(Joseph)

(Joseph)

³⁴⁶ The Provincial Lower Class -- The dominant white caste included a lower class which, while numerous, was possibly not as large as its middle class. The lower class was made up of chronic ne'er-do-wells in the garrison ranks who were usually heavily indebted to the company funds, who either did not seek land grants for farming or were unsuccessful farmers if they had grants, who had no occupational specialty or other means of augmenting their income, and who lacked the training or force of personality to acquire the social graces and abilities required for upward social mobility. They were illiterate and thus subject to many forms of economic exploitation by the better-educated classes.

On the other hand, it is quite probable that most of the members of the lower class at Tubac were relatively happy with their lot, for it actually represented a step upward on the social ladder for many. It was this lower class of the dominant caste which absorbed most of the upwardly aspiring mestizos and pure-blood Indians who wished to abandon their tribal customs and acquire Spanish culture. Enlistment in a presidial company was one of the best ways for such a subordinate caste member to cross the caste line.

The Tubac company at the terminal period of its existence numbered five ethnic groups in its complement: the Opata Indian scouts, criollo Spaniards of the provincial elite, upper and middle classes, a sizeable group of Spanish-Indian men, and a few mulatos and some moriscos.

³⁴⁷SOCIO-ECONOMIC CHARACTERISTICS OF THE TUBAC GARRISON, AUGUST 16, 1775

From O'Conor Aug. 16, 1775; Oliva Aug. 13, 1775, Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 7.

The sixteen men identified as Coyotes in the roll above were half-bloods, offspring of a Spaniard and an Indian (Treutlein 1949:284; Espinosa 1773:5; Moyano 1786:50; 1791:41). The term coyote was employed in Sonora instead of the more general term mestizo which came into use in the northwest province around the beginning of the nineteenth century (Lopez 1800:12).

The foregoing roll shows that a few mulatos-the term meaning what it does in the U. S.-and descendants of Moorish converts reached Tubac, but not in significant numbers.

³⁵⁰d. Tubac Subordinate Caste. The subordinate caste at the military post at Tubac itself was not as large in proportion to the dominant caste as in many cities and towns in the more settled portions of New Spain. Especially after the Tubac natives beat their retreat to Tumacácori was the proportion of subject Indians in the post population low.  On the other hand the post's very reason for existence was domination of thousands of subordinated Indians and they comprised by extension the great subordinate caste of Tubac.

Acculturated Independents--Since dominant caste individuals kept the records which provide historians with information on social characteristics of frontier society, he can not avoid presenting a view of the subordinate caste classes which corresponds more or less with that of the ruling group. The ranking of classes within the subordinate caste presented here coincides much more with that of the Spaniards than the independent Indians whose ranking would probably reverse that of the dominant group.

The "upper" class of the Indian caste seems to have been a relatively small group of Indians who had acquired sufficient familiarity with Spanish culture and social organization to enable them to imitate the dominant group successfully enough to be rewarded by them. This class was represented at Tubac principally by the Indian scouts whom Captain Anza secured as a permanent detachment assigned to his command in 1774. During the earlier years of his command, Anza attempted ³⁵¹ to utilize volunteer Pimas for scouting duty, but found serious limitations in such a system. So he finally succeeded in recruiting Opata Indian scouts from outside the area to serve on a permanent basis as professional scouts.

This class of Indians was probably more numerous at the Tumacácori Mission than at Tubac proper.

Acculturated Semi-Independents--The "middle class" of the Indian caste at Tubac was made up of Indian servants and laborers who worked for the provincial elite families and such of the upper and middle class families in the dominant caste as could afford them. Most of this group were Yaqui or Opata Indians from farther south in Sonora who had been under Spanish control for a longer time and had therefore acquired more understanding of Spanish ways and in many cases more taste for Spanish than tribal life.

The origins of this class of Indians extend back to the so-called Republic of Tlaxcala, whose citizens voluntarily acceded to the Spanish cause during Cortez's conquest of the Aztec Empire. Later the Tlaxcalans dispersed to many parts of colonial New Spain as colonists on hostile frontiers. This class was evidently relatively small at the royal fort at Tubac and its environs because of the large number of Indian slaves acquired through capture or purchase.

Slaves--It may strike North Americans as strange to label slaves as a class rather than a caste, but this is a more accurate assessment of the actual social situation in New Spain and frontier Sonora than a projection of United States ³⁵²social institutions into a completely foreign context would produce.

