Colonial Tensions in the Governance of Indigenous Authorities and the Pima Uprising of 1751 R o d r i g o F. R e n t e r í a -V a l e n c i a
Rivalry between Jesuit missionaries and Spanish authorities over control of Native populations constituted a common source of political friction in the province of Sonora. Although this antagonism has been recognized for various periods by scholars of the region (Donohue 1969; Spicer 1980), its effects on Pima Alto communities have been, for the most part, only tangentially addressed (see Garate 1999, for an exception). In this article, I examine the structural tensions present in governance of the Pimería Alta during the mid-eighteenth century, paying particular attention to the political mechanisms underlying the bestowal of indigenous authority. In doing so, I highlight the crucial testimonies given by the leaders of the 1751 Pima Revolt, which can be directly attributed to such tensions.
The Tensions
of
Governance
In the early years of missionization among the Pimas, indigenous leaders were formally named by military authorities in concert with the missionaries, creating a system of governance the Jesuits largely controlled by virtue of the fact that there was little direct contact between most Pimas and non-Jesuits. As Father Juan Nentvig (1980:165) described in his “Rudo Ensayo,” under the Spanish implementation of government in the Americas each pueblo had a cabildo, a governing body of Native town officials that included a governor; an alcalde, who served as local magistrate; an alguacil, the community law enforcement officer; and a R o d r i g o F. R e n t e r í a -Va l e n c i a is a doctoral candidate in the School of Anthropology at the University of Arizona. Journal of the Southwest 56, 2 (Summer 2014) : 345–364
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topil, who served as jailer and administered punishments. Elected by the indigenous population annually, these officials were in charge of the political governance of the community, which involved the maintenance of the mission, the administration of justice, and, more importantly, the organization of indigenous labor. In practical terms the Jesuit missionaries had, to varying degrees, discretionary power over the functions of the cabildo, for all intents and purposes controlling the production and distribution of resources in the entire Pimería. This power structure began to change as Spanish settlement moved into the Pimería Alta, leading to increased contact between Pimas and the broader Spanish population and creating a new set of political tensions. During the early decades of the eighteenth century, the Spanish military relied greatly on Pima auxiliaries to protect the Sonoran frontier from Apache and Seri raiding. Ironically, the protection the Pimas provided effectively opened their territory to the encroachment of Spanish vecinos,1 who soon came to covet indigenous land and labor still under the control of missionaries. As vecinos established relationships of trade and compadrazgo2 directly with their Pima neighbors, they challenged the Jesuit monopoly on the management of indigenous resources. At the same time, this new set of relations led to the rise of new indigenous political figures at the intersection of power as bestowed by the missionaries on the one hand, and by secular society (represented by the governor of the province) on the other. Pima leaders emerging as figures of power—which derived from their trading and/or military prowess— were increasingly relied upon by both missionaries and military authorities to control the broader Pima population. As missionaries struggled not only to maintain their control of Pima labor, but also to protect their communities from the negative influences of secular populations, tensions grew between the fathers and Spanish authorities, with Pima populations often bearing the brunt of the friction. During the second and third decades of the eighteenth century, tensions escalated to the point where a number of Sonora’s vecinos with considerable wealth and political influence, desiring control over the land and labor protected by the mission system, made a strong push for secularizing the missions (Donohue 1969:19–31). Their effort proved unsuccessful, but set the political tone for several decades. In the meantime, the need for protecting the Pimería from Apaches and Seris increased, granting Pima auxiliaries a prominent role in the defense of the region. A breaking point in the internal tensions of the governance system
Tensions ✜ 347 was reached in late November 1751, when a large force of Pimas Altos rose up in rebellion and took the lives of more than one hundred Spaniards and other gente de razón,3 including two Jesuit missionaries. Hostilities continued for four months until peace was successfully restored in March 1752. As observed by Bledsoe (in Garate 1999:i), “The Pima Rebellion was inevitable, given the cross purposes at which the different segments of Spanish Society found themselves in the eighteenth century Pimería Alta.” Referring specifically to the intrinsic contradictions in the governance of the indigenous population, Bledsoe characterized conditions as follows: It was the purpose of the Jesuits to reduce the Indians to a state of abject humility and complete subordination to the Church. It was the purpose of the Vecinos to reduce them to the status of slaves to work their mines. It was the purpose of Governor Parrilla to reduce them to the status of subordinate warriors in order to help him reduce and conquer still other Indian tribes to the greater glory of the empire and his Majesty the King. [Bledsoe, in Garate 1999:i] In the wake of the devastation, the governor of Sonora and the Jesuits carried out their separate investigations into the causes of the revolt, each seeking to cast blame on the other. Over a period of four years, they generated more than two hundred documents related to events before and during the rebellion—a body of autos (judicial or administrative decrees), testimonies, military orders, short notes, and internal correspondence that calls attention not only to the Spanish Crown’s tenuous control over the area, but also to the strength of the hostility that existed between missionaries and Spanish authorities over governance of the Pima population (Ewing 1934; Kessell 1970). Among all this documentation is a set of testimonies from the rebellion’s leaders and other Pimas that offers an indigenous perspective rare to the colonial documentary record. To date, these invaluable testimonies have played no more than a minor role in analyses of the revolt (Ewing 1934, 1938, 1941; González 1977; Perez 2003), yet they represent crucial sources for improving our understanding of how political tensions between missionaries and Spanish authorities affected (1) the Pima communities and (2) the performance and maintenance of indigenous leadership roles bestowed through both lines of command. In the following pages, I analyze two testimonies resulting from interrogations conducted by Sonora’s Governor Diego Ortiz Parrilla (1752b,c) of the revolt’s two principal leaders: Luis Oacpicagigua, capitán
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general (captain general) of the Pimería Alta, and Luis Batiutuc, capitán de guerra (captain of war) of Pitiquito. These testimonies constituted central pieces of evidence for the governor in supporting his charges against the Jesuit missionaries, whom he blamed for provoking the otherwise loyal Pimas to the point of revolt. In his questioning, the governor provided an opening for the two Pima captains to describe in detail how the inherent contradictions in the Spanish system of bestowing indigenous authority played out among the Pima communities. I begin by introducing the events that took place during the Pima Revolt, placing emphasis on the deep-seated antagonism between missionaries and governor that served as background to the rebellion. I then present specific events contained in both testimonies that illustrate the intrinsic contradictions of indigenous governance under the colonial system, and the effects of the antagonism between missionaries and governor on the lives of the Pimas.
