After the Uprising of 1751

On January, 1753, Visitor Segesser arrived at Guevavi to install the new Missionary there, Francisco Xavier Paver. His reception was cold. The Indians allowed them to say Mass, but then told him that he and Paver would have to continue their trip, and as a proof of their determination:

"...they still had the hats that they use to wear on their campaigns and uprisings..."

So, prudently, the Jesuits decided to leave the Mission, at least for the moment. And the occassion didn´t take long to present itself. On November of the same year, Luis Oacpicagigua came to meet the new Governor of Sonora and Sinaloa, Pablo de Arce y Arroyo, asking for the return of a Father to Guevavi. The Natives were repentant, he said. The Governor, without compromising himself, reminded Luis how ungrateful they had been with the old Missionaries, and he added that perhaps there wouldn´t be enough Missionaries. In any case, he promised to write the Visitor transmiting him the petition.

On December 8, Father Keller, from Suamca, preached in Guevavi about the return to Christianity of their inhabitants, and a few days later, accompanied by Cap. Belderrain from Tubac, Paver arrived again to take over the Mission from which he had been rejected previously. Starting the following year, he went out to visit his jurisdiction: in Tubac he baptized 34 Pima children, 29 of which had been taken there from San Xavier, and in Tucson he baptized 28 more.

After his return to Guevavi, he left to Arizpe to claim some of the furniture from Guevavi, who had been stored there during the uprising, and when he returned, everything returned, at least for the moment, to normalcy: to bury Cristobal Salazar, killed by the Apaches in Buenavista, to baptize a child of Nicolas Romero, to bury the wife of one of the servants of Don Antonio de Rivera.

But this normalcy didn´t last. One day the following Spring, he was called urgently to go to San Ignacio. It was rumored that Luis was promoting another uprising. Governor Arce y Arroyo also came as well as all the Missionaries from Pimeria Alta, and the Captains of the frontier Presidios: Tomas Belderrain from Tubac, Francisco Elias Gonzalez from Terrenate, and Gabriel Antonio de Vildosola from Fronteras. When everybody had arrived, they were presented to Luis Oacpicagigua and one of his followers, Luis de Pitic.

In his declarations, Luis sweared he had kept his loyalty since his being pardoned by Ortiz Parrilla, adding that he didn´t have anything to do with the attacks that had restarted along the Altar valley. However, his follower said that what Luis said wasn´t true, adding that he had tried to lead another uprising. Then, it was decided to send both prisoners to the jail of Horcasitas, which was away from the influence zone of the Indian leader. Luis would die there soon after these events.

While this happened, more Missionaries arrived to Pimeria: Miguel Gerstner to Saric, and Ignacio Pfefferkorn to Atil.

On October 28, 1756, Don Gabriel de Vildosola sold the Buenavista ranch to Maria Rosa Bezerra Nieto, widow of Juan Bautista de Anza (father), and mother in law of Vildosola himself. Perhaps she planned to enjoy her last days with the beauty and productivity of that valley, located under the shade of the peaks that, like centinels, dominate for tens of miles around (At the right we can see the Valley of Santa Cruz river, in a photo taken by the author from the Santa Barbara Peaks. The river runs from right to left, to the North, which is located at the left of the image. The background mountains are, at the left the Santa Rita, while the San Antonio can be seen at the right).

In spite of the abscence of their leader, the Pima Indians turned anyway during that second half of the decade into a worse problem than the Apaches in Pimeria Alta were. They attacked even the Presidio de Tubac, as well as the Guevavi Mission, Sonoita and the ranches of Buenavista, San Luis and Santa Barbara.

In the middle of August, 1759, Father Keller from Suamca passed away. In spite of being sick, he went to visit a Pima Indian, and died on the road. The following month, the Captain from Tubac, Tomas Belderrain died also in Guevavi, and was buried under the Main Altar of the new church. Soon after this, Paver was named Rector of Pimeria Alta, and reassigned to San Ignacio, while Miguel Gerstner came to take his place at Guevavi.

Starting 1760, Cap. Juan Bautista de Anza (Jr) assumed the possition of Commander of the Presidio of Tubac. He was 24 years old, and previously had been Lieutenant in Fronteras, under the command of his brother in law, Gabriel de Vildosola, and had earned for himself the estime of Governor, Juan Antonio de Mendoza. When he arrived at Tubac, he bought in one thousand pesos her house to the widow of Belderrain, and took his elderly mother there to live. Perhaps he thought she would be safer there than at Santa Barbara. Soon after this, he fought near Arivaca against a group of Apaches, killing nine.

Gerster would last 16 months at Guevavi. In Sonoita he would finish the church started by Paver, and at Calabazas (today´Rio Rico) he started another one.

Two weeks later, Anza´s old mother, Doña Maria Rosa Bezerra Nieto, passed away at Tubac. Her son, with the rest of the group that came to pay their respects, carried her body from Tubac and Guevavi, to bury her under the stairs of the church, where she would rest eternally, at the side of those of Cap. Belderrain.

One year later, on June 24, 1761, Cap. de Anza married at Arizpe to Ana Maria Perez Serrano, daughter of a merchant from the region. All of these events marked an already evident social change at the Pimeria: the decline of the Indigenous population and the concurrent increase of Europeans.

On May 25, 1761, Gerstner was changed from Guevavi to Saric, leaving Ignaz Pfefferkorn to take his place. When he arrived at Guevavi, Pfefferkorn might have remembered his arrival to Sonora with a smile. The new missionaries had gotten almost to Ures, when a band of Indians, with theif faces painted, came running towards them, screaming and menacing. On seeing this, the missionaries started praying, thinking that their last hour had arrived. But everything was a joke that Segesser had prepared for them.

