USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. I > Part 10
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In 1692, it is known that the missionaries spread their activities among the different tribes of the western part of Arizona, and that in 1694 two missions, Immaculate Conception and St. Andrew's, were established by Kino among the Pimas on the Gila River. Within what is now included Souora and Arizona had been founded twenty-nine missions, including seventy-three Indian pueblos. Of these it is told that the mission of San Xavier was one of the most flourishing.
Kino was a wonderful traveler. In 1694 he had-completed the first visitation of his entire territory. He made a memorable journey into the present Arizona, starting from Dolores February 7, 1699, with him going Captain Mange, a most careful narrator, and a second priest, Adam Gilg. They cut across the deserts, probably favored by the rainy season, striking the Gila three leagues above its mouth ; thence continuing on to the Colorado, where they tarried only two days, before starting on their return journey up the Gila. This chronicle is mainly interesting through the designation of the streams. The Colorado is named Rio de los Martires. Kino called the Gila, Rio de los Apostoles and four of the branches he grouped as Los Evangelistas, thongh only one of them bore the name of a saint. While the pious names appended to the Colorado and Gila have been lost in the passing of centuries, the names he applied to the four branches have endured, to-wit, the Salado, Verde, Santa Cruz and San Pedro. He named all the Indian villages on his route, placing each of them under the protection of some saint and doubtless assuring the wondering natives that their lot would be hettered by reason of the ghostly protection. Some of these names up the Gila are set forth on his map.
In March of the following year, in company with his friend, Padre Salva- tierra, with whom he had worked on the peninsula, he set out from Dolores with the intention of reaching the latter's mission of Loretto by land. They went as far north as 32 deg. north latitude, where they looked across a narrow strait and saw the mountains of California. Then their provisions gave out and they had to return.
Padre Kino died in 1710, while still working among his beloved Sonora Indians and at the age of 70 years. A historian of the times told that he had baptized more than 48,000 Indians. In the same chronicle, that of Calvijero, is told : "In all his journeys he carried no other food than roasted corn; he never omitted to celebrate Holy Mass and never slept upon a mattress. As he wandered about he prayed incessantly or sang hymns or psalms. He died as saintly as he had lived."
However great a traveler, Kino left no very permanent church record in Ari- zona, and his field seemed to have been lightly considered by the church authori- ties in comparison with their more important work to the southward. At the time of his death there was only one permanent mission in all of what now is Arizona, and after his last trip to the Gila in 1702, there seems to have been no priestly visitation north of Guebabi for a score of years, though there is some reference
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to the services of Padres José Perea and Alejandro Rapuani at San Xavier in 1720.
In 1723 the Jesuits re-entered the country, but found it impossible, by reason of the presence of savage Apaches, to pass beyond the mountains in which were the missions of Tubutama and Guebabi. The missionaries scattered, however, through all of Pimeria, there being record of Father Ignacio Keller, missionary of Santa Maria Suamca, who had several times visited the friendly Indians along the Rio Gila. In September, 1743, with a small guard, he passed the Rio Gila, only to be driven back by hostile Indians, several days' travel to the northward of that stream.
In the latter part of 1744 Padre Jacob Sedelmaier traveled eighty leagues northward from Tubutama, where he reported he found 6,000 Papagos and about the same number of Pimas and Coco-Maricopas dwelling in different rancherias. These Indians, when informed of the priest's intention to pass through to the country of the Moquis, soon persuaded the traveler that it was impracticable. But with the assistance of the Coco-Maricopas he traveled westward to the Colo- rado and entered the country of the Cuchans (Yumas), enemies of the Coco-Mari- copas, though of the same generic stock.
In May, 1721, an attempt was made by Padre Juan de Ugarte, an associate of Salvatierra's, to find a way through to the Pacific Ocean from the Gulf of Cali- fornia. He sailed from San Dionisio Bay in May of that year with two small boats, with an Englishman, William Strafort, as pilot. The larger ship was stranded for a while in the shallow channel between the Isla Tiburon and the mainland. Proceeding northward, the water changed to a muddy red and the mouth of the Colorado was entered, probably at the time of its maximum spring freshet, for the current was so strong that the ships could make no headway against it. Another voyage to the mouth of the Colorado was made in July, 1746, in two open boats by Padre Consag, but the rapid current again prevented any material exploration.