T h e P i m a R e v o lt
of
1751
On the evening of November 20, 1751, revolt against Spanish rule erupted among the Pimas Altos—instigated and led, rumor had it, by Luis Oacpicagigua, indigenous war leader and governor of Sáric and the Spanish-appointed capitán general of the Pimería Alta. Pimas of the mission towns of Caborca, Sonóita, Pitiquito, and Sáric as well as nearby rancherías4 rose up in concert, and in a matter of a few hours killed more than one hundred Spaniards and gente de razón, including two Jesuit missionaries and their mayordomos.5 Warned about the uprising by loyal Pimas, the remaining missionaries and vecinos were able to narrowly escape a similar end. Oacpicagigua and his followers, expecting a brutal retaliation from Spanish soldiers, took refuge in the heart of the Baboquívari Mountains, the emblematic bastion of Pima territory. Governor Diego Ortiz Parrilla was at the presidio of San Miguel de Horcasitas on November 23 when he learned of the uprising that was under way. Letters he received from missionaries and officials pressed him to take immediate action against the revolt, something that would involve the mobilization of all troops available in the province. On November 26, he set out from San Miguel with a small escort and traveled north through the pueblos of Nacameri, Opodepe, Tuape, and Cucurpe, making arrangements for their defense and exhorting the indigenous population to remain loyal to God and the king. Finally, on the evening of November 30, he and his men reached the mission of San Ignacio, where he
Tensions ✜ 349 established his headquarters. That night Ortiz Parrilla made his first report on the revolt to the viceroy of New Spain, in which he intimated the animosity that existed between him and the Jesuits. Skeptical that the docile and loyal Pimas had revolted without reason, the governor had no doubt they were provoked by the missionaries. As initial proof of this, he cited a scuffle wherein a Pima Indian had been lanced by Father Joseph Garrucho’s foreman, Juan Maria Romero, and Joseph de Nava, both of whom were later killed in the uprising (Ortiz Parrilla 1751). Yet there was more than mere antagonism motivating Ortiz Parrilla to lay responsibility for the uprising with the Jesuits. His interest in achieving a diplomatic solution attests to the personal dilemma he faced involving his friendship with the leader of the rebels, Luis Oacpicagigua (see Martínez, this issue). Only the year before, Don Diego had affirmed Luis’s rank as capitán general of the Pimería Alta in recognition of the courageous leadership he had shown during the governor’s campaign against the Seris of Tiburón Island.6 In so doing, the governor had disregarded the opinion of many—including his juez político for the Pimería, Don Joseph de Olave, who considered Oacpicagigua “unworthy of consideration” for so high a post (Kessell 1970:103). The Jesuits, also, during the months prior to the uprising, had frequently expressed their concerns over the governor’s unilateral dealings with the Pimas through the figure of Luis, who consequently enjoyed extraordinary civil and military protection. The governor’s strong attachment to Luis was likely founded in the unquestionable display of loyalty and disposition to serve that the indigenous leader had shown him up until the revolt—a respect clearly lacking among the Spanish captains he commanded as well as the Jesuits.7 In fact, Ortiz Parrilla feared that the revolt would spread, not because of the Pimas so much as the insubordinate actions of those under his own command. As he sat down to write this report, the governor had just received news that Juan Antonio Menocal, captain of Santa Rosa de Corodéguachi, had disobeyed his direct orders to move to the presidio of Terrenate. The captain had taken it upon himself to go instead to Santa María de Soamca, the mission of Father Ignacio Keller, where he captured a Pima ladino8 named Pedro de la Cruz Chihuahua, accusing him of being one of the rebellion’s leaders. Without much evidence beyond the known relationship of the accused with Oacpicagigua, Menocal had Pedro shot and hanged from a tree as a warning to other Pimas (see Garate 1999). Ortiz Parrilla (1751) correctly understood that this kind of violent demonstration would only provoke the anger of Luis and stir up further resentment among the Pimas.
