¹ Almada, Francisco R., Diccionario de historia, geografía y biografía sonorense (Chihuahua, 1952), 45, 686–687 Google Scholar; Acosta, Roberto, Apuntes historicos sonorenses — La Ciudad de Alamos en la época de las Guerras de Reforma y del Imperio (Mexico, 1945), 142–143.Google Scholar The Almada family descended from the Count of Avraches, who presided over a small town near Lisbon in the fifteenth century. The brothers’ great-grandfather had moved to Spain in the early eighteenth century.

² Sauer, Carl, Aboriginal Population of Northwest Mexico, Ibero Americana. No. 10 (Berkeley, 1935), 6–15 Google Scholar; de Mendizabal, Miguel O., La Evolución del Noroeste de Mexico (Mexico, 1930), 15–19, 43–48Google Scholar; García, Luis Navarro, Sonora y Sinaloa en el Siglo XVII(Seville, 1967), 12–16, 28–32, 35–36, 51.Google Scholar For a detailed account of the conquests of the sixteenth century in Northwest New Spain, see Bancroft, Hubert H., The History of the North Mexican States. 1531–1800 (San Francisco, 1884).Google Scholar

In the coastal plains of southern and central Sinaloa, the two conquest expeditions encountered the Tahue tribes, whose levels of population and culture compared favorably to the Tarascans of central Jalisco and Michoacán. The conquistadores, however, were stopped by the Cahita tribes, who inhabited the coastal valleys of northern Sinaloa and southern Sonora. The Cahitas, though sedentary farmers, were at a less developed cultural level than their neighbors to the south, yet were more tenacious fighters.

Southern and central Sinaloa were initially part of Nueva Galicia. In time, these areas and the territory north into southern Arizona that was added in the seventeenth century became part of Nueva Vizcaya under its governor. However, judicially they remained under the audiencia of Guadalajara.

³ Villa, Eduardo W., Historia del Estado de Sonora (Hermosillo, 1951), 93.Google Scholar Bancroft, North Mexican States, Vol. I contains a detailed account of the Jesuits' pacification of the Northwest.

⁴ Mendizabal, , Noroeste, 103–104, 121, 124Google Scholar; García, Navarro, Sonora y Sinaloa, 22, 172, 181–182, 236Google Scholar; Sauer, , Population, 12 Google Scholar; Calvo Berber, Laureano, Nociones de historia de Sonora (Mexico, 1950), 96–97, 292,302Google Scholar; Pfefferkorn, Ignaz, Sonora —A Description of the Province, translated by Treutlein, Theodore E. (Albuquerque, 1949), 262, 266–267, 272–276Google Scholar; Ortega, Padre José, Historia del Nayarit. Sonora. Sinaloa, y ambas Californias (Mexico, 1887), 419–425 Google Scholar; Manson, Clara, “Indian Uprisings in Sonora,” Mexico, M.A. thesis forthe University of Southern California (February, 1936), 13–15, 22–24, 45 ff.Google Scholar Pfefferkorn, a German, served in the missions of the Pimeria Alta from 1758–1767. Ortega (1700–1768), a Spaniard, spent thirty years in the Jesuit missions in Nayarit, the region immediately south of Sinaloa.

Those Indians who provided personal services for the missionary were to receive remuneration; however, continual complaints to the Crown reveal that this was frequently not observed.

Though usually built of adobe and flat-roofed, “… the churches were decorated with beautiful altars, images, paintings, and other ornaments. On important feast days in practically all missions, the utensils used in the altar service were generally of hammered silver, sometimes beautifully gilded .... and the garments of the priests were correspondingly costly. Even on common work days silk vestments having gold and silver borders were always worn … Although wax was very expensive in Sonora, it was nevertheless used without stint during public feasts.” Pfefferkorn, Sonora. 272–273.

⁵ Mendizabal, , Noroeste, 118–119.Google Scholar

⁶ Sauer, , Population, 27–28 Google Scholar; Bancroft, , North Mexican Slates. 1, 232–234 Google Scholar; García, Navarro, Sonora y Sinaloa, 37–38, 60–61Google Scholar; Miles, Carlota, Almada of Alamos — The Diary of Don Bartolomé (Tucson, 1962), 3–4 Google Scholar; Nakayama, Antonio, Documentos para la historia del Rosario, Sinaloa (Culiacán, 1955), 7.Google Scholar The largest and richest silver veins discovered were those of the Real de Alamos in the hills southeast of the Mayo valley in the early 1680’s,and the Real de Rosario in southern Sinaloa in 1655.

