The Spanish missions in the Sonoran Desert () are a series of Jesuit Catholic religious outposts established by the Spanish Catholic Jesuits and other orders for religious conversions of the Pima and Tohono O'odham indigenous peoples residing in the Sonoran Desert. An added goal was giving Spain a colonial presence in their frontier territory of the Sonora y Sinaloa Province in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and relocating by Indian Reductions (Reducciones de Indios) settlements and encomiendas for agricultural, ranching, and mining labor.
Geography and history
The missions are in an area of the Sonoran Desert, then called "Pimería Alta de Sonora y Sinaloa" (Upper Pima of Sonora and Sinaloa), now divided between the Mexican state of Sonora and the U.S. state of Arizona. Jesuits in missions in Northwestern Mexico wrote reports that throw light on the indigenous peoples they evangelized.J. Benedict Warren, "An Introductory Survey of Secular Writings in the European Tradition on Colonial Middle America, 1503-1818, entry 107. "Jesuit Missions in Northwestern Mexico" in Handbook of Middle American Indians, vol. 13, Guide to Ethnohistorical Sources. Howard F. Cline, volume editor. Austin: University of Texas Press 1973, p. 95. A 1601 report, Relación de la Provincia de Nuestra Señora de Sinaloa was published in 1945.Relación de la Provincia de Nuestra Señora de Sinaloa, Edmundo O'Gorman, ed. Archivo General de la Nación, Boletín, 16:173-94. An important Jesuit report concerned the resistance in 1691 of the Tarahumara to evangelization, Historia de la tercera rebelión tarahumara.Tomás de Guadalajara (?), Historian de a tercera rebelión tarahumara. Roberto Ramos, ed. Chihuahua 1950. Another important Jesuit account of evangelization in Sonora is Estado y descripción de Sonora, 1730, which has considerable information about the size of the indigenous population, culture, and languages.Estado y descripción de Sonora, 1730. Prólogo y notas de Francisco González Cossio. Archivo General de la Nación, Boletin, 16:587-636. map.
In the Spring of 1687, Jesuit missionary named Father Eusebio Francisco Kino lived and worked with the Native Americans (including the Sobaipuri) in the area called the "Pimería Alta," or "Upper Pima Country," which presently is located in northern Sonora and southern Arizona. During Father Eusebio Kino's stay in the Pimería Alta, he founded over twenty missions in eight mission districts.E.J. Burrus, 1965, Kino and the Cartography of Northwestern New Spain. Tucson, AZ: Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society.E.J. Burrus, 1971, Kino and Manje: Explorers of Sonora and Arizona. In Sources and Studies for the History of the Americas, Vol. 10. Rome and St. Louis: Jesuit Historical Institute.
On February 3, 1768, King Carlos III ordered the expulsion of the Jesuits from Spain and its overseas empire. Despite the order, many Jesuits remained in and around the present day Tucson, Arizona, as late as the 1780s.
The Jesuit missionaries were subsequently replaced by Franciscans, who divided the existing missions between two institutes: the and the .
These missions were later put under the jurisdiction of the new Diocese of Sonora (with the see in Arizpe), erected on May 7, 1779. In 1888 the see was moved to Hermosillo. On September 1, 1959 the name was changed to "Diocese of Hermosillo"; it was elevated to Archdiocese on July 13, 1963.
Missions
Missions were organized hierarchically. Each province contained several missions (), which might have dependent visitas. (A particularly successful visita might be promoted to a mission in its own right.) Each mission or visita in turn had subordinate pueblos.
The five provinces of Sonora and Sinaloa were: Tarahumara Sinaloa Ostimuri Sonora Pimería
As of the Jesuit expulsion in 1767, there were a total of 52 missions in the region: 41 in Sonora proper, and an additional 11 in Sinaloa.
Name MissionImageLocation Date founded Order Notes Source Mission Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Arizpe Arizpe Arizpe 30.33732, -110.16552 Jesuits Mission San Miguel Bacoachi Arizpe Bacoachi JesuitsMission San José de Chinapa Arizpe Chinapa Jesuits Briefly an independent mission. Vesuachi Chinapa Jesuits Mission San Miguel de Ures Ures Ures