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For these reasons the governor was reluctant to use Spanish arms against the rebels, contrary to the advice of missionaries and military officials who demanded an exemplary punishment. Instead, on December 1, he dispatched Antonio Ococoy and three other Pimas as ambassadors of peace to the Baboquívari Mountains, where the rebels had taken refuge. But the Pimas were skeptical of the governor’s offers and the cross he had sent in good faith. As Oacpicagigua was listening to the offer of peace coming from Ococoy, Luis Batiutuc, his capitán de guerra from Pitiquito, reminded him of the massacre that had taken place at Tupo in 1695—a tragic event in which dozens of Pimas had been killed by Spanish soldiers after surrendering their arms. The memory of this betrayal was enough for Oacpicagigua to reject the peace offer. Days later, a second effort by the governor through the Pima Ococoy—who brought clothes to Oacpicagigua and his wife as gifts of good faith—caused the capitán general to express his sorrow for the killings that had occurred and elicited a set of conditions for him to surrender (Ortiz Parrilla 1752a). Encouraged by the positive disposition of the capitán general, Ortiz Parrilla sent a third group of indigenous ambassadors to negotiate the final terms of the peace; this group included a Pima named Ignacio, the mador, or fiscal,9 for the mission of San Ignacio. Just hours before the arrival of this third contingent, however, Oacpicagigua received news— as the governor had feared—of the execution of his cousin, Pedro de la Cruz Chihuahua. Enraged, the Pima leader ordered his people to kill Ignacio the moment he arrived, upon which the mador was beaten to death and his body dragged by a horse. The news had confirmed Pima fears of betrayal at the hands of the Spanish army. Deciding to rid their territory of a Spanish presence altogether, Oacpicagigua gave the order to attack the nearby settlement of Arivaca, usually manned by only a few Spanish soldiers (Ortiz Parrilla 1752a). But the Spanish lieutenant Don Bernardo de Urrea had arrived at the settlement with reinforcements a few days before, to receive the rebels in the event they decided to surrender. Although a force of two thousand rebels attacked the settlement at once, eighty-six armed and organized Spanish soldiers were able to inflict a painful defeat on the Pimas (Kessell 1970:109). In the aftermath of the battle, acknowledging the great number of Pimas killed (more than fifty in some accounts), most of the rebels abandoned the cause of the revolt and sought shelter in the hills nearby their pueblos and rancherías. Luis Oacpicagigua and a few others loyal to him took refuge in the Catalina Mountains until finally surrendering to Captain Joseph Díaz del Carpio in March, in Tubac (Kessell 1970:109–110).
Tensions ✜ 351 Yet even as the revolt was finally contained, a different fierce dispute was just beginning, one which would drag on for years as the Jesuit missionaries and Ortiz Parrilla struggled to assign responsibility for the uprising.
T h e I n t e r r o g at i o n s After their surrender, Oacpicagigua and Batiutuc were summoned by Ortiz Parrilla to explain their reasons for leading the revolt against Spanish rule. The governor’s interrogations of the two Pima leaders, conducted with the aid of his secretary, Don Martín Cayetano Fernández de Peralta, represent the culmination of his efforts to substantiate his charges of Jesuit culpability for the revolt. By giving both Pima leaders an opportunity to expose the multiple grievances and injustices inflicted by the missionaries on their people, the interrogations inadvertently produced something exceptional in the colonial record of the region. In addition to recording the lives, actions, and ideas of these indigenous leaders—already a rare occurrence in itself—the resulting testimonies bear witness to the contradictions of the Spanish system of governance in terms of administering indigenous authority. These accounts by the Pima leaders are not exempt from the influence of political tensions surrounding the event, however, for they fit perfectly into the governor’s own agenda—to such an extent, in fact, that Ortiz Parrilla and his secretary were both charged later with having influenced and modified Luis Oacpicagigua’s testimony to fit their own needs and goals. Thus it could be argued that multiple voices and influences tacitly coexist in these testimonies. The obvious voices in the documents are those of the Pima leaders and the governor. However, because the Pima captains did not speak Spanish, the vecinos Juan Manuel Martínez and Manuel Ortiz Cortés served as interpreters for Luis Oacpicagigua, and Juan María Quintero for Luis Batiutuc. Everything the governor asked and the Pima leaders replied was certainly filtered through these interpreters, although their presence is rather invisible in the document. Moreover, the secretary who recorded the interrogations, Fernández de Peralta, interjected his own presence in the narrative by influencing how and which parts of the oral translations were actually written down. Confirmation of this comes from a later declaration by the interpreter Ortiz Cortés, who told the Jesuit father visitor Joseph de Utrera (1754) that the governor and his secretary had openly influenced Oacpicagigua’s declaration in an effort to implicate the missionaries and
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clear the Pima of responsibility for the revolt. In addition, different vecinos summoned by Utrera (1754) during his investigation into the matter two years later declared that Oacpicagigua’s own open acknowledgment of his mistakes when he surrendered in Tubac was absent in the official account released by Ortiz Parrilla. Finally, the transcription and translation of these narratives introduces other influences yet. Nevertheless, the documents constitute a unique source to illuminate from an intimate perspective the struggles the Pima leaders faced as they navigated (and sometimes benefited from) the multiple and often contradictory paths of authority constructed by the Spanish colonial order in mid-eighteenth-century Sonora. Luis Oacpicagigua Luis Oacpicagigua, capitán general of the Pimería Alta, was summoned by the governor on March 24, 1752, to explain his reasons for rebelling against the Spanish Crown (Ortiz Parrilla 1752c). Divided into two parts, the interrogation contains in its first section a long description by Oacpicagigua of his life history, his emergence as a leader, and the circumstances that forced him to instigate the revolt, to resist in the Baboquívari Mountains, and, eventually, to surrender. In the second section of the document, Ortiz Parrilla interrogates Oacpicagigua over those specific events that put him at odds with the Jesuit missionaries, paying specific attention to the abuses and injustices committed against him. Among the multiple