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A Marginal Man: Luis of Saric and the Pima Revolt of 1751

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2015

Roberto Mario Salmón
Roberto Mario Salmón*
Affiliation:
Pan American University, Edinburg, Texas
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Extract

The history of colonial Latin America can be told in terms of the relations between Spaniards, mixed blood frontiersmen, and Indians. In Mexico, Indians figured as significantly as did political and geographical factors in determining the nature and direction of Spanish-Mexican advance and settlement. The Spaniards were ever desirous to learn more about the Indians, especially if they had cultures and economies worth exploiting. But the Indians seldom submitted peacefully to these strange men who spoke of God and king and insisted on a new way of life. Indian chieftains only reluctantly gave up positions of tribal control and they remained prepared to foment sedition and rebellion against the Spanish and Mexican colonizers. This rebellion occurred often on the fringes of Spanish America.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Americas , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , July 1988 , pp. 61 - 77
Copyright
Copyright © Academy of American Franciscan History 1988

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References

1 For Coahuila’s make-up see Teodoro de Croix’s Padrones de matrículas de familias pobladores, Chihuahua, June 1, 1778, Archivo General de Indias, Audiencia de Guadalajara, Legajo 255 (hereafter cited as AGI, Guadalajara 255). For Nueva Vizcaya, see Padrones de Santa Bárbara y San Bartolomé en 1777, AGI, Indiferente General 1526. For Sonora, José Maestro y Cuevas’s Padrón de 2, 728 habitantes, Rosario, February 20, 1778, AGI, Indiferente General 102.

2 See for example Title II, Articles 1 and 2 of the Reglamento e instrucción para los presidios que se han deformar en la línea de frontera de la Nueva España, resuelto por el Rey Nuestro Señor en cédula de 10 de Septiembre de 1772 (Madrid, 1772). A printed copy appears in AGI, Guadalajara 522 (hereafter cited as Reglamento de 1772). For text and English translation from the Mexico, 1834 printing see Brinckerhoff, Sidney B. and Faulk, Odie B., Lancers for the King: A Study of the Frontier Military-System of Northern New Spain, With a Translation of the Royal Regulations of 1772 (Phoenix, 1965).Google Scholar

3 Maestre de Campo José Francisco Marin to Viceroy Conde de Galve, Parral, September 30, 1693, in Hackett, Charles W., ed., Historical Documents Relating to New Mexico, Nueva Vizcaya and Approaches Thereto, to 1773, 3 Vols. (Washington, 1923–37), 2: 384–409.Google Scholar

4 de Lafora, Nicolás, Relación del viaje que hizo a los Presidios Internos situados en la frontera de la América Septentrional perteneciente al Rey de España, ed. by Robles, Vito Alessio (Mexico, 1939), PP. 61–67,Google Scholar 83–84, 113. For an English translation see Kinnaird, Lawrence, ed., The Frontiers of New Spain: Nicolás de Lafora’s Description, 1766–1768 (Berkeley, 1958).Google Scholar

5 Governor Juan Francisco de la Puerta y Barrera, Testimonios sobre el estado de los presidios… de esta provincia de la Nueva Vizcaya, México, July 17, 1751 (copy), AGI Guadalajara 136; Viceroy Bucareli to Arriaga, No. 881, México, April 26, 1773, AGI Guadalajara 513.

6 Tamarón, Pedro y Romeral, , Demostración del vastísimo obispado de la Nueva Vizcaya, 1765. Dwango, Sinaloa, Sonora, Arizona, Nuevo México, Chihuahua y porciones de Texas, Coahuila y Zacatecas, ed. by Robles, Vito Alessio (Mexico, 1937), pp. 149,Google Scholar 176, 363.