In Europe, any Spaniard might be enslaved if he were captured by Moslems during the periodic politico-religious wars in the Peninsula and later in North Africa, and if fortune were reversed he could and would take Moslem slaves (Tannenbaum 1947:44). In the New World a Spaniard could still become a slave if captured by an Indian tribe powerful enough to hold him, as happened to a few explorers in Mayan country prior to the conquest (Bernal Díaz 1956:43) and untold numbers captured by Apaches in the latter years of the northern frontier. In general the Spaniard was in little danger of being enslaved while the hostile Indian was quite likely to be. By the time the Spanish frontier reached northern Piman territory, this was a long-accepted social fact. Since there were no Moors handy to capture, and Africa was far away and African slaves expensive to import, the Spanish practice of enslavement of war captives resulted in slaves on the northern frontier being nearly one hundred per cent Indians.

Thus it was at the royal fort at Tubac. The incessant campaigns against the Apaches afforded ample opportunities for capturing likely young Apache girls and children to be reared as slaves or sold farther south. For Tubac the most important booty of Captain Anza's February-March campaign in 1766 was a group of fifteen Apache young women his detachment brought back to the post. Their age and likely ³⁵³destiny was indicated in Anza's remark that some of them had recently become mothers (Anza Mar. 17, 1766:111). On a later campaign in the early 1770's, Captain Anza personally captured two young Apache children, a boy and a girl who were baptized at Tumacácori Mission on February 13, 1774 (San José de Tumacácori, Libro de Bautismos, f. 10v), while Anza was on his historic exploration of the land route to upper California (Bolton 1930:II:57). The boy was seven years old when baptized and the girl estimated to be eight to ten years. The priest who baptized them made a point of stating that Anza had "taken in just war" these two captives (San José de Tumacácori, Libro de Bautismos f. 10v).

Another important source of Indian slaves at Tubac was the border warfare between the Gila River Pimas and their Yuman-speaking allies the Gila River Maricopas and Colorado River Cocopa and Cocomaricopas, against the opposing alliance of Yumas and Mohaves plus the upland-dwelling Yavapais.  Capturing children and young women was a major goal of warriors on both sides of this periodic but unceasing war (Dobyns, Ezell, Jones & Ezell 1957:49). The Pima-Maricopa-Cocopa-Coco-Maricopa alliance found a ready market for its captives who were known collectively at this time as Níxoras in the Spanish frontier settlements, and this traffic extended to the royal fort at Tubac. The acquisition of such slaves by early officers has already been mentioned. The custom continued: on Aug. 20, 1774, Sergeant Joséph Tonini became baptismal godfather to a Níxora boy aged five or six (San José de Tumacácori, Libro de Bautismos f. 13).

³⁵⁴Mission Indians--The large Indian caste included fairly large numbers of people who did not reside right at the royal fort of St. Ignatius at Tubac but lived near enough to form an integral part of its immediate social system.

Closest to the post were the mission Indians at the nearby missions of Tumacácori, Guebavi, Sonoita and Soamca.  While these Christianized converts formed a part of the total Spanish colonial society, they lived rather distinctly apart from the normal class structure, if not from the caste lines. The Spanish Indian mission was legally and administratively anomalous within the hierarchical structure of colonial society and roughly analogous to the reservation system in the United States during the period following the War of the Rebellion when missionaries approved by Boards of Home Missions of various religious denominations were appointed by the Commissioner of Indian Affairs as agents of the several reservations.

While the mission Indians were being taught the catechism and Spanish prayers, the proper responses for mass and other church rituals, they were not exposed to the same range of Spanish culture and society that Indians living in the military posts were. They learned much about Spanish ways over a period of time and worked out an adjustment to life in the special mission institution, but they were not under nearly as great pressure for thorough-going acceptance of Spanish ways and behaviors as the Indians living at the frontier forts. They remained a social island in the sea of ³⁵⁵consciously directed transculturation until such time as the missions were secularized-which did not happen in Upper Pimería until republican times.

Allies--The situation of the bulk of the northern Piman Indians living north and especially west of Tubac remained anomalous throughout the colonial period in that they were able to maintain their economic and political independence from the Spaniards to a very large degree. They were thus to a large extent not participants in the colonial caste system: they were to some extent outcastes. This term does not imply degradation. In fact, the non-missionized Pimans were treated by the Spaniards rather more like allies than like depressed castes, for their military prowess was no small factor in Spanish frontier military strategy and policy.