PIMERIA REVOLT OF 1751
The missions soon passed through great tribulations. It is possible that the good Jesuit fathers rather overworked their indolent charges. The Indians, weary of discipline, revolted November 21, 1751, killing about 100 Spaniards and destroying the missions and towns. In the old Spanish chronicles especially were mentioned the southern Pima and Ceris tribes, though the Papagos also joined the rebellion, covering all the tribes in the land known as Pimeria, as distinguished from Apacheria, to the northward, where dwelt the wild pagan Indians of the hills. A number of priests met martyrdom at the hands of the Indians and prac- tically all other Spaniards had to flee from the country. Three years later a priest was again at San Xavier, whose two Jesnits had escaped, for in its records are found, too briefly telling a story of bloodshed and privation, the following note, written and signed by Padre Francisco Paner: "On the 21st November, 1751, all the Pima nation rebelled and deprived this mission of its spiritual min- ister until now 1754, in which year the Indians have returned to their pueblo, meaning, as they say, to live peaceably. And, for the authenticity of this writ- ing, I sign it."
The revolt had been instigated, according to a church historian, by a certain
.
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Luis, from Saric, Sonora, who pretended to be a wizard and who made the Indians "consider as advantageous to them what he intended for his own benefit." Luis had received appointment from the Spaniards as "Captain General of the Pimas of the Mountains."
This rebellion by no means was as bloody as that known in New Mexico in 1680, possibly owing to want of material upon which to work. Yet there were three ecclesiastical martyrs, Padres Francisco Xavier Saeta, Enrique Ruen and Tomas Tello. The smelting furnaces were destroyed and the mine pits were filled in everywhere along what is now known as "the border." Indeed, there have been found such filled-in shafts in the hills south of Phoenix. One of the Spanish mines of the period, possibly that farthest north, may have been the "Old Monte- zuma" or "Black Jack," twelve miles west of Vulture, where a fifty-foot shaft, which had been sunk in steps, was found filled in. The ore was soft and was rich in silver. There has been absolute denial that the padres ever compelled their charges to work in the mines or that the Church itself ever held ownership in any mines of Pimeria Alta. So to other Spaniards must be ascribed this work.
Backed by soldiery, the Jesuits returned, undismayed, the following year to the Santa Cruz Valley and northern Sonora. The military presidio of Tubac, the northernmost of all, was established in 1752 to guard both Guebabi and San Xavier, as well as a half dozen visitas, including Tumacácori, Calabazas and Tucson, all of them merely rancherias, where many of the Indians had mani- fested some interest in religion. To the southeast a relatively strong garrison seems to have been maintained at Fronteras and Janos. In 1754 was built the mission of Tumacácori.
EXPULSION OF THE JESUITS
The jealousy and treachery that were so notable in the condnet of Spanish affairs concerning New Spain, on a number of occasions embraced also the devoted and unselfish work of the religious bodies. Most notorious in this connection was the decree in 1767 of King Carlos III, expelling all members of the Society of Jesus from his dominions. It is told that at the time Masonic influences con- trolled the court of Spain. This is doubtful, however, for the decree of expulsion did not concern any other of the Catholic religious orders. The reason probably was to be found in Spain itself, where it is told that the enemies of the Society of Jesus laid before the king a forged letter alleged to have been from the Su- perior-General of the Jesuits, in which was stated that the writer had in his possession convincing proofs of the illegitimacy of the Spanish king. This letter is said to have had the effect of driving the monarch almost to insanity and to a demand upon the Pope that the Jesuit order be totally suppressed. The Jesuits then in New Spain had more than 100 Indian missions.
The Jesuits submitted without protest to what the great Franciscan historian, Engelhardt, has called "a brutal order carried out in a manner which would have disgraced any pagan tyrant of old," and accepted their deportation to Europe, often under circumstances of hardship that gave them the honor of martyrdom.
The Jesuit missionaries who worked in what now is Arizona between 1690 and 1767 have been listed by Archbishop J. B. Salpointe. They comprised Manuel Aguirre, Manuel Diaz del Carpio, Joaquin Felix Diaz, Alonzo Espinosa, Manuel Joseph Garrucho, Miguel Gerstner, Ignacio Xavier Keller, Francisco Kino, Igna- cio Lorasoain, Bernardo Middendorf, Juan Nentivig, Francisco Paner, Ildefonso
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de la Pena, Alejandro Rapuani, Bartolomeo Saenz, Juan Maria Salvatierra, José Perea de Torres and N. Pfeffercorn.