⁷ García, Navarro, Sonora y Sinaloa, 42–43, 68, 172, 255, 259–263Google Scholar; Bancroft, , North Mexican Stales, 207, 276 ff.Google Scholar One of the primitive roads opened went east from the Opata country to the Franciscan missions in northwestern Chihuahua, there connecting with roads to New Mexico and points south; another connected the mining districts of central Sonora with the large mining center of Parral, to which the Jesuits sent large droves of livestock. Population flowed over these trails into the region, especially after the general Indian uprising in New Mexico in 1680.

The Pimería Alta was the name given to the areas of southern Arizona and northwestern Sonora inhabited by the Pimas Altos (Upper Pimas) and Papagos.

⁸ Shull, Dorthy Boe, “The History of the Presidios in Sonora and Arizona, 1695–1810,” M.A. thesis for the University of Arizona (1968), 50–51.Google Scholar The military commanders held the principal civil positions with the coming of the settlers. According to Shull, “… by 1688 there were reported to be 11,000 Spaniards in Sonora and the region below it.”

⁹ Shull, , “Presidios,” 50–51 Google Scholar; García, Navarro, Sonora y Sinaloa, 180–182.Google Scholar According to Navarro García, the Indian officials, though elected by the pueblos and nominally confirmed by the Spanish authorities, obeyed the missionaries because “they believed in the superior authority the power of excommunication gave the Padres.”

¹⁰ Ibid, 204–209; Pfefferkorn, , Sonora, 244–246.Google Scholar

¹¹ García, Navarro, Sonora y Sinaloa, 214–215, 218–221.Google Scholar As the population and purchasing power of the mining districts grew, the padres increased their plantings proportionately, even installing horse-driven mills in some pueblos to supplant the far less efficient threshing by hand.

So effective were the Jesuits in commercial competition that the colegio at Matape in the 1670’s (central Sonora) every year sent more silver to Mexico City than all of the merchants in that province combined.

¹² Ibid., 211–212; Pfefferkorn, , Sonora, 175, 241–242, 280.Google Scholar

¹³ Ibid. 241–242.

^l4 García, Navarro, Sonora y Sinaloa, 214 Google Scholar; Berber, Calvo, Nociones, 102 Google Scholar; Mendizabal, , Noroeste, 106, 108 Google Scholar; Shull, , “Presidios,” 10–13, 45–48, 50–51.Google Scholar The presidial garrisons were frequently quartered near, or even in, the mission pueblos, the soldiers often employing the Indians at about half their regular pay to do the menial tasks of building construction or tending livestock assigned to them in addition to their military duties. The presidios also provided the settlers with a way to penetrate the pueblos, encroaching on the Indians’ land and water supply under the protective wing of the garrison.

¹⁵ Berber, Calvo, Nociones, 99.Google Scholar The new colonial entity, called Sonora and Sinaloa, also included the Californias (Lower and Upper).

¹⁶ Ibid.; Bancroft, , North Mexican States, 520–521 Google Scholar; García, Luis Navarro, La Sublevación del Yaqui en 1740 (Seville, 1966), 20–23.Google Scholar

¹⁷ Manson, , “Indian Uprisings,” 13–15, 22–24,45 ff. To defend the mission pueblos, the Jesuits had fashioned a military hierarchy — captains, lieutenants, sergeants, and cabos — whose responsibility it was to keep vigil over each pueblo, convoke the Indian warriors in case of danger, and direct the defense of the pueblos and punitive expeditions. As the incursions grew in number and destructiveness, the growing military operations of the diverse mission forces obliged the Jesuits to create the position of captain-general of each tribe, who became recognized by the Crown as head of the tribe.Google Scholar

¹⁸ García, Navarro, Sonora y Sinaloa, 180 Google Scholar; Mendiziabal, , Noroeste, 108 Google Scholar; Pfefferkorn, , Sonora, 243–247, 264–265.Google Scholar

¹⁹ Berber, Calvo, Nociones, 102–103.Google Scholar

²⁰ Ibid. 99, 101; Bancroft, , North Mexican States, 521–523, 537–538, 544–545,548–549Google Scholar; Manson, , “Indian Uprisings,” 13 ff.Google Scholar For a detailed and well-documented account of the Yaqui-Mayo uprising in 1740-1741, in particular the accumulation of events and forces after 1732 that brought it about, see Navarro García, Sublevación Yaqui.