When the Indians of the Gila River sent Captain Anza news of the Colorado River Indians having seen Spaniards advancing north through upper California in 1769, he rewarded them for their trouble with gifts (Anza Aug. 20, 1769:118).

This long continued geographic isolation of the Gila River Pimas and the desert dwelling Pápagos played a very important part in their survival as independent self governing societies (Ezell 1955:397-400). Had the Spanish colonial juggernaut kept rolling northward, these Indians would have been forcibly absorbed into the bottom of the caste structure, but since it stalled they were able to maintain a relatively advantageous independent social position. At the same time, they were frequent visitors at the royal fort of ³⁵⁶St. Ignatius at Tubac, and learned much about Spanish customs and technology which they adopted to their own uses through the decades of frontier life.

e. Marriage. During the period from 1752 to 1776, the settlement of Tubac appears to have been primarily an endogamous community. That is, most of the mates taken during those years were found within the community. This was the case in ten of twelve known marriages, only two spouses coming from outside the community (from the Altar fort). This appearance of endogamy is actually deceptive, for marriages of Tubac people away from the post are difficult to find record of so are without a doubt under-represented even in this small sample. Furthermore, most of the persons living at Tubac who were of marriageable age had themselves immigrated to the community. The fact remains, however, that most spouses acquired by inhabitants of the Tubac community were found among fellow-immigrants and not in other settlements.

Seven of the twelve marriages in the known sample involved remarriage for one or both partners-three couples had both been married before, two widows married single men and two widowers married single women.

The favorite months for marriage were May and June when half the marriages in the sample were celebrated, but December was close behind-probably because of the speed-up in the banns permitted by the Christmas season (Santos Angeles de Guebavi, San José de Tumacácori and San Antonio de Oquitoa).

The garrison at the royal fort at Tubac was apparently quite a healthy one. The northern Piman Indians In the area suffered more from imported European diseases than the Europeans suffered from endemic native diseases. The latter included syphilis and in the immediate area yellow fever (Libro de Entierros de Santa María Magdalena de 1702, P. 23; Santos Angeles de Guebavi, Libro de Entierros, f. 1).

Troopers ran a constant risk of being killed or wounded in action, of course, and there were other hazards such as mountain lions or jaguars which sometimes mauled a person (Libro de Entierros deste Pueblo de San Ygnacio...de 1697, f. 21), or rabid dogs or wild animals which sometimes bit a human being (ibid., f, 30). The sex ratio in the populace at the fort was probably maintained very much in favor of the males by a high rate of female mortality in childbirth (ibid., f. 25).

The Spanish population of Tubac was not distinguished by its love for walking. In fact, the men of the settlement far preferred allowing a horse to carry them wherever they were going, even if it was just across the street to talk to a neighbor. No one ventured out of the post on foot, always riding. The hard riding involved in handling livestock on the range often lasted for days on end, however (Treutlein 1949:290) and there is no reason to believe that the men lacked physical strength, stamina or supple condition as a ³⁵⁸result of their love for the saddle. The multifarious and laborious tasks of the women-tortilla making, maize and wheat grinding by hand on the tripod metate, clothes washing, cooking, and so on-ensured that those with an adequate diet and unaffected by infection were in very good physical condition. Continual sawing to make clothing for the family probably produced some eye-strain among the Tubac women, especially during cold weather when they worked inside the ill-lighted adobe houses. The worst of the rough sewing seems to have been accomplished by tailors, however, in making uniforms and heavier clothing. Women did not have to labor over hot cauldrons making soap as the pioneer peasant women did in North America. Bar soap was bought from manufactories to the south and sold at Tubac (Rubí Dec. 21, 1766 & O'Conor Aug. 16, 1775).

The physical condition of the troopers of the company seems to have been fairly good. There were a few men who either enlisted with infirmities or acquired them in service.  Ensign Phelipe Beldarrain, who was taken to Tubac at the age of two by his father, the first post comandant, suffered from lung trouble at the age of twenty-five (Oliva Aug. 13, 1775 No. 9). Inasmuch as the young man had never lived elsewhere than Tubac and Santa Ana his illness can be attributed only to life in the healthful Sonoran desert as he lived it. Being the captain's son from 1752 to 1759, Juan Phelipe should have been well fed, and his widowed mother was well endowed with Indian slaves at Santa Ana, indicating the family did ³⁵⁹not suffer greatly there. If his lung trouble were tuberculosis, it was probably not caused by lack of sufficient food but by spoiled young Phelipe's rejection of a balanced diet.  In his case, illness can be almost certainly attributed to the individual ratherthan the place.

