From 1740 to 1750

On June 1, 1737. Father Alejandro Rapicano took over the Guevavi mission from Father Alejandro Rapicani. Three years later, on May 9, 1740, near Soamca, Cap.Juan Bautista de Anza (father) was ambushed and killed by the Apaches.

That summer would also see the uprising of the Yaqui and Mayo Indians further South. Gobernor Huidobro named Agustin de Vildosola to fight them, which he accomplished after a brilliant campaign.

Ending that year, Father Rapicani was moved from Guevavi to a Southern Sonora Mission, where he would build, some years later, a beautiful stone church in Batuc, whose facade, when that region was flooded in the middle of the 1960´s after the building of El Novillo dam, was dismounted and taken to the Northern entrance of Villa de Seris.

By February 1741 the only Mexican priest who would serve in Guevavi arrived, Joseph Torres Perea, who had been born in Chalchicomula, Puebla. When he arrived, he was also the youngest among all the Missionaries, with only 28 years of age, and he would have the difficult job of gathering Indians from the rancherias near Guevavi to replenish those who died in the Guevavi epidemics. Among the registers he left, he mentions some of those places: Bacocut, Bacuacucan, Concuuc, Sopoc, Taupan, Toacuquita, Toaczoni, Tutup. Possible some of those was located inside today´s Nogales. We´ll never know.

Some of the natives accepted Baptism during his initial stay in Guevari, while some others would run away to hide, as Torres himself would write in 1744.

Already by the 1730´s, San Luis, located on the Santa Cruz River, East of today´s Nogales, was a town, while Santa Barbara was a cattle ranch owned by Jose Romero.

In 1741, two and a half sitios de terreno were adjudicated to the inheritors of Jose and Diego Romero in San Luis, while Don Antonio de Rivera established a cattle ranch near Arivaca. Also, near Sopori, Cap. Don Bernardo de Urrea had another one. Besides these, the Tubac rancheria was inhabited by other Spaniards, as the Guevari registers show us.

At the same time, South of today´s Nogales, in 1742 Cucurisulaqui was occupied (today´s Casita) by Cap. Francisco Elias Gonzalez.

Those years, the most populous region within today´s Municipio de Nogales was along the Santa Cruz river, and among the surnames we read in the nearby Guevavi Mission are, besides those already mentioned, Armenta, Barrios, Bernal, Chacon, Elizondo, Escalante, Jamiz, Leyva, Mondragon, Moraga, Pacheco, Pacho, Padilla, Peralta, Perea, etc.

Starting in 1710, a year before Kino´s death, the Apache attacks had intensified, and by the middle of the century, they dominated the whole region of today´s border of Sonora and Chihuahua with Arizona and Texas. Trying to diminish those attacks, besides the Fronteras Presidio, who had been established in 1692, another one was erected in 1742 in Terrenate (not the town near Magdalena but Northeast of Cananea).

Three years after his arrival, on the Spring of 1744, Father Torres was moved from Guevavi, and on May 1745 his replacement arrived: Joseph Garrucho. Soon after his arrival, again the scene of welcoming from the Indians was repeated. Everybody abandoned the town, leaving the priest accompanied only by two boys and a neighbor. Cap. Pedro Vicente de Tagle Bustamante, from Terrenate, came accompanied by Father Keller, to try to solve the problem, although he had to promise the Missionaries he would not punish the desertors.

During Garrucho´s stay in Guevavi, at least three epidemics diminished even more the Indian population: 1747, 1749 and 1751. To replace the dead, the same as Torres Perea, Garrucho went over the nearby rancherias to collect those living in the nearby canyons and hills. Unfortunately, we don´t have the description of the rancherias he visited, just a few names: El Concuc and Upiatuban. Again, possibly at least one of those racherias might have been located inside today´s Nogales, within any of the canyons that bound the central Arroyo.

Most of the Indian population of Guevavi, would later say Father Stiger, had been "reduced" through the use of force. However, this mechanism of replacing the dying Indians in the Mission, through the collection of the rest of the Native population from the region, was indicative of a process of gradual depletion of the reason for the existence of the institution of the Mission itself: the Indian population.

At the same time, every year the Spaniard and Criollos under the care of the Missionary increased in numbers, although Garrucho´s technique to replenish Indians in the Mission would continue at least for the time being. By 1751, his Mission produced already enough surplus to make him think in building a church. The last days of that Summer, Don Joaquin de Cazares, a Master Builder, arrived at Guevavi and started a building of about 50 by 15 Ft. for the church, besides a line of rooms around a central patio measuring some 88 by 105 Ft. This would be the climatic moment in Guevavi´s history.

By then, Father Jacobo Sedelmayr, from his prosperous Mission in Tubutama, had continued the Missional expansion through the whole of Pimeria Alta, as well as undertaking several exploratory trips to the Colorado River in 1744, 1749, 1750 and after 1751. He would also write a report of his activities and would go to Mexico City to promote another Missionary impulse for the region.

Starting the 1750's the panorama looked promissory. Sedelmayr had been named Visitor of the Pimeria Alta Missions, which was seen as the first step towards the establishment of another Jesuit Province in this region.

Besides this, in 1739 the Marques of Villapuente had died in Madrid. In his will, he left enough money for the establishment of two more Missions in Pimeria Alta. However, several factors combined to block it´s accomplishment for the time being, until after the establishment of the new Missions of Saric (1750) and Sonoita (1751), and more Missionaries arrived to work at Pimeria Alta: Tomas Tello to Caborca, Enrique Ruhen to Sonoita and Juan Nentvig to Saric.

The idea was, as always, through these missions, to:

"...enter the region of the tribes of the Gila and Colorado rivers..."