Conflict in Colonial Sonora: Indians, Priests, and Settlers

7: Sonora in 1771: Does the Conflict Deepen or Subside?

195 Chapter Seven Sonora in 1771 Does the Conflict Deepen or Subside? . / In 1715 Nueva Vizcaya governor San Juan y Santa Cruz attempted to resolve the conflict between the settlers who introduced cattle and the Indian farmers whose crops the cattle destroyed.1 It is doubtful that his solution was more than temporary, for Spanish settlers poured into the Northwest and continued to claim new, expansive ranches with vast herds of cattle.2 Perhaps priests after Father Januske were less outspoken and less inclined to battle with settlers, but Opatans appear to have remained more or less accepting of Spanish presence for nearly one hundred years thereafter. In spite of the abuse they suffered at the hands of Spaniards, they were drafted, perhaps willingly, into military campaigns and became irreplaceable foot soldiers in defending the Crown’s expansion and in fighting off insurgencies from guerrilla fighters of various ethnicity, especially Apaches, Pimans, and Seris.3 While these groups offered ongoing resistance to European advances, the Opatan communities for the most part seemed reluctant to join any antiSpanish uprising. Indians often fought with other Indians, even with groups of the same ethnicity. As we saw in chapter 2, in 1648 the Pimans of Ures willingly joined a military force against peoples of the northern Río Sonora who were either Opatan or Piman (Hímeris). In 1695 Seris joined Spaniards in hunting down rebellious Pimans.4 Part of the unrest leading to that rebellion stemmed from abuse of Pimans by Opatans whom Spaniards had appointed as their Chapter seven 196 overseers.5 Pimans acted as auxiliaries for Spaniards in campaigns against Seris in the 1720s and again in 1750, carrying out most of the ground fighting against the Seris without measureable success.6 Pimans also fought against Apaches, as did Opatans in response to Apache raids on their villages.7 The decade of the 1760s saw Pimans (Pimas Bajos and Piatos, or Pimans from northwestern Sonora), Seris, and apparently Apaches come together in a more or less united front against settlers, while some “loyal” Piatos joined the fight against rebellious Piatos.8 The Indian resistance and raiding of the 1760s was sufficiently widespread and lethal that it rendered life tenuous for settlers. In response, the Crown took drastic steps to curb Indian violence against settlers. By 1771 Spaniards believed they had suppressed the rebellions and made life in Sonora safe for vecinos. By then the Crown had also expelled the Jesuits from the Americas, along with their ideological vision of closed, utopian communities. In many Sonoran missions Franciscans had replaced them within a year or two. The Indians of Sonora found themselves ruled by different clerical masters with different goals.9 While Opatans still seemed reluctant to resist the Spanish presence, this was not the case with other Native peoples of Sonora, who continued to attack vecinos, though on a more sporadic basis than in previous decades. Spaniards’ reaction to the ongoing violence varied with the interests of the policy maker. In Sonora, settlers and resident clergy perceived the peril from the conflicts as far greater than officials in Mexico City saw it. Assessment of the level of threat itself gave rise to further conflict. One such instance of vigorous dispute about the degree of danger is revealed in the following documents from 1771: A report from the provinces It is not possible in this brief letter of response to satisfy perfectly the desire of your grace. The 17th of May of the present year [1771] when we departed from the missions of Cucurpe and Opodepe,10 the most interior and frontier towns of Sonora gentility [paganism], the inhabitants were experiencing the most unfortunate and unhappy times, ever harassed by rebellious Pimas, Seris, and ferocious Apaches. In the month of April when the Expeditionary Troop was arranging its withdrawal and return to Mexico City,11 a party of Pimas attacked Sonora in 1771 197 some Spaniards, vecinos, and Indians en route from the goldfields of Cieneguilla12 to their homes in Opodepe and Nacámeri;13 the enemy killed four of ours, who were then buried in the church of Opodepe, and two days earlier they buried two others whom the enemies killed near the town of Nacámeri. In the same month of April Pimas attacked and killed two vecinos of the mission and town of Cucurpe near the spring called Arituava14 who were returning from the same places...