After Kino

After Kino's death, Father Agustin de Campos, from San Ignacio, would continue with the exploratory trips, as well as keep Christianism in this region. As the historian, Charles Polzer S.J. has written:

Kino spent twenty four years putting Pimeria Alta in the map, while Campos spent forty three keeping it there"

By 1715, Campos had undertaken three exploratory trips towards the coast, and in 1721, accompanied by Manje, again would try to find the Californian misionary, Juan de Ugarte, who had built a ship to explore the Gulf litoral. However, the Spanish Sessession war blocked more missionaries to be sent to Pimeria Alta.

By then, the ravages of the epidemics brought by the Europeans, had manifested, as in his concise style narrates Campos himself:

Since the year of 1716 in these three towns [San Ignacio, Imuris and Magdalena] in the yearly tours I have made, either North, or West, I have bapbtized until now one thousand and four souls: most of them being babies; some others up to twelve years old; the least being adults... because during my second visit, I find that many of the children that I had baptized in my previous, have already gone to Heaven; and many of them, a few hours after being baptized... The Pima Nation is very large and, although these epidemics have diminished it a lot, there are still a lot of people..."

In 1727, the Bishop of Durango arrived at the Pimeria, as this region was then under his Diocese. When he saw the abandonement of the region, he assigned three more missionaries here. In 1732, the Jesuits Felipe Segesser von Brunegg arrived to San Xavier del Bac, Johann Grazhofer to Guevavi, and Ignacio Keller to Suamca (today's Santa Cruz).

Keller would remain here the rest of his life, almost 30 years, forming at the same time a legend around his performance, as Historian Gerard Decorme writes:

Father Keller, during so many years [being at Suamca] turned into a king of Caciqud of these mountains...

In a report made by Grazhoffer, he estimated a little over 1,400 souls those living in his mission, who besides his cabecera also had the Visitas of Sonoita, Arivaca, Tumacacori, Tubac, and the nearby Valley of San Luis to the South.

The fights for the possession of the land were still in the future, and it is possible that by then the Jesuit themselves allowed the prominent Spaniards to establish ranches in some of the unprotected places within their jurisdictions, to act as a buffer of mutual protection against the Apache attacks. At the same time, the Mission helped those Spaniards who worked to favor the ends of the mission system itself.

In the Santa Cruz Valley region, in or near today's Buenavista [Mascareñas], were by then some cattle ranches of Spaniards. Probably the first one was owned by Nicolas Romero and his wife, Maria Ifigenia Perea. Romero would say sometime that he arrived there around 1720.

It is not known much about Gashoffer's time at Guevavi. In July of 1732, together with Keller and Segesser, he went to San Ignacio to celebrate the day of Saint Ignatius of Loyola day, and for the yearly Spiritual Exercises, and then he returned to Guevavi. The following Spring, Father Segesser found him dying.

After burying him, and taking his place there, Father Segesser together with Keller the following July made arrangements to go again to San Ignacio. New problems awaited them.

The Indians of Santa Maria abandoned their mission, and when Segesser returned to Guevavi, he also found that his Indians had abandoned the mission, taking with them the cattle and horses. Besides this, at Bac they stole everything, including the vestments and all of the religious utensils.

Segesser would be reasigned later to Pimeria baja, and Guevavi was left alone, as it received only occasional visits from Stiger from Bac. By then, old Father Campos at San Ignacio suffered mental illnesses, and when in 1734 Father Stiger was went to replace him from Bac. Now, the whole of Pimeria Alta along the Santa Cruz: Soamca, Guevavi and San Xavier del Bac would be under Keller's administration.

Twice, in 1736 and 1737, he would undertake exploratory trips to the Gila river, as well as some others to the Visitas within his jurisdiction, among them Guevavi and the Valley of San Luis. That last year, San Ignacio received the visit of the Bishop of Durango, Martin de Elizacoechea.

At the same time, the Hispanic population along the Santa Cruz river, especially in San Luis, continued to increase, as attest the Suamca books during the visits of Keller to Guevavi: tha baptisms of a son of Luis Pacho and Juliana Romero, of a girl of Juan Nuñez and Maria Rosa Samaniego, of a son of Agustin Fernandez and Maria Antonia Romero, etc.