History of California, Volume I, Part 12

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : The History Company, publishers
Number of Pages: 852

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In 1597 Vizcaino was sent to explore anew and occupy for Spain the Californian Isles. He sailed from Acapulco with a large force in three vessels, accompanied by four Franciscan friars. His explora- tions in the gulf added but little to geographical

INTRODUCTORY RÉSUMÉ.

knowledge; and the settlement which he attempted to found at Santa Cruz, by him called La Paz, was abandoned after a few months from the inability of the country to furnish food, the departure being hastened by a storm and fire that destroyed buildings and stores. Thus close the annals of the sixteenth century.

After 1600 Nueva Galicia has no history that can or need be presented in a résumé like this. Except one district, Nayarit, the whole province was in per- inanent subjection to Spanish authority, hostilities being confined mainly to robberies on the line of travel from Mexico to Nueva Vizcaya. The president of the audiencia at Guadalajara was governor, and his judi- cial authority covered all the north. So did the eccle- siastical jurisdiction of the bishop of Guadalajara until 1621, when Nueva Vizcaya was separated; but the north-east to Texas and the north-west to Cali- fornia were retained. The Franciscans alone had mis- sionary authority, and that only in the north, all establishments depending after 1604 on the Zacatecan provincia. Mining was profitably carried on notwith- standing an oppressive quicksilver monopoly and frequent migrations to new discoveries. Agriculture and stock-raising were the leading industries of the limited population. The country's only commerce was the exchange by overland routes of grain and cattle for supplies needed at the mines. And finally there were petty local happenings, wholly insufficient to break up the deadly monotony of a Spanish prov- ince when once it becomes a tierra de paz, or a land at peace.

Nueva Vizcaya during the seventeenth century comprised in a sense northern Durango, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, and Sonora, besides a part of Coahuila; yet the connection between coast and inland provinces was practically very slight, and common usage located Nueva Vizcaya east of the Sierra Madre. A gover-

MISSIONS OF NUEVA VIZCAYA.

nor, and bishop of Guadiana after 1621, resided at Durango; but save in the larger towns and mining- camps, the country was for the most part a tierra de guerra, or a land at war; the epoch not one of civil and ecclesiastic but rather of military and missionary rule. In general the whole country may be said to have been divided into eight mission districts.

The Tepehuane missions of Durango prospered from their beginning in 1594 until the great revolt of 1616 in which eight Jesuit priests and two hundred other Spaniards lost their lives. All missions and mining- camps were destroyed, and the capital was seriously threatened. The massacre was cruelly avenged, and the natives that survived were driven to the moun- tains only to be slowly drawn back by missionary zeal. In 1640 lost ground had been regained, and more, except in the number of neophytes, of whom there were cight hundred in 1678, under four Jesuits in nine towns, with a Spanish population of about three hun- dred. The Tepehuanes were conquered, except as individuals or small parties occasionally revolted in resistance to enforced labor in the mines. In the south-eastern or Parras district all was peace and prosperity with the gentle Laguneros, if we except an occasional pestilence or inundation. Over five thou- sand natives had been baptized by 1603; the missions were secularized in 1645; large accessions of Spanish and Tlascaltec population were received, and early in the next century under Toboso raids and Spanish oppression all traces of the missions had disappeared.

In Topía, or western Durango, and south-eastern Sinaloa, the Jesuits were at work with good success at first; but the miners were oppressive, and in 1601 five thousand Acaxées took up arms to free their country, destroying the mining-camps and towns with forty churches. Brought once more into submission after a few months, they never revolted again, and the adjoining tribes were reduced one by one until by the middle of the century the whole district had passed

INTRODUCTORY RÉSUMÉ.

permanently under Spanish and Jesuit control. As elsewhere subsequent annals are reduced to statistics and petty items of local record. Fifty thousand natives had been converted before 1644, when eight mission- aries were serving in 16 churches. In 1678 there were 1400 neophytes in 38 towns under the care of ten mis- sionaries, with a Spanish population, in mining-camps chiefly, which may be estimated at 500.