COMING OF THE FRANCISCANS
The Marquis de Croix, Viceroy of Mexico, made application to the Guardian of the Franciscan college of Santa Cruz de Queretaro, Mexico, requesting him, on the part of King Charles III, to send at least twelve priests of his order to take charge of the missions of Sonora. Though it called for brethren needed at home, the petition was granted and, March 27, 1768, "after a long and painful voyage,". fourteen missionaries were landed at Guaymas, whence they proceeded to San Miguel de Horcasitas, where they fixed their headquarters. Among the missions considered important enough to require the presence of a priest was San Xavier, to which was assigned Rev. Francisco Garcés.
The Jesuits had started religious work "at about seventy points in Sonora and New Mexico, including Guebabi, with two more pueblos and the presidio of Tubae (mission of Santa Gertrude), attended from it and El Bac, with the Pre- sidio of Tuyson (mission of San Agustin), three leagues distant." This designa- tion of Tucson as a presidio would seem to indicate a military settlement fully eight years before the date given in any other chronicle, but one probably tem- porary in character.
The Franciscans detailed from 1767 to 1827 were : Juan José Agorreta, Pedro de Arriquibar, F. de la Asuncion, Joaquin Antonio Belarde, Juan Antonio Bere- noche, Mariano Bordoy, Baltazar Carillo, Gaspar de Clemente, Juan Corgoll, Rafael Diaz, Juan Diaz, Tomas X. Eixarch, Juan Bautista Estelric, Felix de Gamarra, Francisco Garcés, Solano Francisco Garcia, Cristostomo Gil de Bernabe, Diego Gil, Narcisco Gutierres, Ramon Liberos, Juan Bautista Llorenz, Ramon Lopez, Juan Maldonado, Matias José Moreno, N. Nadal, Juan Bautista Neldar- rain, Marcos de Niza, Angel Alonzo de Prada, José Ignacio Ramirez, Gregorio Ruiz, Manuel Saravial, Juan Vario, Bartolome Ximeno, Florencio Ysanez, Fran- cisco Zuñiga.
The missions which had escaped going to complete ruin during the Indian revolt had hardly been started again when the Jesuits were expelled, so Padre Garcés found San Xavier in a pitiable condition.
Building these mission churches must have been a serious strain upon the resources of both the church and its Indian converts, for the only compensation received by the missionary was an allowance of $300 per annum for provisions. The Spanish government retained a degree of jurisdiction over the missions, and it had formally been decreed by the King that the Indians should be treated fairly. Two classes of Indians were known, those who worked for themselves and those who placed themselves under the care of the Church. The latter were fur- nished with food and clothing for themselves and families. Early in the morn- ing, the entire pueblo was called to church for morning prayers and mass. After their morning meal, the laborers were assembled by the ringing of a bell and were detailed to their work, which they were permitted to quit a little before sundown. Evening prayer, in the Indian language, was said by a priest standing in the middle of the plaza, and every word was repeated by selected Indians, who stood between him and the houses. A church writer narrates naively, that, "notwith- standing these orders, many of the Indians fled every day from their respective
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squads before reaching the place where they had to work, and tried only to be present at meals. Nevertheless, these are the men, who by their work, enabled the missionaries to build them houses and churches, learning at the same time how to earn their living in the future. That the Indians must have been happy under such a rule nobody can doubt."
PADRE GARCES AND HIS MISSIONS
Possibly the title of "Patron Saint of Arizona" should go to Padre Garcés. Though more militant in his methods than Kino, he yet often traveled alone and without military escort, fiercely maintaining his doctrines and fighting the devil in whatever painted Indian guise he appeared. He was at least as great a traveler as Kino in mileage, but eovered a much larger area of territory. Unable to master all the Indian tongues of the Southwest, he evolved a picture lesson he believed efficacions. It consisted of a large banner, borne before him by a mozo. On one side of the canvas was a picture of the Blessed Virgin. On the other side was a terrifying representation of a condemned soul in hell. On his breast he wore a large crucifix, which in the presence of the natives he was accustomed to kiss at frequent intervals, thus hoping to provoke wonder and questioning. When he approached a strange community he would have turned toward the natives, if their demeanor proved hostile, the threatening side of the banner, but if they were peaceful he permitted them a sight of the picture of the Mother of God. Garcés appeared to have had a good working knowledge of the Pima-Papago tongue and doubtless reached the western Apaches, Maricopas and Mojaves through the Yuma language.