²¹ Ortega, , Historia, 544 Google Scholar; Bancroft, , North Mexican States, 564.Google Scholar

²² Morfi, Agustín, Juan: Descripción (1778) por padre Morfi, sobre Arizpe, Sonora, capital que fué de las Provincias Internas (Mexico, 1949), 17–18.Google Scholar

²³ Pfefferkorn, , Sonora, 285.Google Scholar

²⁴ Bancroft, , North American States, 565, 567, 660–667.Google Scholar Gálvez’s expedition came to the Northwest, as a secondary objective, to introduce reforms necessary in the wake of the dislocations created by the expulsion of the Jesuits. See Priestly, Herbert I., José de Gálvez, Visitor-General of New Spain, 1765–1771 (Berkeley, 1916).Google Scholar

²⁵ Shull, , “Presidios,” 14–17, 35–42, 85, 93–95, 98–102Google Scholar; Pfefferkorn, , Sonora, 295 Google Scholar; Stevens, Robert C., “Mexico’s Forgotten Frontier: A History of Sonora, 1821–1846,” Ph.D. thesis for the University of California at Berkeley (1963), 119.Google Scholar After 1748, the Crown had added five presidios (garrisons at fixed strategic points) to the two then existing. But the presidios had been unable to contain either the growing unrest among the mission tribes or the Apache-Seri incursions. The soldiers were inexperienced and poorly equipped. Most were recruited locally; not a few were consigned criminals. The commanders (and often the provincial governor) were busy as merchants for the troops, making a good profit on the provisions and goods they supplied their soldiers. Surplus supplies were often requested from Mexico City to carry on a trade with the settlers.

Most of the Apaches accepted the diplomatic bribe of food, liquor, and trinkets in the new frontier policy after 1785. Expeditions were continually sent out against the diminishing numbers who refused to submit.

²⁶ Stevens, , “Frontier,” 2 Google Scholar; Bancroft, , North Mexican States, 678 Google Scholar; Villicana, Ernesto Lemoine, “Historia geográfica-política del Estado de Sonora,” YAN — Ciencias Antropológicas, No. 1 (Mexico, 1953), 61.Google Scholar All three sources detail the extensive geopolitical and administrative changes in the Provincias Internas between 1776 and 1810.

²⁷ Bancroft, , North Mexican States, 670–675,687–690Google Scholar; Ocaranza, Fernando, Los Franciscanos en las Provincias Internas de Sonora y Ostimuri (Mexico, 1933), 181,197–237Google Scholar; Hinton, Thomas B., “A Survey of Indian Assimilation in Eastern Sonora,” The Anthropological Papersof the University of Arizona, No. 4 (Tucson, 1959), 30.Google Scholar Colonist influx and miscegenation was particularly prevalent among the Pimas and Opatas, who increasingly lost their numerical superiority and found themselves becoming marginal inhabitants of their own village, scattered on its outskirts. In the 1790’s, many of the missions in the Pimería Baja (central Sonora) were secularized, and in the remaining Pima and Opata pueblos of that region, the colonists often outnumbered the Indians.

In Arizpe, by 1778 the presidial garrison occupied all of the old mission buildings but the church, and the thirteen Spanish families occupied most of the remaining dwellings in the center of the former pueblo. The cultural effects of miscegenation were also being felt: “If one marries a Spanish woman he no longer wishes to be treated as an Indian; he disdains the occupations and ministerios (offices) of his relatives; and the same follows with the women when they marry Spanish men. Both affect Spanish dress and manners, and they are very desirous of learning the language. …” Morfi, , Descripción (1778) 14, 18.Google Scholar

²⁸ Pradeau, Alberto Francisco, Sonora y sus casas de moneda (Mexico, 1959), 15–17 Google Scholar; Nakayama, Antonio, Documentos, 7.Google Scholar

²⁹ Bancroft, , North Mexican States, 686–691 Google Scholar; Velasco, Jose Francisco, Sonora, translated by Nye, William F. (San Francisco, 1861), 105–124, 132.Google Scholar The latter work is an abridged translation of Velasco’s Noticias estadísticas del estado de Sonora (Mexico, 1850).

The principal mining districts were: Cieneguilla, San Francisco, and Santa Rosa (northwest Sonora); Sinoquipe, Cananea, and Babicanora (Opata country); San Antonio de la Huerta, Mulatos, San Javier, and Baroyeca (Ostimuri); Rosario, Panuco, and Copala (southern Sinaloa); Cosala and Badiraguato (central Sinaloa).

