chief Justice in many countries is the name for the presiding member of a Supreme Court in Commonwealth or other countries with an Anglo-Saxon justice system based on English common law, such as the Supreme Court of Canada, the Constitutional Court of South Africa, the Court of Final Appeal of...
of Sonora, and was ordered to seize the silver until the issue was resolved. After investigation, the silver was declared a natural deposit, and the miners were allowed to keep their share of their discoveries. The owner of a huge 2500-pound chunk of pure silver, Lorenzo Velasco, became Sonora's largest rancher.
Like Espejo's ore, the treasure of Arizona added to the mining myths
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
that would attract prospectors
Prospecting
Prospecting is the physical search for minerals, fossils, precious metals or mineral specimens, and is also known as fossicking.Prospecting is a small-scale form of mineral exploration which is an organised, large scale effort undertaken by mineral resource companies to find commercially viable ore...
in later years, and cause railroad speculators to pressure U.S. President James Buchanan
James Buchanan
James Buchanan, Jr. was the 15th President of the United States . He is the only president from Pennsylvania, the only president who remained a lifelong bachelor and the last to be born in the 18th century....
to buy southern Arizona from Mexico in the early 1850s.
Most of the pioneers who remained in Arizona made their living as subsistence farmers, not miners. These were families
Family
In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...
that cleared the fields, built up the herds, and constructed homes for themselves along the Santa Cruz and its tributaries. The mission registers of Guevavi recorded their names, Ortega, Bohórquez, Gallego, and Covarrubias. They also chronicled ceremonies that marked the end of one generation
Generation
Generation , also known as procreation in biological sciences, is the act of producing offspring....
and the beginning of another.
The generations faced extinction on several occasions. The first was in 1751, when O'odham led by Luis Oacpicagigua rebelled against the harsh discipline of several Jesuit missionaries. Luis and his followers killed two priests and more than two hundred Spanish settlers before the revolt dissipated and Luis surrendered to the Spaniards at the Pima community of Tubac along the Santa Cruz River. The rebels received pardon, but Luis would die in prison a few years later for preparing another rebellion. To prevent further uprisings among the O'odham, the Spanish Crown established a new garrison of professional soldiers at Tubac in 1752. It was the first permanent Spanish settlement in Arizona and the northernmost military outpost of Spanish Sonora.
Presidio
A presidio is a fortified base established by the Spanish in North America between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The fortresses were built to protect against pirates, hostile native Americans and enemy colonists. Other presidios were held by Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth...
s may have been peninsular Spaniards or criollos (Spaniards born in the New World). Most non-Indians had a mixture of European, Indian, and African backgrounds. For the next century, these Hispanic pioneers would fight a battle for survival along the Santa Cruz River.
In 1775, Juan Bautita de Anza led a group of Spanish colonists from Tubac to San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay
San Francisco Bay is a shallow, productive estuary through which water draining from approximately forty percent of California, flowing in the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers from the Sierra Nevada mountains, enters the Pacific Ocean...
, dreaming of northward expansion. The Spaniards tried to secure that route five years later by settling along the lower Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
, but the Yuman-speaking Quechan
Quechan
The Quechan are a Native American tribe who live on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation on the lower Colorado River in Arizona and California just north of the border with Mexico...
Indians soon grew tired of Spanish livestock trampling their fields and Franciscan missionaries attempting to alter their lifestyle. The Quechans bided their time until the morning of July 17, 1781. They surprised the Spaniards during mass
Mass (liturgy)
"Mass" is one of the names by which the sacrament of the Eucharist is called in the Roman Catholic Church: others are "Eucharist", the "Lord's Supper", the "Breaking of Bread", the "Eucharistic assembly ", the "memorial of the Lord's Passion and Resurrection", the "Holy Sacrifice", the "Holy and...
and slaughtered them, including the Franciscan missionary Francisco Garcés. According to historian David Weber, the Yuma revolt turned California into an "island" and Arizona into a "cul de sac", severing Arizona-California connections before they could be firmly established. José de Züñiga
José de Züñiga
José de Zúñiga was a soldier and early California and Arizona settler.Zúñiga was born 1755 in Cuautitlán, near Mexico City, to Spanish parents.He enlisted on October 18, 1772 as an officer trainee in the frontier army....