Other members of the garrison also suffered lingering disabilities. José Antonio Azedo was recommended for medical discharge in 1775 because of long-continued illness without hope of cure (Oliva Aug. 13, 1775 No. 5). He was only three years older than Phelipe Beldarrain, a Spanish native of Fronteras who had been in the army since he was twenty (Oliva Aug. 13, 1775, No, 2, 3). Three other soldiers were immobile because of sickness in 1775 and were recommended for retirement.All three had been on forty campaigns or thereabouts. José AntonioRomero was thirty-three with fifteen years service. Juan JoséRodriguez was thirty-two with fourteen years in, and Pablo JoséCorona at thirty-one had served eleven years (Oliva Aug. 13, 1775 No.4).

1. Recreation

The Spaniards of Tubac could not often relax and play, but weddings, baptisms, and the burial of children were occasions for social gatherings and merriment. The guests were feasted at these family celebrations, and amused themselves with gay and lively dances and songs. Dancing was largely solo, individuals taking turns executing intricate steps, but groups also gyrated for the edification of the spectators ³⁶⁰and themselves (Treutlein 1949:289). The music was relatively simple, probably no more than a violin or two, possibly a small harp.

In the absence of formal recreational facilities, and the comparative rarity of an excuse for a festival, most of the amusement the Tubac people obtained was probably found in frequent visiting and lively conversations and gossip (ibid., p. 290). Card playing was very likely a major amusement for the men of Tubac, among the off-duty soldiers at headquarters or in the barracks, and the idle farmers during the off season, and so on. The failure of the anything but sympathetic Jesuit Ignaz Pfefferkorn to mention card playing as a major vice of the Sonoran Spaniards suggests that his parishioners were well aware of the priest's low regard for card games, and took care not to exhibit the entertaining pasteboards when the good father was about.

The basic diet of the people of Tubac consisted of cereal grain products made from the staple grains maize and wheat. Basic dishes were posole, pinole, atole and tortillas (ibid., p. 288) orwheat bread (ibid., p. 289). Atole was a refreshing drink made with corn meal and water, borrowed from Indian cuisine. Pinole was the basic ground corn meal ingredient for that and other preparations.Tortillas were very thin bread baked on a hot comal or thinclay or metal circle after being patted out from a ball of malleable³⁶¹dough and thinned by flopping from hand to hand and thenfrom forearm to forearm as they increased in diameter.

Meat dishes were relished by the Tubac populace, which was in general well satisfied with fresh or jerked beef. Only the wealthy could afford delicacies such as mutton and chicken (Treutlein 1949:288), suggesting that small animal husbandry and bird keeping were not widely practiced skills at Tubac. There must have been some hunting of wild game and there was probably some bartering for fresh or dried venison brought to the post by the desert Pápagos.

Even under Captain Juan Bautista de Anza the food supply system for Tubac was none too efficient. The ration he issued was considered scanty by the troopers, some of whom peddled their horses and equipment to purchase extras (Rubí Dec. 21, 1766). The ration was the same as the one customary in other frontier posts, restricted invariety by the small number of crops raised in Sonora (Anza Dec. 30,1766).

Field Marshal Pignatelly y Rubí instituted a schedule of rations designed to raise the amounts received by the troopers and eliminate the scarcity of provisions which had previously prevailed among the Tubac troops:

RATION WHICH THE CAPTAIN MUST ISSUE EXACTLY EVERY FIFTEEN DAYS FOR THE SUBSISTENCE OF THE TROOPS OF HIS COMPANY" AS FOLLOWS: Prices: Pesos Reales

He shall give each soldier for his fifteen-day ration one fanega of maize or wheat, or 362in its place an equivalent quantity of flour for the price of-------- 4 p. For the same fifteen days time he shall issue for each four soldiers one beef for the price of-------- 8 p. Providing that these must be issued by the Captain precisely at the above-fixed interval of fifteen days and not at one time for all the year as has been the practice. If beef is lacking so each soldier is provided one sheep as equivalent to the aforesaid quarter of beef, he shall issue it for the price of-------------1 p. 4 r. If because of some accident the distribution of beef which is scheduled on some date should be impossible the captain must issue the corresponding amounts of salted or dried meat. To all this shall be added the corresponding beans or vegetables which are easiest for the captain to supply with sufficient chile, sugar, soap, salt, and other necessities which because of their daily consumption also are to be issued exactly every fifteen days ... (Rubí Dec. 31, 1766b).