encounters and events Oacpicagigua describes to illustrate the grievances he suffered at the hands of the missionaries, one in particular best illuminates the inherent struggles of his position as capitán general: his altercation with Father Ignacio Keller. In September 1751, Ortiz Parrilla sent orders to Oacpicagigua to aid Don Santiago Ruiz de Ael, captain of Terrenate, in his campaign against the Apaches. After gathering his troops the Pima leader initiated the march to join Captain Ael, but unsure of the Spanish soldiers’ location, he decided to stop by the mission of Santa María Soamca to inquire of Father Keller as to their whereabouts. Ignacio Romero (comisario de justicia) and Francisco Gil de Robles (vecino) were with Keller when Oacpicagigua and Batiutuc arrived. There are many versions of how the interaction unfolded after the missionary and the Pima captain greeted each other, depending on where blame is to be assigned. In Oacpicagigua’s account, Keller asked him the reason of his visit. Luis replied that he wanted to know if the father had information of the whereabouts of Captain Ael:
Tensions ✜ 353 “I bring here a letter from the lord governor in which His Lordship orders me to accompany the captain Don Santiago with whatever people he might request of me to go on this campaign. As the appointed time is already reached and said captain has not notified me, I have come to carry out what my governor orders.” To which the father told him, “I do not want to see this letter of the governor inasmuch as I have thrown others he has written to me into the fire.”10 Following this, Keller started to malign and cast doubt on Oacpicagigua’s authority as capitán general, reprimanding him for taking Pimas from the eastern mission pueblos such as Soamca, where, according to the missionary, he had no authority whatsoever. Moreover, the Jesuit stated that his Pimas were too busy working at the mission’s crops and they should not go waste time pretending to fight the Apaches, as Luis did. To this the father emphatically added: You are not the captain of Tres Alamos, Sequias Hondas, Sonoytac [Sonóita], Santa María [Soamca], or Cocóspera,11 and these are not your “sons”! Nevertheless, you are removing them from their pueblos for campaigns without considering that they are needed in the work of their father ministers. Aside from this, you gain or achieve nothing, because hitherto I have not heard it said that you have killed any Apache or taken the horse herds that they steal. If at any time you had done so, it would be known and it would have reached my attention. What is [certain] is that in order to make yourself [appear] the capitán grande you are feigning those affairs, and you are taking the people that could be occupied with the labors of the mission and of the father.12 Oacpicagigua responded that he thought, given that his appointment was as capitán general, he had jurisdiction over all the Pimería and was as much able to command in the mission towns and rancherías of the east as those located in the west (Ortiz Parrilla 1752b). However, the crudest part of this encounter came when Keller reprimanded Oacpicagigua for dressing in the manner of a Spanish captain, saying that the Pima leader had no right to do so for he was not gente de razón, but merely a “Chichimec dog”13 (Ortiz Parrilla 1752b): “What clothing is that which you wear? Do you not know that it belongs only to Spaniards? Go and throw away all that and cover [yourself with] a loincloth.” Getting up angry from the chair, he pointed to some quivers leaning against the wall and told [Oacpi-
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cagigua], “These are your weapons and the ones that you should carry, doing what the rest of the Indians [do], which is maintaining themselves with mule deer, rabbits, hares, deer, rats, and wild [big horn] sheep. And neither should you keep beasts—horses, mules, flocks, cows, or goats.”14 To this, Oacpicagigua responded that he had purchased his Spanish clothing and arms from his compadres, and that he thought he could use them given his status as capitán general. “Nevertheless,” the Pima captain continued, “I always carry the bow and arrows with me, which my son has, because when the occasion presents itself for fighting with the Apaches, I relinquish these weapons and take up those [instead].” Luis concluded, “But since your reverence commands that neither this uniform nor [these] clothes are mine, I will forsake everything in order to obey you.”15 And adding that he would then go back to his ranchería and act like the Chichimec Indian that Father Keller said he was, Luis Oacpicagigua left Soamca and ordered his men to go back to their towns, for he had been deeply wounded by the missionary’s words. The significance of this episode is critical to the extent that it reflects the clash of ideologies taking place at the time, particularly as Keller debates the nature of Oacpicagigua’s authority on many fronts. Recognizing the immense power that this Pima had within the Spanish system, Keller aimed to re-situate the indigenous leader within his “proper” status as “Indian” by explicitly enunciating those attributes that defined him according to the colonial mindset of the era, distinguishing between the gente de costumbre (indigenous) and gente de razón (non-indigenous) as defined by characteristics such as language, dress, racial phenotype, social status, etc. The encounter is cited in multiple accounts as the single most important reason for Luis to instigate the revolt. Yet such emphasis runs the risk of circumscribing the rebellion as a personal dispute between the two men over the limits that Luis Oacpicagigua had as an indigenous authority under colonial rule, obscuring the structural problems that led the rest of the Pimas to revolt. This is where Batiutucs’s account becomes relevant. Luis Batiutuc Three weeks following the interrogation of Oacpicagigua, Luis Batiutuc, capitán de guerra of Pitiquito, was brought before Ortiz Parrilla at the presidio of Horcasitas to explain his motives for personally