, captain of the Tucson presidio, blazed a trail between Tucson and the Zuni pueblos in 1795, but Apache hostilities prevented that route from becoming well-traveled. In the Southwest, Hispanic pioneers moved north-south, not east-west, sealing the isolation of the northwestern provinces.
The failure to open these routes left Arizona exposed and surrounded on the edge of a twisted upthrust of mountain range
Mountain range
A mountain range is a single, large mass consisting of a succession of mountains or narrowly spaced mountain ridges, with or without peaks, closely related in position, direction, formation, and age; a component part of a mountain system or of a mountain chain...
s and river gorges known as the Apachería.
The Bourbon Reforms
The first thing the Spaniards did during the Bourbon ReformsBourbon Reforms
The Bourbon Reforms were a set of economic and political legislation introduced by the Spanish Crown under various kings of the House of Bourbon throughout the 18th century. The reforms were intended to stimulate manufacturing and technology in order to modernize Spain...
was to realign their presidios. In 1765, Charles III of Spain
Charles III of Spain
Charles III was the King of Spain and the Spanish Indies from 1759 to 1788. He was the eldest son of Philip V of Spain and his second wife, the Princess Elisabeth Farnese...
commissioned the marqués
Marquess
A marquess or marquis is a nobleman of hereditary rank in various European peerages and in those of some of their former colonies. The term is also used to translate equivalent oriental styles, as in imperial China, Japan, and Vietnam...
de Rubí to make a sweeping inspection of the northern presidios. Rubí's recommendations resulted in the Reglamento of 1772, a major reorganization of the presidial system carried out by Hugo O'Conor, one of the "Wild Geese" who fled Protestant-controlled Ireland to fight for the Catholic kings of Spain. O'Conor transferred the presidio of Terrenate north to the west bank of the San Pedro in 1776. It survived for less than five years before the garrison limped back to Sonora, decimated by the Apache attacks. O'Conor was more successful in 1775 when he relocated the presidio of Tubac forty miles to the north. There, at the new site of San Agustín de Tucson, the soldiers were closer to the Western Apaches, enabling them to mount offensive campaigns into Apache territory more easily. They also had wood, water, and the comforting presence of several nearby O'odham communities. Hispanic residents of Tucson and Pimas fought Apaches together for the next hundred years.
Policy
A policy is typically described as a principle or rule to guide decisions and achieve rational outcome. The term is not normally used to denote what is actually done, this is normally referred to as either procedure or protocol...
that were known as the Bourbon Reforms, which took place under the Bourbon kings of Spain. In 1776, Carlos III placed the Provincias Internas
Commandancy General of the Provincias Internas
The Provincias Internas or Commandancy General of the Internal Provinces of the North was a colonial, administrative district of the Spanish Empire, created in 1776 to provide more autonomy for the frontier provinces in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, present day northern Mexico and southwestern...
, or the northern "Interior Provinces", including Sonora, under the direct jurisdiction
Jurisdiction
Jurisdiction is the practical authority granted to a formally constituted legal body or to a political leader to deal with and make pronouncements on legal matters and, by implication, to administer justice within a defined area of responsibility...
of the Spanish Crown rather than the viceroy
Viceroy
A viceroy is a royal official who runs a country, colony, or province in the name of and as representative of the monarch. The term derives from the Latin prefix vice-, meaning "in the place of" and the French word roi, meaning king. A viceroy's province or larger territory is called a viceroyalty...
in Mexico City. The king streamlined the administration the Provincias Internas by creating one official
Official
An official is someone who holds an office in an organization or government and participates in the exercise of authority .A government official or functionary is an official who is involved in public...
, the comandante general
Commandant
Commandant is a senior title often given to the officer in charge of a large training establishment or academy. This usage is common in anglophone nations...
, who had broad civil and military power and direct access to the crown. The commandante general was supposed to take decisive action against both Indian and European antagonists, including the Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
on the Pacific coast and the British in the Mississippi Valley. Spanish officials were worried that the expansion of the Russians and the British might not only threaten the northern provinces, but also the rich silver-mining areas of Zacatecas and San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí, San Luis Potosí
San Luis Potosí, commonly called SLP or simply San Luis, is the capital of, and most populous city in the Mexican state of the same name. The city lies at an elevation of 1,850 meters...
