Historic Guevavi (meaning "big
spring") had been the home of the Hohokam and Pima Indians for hundreds of years
when Father Kino discovered it in 1691. He was so taken with this spot along the
banks of the Santa Cruz River, that he established it as his first mission in
the Continental United States. Guevavi is along the banks of the Santa Cruz
River between the towns of Tubac and Patagonia. Patagonia is southeast of Tubac.
Guevavi
was the first mission built in Arizona by Father Kino. Above are the ruins
of the church. Several members of the Pacheco family are buried nearby.
In 1690, Father Kino, who had
established several other missions was visited by Father Juan Maria de
Salvatierra, who had been sent by his superiors as visitador general. These two
missionaries, says Francisco Velasco, were followed by Indians, asking to be
instructed and admitted as members of the Catholic religion. Among them were the
Sobahpuris, who lived on the San Pedro, and had come over a distance of 200
miles to ask the priests to follow them to the place called Guevavi, where they
had their villages. Their petition was granted. The missionaries followed them
and founded for their tribe a mission which was given the name of the place.
This mission, now abandoned for a long time, was the first established on the
soil of Arizona. It is in the same region that the missions of Tumacacuri and
San Xavier del Bac were subsequently founded, along the course of the Santa Cruz
River. According to the Rt. Rev. Thomas O'Gorman, the church of Guevavi and that
of San Xavier del Bac would have been built by Father Kino in 1687.
In 1694, Kino visited the Pima
Indians in the neighborhood of the Casas Grandes, where he established two
missions, the Immaculate Conception and St. Andrew.
The above is taken from Salpointe
(Soldiers of the Cross), but in an appendix to Garces Diary,
by Elliott Coues, I find the following:
‘‘In December of that year
(1690), Father Juan Maria de Salvatierra, was appointed superior and visitador
of Sinaloa and Sonora; he came to Dolores whence he went with Kino to the other
places above named (San Jose de Himeris and San Ignacio); whence the two
congenial spirits pushed further into Pimeria Alta, laying great plans for
spiritual conquests to be extended to California and elsewhere. Ortega, pp.
248–252, names places visited on this entrada of 1691 as follows: From Dolores
by way of Santa Maria Magdalena pueblo and a land called El Tupo to the mission
of San Pedro y San Pablo de Tubutama (on Rio Altar); place still so called, and
probably in 1691 not yet a regular mission, though Kino may have operated there;
thence to Saric (still so called on the same river), and Tucubabia in the same
vicinity.
Here they were met by a
delegation of Sobaipuris, from the region about the modern (San Cayetano de)
Tumacacori in southern Arizona, begging for padres; the fathers determined to go
to (acercares) the Sobaipuris, and did so, says Ortega, p. 249, reaching in 15
leagues the rancheria called Guevavi where, in Ortega's time (al presente—1752)
there was a mission; but it does not appear that Guevavi was the place where the
Sobaipuris were met or a mission was then founded; and all those who so state
must have misread their Ortega. However, the latter clearly states that the
priests pushed on to San Cayetano Tumacacori (sic); and this place being close
to Tubac, Kino now makes his first entrada into Arizona, at or near our recent
Fort Mason, on the Santa Cruz river. The fathers then went to Santa Maria de
Suamca, a place almost on our boundary, east of Los Nogales; and thence to
Cocospera, easily found on a modern map. There they separated, Kino tarrying
awhile, and Salvatierra returning from his extended tour of inspection.’’
In 1692 Kino made his second
entrada into Arizona, early in September, pushing on as far as San Xavier del
Bac, and returning to Dolores on December 11, 1692.
In 1694 he was informed by some
Indians from Bac of the Casas Grandes on the Gila, and went alone to examine
them. This time he reached the Gila and said mass in the Casas Grandes, and he
was, according to Dellenbaugh and other noted modern authorities, the first
white man to view these ruins.
In November, 1697, was undertaken
the first formal exploration into Arizona of which any detailed account
survives. Of this expedition, Bancroft says: ‘‘Lieutenant Cristobal Martin
Bernal, with Alferez Francisco Acuma, a sergeant, and twenty soldiers, marched
from Fronteras via Terrenate and Suamca, while Kino and Mange with ten servants
came from Dolores. The two parties united at Quiburi, not far from the site of
the modern Tombstone; Coro, a Sobaipuri chief, with thirty warriors, joined the
expedition, and all marched down the Rio Quiburi, since called the San Pedro, to
its junction with the Gila, now so called in the records for the first time,
though, as we have seen, the Gila province of New Mexico, was named as early as
1630. Down the main river went the explorers to and a little beyond the Casa
Grande, which is, for the first time, described and pictured by simple drawings
in the diaries. From the Gila they returned southward up the river, since called
the Santa Cruz, by way of Bac and Guevavi, reaching Dolores at the beginning
of December. They had marched 260 leagues, had been warmly welcomed everywhere,
had registered 4,700 natives, and baptized 89, besides conferring badges of
office on many chieftains.’’