The missions on the Gila and Colorado appear to have been guarded by the transfer of troops from the presidio of San Miguel Horcasitas in Sonora, fol- lowing the approval of the presidio sites by Captain de Anza and the Inspector- General, Don Hugo O'Conor. At the passage of the second California expedi- tion of de Anza in November, 1775, which was accompanied by Padres Garcés, Font and Eixarch, the Pimas are reported to have manifested great joy in see- ing the priests, who were lodged in a shed of boughs, in front of which, though Gentiles, the Indians had planted a large cross, thus showing that there was some remembrance of the teachings of Padre Kino.
The Pimas and other tribes along the Gila were visited several times by the zealous Padre Garcés. He met with only kindness from the Indians, who yet refused to have missions established in their villages. The mission of San Capi- strano de Uturituc, established by Kino, had been abandoned long before, as well as all effort by the Indian converts to maintain their faith. Compared with the large degree of success that had attended the efforts of missionary priests among the Papagos, it is notable that little could be done with the ethnologically allied Pimas. According to the Cronica Serafica, the Pimas were inclined to the practice of intercourse with the evil spirits, inherited from their ancestors and preventing germination of the evangelical seed in their hearts. There were many of them who were considered Christians because they had been baptized, "but who knew more of deviltry than of Catholic doctrine." The Jesuits said that the infernal enemy availed himself of the poor intellectual capacity of the Indians to prevent them from thinking of things relating to the soul and to the future life; that the practice of witchcraft caused damage not only to their ene-
RUINS OF TUCSON MISSION (Photo by Dr. Munk, 1896)
TUMACACORI MISSION, IN 1913
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mies, but even to the missionaries who had never offended them and who, never- theless, suffered in their health and even died, some of them, of the effect of diabolical arts used against them. All this is a rather severe arraignment of the good Pima Indians, who ever have been the friends of the white man and who greeted the coming of Padre Kino and of his priestly successors even with en- thusiasm. It is a fact, however, that the religion of the white man made little progress with the northern Pimas until after the schooling of the children in governmental institutions.
DE ANZA'S FOUNDATION OF SAN FRANCISCO
San Francisco, the metropolis of the Pacific Coast, was founded by a little military party from Tubac, led by Capt. Juan Bautista de Anza, comandante of that presidio. The Captain, a native of Sonora, whose fame appears to have reached to the' capital of New Spain, was, on his own suggestion, ordered tc break a road from the Sonora settlements to the mouth of the Gila, on up to San Gabriel and thence up the coast, preparatory to the movement of a large body of colonists, intended for settlement of the shores of the great bay that had been found by Portola in 1769.
Anza left Tubac January 8, 1774, with thirty-four soldiers. For the expenses of the expedition the Viceroy of Mexico had made a grant of 21,927 pesos and two reals. The money came from the pious fund, devoted to the work of chris- tianizing the Indians. Anza marched by the southern route, much more difficult than that down the Gila, going by way of Caborca, San Marcelo de Sonoitac and across the desert, called "El Camino del Diablo," (Devil's Journey) to the junction of the Colorado and Gila Rivers. He was led by an Indian, Sebastian by name, from the mission of San Gabriel, California, but the chief guide of the expedition really was Padre Garcés, to whom Anza was instructed to look for advice on all occasions. With Garcés came Padre Juan Diaz, who had made the same journey three years before. . In ecclesiastical chronicles is told how Anza confirmed Chief Palma as head of the Colorado Indians, hanging around his neck a silver medal.
February 9, the party forded the Colorado and started into the desert, re- turning to the river ten days later for recuperation, starting again March 2. During the waiting time the reverend fathers diligently sought the conver- sion of the natives and broke up many pottery "idols" that were brought them by the Indians. The journey across the Colorado desert was made successfully and on March 22 the weary party entered the mission of San Gabriel, near Los Angeles, where almost famine conditions were found.
Padre Garcés went back with some of the troops to the Colorado, which was reached in twelve days, to find that men there left with cattle had deserted, fleeing to Caborca on receipt of news that Anza and his party had been killed by the savages.