. Militarization replaced missionization as the dominant policy of conquest along the frontier.
The expulsion of the Jesuits in 1765 foreshadowed that change. Missionaries from the Society of Jesus first entered northwestern New Spain in the 1590s. Believing that most soldiers were bad influences on Native Americans, they tried to establish autonomous mission communities where they could isolate and protect their Indian converts. In areas where they were successful, such as the valley of Río Yaqui and the Pimería Alta, they also dominated Indian land and labor
Manual labour
Manual labour , manual or manual work is physical work done by people, most especially in contrast to that done by machines, and also to that done by working animals...
. As Spanish ranchers and miners settled along the mission frontier, competition for Indian resources broke out between the missionaries and the colonists. The Jesuits won many of the skirmishes with colonial officials, but in 1767 they lost the war.
The Spanish Crown allowed gray-robed Franciscans to replace the Jesuits, but the friars never had a chance to exercise the power that their black-robed predecessors had. Immediately after the expulsion of the Jesuits, Spanish officials toyed with the idea of abolishing missions once and for all. They abandoned the idea when they realized that the missions were the cheapest and most effective way to control the Christianized Indians. As the world economy
World economy
The world economy, or global economy, generally refers to the economy, which is based on economies of all of the world's countries, national economies. Also global economy can be seen as the economy of global society and national economies – as economies of local societies, making the global one....
grew more capitalistic, resources such as land and labor became more commonplace in the marketplace
Marketplace
A marketplace is the space, actual, virtual or metaphorical, in which a market operates. The term is also used in a trademark law context to denote the actual consumer environment, ie. the 'real world' in which products and services are provided and consumed.-Marketplaces and street markets:A...
rather than rights and duties locked in a feudal order. Jesuit dreams of independent missions contradicted the entrepreneurial dream of abundant land and a mobile labor force
Labor force
In economics, a labor force or labour force is a region's combined civilian workforce, including both the employed and unemployed.Normally, the labor force of a country consists of everyone of working age In economics, a labor force or labour force is a region's combined civilian workforce,...
. With the Jesuits gone and the Franciscans weakened, it became much easier for Spanish settlers to exploit that land and labor for private gain.
Apache Warfare
Homeland
A homeland is the concept of the place to which an ethnic group holds a long history and a deep cultural association with —the country in which a particular national identity began. As a common noun, it simply connotes the country of one's origin...
and refuge for the Apaches, to whom livestock raiding became as important as gathering agave or harvesting corn. The Apaches even referred to the people of northern Mexico as their "shepherds." Because of their bloodthirsty reputation, however, the Apaches had been largely misrepresented. Raiding "to search out enemy property
Property
Property is any physical or intangible entity that is owned by a person or jointly by a group of people or a legal entity like a corporation...
" in the language of the Western Apaches was an economic activity usually carried out by five to fifteen men. Raids were designed to run off livestock and not to harm the stock raisers themselves, though Apaches and Navajos
Navajo people
The Navajo of the Southwestern United States are the largest single federally recognized tribe of the United States of America. The Navajo Nation has 300,048 enrolled tribal members. The Navajo Nation constitutes an independent governmental body which manages the Navajo Indian reservation in the...
killed many Spaniards, raiding livestock, during the battles
Third Battle of Tucson (1782)
The Third Battle of Tucson was a battle during the Spanish colonization of Sonora, now the present day Arizona in the United States. The battle pitched the Apache warriors against the Spanish cavalry garrison of Tucson.-Battle:...
for Tucson
Fourth Battle of Tucson
The Fourth Battle of Tucson was a raid during the Spanish-Apache Wars. At break of day, on March 21, 1784, a force of no more than 500 Apaches and Navajos attacked Spanish cavalry guards protecting a herd of livestock at the Presidio San Augustin del Tucson in southern Arizona.-Battle:The Spanish...
. Apaches waged war in order to seek revenge for the death of a kinsman, and blood vengeance was a common theme in Native American cultures across North America.
