What does it mean, to be Mexican? Mexican is a nationality but what does it mean ethnically or racially? The answer to this question may be complicated depending on when your ancestors arrived in New Spain, Mexico, or the contemporary Southwestern United States. Or were your ancestors like many, there before any of these geographic and political identifications existed? What I am about to share is unfortunately going to shock many of you. Not because this information is radical or unknown, but because people are making choices not to include this information in textbooks and discussions. Most of what I’m about to share has been understood by researchers in anthropology and others for many years. The truth is, if your ancestors are from what is now southern Arizona and northern Sonora Mexico, the odds are extremely good that you are a descendant of what the Spanish Colonial Government and the Jesuit Priests called Upper Pima Indians.
Growing up in Southern Arizona provided me with such a rich cultural experience. But I always questioned what it meant to be part Mexican. You see, no one talked about that. My father told stories of how his mom would pick “weeds” from the yard to eat. She had a love for a corn fungus that was some strange delicacy. He mentioned how she would strip bark from the mesquite and create a tea for his father to drink to sooth an ulcer. This loving family was only concerned with providing for each other, taking care of one another, and ensuring they had what was necessary to survive and flourish. Concerning themselves with family history or ancestry was a luxury that they and many like them did not have.
My curiosity for understanding these answers led me to a sociology course at the University of Arizona. The course discussed Chicano and minority understandings of identity and struggles. Similar thoughts espoused then, exist today, that the Native People of this region have Aztec ancestry (Melendez et al. 12-13). As if somehow all peoples living in Mexico that existed prior to 1848 were all related to one group of Native Americans in southern Mexico. There are similarities in some Native groups’ languages classified as Uto-Aztecan. However, some believe that this language began by the Cochise culture in Southern Arizona at about 8000 B.C. (Melendez et al. 16).
Ethnic lineage links us to places, ideas, cultures, and ultimately ourselves. Unfortunately, no one discussed the possibility that there was more to being Mexican than being descendants of the Aztec and Spanish peoples. And the more contemporary struggles of being a Chicano or Latino. So of course, as a young man I yearned to exclaim my understanding of my history so I happily sat through the humming pain of an Aztec eagle tattoo. It symbolized a very shallow understanding of what it meant to be part Mexican.
Flash forward years later to Law School. I’m having a conversation with my Indian Law Professor who asks me if I have Native American ancestry. Do I? And if so which group, tribe, or people? My confusion was a result of a history, due to geography, governmental and religious intentions, and circumstances that were hidden from contemporary understandings. What seems inexcusable is that these answers are documented but not taught nor encouraged.
Spanish Contact with Native Americans
This discouragement began hundreds of years ago during the Spanish rule of the Americas. When converting Native Americans to Catholicism the Spanish did not discuss this as “conversion” it was termed “reduction.” The term “reduction” suggests that the Spanish Royalty’s focus was not saving souls through religious enlightenment but was eliminating the essence of what made these Native Americans different, independent and uncontrollable. However, the historical definition of reduction was to concentrate people into towns and around churches (Spicer 13). Utilizing this definition proves that the mission system was extremely successful. The goal was eliminating Indian distinctions so they could be conquered and assimilated. This tactic and future government decisions, discussed later, successfully erased distinct Indian self-identifications and assimilated most of these people into one perceived culture, Mexican.
Researching this history brought me quickly to the answer of what it means to be Mexican from Sonora, Mexico and Southern Arizona. The answer does not include being Aztec. In fact, this should be obvious. In 1540 it was very apparent to the Conquistadores as they traveled north that, “they had entered a different cultural world from the Aztec-dominated one . . . in Mexico City” (Spicer 8). Sonora and Sinaloa Indian folk-lore also suggests that their ancestors came from the north, not the south (Bandelier 588).
I began my research by reading the history of Southern Arizona and Sonora, Mexico. Books that covered the Europeans’ first landing in North America through the 1950’s. These resources included analyses of Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries and mission successes and failures. The Spanish, Mexican and United States approaches to converting Native Americans of the southwest. A look at Hispanic history of Southern Arizona. Reading Archeological reports of investigations of Southwestern Indians. Ancient Indian groups of the southwest. And the memoirs of the most famous Missionary of the area Father Eusebio Francisco Kino. What these books taught me was that I and thousands like me are Pima Indian descendants.