The Tarahumara district adjoined that of the Tepe- huanes on the north, in northern Durango and the mountains of southern and western Chihuahua. At Parral a Spanish settlement was founded in 1631; and about the same time the Jesuits in their northern tours obtained four or five hundred Tarahumares, and with them founded two towns, San Miguel de las Bocas and San Gabriel, just south of the modern line of Durango; but there were no regular missions in Tarahumara until 1639-40, when fathers Figueroa and Pascual came and founded San Felipe and San Gerónimo Huexotitlan on or near the Rio Conchos below Balleza. In 1648 there were eight pueblos and four missionaries, when war broke out, mainly in con- sequence of oppressions by Spaniards who wished to use the natives as laborers in their mines, looking with no favor on the mission work. The Tarahumares were always, as the Jesuits maintained, a brave and honorable people, fighting only in defence of their rights or to avenge wrongs. In this first instance the assailants were gentiles, the plot being discovered in time to keep the converts loyal, after five Spaniards and forty neophytes had been killed. Governor Fa- jardo, defeating the foe, founded a town of Aguilar and a mission at the site of the modern Concepcion. In 1650 the mission was destroyed, a padre killed, and a Spanish force several times defeated; but peace was made in 1651, and the martyr's place was filled. In the outbreak of 1652 mission and town were burned, and not a Spaniard escaped. It required the whole military force of Nueva Vizcaya

MISSIONS IN DURANGO AND CHIHUAHUA.

to restore submission, the Spaniards being often repulsed, and many mission towns and mining-camps being repeatedly destroyed. For twenty years from 1652 upper Tarahumara was abandoned, but was reoccupied in 1673-8 as far north as the Yepomera region, the limit of Jesuit work east of the sierra. There were then about eight thousand Tarahumara converts in the upper and lower districts, living in forty-five towns, and ministered to by twelve Jesuit missionaries. The Spanish population, for the most part engaged in mining, did not exceed five hundred. For the missions the last quarter of the century was a period of constant but not very rapid decadence. They were exposed on the north and east to raids from the fierce Tobosos and Apaches, and there were several attempts at revolt, the most serious being in 1690, when two Jesuits lost their lives.

North-eastern Durango and eastern Chihuahua formed a mission district under the Franciscans. They had a much less favorable field of labor than the Jesuits; their neophytes were inferior in intelligence to the Tepehuanes and Tarahumares, and their estab- lishments had to bear the brunt of savage raids from the north-eastern sierras or Bolson de Mapimi. For over forty years the old convents at Cuencamé, Ma- pimi, and San Bartolomé were barely kept in exist- ence; and near the latter in the Conchos region four new missions were founded before 1645. Then the Toboso raids became so serious as to imperil all Spanish interests. It was the typical Apache war- fare of later times. Not a camp, mission, hacienda, or rancho escaped attack; only Parral and one or two mining-camps escaped destruction. The soldiers were victorious in every engagement, but they could rarely overtake the marauders. The Conchos re- volted and destroyed their five missions, killing two friars. At this time the presidio of Cerro Gordo was established, and the fires of war having burned out chiefly for want of fuel, this post served to keep HIST. CAL., VOL. I. 2

INTRODUCTORY RÉSUMÉ.

the southern part of the district in a kind of order during the rest of the century; the ruined establish- ments being gradually reoccupied. In the north the Franciscans extended their operations over a broad field. Between 1660 and 1670 three or four missions, with probably a small garrison, were founded in the region of Casas Grandes; but two of them were de- stroyed by Apaches before 1700. In 1681-2, an estab- lishment having been formed at El Paso, several missions sprang up in that region. One was at the confluence of the Conchos and Rio del Norte, but was soon destroyed. In 1697 a mission of Nombre de Dios was founded near the site of the modern city of Chihuahua. All these northern establishments maintained but a precarious existence; and but for a line of presidios erected early in the next century the whole country would have been abandoned.

Before turning to the coast a glance must be given at New Mexico beyond the limits of Nueva Vizcaya. Here prosperity ceased for a time on account of con- troversies between Oñate, the colonists, and the Fran- ciscan friars. The latter abandoned the province in 1601, but were sent back to reoccupy the missions. Oñate made some explorations; Santa Fé was founded and became the capital; and in 1608 eight padres were at work, having baptized eight thousand natives. Thirty new friars came in 1629, and the next year fifty missionaries were serving sixty thousand con- verts in ninety pueblos. This was the date of New Mexico's highest prosperity, though the decline was very slight for fifty years, a period whose history offers nothing but petty local happenings. But in 1680 a general revolt occurred, in which four hundred Span- iards, including twenty-one friars, were killed, and the survivors driven out of the country. While the refu- gees founded El Paso and did some missionary work in that region, the New Mexicans fought among them- selves and threw away their chances for continued independence. After several unsuccessful efforts by

THE JESUITS IN SINALOA.

different leaders, Governor Vargas reconquered the province after many a hard-fought battle in 1693-4; but two years later a new revolt occurred, in which five missionaries and twenty other Spaniards were killed, and the year 1696 may be regarded as the date of New Mexico's permanent submission to Spanish authority. The western towns were still independent; but except the Moquis all renewed their allegiance before the end of the century.