Apache autonomy ultimately proved to be a fatal weakness. Clan affliction only partially counterbalanced intense loyalty
Loyalty
Loyalty is faithfulness or a devotion to a person, country, group, or cause There are many aspects to...
to the local group. The various Apache bands never forged a common identity strong enough to drive the Spaniards, Mexicans, or Anglo-America
Anglo-America
Anglo-America is a region in the Americas in which English is a main language, or one which has significant British historical, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural links...
ns out of the Southwest. The Spaniards, and later the Americans, defeated the Apaches by exploiting divisions among the natives themselves. The strategy
Strategy
Strategy, a word of military origin, refers to a plan of action designed to achieve a particular goal. In military usage strategy is distinct from tactics, which are concerned with the conduct of an engagement, while strategy is concerned with how different engagements are linked...
did not evolve until late in the colonial period. Throughout most of the 18th century, the Spaniards had to overcome other threats to their northwestern frontier: the Yaqui revolt of 1740, the Pima rebellion of 1751, and the guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare and refers to conflicts in which a small group of combatants including, but not limited to, armed civilians use military tactics, such as ambushes, sabotage, raids, the element of surprise, and extraordinary mobility to harass a larger and...
of the Seris and Lower Pimas during the 1750s and 1760s. Not until the Seris were worn down by the military campaign in Sonoran colonial history were the Spaniards able to turn their full attention to the Apaches. Even then, it took more than twenty years of intense military pressure before the Spaniards and the Apaches achieved peace.
Spanish Warfare
Beginning in the 1770s, soldiers from presidios scoured the Apachería. At Tucson, Captain Pedro Allande y Saabedra mounted nearly a dozen major forays against the Apaches between 1783 and 1785 alone. Allande was a nobleman who had fought the PortuguesePortuguese people
The Portuguese are a nation and ethnic group native to the country of Portugal, in the west of the Iberian peninsula of south-west Europe. Their language is Portuguese, and Roman Catholicism is the predominant religion....
and fought
First Magdalena Massacre
The First Magdalena Massacre was an attack by Seri native Americans against the Spanish mission village of Magdalena de Kino, in the present day northern Mexico. The attack occurred on November 3, 1757 and was the first of two massacres at the town. The second attack came almost exactly nineteen...
the Seris during his career
Career
Career is defined by the Oxford English Dictionary as a person's "course or progress through life ". It is usually considered to pertain to remunerative work ....
, capping it in Tucson by impaling the heads of his Apache enemies on the palisade
Palisade
A palisade is a steel or wooden fence or wall of variable height, usually used as a defensive structure.- Typical construction :Typical construction consisted of small or mid sized tree trunks aligned vertically, with no spacing in between. The trunks were sharpened or pointed at the top, and were...
s of the presidio walls.
As governor of New Mexico during the 1780s, Juan Bautista de Anza
Juan Bautista de Anza
Juan Bautista de Anza Bezerra Nieto was a Novo-Spanish explorer and Governor of New Mexico for the Spanish Empire.-Early life:...
severed an alliance between the Navajos and the Western Apaches. He then employed Navajos as auxiliaries in his campaigns against Apache groups living among the headwaters of the Gila River. Other Spanish commander
Commander
Commander is a naval rank which is also sometimes used as a military title depending on the individual customs of a given military service. Commander is also used as a rank or title in some organizations outside of the armed forces, particularly in police and law enforcement.-Commander as a naval...
s formally incorporated Native Americans into the military as well, with Opatas manning the flying company at Bavispe and Pimas serving as the reinstated garrison of Tubac. The use of one Indian group to fight another was a very old strategy in northern New Spain, one that dated from the Chichimec wars of the 16th century. In addition to the Navajos, Anza persuaded the Utes and the Comanches to stop fighting the Spaniards and carry the battle
Second Battle of Tucson
The Second Battle of Tucson or the May Day Attack was a battle in Tucson, Arizona, and the neighboring pueblo. It occurred during the Mexican Apache Wars on May 1, 1782, between a small garrison of Spanish soldiers and hundreds of Apache warriors....
to their Apache foes.