Tensions ✜ 355 murdering Father Thomás Tello at Caborca, and for serving as Oacpicagigua’s lieutenant during the uprising (Ortiz Parrilla 1752b). Batiutuc’s testimony starkly contrasts with that of his captain. Both offer a moral justification for the rebellion, but whereas Oacpicagigua emphasizes the offenses he himself suffered from the missionaries, Batiutuc justifies his own actions on broader grounds, providing a succinct accounting of various events that stirred up resentment among the Pimas of the west and north against the Jesuits. A critical part of his testimony lies with the claim that the missionaries, in their attempt to exert control over the Pimas as labor to sustain their missions, constantly inflicted— either personally or through their mayordomos—violent and often unwarranted punishments on his people. To a great extent, these unjust actions were the direct result of the coexistence of two different lines of command to which indigenous authorities had to respond—that is, to the missionaries on the one hand and to the governor of Sonora on the other. The conflict often resulting from the different interests of the missionaries and the governor is evident in Batiutuc’s narrative. As a resident of Pitiquito, Luis Batiutuc had to respond to the orders of Father Thomás Tello, who administered Caborca and its visitas of Pitiquito and Bísanig. Yet as alférez16 of Pitiquito, he also had to follow the orders of Luis Oacpicagigua. Thus, whenever the governor ordered his Pima capitán general to aid the Spanish army in campaigns against the enemy Apaches and Seris, Batiutuc offered his services, gathering a contingent of Pima warriors to join Oacpicagigua. These campaigns always displeased the missionaries, since those Pimas participating would not be available for activities that would more directly benefit the missions. Batiutuc’s interrogation/testimony speaks to the contradictory nature of his authority, and the consequences suffered at the hands of Father Tello: Being that the pueblo of Pitic, where the declarant is from, was under the administration of Caborca, the Indians lived very grieved with their minister, the reverend Father Thomas Tello, due [to] the many grave injuries he did them. As the declarant holds the office of alférez of his pueblo—which position was conferred upon him by the captain of Terrenate, Don Santiago Ruíz de Ael—when the capitán general Don Luis [Oacpicagigua] was called to come serve against the Seri enemies in the entrada that was made to the island of Tiburón, and came for that purpose with many Pima Indians, the declarant volunteered and also [served] as oficial de la guerra,17 commanding the people who set out from his pueblo.18
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Upon his return from the Tiburón campaign, Batiutuc found that almost all the crops planted by the Pimas at Pitiquito had been destroyed, and that Tello had ordered his mayordomo to pasture the mission horses in the sown fields of the Pimas. Batiutuc asked the father about his reasons for giving such an order, particularly since all the Pimas affected would experience hunger: “I come to see your reverence because the mayordomo says that by your order he placed your reverence’s horses in the sown fields of my men, to whom they have been lost and destroyed for this reason.” And then the father answered, “Now let us see if the king sends you something to eat, and if your governor gives you posole to sustain you? Of course, because you have gone on those campaigns with the pretext of serving the king, all of you have been lacking in the maintenance of your sown fields, and you have lost them.”19 Batiutuc responded that he had in fact asked Francisco, the Pima governor of Pitiquito, to look after the crops with the help of the Pimas who remained in the town, and that the crops had been lost for no reason other than Father Tello’s order to let the mission horses feed in the fields while he had Francisco whipped for taking care of the crops. The missionary replied that in any case, he was certain Batiutuc and his people had not gone on a campaign but were simply wasting time somewhere in the monte,20 since they had not been paid for their services by the governor. Nevertheless, added the father, he was more than eager to pay Batiutuc for the services rendered to the king, and he proceeded to threaten Batiutuc with a stick. This type of behavior was, according to Batiutuc, typical of the treatment the father gave to Pimas who returned from a war campaign; he would constantly complain that such campaigns were useless, and that he needed the Pimas to work in the mission instead.21 The rest of Batiutuc’s testimony is devoted to detailing the multiple grievances that he and his people experienced under the administration of Tello. He describes the torture-like punishments the father administered whenever the Pimas traded with the vecinos and gente de razón instead of him; whenever he judged the Pimas as lazy or preferring to live off the resources of the monte; whenever the Pimas did not devote the requested time to sowing the mission field, even though they could work for endless hours and starve on the meager rations they received for their work; and basically whenever the Pimas acted in any nonprescribed way that the father perceived as affecting his control of the mission and its
Tensions ✜ 357 productivity. The relentless punishments resulted in the deaths of several Pima men and women, tragedies that stirred the animosity of the Pimas toward the father. Tired of this treatment, Batiutuc and others complained to Tello’s superiors, Father Jacobo Sedelmayr and Father Gaspar Stiger, but to no avail, as illustrated by the Pima captain’s declaration: Because of the many wrongs they suffered, they complained to Father Visitor Jacobo Sedelmayr, minister of Tubutama, who gave them good hopes that he would write, and would also go in person, to resolve [this problem]. But they never experienced any reform, for although on some occasions said father visitor went to the pueblo of Caborca and would stay there two or three days, the Indians did not know whether he addressed their complaints because he would depart without telling them anything. Father Gaspar Stiger, minister of the pueblo of San Ignacio, also went to said [pueblo] of Caborca to hear the Indians’ concerns, and then finally, with their father minister and the Indians present, the abovementioned Father Gaspar Stiger advised him to watch over them and overlook [their failings] with love, treating them with sympathy and as [his] children. [During] those few days that Father Gaspar was present, said Father Thomas behaved with good demeanor, but as soon as [Stiger] left, [Tello] returned to the same cruelties.22 Unable to fathom the constant ire that Tello showed them or, more importantly, remedy his unfair treatment through complaints to his superiors, the Pimas of Caborca, Pitiquito, and Bísanig decided to join Luis Oacpicagigua’s call to arms. On November 20, 1751, Luis Batiutuc killed Father Tello with his own hands. Examined in the context of the struggle between the Jesuits and the governor, Batiutuc’s testimony is revealing. It is clear the fathers were dissatisfied with those Pimas who followed the call of their capitán general, Luis Oacpicagigua, to the military campaigns the governor ordered against Seris and Apaches. Perceiving these campaigns to have little effect, and resentful that they took able-bodied men away from their duties in the mission communities, certain fathers were prone to punishing—directly or through their mayordomos—those Pimas who participated in the campaigns. Thus, the overlapping jurisdictions of missionaries and the governor in exerting control over the Pimas often resulted in unfair treatment that became the root of Pima unrest.