A little after his arrival, the Jesuit General Visitor, Ignacio Lizassoain, who was undertaking a general visit of the Pimeria missions, passed through Cananea, Terrenate and Soamca. This last was now under the administration of Keller´s successor, Diego Barrera.

From Soamca, instead of going North, he went South through Cocospera and Imuris, and at San Ignacio all of the missionaries got together that November, to show him their books and registers. Among them, Pfefferkorn told him that Guevavi had 31 families, Calabazas 36, Sonoita 34, while the most populous was Tumacacori, with 72. However, these towns wouldn´t last long.

During the two following years, the number of deaths was over twice those baptized. However, that wasn´t all. The Papagos who lived in that mission abandoned it all together. Looking to solve this problem, on December 1761, Visitor Lizassoain met the Governor at Horcasitas, and there a decision was taken who would prove to be a terrible one. The Sobaipuri Indians who lived along the San Pedro River, and who since Kino´s time had been a barrier against the Apaches, didn´t have a missionary among them. So, wouldn´t it be a good decision to move them to the already established missions? Thinking that this solution would solve the problem, the order was given.

Captain Francisco Elias, from Terrenate, was given the order to move them. At Tucson, on March 19 the following year, a census of the Sobaipuri immigrants was taken. They were 250, and fewer numbers would be destined to Soamca and Sonoita. With this population, the frontier missions were reinforced, thinking that this way they would be able to better defend themselves against the Apaches, although what really happened was exactly the opposite. On April 1792, Stiger died at San Ignacio, and Paver took over his place. By 1764, he had built a new church in that mission, who would be described as:

"---the best in Pimeria, not only regards size but also in adornments..."

We can see here a photo of the San Ignacio church, taken in 1935 by George Grant.

In 1763, Pfefferkorn at Guevavi, the same as his predecessors, got sick and was moved to Cucurpe. His place was taken by the last missionary of the Jesuit period in that mission: Custodio Ximeno, who had been born in Aragon 29 years earlier. He had to repel the Apaches. The whole Santa Cruz Valley was burdened by their assaults and deaths. Every afternoon, the cowboys had to bring the cattle to town for safety.

The first two recorded deaths by the new missionary, on July 27, 1763, were caused by Apaches near Buenavista. And there were more. Frightened, all those living along the Valle de San Luis, sent a delegation to meet Cap. de Anza. They wanted to leave the valley. Soon after this, de Anza approved the petition, and so it was that the Romero and other Spaniards:

"...more than a hundred, with a great number of all kinds of cattle..."

who for many years had lived in that beautiful valley that stretches from San Lazaro on the South, to beyond today´s border, passing through the Peaks, Santa Barbara, San Luis and Buenavista, sadly abandoned those fertile lands and moved to Tubac, Terrenate and other places who were defended by Pressidial forces.

Ending the year, the new Visitor of Sonora arrived making his visit. When he passed through Soamca, he saw the foundations of the new church who was being built there by Father Barrera. He then arrived at Guevavi, finding Ximeno weak and with fever.

As he would say later, anybody who would serve at Guevavi would have to be "...very robust and very patient" although that mission wasn´t that bad, in spite of the constant Apache attacks who constantly stole it´s cattle. A good church with vestments and ornaments, who "...harvests enough wheat and corn. Has few debts and means to pay them..."

From Guevavi he went North, to visit "the last mission" of San Xavier del Bac, where he visited the new church, built by Father Alonso Espinosa, and later he went to Saric, to see another new church, built by the ex missionary from Guevavi, Father Gerstner, and then to Caborca, to visit "...the great church in the form of a 7.." (not today´s church, but a previous one). Then he finished his visit at San Ignacio.

During the Spring of 1765 news that Father Espinoza, from San Xavier del Bac, was sick and paralized, were received. A new missionary, Jose Neve, was sent there on June, to find out about his health, finding him "...with a leg already dead..." However, thanks to Neve´s care, Espinoza could be moved soon to San Ignacio, to recover his health.

On 1766, another epidemic arrived at Sonora, killing the natives, and by November, "...because he has been sick since his arrival here..." Neve was replaced at San Xavier del Bac by Custodio Ximeno, who would keep at the same time his mission of Guevavi. By December, Guevavi saw it´s population being reduced to 50 Indians, while at Calabazas, who had been "...repopulated with Papagos..." the whole Pima population had been decimated by the Apaches.

The same month, on the 19, Don Cayetano Maria Pignatelly Rubi Corbera y San Climent, Marques de Rubi, arrived at Guevavi. He was undertaking an extraordinary visit of the frontier defenses of New Spain. His arrival was the prelude of the Borbonic reforms in this region

After he spent the night at the mission, he left to inspect the Presidio de Tubac, where Capitan de Anza was waiting for him. On December 21 he undertook his visit of Tubac, finding that he couldn´t have visited a better administered presidio. The weapons were well taken care of, and the soldiers very well trained, although the light cannon that had been taken to reinforce their defences were a greater danger for those shooting them than for the Indians.

Regarding the price of daily goods, Cap de Anza "...with an uncommon generosity in these lands..." sold at the store of the presidio at even lower prices than those established by the military rules. The Visitor was so favourably impressed, that he left for posterity in his report a list of 62 goods that were being sold there with discount. The most expensive one, a soldier´s cuera (the Sonora heat didn´t allow the soldiers to use metal armour. Only leather protection against the Indian arrows was used), was sold with a discount of 20%, in $40 instead of the regular price of $50.

After his inspection of Tubac, the Marques de Rubi continued his trip, and so the new year arrived, the first months with the daily routine of missionary administration of deaths and baptisms. It seemed that nothing would change that year, but it wouldn´t be so.