Space does not permit me to
follow all the wanderings of this tireless explorer, who made altogether
thirteen entradas into Arizona. Concerning the last expeditions of Father Kino
into Arizona, and the Jesuit administration in Arizona, Engelhardt says: ‘‘
In April and May, 1700, Fr. Kino
was again at Bac and laid the foundation of a large church, which the natives
were eager to build, but respecting the further progress of which nothing is
known. In September Fr. Kino was in the Yuma country, and gave the name of San
Dionisio to a Yuma rancheria at the junction of the Gila with the Colorado. In
1701 Fr. Kino and Fr. Salvatierra again appeared at Bac and Tumacacori. Some
time after the venerable explorer passed from Sonoita to the Gila and the
Colorado and visited the Yumas in their rancherias. Early in 1702, Fr. Kino made
his last trip to the Gila and Colorado, and this was also, as far as known, the
last time he crossed the Arizona line. ‘‘There is no satisfactory evidence,’’
said Bancroft, ‘‘that Arizona had either a regular mission or a resident Jesuit
priest before Kino's death in 1711. A few rumors of padres stationed there can
be traced to no definite source; and the whole tenor of such records as exist is
against them.’’
After Fr. Kino's death, for more
than twenty years, no Spaniard is known to have entered Arizona. It is not
unlikely that a missionary may have visited the rancherias
of the Santa Cruz valley, but there is no proof of such trips into Arizona. All
communication gradually ceased; the Gila tribes forgot what Fr. Kino had taught
them, and even the nearer Pimas and Sobaipuris lost much of their zeal for
mission life. Only two or three Jesuits are known to have worked in the field of
the Pimeria Alta near the Arizona line before 1730.
In 1731 there came a small
re-enforcement of Jesuits; two of them were sent to the north and effected what
may be regarded as the first Spanish settlement in southern Arizona. Fr. Felipe
Segesser took charge of San Xavier del Bac, Fr. Juan Baptista Grasshoffer of San
Miguel de Guevavi, which from this time may be regarded as regular missions, the
other rancherias becoming visitas or missionary stations. It is probable that
during the rest of the Jesuit period, the two missions were but rarely without
priests. Fr. Grasshoffer died; Fr. Caspar Steiger was at Bac in 1773–1736; and
in 1750 the missionaries were Fr. Jose Carucho at Guevavi, and Fr. Francisco
Paver at San Xavier del Bac. In 1736–1737, Fr. Ignacio Keller of Suamca, in
Sonora, made two trips to the Gila and visited the Casa Grande. He found that
many of the rancherias of Kino's time had been broken up.
In 1743, Fr. Jacob Sedelmair of
Tubutama reached the Gila and in the following year attempted to visit the
Moquis in the north, but owing to the unwillingness of the Indians to guide him,
he did not get beyond Bill Williams' Fork.
In 1750 occurred the second
revolt of the Pima tribes, in which two missionaries at Caborca and Sonoita,
were killed, as were about 100 Spaniards. Bac and Guevavi were plundered and
abandoned, but the two Jesuits escaped to Suamca. Peace was restored in 1752 and
the missions reoccupied in 1754.
During the remaining years of the
Jesuit period, 1754–1767, the missions of the Pimeria Alta barely maintained a
precarious existence. ‘‘A few neophytes were induced to remain faithful, but the
natives lived for the most part as they pleased, not openly rebellious, nor
disposed to molest the padres, so long as the latter attempted no control of
their actions, and were willing to take their part in quarrels with settlers or
soldiers. Missionary work was at a standstill.’’ Exactly how long the missions
had been abandoned after the revolt of 1750 is not known, but in 1763 Fr. Alonzo
Espinosa was in charge of Bac, as he was still at the time of the Jesuit
expulsion in 1767.
At Guevavi the missionaries were
Fr. Ignacio Pfefferkorn in 1763, Fr. Jimeno in 1764, and Fr. Pedro Rafael Diaz
in 1767. The rancheria of Tucson was a visita of Bac in these years, and a few
Spanish settlers seem to have lived there; but in 1763 it was, like the mission,
abandoned by all except a few sick and infirm Indians.
There were also nearly 200
Spanish settlers at Guevavi, Santa Barbara, and Buenavista. The missionary
stations at Tumacacori and Calabazas were composed of Pima and Papago neophytes;
but the latter had run away in 1763. Respecting the expulsion of the devoted
Jesuit Fathers by the Free Mason government of Spain in 1767 nothing is known,
except the names of the three Fathers Espinosa, Dias and Barera, the latter at
Suamca. The whole number of neophytes in 1764–1767, seems to have been about
1,250.
From the Spanish names on early
maps, the conclusion has been drawn that, up to the Gila Valley, Arizona was
covered with prosperous Spanish missions and settlements which had to be
abandoned later in consequence of Apache raids; but the truth is, there was no
Spanish occupation beyond a narrow region of the Santa Cruz valley, and even
there were only the two missions Bac and Guevavi, with a few rancherias de
visita under resident missionaries from 1732, or possibly 1720, and protected in
their precarious existence by the Tubac presidio from 1752.
The Spanish names of saints were
simply those applied by Kino and his associates to the rancherias visited on
their exploring tours, whose inhabitants, in some instances, were induced to
make preparations for the reception of the missionaries promised, but who never
came. It has also been the fashion to regard Tucson as a more or less prosperous
town from a very early time. Some writers even date its foundation in the
sixteenth century, though, as a matter of fact, it is not heard of as an Indian
rancheria till the middle of the eighteenth century, and was not properly a
Spanish settlement till the presidio was moved there in later years.
After the Masonic government of
Spain in 1767 had expelled the devoted Jesuits, all the mission property, since
it was regarded as belonging to the missionaries and not to the Indians, was
confiscated, and its care temporarily intrusted to royal comisionados. The
result was that in 1793 the viceroy wrote: ‘‘There is no reason to doubt that
they either wasted or embezzled the rich temporalities of all or most of the
missions, and that these funds were lost, and decadence or ruin could not be
prevented.’’
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