The royal inspector's reform of the Tubac ration system approximately doubled the ration received by the troops. Previously each trooper had received only one fanega of maize per month, a peso's worth of soap, and such vegetables as ³⁶³were in season at any particular time (J. M. Acuña Dec. 23, 1766), plus necessary salt and shoes (Estrada Dec. 24, 1766; Martínez Dec. 24, 1766).

As time went on the supply service probably improved with the advance of civilized territory toward the frontier of settlement. At least by 1775 rough-refined brown sugar loaves appear in the Tubac post accounts (O'Conor Aug. 16, 1775). Flour, maize, pinole, and beans with chile and salt for seasoning still formed the basic diet(ibid.).

Festival foods for the celebrations were on a more appetizing order than everyday dishes. The principal treat was chocolate served with high-quality tortillas. Brandy also graced the family festivals of baptism, wedding and children's burials, and the Spaniards were very fond of it (Treutlein 1949:289).

3. Tobacco

Like the Indians of the area, the Spaniards of Tubac were very fond of tobacco (ibid.). The crown had long been aware of the propensity of colonial subjects to consume this narcotic in great quantity, and had formed a tobacco monopoly controlling distribution of tobacco products for the royal profit. Presidial officers such as the commanders of Tubac were responsible for the administration of tobacco sales within their posts (Rubí Dec. 21, 1766).

Later, under the New Regulations of September, 1772, ³⁶⁴which went into effect at Tubac on June 1, 1774, a junior officer designated as quartermaster took over administration of the royal tobacco monopoly which profited fromthe sale of cigarettes to the tobacco-loving troops (O'Conor Aug. 16, 1775). Cigarettes came in packs in those days, too.

4. Population

The population of the military post at Tubac and its auxiliary citizenry eventually numbered somewhat over four times the complement of the garrison. At any rate 421 persons were reported living at Tubac in November of 1761 (Tamarón 1937:305 & Santos Angeles de Guebavi, p. 129-130).  The garrison at that time numbered fifty-one officers and men. This was about seven years after the full complement of fifty reverted to Tubac. As time went on the proportion of civilians to soldiers increased.

In 1761 there were sixty-two families at Tubac (Tamarón 1937:305). How many of these were families of troops and how many of citizens is not known. By the end of 1766 the citizens numbered forty (Anza Dec. 30, 1766) probably meaning male family heads. Since the total number of dwelling units at the post was over seventy about that time (Urrutia 1766), it appears that perhaps thirty of the troopers had families and twenty were single. Certainly the population was growing as a result of immigration of civilians to the post (Rubí Dec. 21, 1766).

³⁶⁵On October 23, 1775, the population of Tubac decreased sharply with the departure of sixty-three persons with Captain Anza's expedition to colonize the San Francisco Bay in Upper California (Bolton 1930:I:242), apparently the largest contingent sent to the Golden Gate by any one community in New Spain.

If the Tubac population refrained stable from 1766 to 1775, sixty-three emigrants took away fifteen percent of the total populace of the post. If Captain Anza had been able to augment the citizenry by attracting more settlers, the percentage loss was, of course, smaller.

That Captain Anza had not been able to attract many pioneers to Tubac after 1766 is suggested by the number of civilians reported living at the post in August of 1775 two months before the departure of the California colonists. At that time there were thirty-nine families of citizens settled at Tubac, plus two families of Yaquis, two of Opatas, one of Piros and one of Apaches-forty-five families in all not belonging to members of the garrison (Oliva Aug. 10, 1775 No. 8). This represented either a net loss of one family since 1766 or a gain of five, depending on whether Anza counted Indians among the forty citizens he reported then. (If Anza actually meant their were forty total civilians in 1766 rather than forty family heads, then forty-five families represented a very considerable increase.) Family number is no accurate index to Tubac's total population however.

³⁶⁶a. Birth Rate. The Tubac population was a fertile one and most of the married women there bore several children during their productive years. The garrison of the original company seems to have been a comparatively young one, with most of the men recently married and their wives entering their most fertile years.