The coast districts were Sinaloa, extending as far north as the Yaqui River; Sonora, embracing the region of Arizpe and Tepoca; and Pimería, stretch- ing to the Gila. During most of the century all this territory was under a military commandant at San Felipe de Sinaloa; and this office was held for nearly thirty years by Captain Hurdaide, who was popular with the missionaries, and a terror to the natives. His term of office was a continuous cam- paign for the conquest of new tribes or the suppres- sion of local revolts. In 1600 five Jesuits had founded eight missions, with thirteen towns, on and near the rivers Sinaloa and Mocorito. Very rapidly was the conquest, spiritual and military, pushed northward by the priests and soldiers working in perfect accord. The fierce Suaquis, Tehuecos, and Sinaloas of the Rio Tam- otchala, or Fuerte, having been properly chastised by Hurdaide, became Christian in 1604-7. Fort Montes- claros was founded in 1610 on the river, therefore still called Fuerte. The Mayos, friendly from the first, re- ceived padres in 1613, and never revolted. The Yaquis, who after defeating the Spaniards in three campaigns had voluntarily submitted about 1610, received Father Ribas in 1617, and were soon converted. In 1621 missions were founded among the Chinipas on the Tarahumara frontier; and the work was extended up the Yaqui to the Sahuaripa region. There were now thirty-four Jesuits at work in this field; and the northern missions, in what is now Sonora, were formed into a new district of San Ignacio. Captain Hur-

INTRODUCTORY RÉSUMÉ.

daide died about 1626; and during the rule of his successor the only event to be noted was the revolt in the Chinipas district in 1631-2, when two Jesuits were killed, and the missions had to be abandoned.

Father Pascual had labored in this field with great success for years, forming three towns of Chinipas, Varohios, and Guazápares. A chief of the latter was at the head of the revolt, gaining adherents from the Varohios, while the Chinipas remained faithful and tried to protect their missionary. Father Martinez came to join Pascual in 1632, and the two were killed a week later after their house and church had been burned, brutal indignities being offered to their bodies. Fifteen neophytes perished with their martyred mas- ters. Making a raid into the mountains Captain Perea killed many rebels, and new missionaries were sent to the country; but it was finally decided to abandon this field; and the faithful converts were removed to the towns of the Sinaloas.

During the last half of the century the Sinaloa missions have no annals save such as are statistical and purely local. The submission of the natives was complete and permanent, and affairs fell into the inevitable routine. In 1678 there were in the dis- trict of San Felipe y Santiago, corresponding nearly to the modern Sinaloa above Culiacan, nine missions, with 23 pueblos, 10,000 neophytes, and nine mission- aries. The northern district of San Ignacio de Yaqui, under the same jurisdiction but in modern times a part of Sonora, had 10 missions, 23 pueblos, 10 padres, and 24,000 converts. There had already been a large decrease in the neophyte population. The military force was a garrison of 40 soldiers at San Felipe, and one of 60 men at Fort Montesclaros. The Spanish population, exclusive of soldiers and military officers, was less than 500.

The modern Sonora includes the three ancient prov- inces of Sonora, Ostimuri, and Pimería; but in the seventeenth century the name Sonora was properly

SONORA MISSION.

that of the valley in which Arizpe, Ures, and Her- mosillo now stand. The name was sometimes extended for a long distance over adjoining regions, especially northward; but never covered the Yaqui missions or Ostimuri in the south. Missionary work was begun in the Sonora Valley by Father Castaño in 1638, near the site of the old and ill-fated San Gerónimo. The Opatas never gave any trouble; and in 1639 the new district of San Francisco Javier de Sonora was formed with five mission partidos. In 1641 Governor Perea obtained a division of the government, was made ruler of all the country north of the Yaqui towns, styling his new province Nueva Andalucia and his capital San Juan Bautista. In consequence of a quarrel with the Jesuits, he tried to put the Franciscans in charge; but this was a failure, and the new government came to an end in four years; though a garrison remained at San Juan. In 1753 seven Jesuits were serving twenty-five thousand converts in twenty-three towns. In 1678 the new district of San Francisco de Borja was formed of the missions south and west of Opozura; and the two consisted of eigh- teen missions with forty-nine pueblos and about twenty thousand neophytes. Ten years later there were three districts, the new one of Santos Mártires de Japon extending northward from Batuco and Nacori. The Chinipas missions, which had been reoccupied in 1676, were now part of the Sonora district, and before the end of the century were in a most flourishing con- dition, under Padre Salvatierra and his associates, though to some extent involved in the troubles with eastern tribes.