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Conclusion The political tensions described here were present in the Pimería Alta long before the unfolding of the 1751 Pima Revolt. The Jesuits and the Spanish government often held dissimilar, if not opposing, understandings of the way the indigenous populations and their lands and resources should be managed. These tensions culminated on the cusp of the Bourbon Reforms, where the stark administrative division between indigenous and non-indigenous communities began to fade as the push for new forms of commercial exchange and property rights called for new political and social landscapes (Del Rio 1995). Although in the years prior to these reforms, missionaries and Spanish authorities were supposed to serve “both majesties”—God and king—under the same system of governance (de jure), differences in practical and ideological matters had started to create specific forms of indigenous authority that responded de facto to different lines of command—and ideologies, by extension. Luis Oacpicagigua and other Pimas clearly understood and took advantage of the discrepancies this structure of power created, pushing the social categories imposed on them by competing colonial forces and operating with the different juridical systems at hand. To what purposes these individuals navigated the borders of the colonial order constitutes an important question to be asked in these documents. Both interrogations conducted by Ortiz Parrilla sustain the argument that Oacpicagigua and Batiutuc had been nothing but loyal servants to the Crown, and that circumstances beyond their control forced them to revolt against Spanish rule. These circumstances entailed—in all the documents prepared by the governor, at least—the unjust treatment that missionaries and their mayordomos inflicted on the Pimas. The testimonies of both Pima captains illustrate the failure of both Jesuits and Spanish authorities to correct this situation and the concomitant—and legitimate—need of the Pimas to rebel. Whereas his own testimony portrays Luis Oacpicagigua first and foremost as an individual whose personal ethical confrontations with these arbitrary conditions led him to revolt, Luis Batiutuc is presented, in contrast, as an inseparable part of the Pima collective and, by extension, representative of the Pima cause. The extent to which this characterization was actually the case is not entirely clear, for both Pima leaders were imprisoned once again in 1754, accused of inciting a new rebellion. Luis Oacpicagigua died in jail the following year, but the final fate of Luis Batiutuc, who made a failed attempt at suicide in his cell, is unknown (Kessell 1970:133–135, 142).23 What
Tensions ✜ 359 these documents make evident, however, is that the political tensions between missionaries and Spanish authorities provided a complex arena in which individuals such as Luis Oacpicagigua and Luis Batiutuc might emerge as figures of power and authority beyond the customary Pima structure. To what purposes they rose to prominence in the colonial system, and then revolted against it, remains a question only they might have answered. <
Acknowledgments I would like to thank Bernard Fontana for his thoughtful review of this article. I am especially grateful to Dale Brenneman, not only for her careful editing but also her continuing support and friendship. Her ongoing commitment to the O’odham–Pee Posh Documentary History Project has been an inspiration, and I appreciate her having introduced me to the rich resource that is the Spanish colonial documentary record when viewed with a critical eye. Finally, I would like to express my appreciation to the National Historical Publications and Records Commission, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Southwestern Foundation for Education and Historical Preservation for their support of the O’odham–Pee Posh Documentary History Project.
Notes 1 The term vecino usually applied to a Spanish resident of a town or district who was a citizen of good standing and typically a property owner. 2 Compadrazgo is a very important social relationship built on ties between parents of a baptized child and the child’s godparents. 3 Gente de razón, literally “people of reason,” referred to free and rational individuals subject to the laws of the jurisdiction and the tithe of the secular clergy, who were generally regarded as socially and economically superior to Indians. 4 Rancherías constituted a looser form of Indian settlement in which dwellings were not permanent and were scattered some distance from each other. The term was sometimes used to designate more mobile Indian encampments. 5 A mayordomo was an overseer of property, with the power to command or coerce. 6 Luis was originally elevated to the rank of capitán general of the Pimería Alta by José Rafael Rodríguez Gallardo, the juez pesqusidor and visitador general of Sinaloa and Sonora, who had been sent in 1748 to investigate charges of corruption and inefficiency against Ortiz Parrilla’s predecessor, Agustín de Vildósola (Sheridan 1999:140).