The Tubac stork derby began in November of 1752 when wives of two soldiers bore children conceived at Santa Ana (Libro de Bautismos del Partido de San Ygnacio de Caburica p. 172-173). The total population of the post was at least seventy-six (counting the rotated unit at Ocuca, nineteen verified wives and six known children taken to Tubac). The crude birth rate can be estimated at about fifty-two births per 1,000 population. This is about double the recent birth rate in the United States which averaged 25.1 births per 1,000 population from 1951 through 1956 (Dunn 1958:I:XLII). The estimate is high to the extent that the Tubac population exceeded seventy-six, but this error is at least partially corrected by births of which no record has been found.

1753--The next year there were nine known births to wives of Tubac soldiers. Nine births in a population of seventy-eight meant a crude birth rate of 115 births per 1,000 population or about four and one half times the current United States birth rate which is increasing the population rapidly combined with a low death rate. Again, of course, this Tubac figure is to some extent an overestimation.

³⁶⁷1754--This year the birth rate fell spectacularly to a mere 23 births per 1,000 population due to the rise in population the previous year and a drop of births to only two. This just maintained the known population, since there were two deaths in the post population during 1754 (speaking always in terms of births and deaths of which record has been found, of course).

1755--The women of Tubac rebounded from the 1754 low with a doubled crop of infants in 1755, four births. This meant a crude birthrate of forty-six births per 1,000 population and a net increase to ninety-one verified residents.

1756--Three births during 1756 indicated a crude birth rate of thirty-three births per 1,000 population, increasing the verified population of Tubac to ninety-four persons.

1757--Only two births in this year meant a crude birth rate below the current United States rate, only twenty-one births per 1,000 population. One fatality at least occurred that year in the company, so the net gain in the verified population was only one. (Actually it was two since the deceased soldier would have been replaced by a recruit or a transfer.)

1758--This was a better year for the goals of colonial administration for the crude birth rate climbed to sixty-three births per 1,000 population. Six women bore children at Tubac to raise the population four persons-two fatalities of record having occurred-to ninety-nine individuals. ³⁶⁸1759--Three births during 1759 exactly balanced three known fatalities. Both the crude birth and death rates ware thirty per 1,000 population.

b. Fertility. Certainly during the seven and one-half years from June 1, 1752, to January 1, 1760, there was additional immigration to Tubac which has not been taken into account in the preceding computations. This does not invalidate the estimates just offered, however, for the immigrants would have had children also, and none of those are included in the computations above. The birth rates above represent the fecundity only of the original Tubac pioneers.

Perhaps this point can be better made by analyzing the fertility of the women involved. As mentioned above, available documents have permitted identification of only nineteen wives of the original garrison. Some troopers were bachelors and some wives bore no children during the seven and one-half year period analyzed. Only seventeen of the nineteen verified wives are known to have born children between the founding of the post and January 1, 1760. These seventeen bore thirty-one children during that seven and one-half years, an average of 1.8 children per child-bearing female of record.

There was a very intriguing correlation between socioeconomic status and number of births per wife during this first seven and a half years of the post of Tubac. Two women out of the seventeen bore four children each. They were ³⁶⁹Doña María Theresa Prudhom Butron y Moxica de Beldarrain and Doña Bartola de la Peña de Ramirez, wives of the post comandant and ensign-lieutenant respectively!

One of the other wives bore three children during these seven and a half years and six bore two children each, leaving eight wives who bore a single infant each. It bears repeating here that since these totals are all documented, the possibility remains that these same women bore additional children of whom no record has been found. The figures analyzed therefore indicate minimal fecundity in this small population. Some of the children born to Tubac mothers were born out of wedlock often in other settlements (Libro de Bautismos del Partido de Huquitoa de 1757 f. 16v), so records of births of that type are difficult to locate.

The virtual certainty that special chaplain Br. Joséph Manuel Díaz del Carpio was keeping a separate set of administrative records for the Tubac post from 1760 on prevents any precise estimation of demographic characteristics. Figures derived from records kept by other priests can yield minimal and skewed estimates only, not reliable ones. The crude death rate which could be computed on the basis of the one known death during 1762 (Santos Angeles de Guebavi, Libro de Entierros, p. 64) would be only 2.4 deaths per 1,000 population. This is little more than a quarter of the present United States crude mortality rate (Dunn 1958:I:LIV) and much too low to be reasonable.