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Chapter Three The New World Aguaje Por apoiar la virtud religion y juna de los Rs Pes enestos therritorios y aunque Jamas educaecido enestto siendo entodas parttes plausor delo que tan justate venero entodos los religiosos de la Compa de Jhs mi madre—Juan Baupta de Anssa (rúbrica) . . . Although I have not been educated in this sentiment, I feel in every case I must praise my mother1 for how I justly respect all the religious of the Company of Jesus and [for my desire] to protect the virtue, religion, and organization of the reverend fathers in these territories—Juan Bautista de Anza (rubric).2 Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe de Aguaje3 was probably the wildest, most lawless royal silver mining camp in all of Nueva España, and, with the exception of Álamos to the south, it was the largest current mining operation in Sonora. A true boomtown , it had been in operation for only a few years.4 In every way it was the antithesis of anything Juan Bautista de Anza had ever known. He may have been involved in its founding, or he might have arrived shortly after it was started. Regardless, his mother’s apprehensions had been right. He had stayed with the family in Culiacán barely long enough to get acquainted. Drawn by the lure of fast wealth, he had moved north quickly, following the mining industry, and had probably arrived at Aguaje via Álamos, the most famous of all of Sonora’s mining districts at the time. His history in the New World up to this point is as sketchy as that of this real de minas, or “royal mining camp,” where we first encounter him in the New World in 1718. What is certain is that Anza found himself in an environment totally different than anything he had ever known. The relative serenity of faraway Hernani, with its gentle people and familiar customs, had been replaced by previously unknown mixtures of humanity and the harsh, raucous life of a primitive, frontier mining camp. There was money to be made, however—big money—and for a young man in his early twenties, the enticement of wealth, coupled with the sheer adventure of being at the farthest point out on such an untamed frontier, was irresistible. 54 There were no other settlements of any kind for distances that were incomprehensible to the mind of a person coming from northern Spain. The closest was a ranchería made up of eighteen families of Pimas Bajos, or “Lower Pima Indians.” Known as La Santísima Trinidad del Pitic,5 it was located some twenty-five miles north of Aguaje. There was one hardy Spanish citizen, Diego Moraga, who lived in that vicinity and operated a small ranch and mining claim.6 Just a few miles above Pitic, at San Francisco Xavier de Tucuaba (later known simply as “San Francisco”) on the San Miguel River, was another small settlement of Lower Pimas.7 A couple of lone Spaniards, the brothers Antonio and Blas Nuñez, lived near their village, prospecting and operating small livestock farms.8 About forty miles to the southwest , on the other side of the impenetrable Cerro Prieto mountain range and along the coast of the Gulf of California, were various settlements of the Guaymas Indians . The only other Spanish settlement within a fifty-mile radius was situated barely within that limit. It lay to the east over some extremely rugged and inhospitable country. It, too, was a frontier mining camp, known as Nuestra Señora de la Purificación del Aigame.9 Although smaller than Aguaje, Aigame had been in existence since about the turn of the century.10 There were other mining camps and several missions and visitas, or visiting stations, farther to the north in the Sonora and San Miguel River valleys. The missions were operated by la Compañía de Jesús, the “Company of Jesus,” or the “Jesuits,” as they were commonly called. The closest mission, however, at well over fifty miles distance, was San Miguel de Ures on the Sonora River. Although there was a modest adobe church at Ures at this time, there seems to have been no resident priest there.11 The mission was evidently being visited occasionally by a Jesuit missionary from one of their establishments father north along the Sonora River. There were some fifty-five Lower Pima families living at Ures.12 Going north along the San Miguel River in the next...

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