Captain Anza went on to the Presidio of Monterey (established about four years before) with six men, arriving April 18, but stayed only four days. He returned to San Gabriel in May and soon thereafter started back with a dozen soldiers for Tubac, arriving there on May 26, his trip apparently designed merely as a demonstration that the route was a practicable one. From Tubac, Anza went to the City of Mexico to report to the Viceroy in person.
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The report proved acceptable and Anza was ordered again from Sonora overland to California, instructed to recruit his troop from Sonora, where drought had caused destitution, and to take along wives and children to assure the permanency of the new settlement that was to be established far to the north. Anza was directed also to carry supplies of seeds and flour and cattle. For this expedition the pious funds were drawn on in the sum of $2,000, taken from two missions in the department of San Blas by order of the Viceroy Bucareli.
Anza's second expedition was organized at San Miguel de Horcasitas, Sonora, September 29, 1775, though ordered in the February preceding, when Anza had been raised to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. The soldiers received two years pay in advance and rations for five years. As spiritual advisor was detailed Padre Pedro Font, who at the request of Viceroy Bucareli was directed to turn his Sonora Indian mission of San Jose de los Pimas over to Padre Joaquin Belarde. Padre Garcés was directed by the Viceroy to accompany the expedi- tion as far as the Rio Colorado, in order to ascertain the sentiments of the Yumas concerning the placing of a presidio and one or two missions along the river. Padre Tomas Eixarch joined the party at Tubac, from which the start was made on October 22.
Besides Anza and the three priests, the party included officers, soldiers, mule- teers, soldiers' families, Indians, etc., in all amounting to 240 persons, with 530 horses, 165 pack mules and 350 head of cattle. There were eight births on the trip. Mass was said every morning and there were sermons on Sundays and feast days, while at night the rosary was recited, for it should be understood that the purpose of the expedition primarily was the spreading of the faith among Gentiles, so proper devotions were considered essential on the part of the missionary troop. The second trip was hy the much easier route through San Xavier, "Tuquison," the Pima visita of San Juan Capistrano de Uturitue, Agua Caliente and the mouth of the Gila, where the Colorado was forded on November 30. Colonel Anza in the name of the Viceroy conferred upon Palma a baton with a silver point as a mark of distinction and also clothed him in a uniform. Padres Garcés and Eixarch remained with the Yumas. The main expedition reached San Gabriel January 4, 1776. There was a delay of several weeks while Colonel Anza and Capt. Fernando Xavier de Rivera y Moncada, of the local garrison of "Leather Jackets," made a trip to San Diego, where the Indians had been in revolt. On February 21 Anza resumed his march, by way of San Luis Obispo and Monterey, at the latter point being joyously welcomed by the presiding Padre Junipero Serra and the military and ecclesiastical population.
With an advance party, including Padre Font, Anza took the route north- ward along the coast and came upon the Golden Gate at Point Lobos. A few miles eastward in a pleasant cove, March 28, 1776, was founded a presidio, near the present Fort Point and upon the same land now known as "The Presidio" and occupied by the military establishment of the United States. Surely it was a tremendous change, to the damp fog of the straits, for the soldiers he had brought from the sunbaked valleys of the Southwest. Over the hills to the southeast a couple of miles was found a pleasant valley, agreed upon as the site of the mission, to be known after Our Lady of Sorrows. To-day that section
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of San Francisco still is known as "The Mission," and its old adobe-built church, flanked by a little churchyard, is still "Mission Dolores."
After traveling around the bay, to the Suisun marshes, and locating another mission site near the bay's southern end, Anza returned to Monterey, April 8. He turned over command of the colonists to Lieutenant Moraga, with orders to march to the port of San Francisco and there establish a post. Himself, Padre Font and a considerable party started southward. On the road he had a dis- agreeable encounter with the jealous Captain Rivera, who had chief military authority on the coast, but who had almost suffered excommunication by reason of his arbitrary demeanor toward the missionaries. He reached the Colorado River May 2, near the present Ynma at a settlement then called Portezuelo de la Concepcion Purisima. Padre Garcés was off on an exploring trip, but Anza was joined by Padre Eixarch, Chief Palma and several Indians, who accom- panied him back to San Miguel de Horcasitas, which was reached June 1, 1776. His report to the Viceroy seems to have met with appreciation, but both he and Captain Rivera were censured for quarreling in manner detrimental to the mili- tary service. But, thereafter Anza served as governor of New Mexico, from 1778 to 1789. He also secured promotion to a full colonelcy, at $2,400 a year.
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