Father Kino in 1687 founded the mission of Dolores on the head-waters of the Rio de San Miguel, and thus began the conquest of Pimería, through which Kino hoped to reach northern California. By 1690 he had missions at San Ignacio, Imuris, and Remedios. The Pimas were docile, intelligent, and eager for con- version; but Kino could neither obtain the needed

INTRODUCTORY RÉSUMÉ.

priests, nor convince the military authorities that the Pimas were not concerned in the constant raids of the savages. In 1691 with Salvatierra he reached the modern Arizona line; and later, either alone or with such priests as he could induce to go with him, he explored the country repeatedly to the Gila and gulf coast, first reaching the latter in 1693 and the former in 1694. Three missionaries having been obtained, Tubutama and Caborca were founded; but all were destroyed in the great revolt of 1695, one of the friars being killed. Two years later they had been rebuilt and Suamca added. By 1700 Kino, sometimes with a military escort, had made six entradas, or excursions, to the Gila, some of them by the eastern route via Bac, and others by the coast or Sonoita. In 1700 he first reached the Colorado junction. But he was dis- appointed in all his schemes for establishing missions in the north. The Rio San Ignacio was the northern frontier, not only of missionary establishments but of all Spanish occupation at the end of the century.

In 1693 Sonora and all the north had been sepa- rated practically, perhaps formally, from Sinaloa; and Jironza as capitan-gobernador came with his 'flying company' of fifty men to protect the frontier, his cap- ital being still at San Juan. The next seven years were spent in almost constant warfare against raiding Apaches and other savage bands of the north-east. A. garrison was stationed at Fronteras, or Corodeguachi, which in campaigns often acted in union with the presidial force at Janos in Chihuahua, and was often aided besides by the Pimas, whose mission towns were a favorite object of the raids for plunder.

Finally the maritime annals and coast exploration of the century, terminating in the occupation of Baja California, demand our notice. In 1602 Sebastian Vizcaino sailed from Acapulco on a voyage of explora- tion which will be fully described later in this volume. For more than a century and a half Father Ascension's diary of this voyage was the source of all information

EXPEDITIONS TO THE GULF.

extant respecting the western coast up to latitude 40°. Vizcaino's voyage was the end of outer-coast naviga- tion, subsequent efforts being directed exclusively to the gulf and peninsula, though Monterey figured on paper in many of the schemes proposed. The Spanish crown was chary of incurring expense; without money the enthusiasm of neither navigators nor friars could be utilized; and the pearls of the gulf furnished the only incentive to action. A mere catalogue of suc- cessive enterprises must suffice here.

Schemes to occupy Monterey in 1607-8 resulted in nothing. In 1615 Cardona and Iturbe went up the gulf to latitude 34° as they reckoned it, saw the strait that made California an island, and landed at several points on that supposed island and the main. Re- turning, they were captured by the Dutch pichilingues. These were Spilberg's freebooters, who vainly sought to intercept the galleon, and had a fight with Spaniards on the Colima coast. Lezama began to build a vessel near San Blas, in 1627, for the gulf; and Ortega, com- pleting it, made a pearl voyage in 1632. He repeated the trip in 1633-4, founding a colony at La Paz. Many natives were baptized; some inland explora- tions were made, and all went well for several months, until food was exhausted. Then this third attempt at settlement was added to the failures of Cortés and Vizcaino. There were, doubtless, unrecorded and un- authorized pearl-seeking voyages in those times. Car- bonel's expedition made by Ortega's pilot in 1636 was an utter failure. It was in 1640 that Fonte sailed through the net-work of straits, lakes, and rivers in the northern continent until he met a Boston ship from the Atlantic! Cañas by the viceroy's orders crossed over from Sinaloa and explored the California coast for some forty leagues in 1642, accompanied by the Jesuit priest, Cortés. Casanate's operations were in 1643-8; but after great expense and much ill-luck the only results were a cruise about San Lúcas by Barriga in the former year, and in the latter a vain

INTRODUCTORY RÉSUMÉ.