7 Sánchiz Ochoa, Pilar, “La Población indígena del noroeste de México en el siglo XVIII: algunas cuestiones en torno a la demografía y aculturación,” Revista Española de Antropología Americana 7 (1972): 105–10.Google Scholar

8 Copia del Informe General instruido en cumplimiento de Real Orden de 1784. Sobre las misiones del reino de Nueva España comparando su actual estado con el que tenía las que entregaron los ex-je-suitas al tiempo de su expatriación, 1793, AGI Guadalajara 578; Mosk, Sanford A., “Economic Problems in Sonora in the Late Eighteenth Century,” Pacific Historical Review 8 (September 1939): 341–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

9 On the Yaqui Revolt, see García, Luis Navarro, La Sublevación Yaqui de 1740 (Sevilla, 1966).Google Scholar

10 Agustín de Vildósola to Viceroy Duque de la Conquista, Sinaloa, March 17, 1741, AGI Guadalajara 301.

11 Testimonio de cartas…sobre la sublevación Seri, México, January 28, 1750, AGI Guadalajara 188.

12 Autos a consulta del gobernador de Sinaloa, don Diego Ortiz de Parrilla…, México, 1757 (enclosed as 290 folios), fols. 128, 228, AGI Guadalajara 137.

13 For a standard treatment of the revolt, see Ewing, Russell C., “The Pima Uprising, 1751-1752: A Study in Spain’s Indian Policy,” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1934 Google Scholar; and his “The Pima Outbreak in November, 1751,” NMHR 8 (1938): 337–46; and “The Pima Uprising of 1751,” in Greater America: Essays in Honor of Herbert E. Bolton (Los Angeles, 1945), pp. 259–80.

14 Testimonio…sobre los Pimas Altas en la provincia de Sonora, Horcasitas, November 23, 1753, AGI Guadalajara 419.

15 Ibid.

16 Ewing, Russell C., “Investigations into the Causes of the Pima Uprisings of 1751,” Mid-America 23 (April 1941): 138–51.Google Scholar

17 Kessell, John L., Mission of Sorrows: Jesuit Guevavi and the Pimas, 1691–1767 (Tucson, 1970), pp. 105–49.Google Scholar

18 Luis Oacpicagigua, Declaración, San Ignacio, March 25, 1752, AGI Guadalajara 419; Parrilla to Viceroy Revillagigedo, San Ignacio, December 1, 1751, AGI Guadalajara 418; To answer charges that Jesuits were responsible for the revolt, Keller traveled to Mexico City where on August 25, 1752, he prepared a “Consulta” refuting the charges. In it, he placed full responsibility for the revolt on Governor Parrilla. Documentos-Mexico, 4th series, 1: 28.

19 Pablo Arce y Arroyo, Testimonios, Horcasitas, November, 1753-January, 1754, AGI Guadalajara 418.

20 Captain Fernando Sánchez Salvador to Consejo de Indias, Sonora, July 7, 1752, AGI Guadalajara 418; Governor Juan de Pineda to Viceroy Marqués de Cruillas, Mexico, May 2, 1776, AGI Guadalajara 416.

21 But, according to Jesuit historian Francisco Javier Alegre, Luis openly stirred sedition among his people and constantly complained about the Jesuits to anyone willing to listen. See Francisco Javier, Alegre S.J., Historia de la Compañía de Jesús en Nueva España, 3 vols. (Mexico, 1842), 3: 289–91.Google Scholar

22 Accusations by Governor Parrilla, and Luis Oacpicagigua, are in Testimonio…sobre la sublevación de los pueblos de la Pimería Alta, México, January 31, 1754, and Testimonio…de autos formados contra don Juan Antonio Menocal, México, February 11, 1754, AGI Guadalajara 419.

23 Miguel Quijano, solicitor of the Jesuit province of New Spain, Informe, Documentos-Mexico, 4th series, 1: 33–57; and Declaraciones (twenty-six from frontier residents and fourteen from Pimas), Ures, November 23, 1754, AGI Guadalajara 419.

24 Viceroy Marqués de las Amarillas, Revillagigedo's successor, officially reopened investigation into the causes of the revolt in October of 1755, but finding his viceroyal workload overbearing and receiving favorable reports from Sonora's new governor, Juan Antonio de Mendoza, he declared it officially closed in 1758. Amarillas to the King, México, September 23, 1758, AGI Guadalajara 418.

25 Autos…de Diego de Parrilla, México, 1757, folio 128, AGI Guadalajara 137.