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7 Certainly many of the governor’s Spanish forces disregarded his authority during the campaign on Tiburón Island, when they refused his orders to search out and attack the Seris (see Sheridan 1999:177–231). The Jesuits asserted that Ortiz Parrilla occupied his position due to the influence his uncle exerted in the royal court of Madrid more than his personal merits, and that the viceroy had sent him to Sonora only as a means of removing him from Mexico City with honor intact (Burrus 1963:56–57, Kessell 1970:110–111). 8 A ladino was an Indian versed in the Spanish language. 9 In mission communities, a mador assisted the missionary, primarily serving as aide, administrator, governor of church affairs, or chief secretary, including but not limited to organizing and maintaining order at meetings, maintaining the church, and overseeing work crews. He generally served the function of the community’s fiscal, responsible for assembling everyone when an announcement was to be made or a community enterprise was to be undertaken. He was also expected to report to either the town’s governor or its alcalde those who were not attending church and who were committing any other misdeeds, and he administered punishment to mission Indians. 10 “. . . aquí traigo Una carta del Señor Governador en que me manda su Señoria que fuese acompanando al Capitan Dn. Santiago con la gente que me pidiera para ir a esta Campaña y como ya el Plazo se cumplio y dicho Capitan no me ha avisado he benido yo a cumplir con lo que me manda mi Governador a lo qual le dijo el Pe. Yo no quiero ver esa carta del Governador pues otras que me ha escrito las he tirado en la Lumbre . . .” (Ortiz Parrilla 1752c). 11 These were all settlements that fell under the ministration of Keller. 12 “Tu no eres capitan de los tres Alamos, las sequias hondas, Sonoytac, Santa Maria ni cocospera y estos no son tus hijos? y con todo andas sacandolos De sus Pueblos para campañas, sin considerar que hazen falta en el trabajo de sus Padres Ministros, y fuera de esto nada logras ni consigues porq’ hasta ahora no he oydo dezir que haias matado ningun Apache ni quitado las caballadas que se Roban? y si alguna vez lo hubieras executado, se sonara, y abria llegado ā mi noticia, y lo q’ see es, que por hazerte capitan grande andas fingiendo esos negocios, y llevandote la gente que pudiera estar ocupada en el trabajo de la MiSsion y de el Padre” (Ortiz Parrilla 1752b). 13 Confirmation of Keller’s proclivity for calling Pima leaders “dogs” comes from a letter written in 1736 by Father Agustín de Campos, who complained that Keller had called four Pima leaders “grandísimos perros” (see Brenneman, “Campos,” this issue; Campos 1736). 14 “. . . que bestuario es ese que traes no sabes que eso cor[r]esponde solamente a los Españoles? Anda y tira todo eso y tapa un Taparrabo y lebantandose enojado de la Silla le señalo unos Cargages que estaban arrimados a la Pared y le dijo estas son tus armas y las que debes cargar, haciendo lo que los demas Yndios que es mantenerse com Burras, Conejos, Liebres, Benados, Ratones, Y carneros Sinbarrones, y tampoco debes tu tener Bestias Caballos, Mulas, Manadas, Bacas, ni Cabras” (Ortiz Parrilla 1752c). 15 “. . . y con todo, siempre traigo conmigo el Arco y las flechas que ay lo tiene mi hijo, porq’ en llegado el caso de Pelear con los Apaches me despojo de
Tensions ✜ 361 estas Armas y tomo aquellas, . . . pero pues Vuesa Reverencia me manda que este traje ni vestido no es mio lo dexarê todo para obedezerle” (Ortiz Parrilla 1752b). 16 An alférez was the lowest-ranking commissioned officer in the Spanish military, roughly equivalent to an ensign or second lieutenant in the army, and sometimes referred to as teniente (Sheridan 1999:463). 17 Oficial de la guerra appears to be used here synonymously with capitán de la guerra. 18 “Y que estando el Pueblo de el Pitic, de donde es natural el que Declara, sujeto a la administracion de Caborca, vivian los Yndios mui afligidos con su Ministro, el Reverendo Padre Thomas Tello, por los muchos graves perjuicios que les hazia. Que hallandose el que declara con el oficio de Alferez de su Pueblo cuio empleo le confirio el capitan de Terrenate Dn Santiago Ruiz de Ael se ofrezio, q’ llamado el capitan gral Dn Luis para que biniese â servir contra los Enemigos seris en la entrada que se hizo a la Ysla de el Tiburon bino para el efecto con muchos Yndios Pimas, y tambien el que declara como oficial de la Guerra mandando la gente que salio de su Pueblo” (Ortiz Parrilla 1752b). 19 “. . . aqui bengo â veer â Vuesa Reverencia, porque el Maiordomo dize que por su orden metió la cavuallada de Vuesa Reverencia en los sembrados de mis hijos, a quienes se les han perdido y destruido por este motivo. Que entonces el Padre le respondió: Veamos ahora si el Rey te embia que comer? Y si vuestro Governador os dá Posoli para manteneros? supuesto que por haber ido â esas campañas, con pretexto de servir al Rey han hecho falta en el cuidado de sus siembras, y las han perdido” (Ortiz Parrilla 1752b). 20 Unsettled areas, or wilderness. 21 On another occasion, when Oacpicagigua had given Batiutuc a letter to take to Tello, upon his delivering it Tello rebuked him, then took Batiutuc’s vara de justicia (cane of office) from him and broke it over his head. Because the father often punished the justicias this way, they had in turn learned to craft their varas from softer canes in anticipation of the father’s rage, according to Batiutuc (Ortiz Parrilla 1752b). 22 “Que por tantos agravios que padecian se quexaron al Padre visitador Jacobo sedelmayr, ministro de Tubutama quien les daba buenas esperanzas de que escribiria, y tambien iria en persona â componerlo; Pero nunca exprimentàron la emmienda, pues aunq’ en algunas ocasiones fue dho Padre visitador al Pueblo de Caborca y solia detenerse dos o tres dias, no sabian los Yndios si se tratava de sus quexas por que se iba sin dezirles nada. Que tambien llegó a ir el Padre Gaspar Extiger Ministro del Pueblo de san Ygnacio al dho de caborca para oyr los sentimientos de los Yndios, y que entonses si, presente su Padre Ministro y los Yndios le advirtio el citado Padre Gaspar extiger que los mirase, y sobrellevase con amor, tratandolos con lastima, y como â Hijos. Y aquellos pocos dias que el Padre Gaspar estubo presente se manejô dho Padre Thomas con buen semblante, pero assi que se bino volvió á los mismos rigores” (Ortiz Parrilla 1752b). 23 Father Visitor Carlos de Rojas (1754) was told that Oacpicagigua and Batiutuc had both attempted suicide together, using the former’s cotton sash.