Peace Camps
In 1786, Viceroy Bernardo de Gálvez instituted a policy to establish 'Apache peace camps' (campos de paz apaches) where Spanish military commanders offered "defective firearms, strong liquor, and other such commodities as would render them militarily and economically dependent on the Spaniards" to Apaches who agreed to stop fighting; a form of pacification or appeasementAppeasement
The term appeasement is commonly understood to refer to a diplomatic policy aimed at avoiding war by making concessions to another power. Historian Paul Kennedy defines it as "the policy of settling international quarrels by admitting and satisfying grievances through rational negotiation and...
. This approach led to a full-fledged rationing system in 1792, when a native of the Canary Islands
Canary Islands
The Canary Islands , also known as the Canaries , is a Spanish archipelago located just off the northwest coast of mainland Africa, 100 km west of the border between Morocco and the Western Sahara. The Canaries are a Spanish autonomous community and an outermost region of the European Union...
named Pedro de Nava became Commandant General of the Provincias Internas. Apaches were already living in the 'peace camps' near the garrisons of Janos, Fronteras, Bacoachi, Santa Cruz, and Tucson, but Nava made the 'peace camps' a prime component of Spanish Apache policy. At the camps the Indians received cattle, flour, brown sugar
Brown sugar
Brown sugar is a sucrose sugar product with a distinctive brown color due to the presence of molasses. It is either an unrefined or partially refined soft sugar consisting of sugar crystals with some residual molasses content, or it is produced by the addition of molasses to refined white...
, and tobacco
Tobacco
Tobacco is an agricultural product processed from the leaves of plants in the genus Nicotiana. It can be consumed, used as a pesticide and, in the form of nicotine tartrate, used in some medicines...
from the Spanish, who hoped that the rations would take the place of raids.
Tucson Peace Camp
Many Apaches never accepted the Spanish program, but a number of 'peace camps' were remarkably successful. In 1793, for example, more than a hundred Western Apaches from the Aravaipa band left their territory in the Galiuro MountainsGaliuro Mountains
The Galiuro Mountains are a large sky island mountain range of southeast Arizona, USA. It is a northerly mountain range in the Madrean Sky Islands region of southeast Arizona, northern Sonora, Northern Mexico, and extreme southwest, bootheel New Mexico....
and sued for peace at Tucson presidio. José Ignacio Morago, the officer in command, gave chief Nautil Nilché a suit of clothes in honor of the occasion. The Apache leader reciprocated by handing Morago six pairs of enemy Apache ears. Common currency
Currency
In economics, currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...
on the frontier, the trophies symbolized Nautil Nilché's new loyalties. He and his kinsmen and kinswomen settled north of the presidio along the floodplain
Floodplain
A floodplain, or flood plain, is a flat or nearly flat land adjacent a stream or river that stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls and experiences flooding during periods of high discharge...
of the Santa Cruz River, where they formed the nucleus of an Apache Manso (Tame Apache) community that remained a part of Tucson's frontier population for the next half century.
End of an Era
During the last few years of Spanish ruleLaw
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
, the total non-Indian population of Arizona hovered around 1,000, with 300 to 500 people at Tucson, 300 to 400 at Tubac, and less than 100 at Tumacacori. The rest of Arizona remained Native American. A few pioneers grew crops, raised livestock, or operated small gold and silver mines in outlying areas such as Arivaca and the San Pedro Valley, but most Spaniards continued to live along the Santa Cruz.
Although the soldiers in Arizona belonged to almost every racial category, most presidial officers were full-blooded Spaniards or their descendants. As anthropologist
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
James Officer notes, the Elías González, Urrea, Comadurán, Zúñiga, and Pesqueira families belonged to an elite
Elite
Elite refers to an exceptional or privileged group that wields considerable power within its sphere of influence...
that linked Hispanic Arizona with Arispe, Altar, Alamos, and other important Sonoran centers of power. Members of this aristocracy
Aristocracy
Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...
intermarried, formed business partnerships, and helped one another fight for control over Sonora's military and economic affairs. One native Tucsonese, José de Urrea
José de Urrea
José de Urrea was a noted general for Mexico. He fought under General Antonio López de Santa Anna during the Texas Revolution. Urrea's forces were never defeated in battle during the Texas Revolution...
