Arizona's Forgotten Spanish History

As an Arizona native and American of Spanish, Mexican, and Indian descent, I grew up in a time where my heritage was invisible. In school I was taught that Arizona was discovered by westward bound Americans during the mid-1900s. Images of wagon trains kicking up the dust heading towards California in a race against time and Indian attack splashed across the dog-eared pages of my Arizona history books. We played cowboys and Indians during the Thanksgiving school pageant at St. Mary's Elementary School while I imagined what it would have been like to be Pocahontas.

My early insight into Spanish exploration and settlement in Arizona was handed down to me via oral history passed down from my mother Celia Sinohui Hinojosa and uncle Ruben Otero, just as they learned it from their ancestor Ricardo Otero. Our family spoke of Don Torivio de Otero, a Spanish teacher from Arispe, Nuevo España (Mexico) who received the first title to land in Arizona. 

The first time I read my ancestors' name in writing was in a book titled Hispanic Arizona, 1535-1856 by James E. Officer. Officer's prologue notes, "[H]istorians have touched rather lightly on the Hispanic periods in Arizona's history. Bancroft was about the only general reference available until after World War II." Officer's book was published in 1987.

Recently, I discovered another hidden gem that discusses Spanish Arizona history. On November 26, 1909, The Coconino Sun published an article called Interesting Account of First Visitors to Arizona - Fray Marcos came in 1539 from Mexico. The article reprinted below has been edited for minor typographical errors:

BRIEF ARIZONA HISTORY

How many Arizonans know the history of this territory? What was the first man to enter its borders? There are few and far between. For the sake of argument there are very few who know that Juan de la Asuncion and Pedro Nadal, two friars, were the first white men that entered this land. They came in 1538, and very little is known of them. In 1539 Fray Marcos of Niza and his negro companion came here from Mexico and journeyed to the source of the San Pedro river.

In the following year 1540, Vasquez Coronado visited the territory which was then wilderness and sent two parties out on exploration. They discovered the Hopi village and the Grand Canyon of the Colorado. Meanwhile other parties went from the settlement which Coronado established on the Sonora river and explored the region later known as Papaqueria (after the Papagoes) to the mouth of the Colorado river. Here they found letters which were buried by Hernando de Alarcon, who commanded a joint expedition by water up the Colorado river for 135 miles.

In 1538, Antonio de Espejo visited the Hopi villages in the northern portion of the territory, and later came Juan de Onyate, the first governor and colonizer of New Mexico in 1598. Onyate, in 1604-05, made a trip across the territory to the mouth of the Colorado river and back again.

The first missions were established by Franciscans among the Hopis in the summer of 1629, which barring the killing of such of the missionaries by the Indians were successfully conducted until August, 1680, when, in general uprising of the Pueblos the missionaries were murdered. This put a quietus upon christianizing the natives until in 1699 or 1700 the Jesuits, especially, erected the missions of San Xavier del Bac and that of Guevavi in 1732.

The present church of San Xavier was begun in 1783 and was finished in 1797. In 1752, a presidio was established at Tubac but in 1776 it was removed to a ranchera of about eighty families of Pima, Papago and Sobipuri Indians, known as San Augustin de Tucson, the present Tucson, a few miles northward at which Spaniards settled after 1763.

The missions and their vistas led a precarious existence after 1750-53, during which the Pimas were at war against the Spaniards, killing several priests and plundering the missions, including that of San Xavier. The Jesuits were expelled in 1767 and were followed by Franciscans, who rehabilitated the mission settlements and conducted the explorations in unknown or forgotten regions.

For many years before and after the Apache tribes were at almost constant war with the more sedentary Indians of the southern portion of the territory raiding their settlements, killing the men and carrying off the women; nor did the white settlements fare better, notwithstanding the presence of white presidios.

At the time of the conquest of New Mexico in 1849 by General S. Kearney, Arizona formed a part of the territory. By the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 the section north of the Gila river was ceded by Mexico to the United States, while the portion south of the river was acquired through the Gadsden purchase, approved in 1854.

In 1863, February 24, Arizona was elected into a separate territory and was formally organized at Navajo Springs on December 29, 1863. Forty-six years afterwards, Arizona will be elected to statehood. We suggest that this be the date that we be admitted into the sisterhood of states.

References:

The Coconino Sun, 11/26/1909.

Officer, James E., Hispanic Arizona 1536-1856. The University of Arizona Press. Arizona: 1987.

Map. "Mexico, California and Texas" by John Tallis & Company, London & New York. Date unknown. Illustrations by H. Warren & Engraved by J. Rogers.