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References Cited Burrus, Ernest J., S.J. 1963 Misiones Norteñas Mexicanas de la Compañía de Jesús, 1751– 1757. Antigua Librería Robredo, Mexico. Campos, Joseph Agustín de, S.J. 1736 Letter to Father Visitor Luís María Marciano, March 10. Archivo General de la Nación, Historia, Legajo 333, ff. 21–21v, Mexico City. Digital copy in the Office of Ethnohistorical Research, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson. Del Rio, Ignacio del 1995 La Aplicación Regional de las Reformas Borbónicas en Nueva España: Sonora y Sinaloa, 1768–1787. Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad Nacional Autónomo de México, Mexico. Donohue, John Augustine, S.J. 1969 After Kino: Jesuit Missions in Northwestern New Spain, 1711– 1767. Jesuit Historical Institute, St. Louis and Rome. Ewing, Russell C 1934 “The Pima Uprising, 1751–1752: A Study in Spain’s Indian Policy.” Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, Berkeley. 1938 The Pima Outbreak in November, 1751. New Mexico Historical Review 8:337–346. 1941 Investigations into the Causes of the Pima Uprisings of 1751. Mid-America 23:138–151. Garate, Donald T. 1999 Pedro de la Cruz—Alias, Chihuahua—Conspirator, Scapegoat, Victim. Unpublished ms. at Tumacácori National Historical Park, AZ. Partially published online at http://www.nps.gov/ tuma/historyculture/pedro-chihuahua.htm. González, Luis R. 1977 Etnología y Misión en la Pimería Alta 1715–1740. Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico. Kessell, John L. 1970 Mission of Sorrows: Jesuit Guevavi and the Pimas, 1691–1767. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
Tensions ✜ 363 Nentvig, Juan 1980 Rudo Ensayo: A Description of Sonora and Arizona in 1764. Translated and edited by A. F. Pradeau and R. R. Rasmussen. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Ortiz Parrilla, Diego 1751 Letter to Viceroy Juan Francisco de Güemes y Horcasitas, December 1. Archivo General de Indias, Guadalajara 419, Sevilla, Spain. Microfilm copy in the Office of Ethnohistorical Research, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson. 1752a Declaration of Joaquin de Rahum, January 8, 1752. Archivo General de Indias, Guadalajara 419, Sevilla, Spain. Microfilm copy in the Office of Ethnohistorical Research, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson. 1752b Declaration of Luis Batiutuc, April 15. Archivo General de Indias, Guadalajara 419, Sevilla, Spain. Microfilm copy in the Office of Ethnohistorical Research, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson. 1752c Declaration of Luis Oacpicagigua, March 24. Archivo General de Indias, Guadalajara 419, Sevilla, Spain. Microfilm copy in the Office of Ethnohistorical Research, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson. Perez, Robert Cristian 2003 Indian Rebellions in Northwestern New Spain: A Comparative Analysis, 1695–1750s. Ph.D. dissertation, University of California, Riverside. ProQuest, Ann Arbor. Rojas, Carlos de, S.J. 1754 Letter to Father Provincial Ignacio Calderón, July 3. Archivo Histórico de Hacienda, Temporalidades, Legajo 17, expediente 36, Mexico City. Microfilm copy in the Office of Ethnohistorical Research, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson. Sheridan, Thomas E. (editor) 1999 Empire of Sand: The Seri Indians and the Struggle for Spanish Sonora, 1645–1803. University of Arizona Press, Tucson. Spicer, Edward H. 1980 The Yaquis: A Cultural History. University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
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Utrera, Joseph de 1754 Testimonies from military, vecinos, and Indians, October. Declaration of Manuel Ortiz Cortés. Archivo General de Indias, Guadalajara 419, Sevilla, Spain. Microfilm copy in the Office of Ethnohistorical Research, Arizona State Museum, University of Arizona, Tucson.