search for a colony site. For twenty years nothing was attempted, and then Piñadero obtained a com- mission to reduce California as a pretext for one or two profitable pearl-seeking trips in 1667. Lucenilla's expedition in 1668 was not unlike the preceding, though he had two Franciscans on his ship, who attempted conversion at La Paz and at the cape. After fruitless negotiations with other persons the viceroy made a contract for the settlement of Cali- fornia with Otondo, who was accompanied by Father Kino and two other Jesuits, sailing from Chacala with a hundred persons in 1683. The province was now formally called Californias and the locality of the colony La Paz. Some progress was made at first; but presently the men, panic-stricken by reason of Indian troubles, insisted on abandoning the settle- ment. Otondo came back before the end of the year, reestablishing the colony at San Bruno, above La Paz. Here it was maintained with difficulty until the end of 1685, when the enterprise was given up in disgust. The Jesuits foreseeing the result had baptized none but dying Indians. The barren peninsula was wholly unsuited for colonization. In 1685 the British free- booter Swan made an unfortunate cruise along the coast, failing to capture the galleon, and losing fifty men who were killed by Spaniards on the Rio Tololot- lan. Only one other expedition, that of Itamarra in 1694, is recorded, but very vaguely, before the final occupation of the peninsula.

The country offered absolutely no inducements to settlers; and a military occupation, entailing constant expense without corresponding advantages, did not accord with the Spanish system of conquest. Only by a band of zealous missionaries, protected by a small military guard, with supplies assured from abroad for years, could this reduction be effected. The Jesuits understood this, and when the govern- ment had been taught by repeated failures to un- derstand it also, the necessary arrangements were

NUEVA GALICIA IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY.

concluded by Salvatierra and Kino; and in 1697 a mission was founded at Loreto, just below the San Bruno of Ortega. Difficulties were formidable at first and for a long time; the savages were stupid and often hostile; the guard was small; vessels came irregularly with supplies, and authorities in Mexico generally turned a deaf ear to appeals for aid. Sal- vatierra and Piccolo, however, never lost courage in the darkest days, and before 1700 they had two mis- sions and a guard of thirty men.

Eighteenth century annals of Nueva Viscaya and the adjoining regions, so far as they precede the occu- pation of Alta California in 1769, may be presented with enough of detail for the present purpose very briefly; for throughout those broad territories affairs had fallen into the monotonous routine of peace in the south, of war in the north, that was to character- ize them as long as Spanish domination should last, and in many respects longer. To Nueva Galicia as a tierra de paz may be added in these times Sinaloa and Durango to the north. The era of conquest, as in a great measure of missionary labor, was past. The authority of the audiencia and civil governors was everywhere respected. Curates under the bish- ops were in control of spiritual affairs in all the larger settlements. Mining was the leading industry, feebly supplemented by stock-raising and agriculture. Minor political and ecclesiastical controversies, the succes- sion of provincial and subordinate officials, fragmen- tary statistics of mining and other industries, and petty local happenings of non-progressive localities furnish but slight basis for an instructive résumé, even if such general review were called for here.

There was, however, one exception to the unevent- ful monotony of Nueva Galicia affairs during this period, which should be noticed here-the conquest of Nayarit. This mountainous and almost inaccessi- ble region of northern Jalisco, near the frontiers of

INTRODUCTORY RÉSUMÉ.

Sinaloa, Durango, and Zacatecas had been the last refuge of aboriginal paganism. Here the bold moun- taineers, Nayarits, Coras, and Tecualmes, maintained their independence of all Spanish or Christian control till 1721. It was these tribes or adjoining ones directly or indirectly supported by them, that caused all Ind- ian troubles of the century in Nueva Galicia. No white man, whether soldier or friar, was permitted to enter the narrow pass that led to the stronghold of the Gran Nayar. A long series of attempts at peace- ful conquest resulted in failure; and the difficulties of forcible entry were greatly exaggerated at the time, and still more at a later period by Jesuit chroniclers who sought to magnify the obstacles overcome by their order. The Nayarits made a brave but fruitless resistance, and their stronghold fell before the first determined and protracted campaign of the invaders in 1721-2. In 1725 the visitador or inspector found about four thousand natives living submissively in ten villages; and in 1767 seven Jesuits were serving in as many Nayarit missions.

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History of California, Volume I, Part 12

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe Publication date: 1885 Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : The History Company, publishers Number of Pages: 852

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe
Publication date: 1885
Publisher: San Francisco, Calif. : The History Company, publishers
Number of Pages: 852