, nearly became president of Mexico itself during the civil wars following independence
Independence
Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state in which its residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory....
from Spain.
Desert
A desert is a landscape or region that receives an extremely low amount of precipitation, less than enough to support growth of most plants. Most deserts have an average annual precipitation of less than...
, and the Apaches. They had a largely subsistence economy
Subsistence economy
A subsistence economy is an economy which refers simply to the gathering or amassment of objects of value; the increase in wealth; or the creation of wealth. Capital can be generally defined as assets invested with the expectation that their value will increase, usually because there is the...
and their most important crop was wheat, followed by corn, beans, and squash. The most important animals were cattle and horses, although a herd of 5,000 sheep at Tubac produced enough wool
Wool
Wool is the textile fiber obtained from sheep and certain other animals, including cashmere from goats, mohair from goats, qiviut from muskoxen, vicuña, alpaca, camel from animals in the camel family, and angora from rabbits....
for 600 blankets in 1804. During times of relative peace, farming and ranching expanded along the Santa Cruz and other watershed
Drainage basin
A drainage basin is an extent or an area of land where surface water from rain and melting snow or ice converges to a single point, usually the exit of the basin, where the waters join another waterbody, such as a river, lake, reservoir, estuary, wetland, sea, or ocean...
s.
Battles and Massacres in the region
- 1st Guevavi Mission
- 2nd Guevavi Mission
- 3rd Guevavi Mission
- Fronteras
- 1st Janos
- 1st MagdalenaFirst Magdalena MassacreThe First Magdalena Massacre was an attack by Seri native Americans against the Spanish mission village of Magdalena de Kino, in the present day northern Mexico. The attack occurred on November 3, 1757 and was the first of two massacres at the town. The second attack came almost exactly nineteen...
- TerrenateFirst Battle of TerrenateThe First Battle of Terrenate in July, 1776 was a military engagement during the Spanish period of Arizona. It was fought between Spanish soldiers and Apache warriors, near the Presidio Santa Cruz de Terrenate in the present day southern Arizona....
- 2nd MagdalenaSecond Magdalena MassacreThe Second Magdalena Massacre was an attack by Apaches against the Spanish mission village of Magdalena de Kino, in the present day northern Mexico...
- 1st TucsonFirst Battle of TucsonThe First Battle of Tucson was a confrontation at Tucson, Arizona on December 6, 1779, as part of the Apache-Mexico Wars. Captain Pedro Allande y Saabedra with a force of only fifteen men defeated an army of around 350 strong.-Battle:...
- 2nd TucsonSecond Battle of TucsonThe Second Battle of Tucson or the May Day Attack was a battle in Tucson, Arizona, and the neighboring pueblo. It occurred during the Mexican Apache Wars on May 1, 1782, between a small garrison of Spanish soldiers and hundreds of Apache warriors....
- 3rd TucsonThird Battle of Tucson (1782)The Third Battle of Tucson was a battle during the Spanish colonization of Sonora, now the present day Arizona in the United States. The battle pitched the Apache warriors against the Spanish cavalry garrison of Tucson.-Battle:...
- Rio Grande River
- 4th TucsonFourth Battle of TucsonThe Fourth Battle of Tucson was a raid during the Spanish-Apache Wars. At break of day, on March 21, 1784, a force of no more than 500 Apaches and Navajos attacked Spanish cavalry guards protecting a herd of livestock at the Presidio San Augustin del Tucson in southern Arizona.-Battle:The Spanish...
- Catalina RiverBattle of the Catalina RiverThe Battle of the Catalina River was a military engagement fought on March 21, 1784 during the Spanish conquest of the present day Arizona. The combatants were Apache and Navajo warriors, Spanish soldiers and Tucson militia.-Battle:...
- Pinal MountainsBattle of the Pinal MountainsThe Battle of the Pinal Mountains was one of many small battles to occur between Apache warriors and Spanish colonists. The exact date of the battle is unknown but happened on one day in mid June, 1788 in the Pinal Mountains of southern Arizona.-Battle:...
- 2nd Janos
- Santa CruzBattle of Santa CruzThe Battle of Santa Cruz may refer to:*1656 Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife during the Anglo-Spanish War in the Canary Islands, Spain...