³⁰ García, Luis Navarro, Los Provincias Internas en el Siglo 19 (Seville, 1965), 11 Google Scholar; Bancroft, , North Mexican States, 485, 569–570.Google Scholar

³¹ Stevens, , “Frontier,” 227 Google Scholar; Velasco, , Sonora, 107 Google Scholar; Informaciones Matrimoniales, 1799–1894, compiled from the Archivo Histórico de la Catedral de Hermosillo by the Biblioteca y Museo de Sonora; Hardy, Lieutenant R. W. H., Travels in the Interior of Mexico. 1825–1828 (London, 1829), 110.Google Scholar Taking into account, as Stevens does, that all population figures he lists should be used with caution, they indicate a significant rise in the non-Indian population of the Intendancy of Arizpe between 1780 and 1810, especially in Sonora.

Juan Gandara, native of a village close to Granada, settled near the former mission pueblo of Ures, establishing a prosperous hacienda. Joseph Velez de Escalante, native of Santander, served as a presidial captain, marrying into a prosperous merchant-hacendado family of San Miguel de Horcasitas (the Iñigo Ruiz’). Juan José Carumina of Catalonia worked amongthe mines of San José de Gracia, but met with little success.

³² This clearly seems to the case for Sonora and northern Sinaloa. For central and southern Sinaloa, however, it is not clear when the first towns emerged, since the available sources are too few and general to hazard more than a tentative conclusion. This region, like that to the north, experienced its first substantial economic development in the latter half of the seventeenth century with the growth of mining centers and agricultural districts to supply them. However, it did not experience the deep unrest and disorder of the mid-eighteenth century as did the areas to the north. Nonetheless, the best hypothesis is that, as in the sixteenth century, the southern districts experienced a long depression, from which they revived in the latter half of the eighteenth century. Nakayama’s work on the history of Rosario seems to support this hypothesis. Another possibility is that the mining developments of the latter half of the seventeenth century were sustained through the eighteenth century. The demographic question correlates with the economic one — whether the southern region’s population rose steadily after 1650, or whether it remained generally static until after 1770 as in the northern areas.

³³ Shull, , “Presidios”, 16, 25–27 Google Scholar; Informaciones Matrimoniales, passim. Shortly after the presidio had been moved to San Miguel in 1748 from its site at Pitie, the residence of the governor had been relocated there. The administrative capital was transferred to Arizpe in 1776, but by then the town's function as a marketing center had been firmly established. Many of the farms and haciendas in the surrounding agricultural district were developed by Spanish immigrants. For example, Victor Aquilar and his younger brother Dionicio, from a small town near Burgos, settled near San Miguel. Victor married Ana María Escobosa, daughter of one of San Miguel’s principal families, and built up a prosperous hacienda. Informaciones Matrimoniales, n.p.; Hardy, , Travels, 110.Google Scholar

³⁴ Bancroft, , North Mexican States, 688.Google Scholar

³⁵ Nakayama, , Rosario, 7.Google Scholar

³⁶ García, Navarro, Sonora y Sinaloa, 38, 40–42, 51,67Google Scholar; Almada, , Diccionario, 225, 452, 687, 701–702.Google Scholar Culiacán was located at the junction of one of the branches of the road from Durango to the east and the coastal road coming from Guadalajara that led north into Sonora.

The see of the newly-created bishopric was never established in Arizpe as officially mandated ( 1783)The first bishop decided to reside in Alamos. His successor changed its residence to Culiacán. The third bishop moved the see to Rosario, and his successor returned it to Culiacán in 1799.

³⁷ Bancroft, , North Mexican States, 687 Google Scholar; Miles, , Almada, 3–10.Google Scholar

³⁸ Acosta, , Alamos, 142–143 Google Scholar; Almada, , Diccionario, 687–688.Google Scholar Bishop de los Reyes founded six other schools elsewhere in the bishopric and another catedra in Arizpe.

The bishop was not a stranger to the province. He had served there earlier as procurator of the Franciscan missions for five years after the expulsion of the Jesuits.

³⁹ Almada, , Diccionario, 45, 639, 710–711.Google Scholar By 1810, Almada had acquired the richest mine in Promontorios (La Balbanera), and the mines of El Trinidad (the real of Yecora) in the foothills of the Sierra Madre bordering the upper Mayo Valley.

Through his wife’s mother and one of his daughters-in-law, Almada was related to the rich and influential Elías González family, most of whom had moved to Arizpe, where they became that town’s most politically powerful family in the post-independence period. Almada’s other two sons married into the Zavala and Qui ros families.

Salido had also married into the Elías González family. And his children, like those of Almada, married into the future leading families of the town: the Palomares; the Gila; the Cevallos; and the Ortiz.

⁴⁰ Northern and eastern Spain’s rise to economic power and political prominence through the course of the eighteenth century is detailed in Richard Herr, The Eighteenth Century Revolution in Spain (Princeton, 1958).