I hope that organizing this information concisely, will make understanding and sharing it easier. And those affected by this information will learn and understand their connection to this place and these people. This shared Native American and more specifically, Pima lineage will never again be forgotten. All Native American cultures, identities and histories should be remembered and cherished.
Spanish Identification of Indigenous People
The Spanish early explorations north from Mexico City in the 1530’s to central Arizona in 1582 touched many different Native Americans. Over the next 200 years the Spanish would identify 45 different Indian groups. These groups were distinguished by different languages. For most of this time it was regular practice for Spanish settlers to use reduced Indians as laborers. The Spanish did not bring laborers with them as they moved north for mining, ranching, and farming. There were multiple Indian revolts due to poor treatment of these converted Indians by Spanish settlers (Spicer 16). This caused difficulties for Missionaries’ trying to reduce Indians through the mission system (16).
In a Royal Cedula (document) Don Carlos II writes on May 14, 1686, that from 24 leagues north of Mexico (Mexico City) to Nueva Españia . . . Nueva Mexico, there are uninterrupted tribes of “Heathen Indians” (Kino 108). These numerous peoples did not disappear, die, or leave. Many of them were successfully reduced as intended.
The Missionary System’s Reduction, Use, and Assimilation of Pima Indians
The Spanish Identified six different major spoken languages in the current geographic areas of Chihuahua and Sonora alone. And there were several dialects of each (Spicer 10). In the 1600’s the Spanish called nearly 150,000 people living in these areas, Rancheria people (Spicer 12). Rancheria people were categorized by having fixed settlements that were distant from one another and ranged on sites from cave excavations to stone masonry houses. The Pima moved from mountain villages to valleys depending on the seasons for agricultural needs. However, there were also other nomadic Pima in the western deserts (Spicer 119).
The Spanish considered the Pima a tribe by language only (Spicer 119). They did not have chiefs in charge of large groups of Indians nor tribal structures. These Indians were more independent with no permanent political organization (Spicer 119). At times the Spanish distinguished the Pima into four cultural groups; Pima, Soba Pima, Sobaipuris, and the Papago. During the late 1600’s there were estimates of 30,000 Upper Pima living in an area from Magdalena and the Altar Valley in the south to the Gila River in the north, and from the San Pedro Valley in the East to the Colorado River and the Gulf of California to the West (Kessell 4).
The Pima bordered many other groups including: Yuma, Cocomaricopa, Cocopa, Apache, Opata, Seri, Yaqui, and Mayo. Identifying different ethnically controlled areas was made easier by the people’s distinct languages. This provides evidence that the many different native peoples had distinct territories. Historical contemporaneous accounts of Native American life demonstrated that most did not move into or amongst each other’s’ lands except as raiders or traders.
In 1696 Father Kino wrote that there were more than 16,000 Pima souls, but he did not estimate a maximum population (Spicer 120). He writes in his memoires of visits to different rancherias where there were thousands of Pima waiting to see him. For example, he writes about a visit in December of 1693 to the Soba Pima where there were more than 4,000 Pima. Another visit to San Xavier Del Bac in November, 1697 when there were over 6,000 Pima. Throughout his Memoires he tracks the numbers of Pima and Yuma Indians visited at the many diverse rancherias, their expressions of gratitude, his gifts and the many baptisms.
Thanks in large part to the Royal Cedula written by Don Carlos II in May 14, 1686 the Pima were open to the Catholic faith and Father Kino’s and other Missionary’s messages. This document written by the Spanish royalty created protections for the newly converted Indians. It protected them from Spanish settlers forcing them to work in mines or ranches for the first twenty years of the Indians’ “reduction” (Kino 109). Preventing Spanish settlers’ abuse of Indians, as was previously encountered, made introductory contacts with remaining Indians more agreeable and welcomed. This document’s timing was opportune for Father Kino’s work with the Pima in the Pimeria Alta. In fact, Father Kino’s memoirs are filled with descriptions of Pima in most rancherias greeting him with crosses and arches eagerly waiting to learn about Catholicism and to be baptized (Kino 110). But these protections were also why Spanish settlers would later support breaking up the mission system (Spicer 128).
For 25 years Father Kino explored the areas of what are now Northern Sonora, Southern and Central Arizona and Southwestern California. This entire time he was highly respected by the Native peoples who sought his council, lessons and baptisms. In 1689 Father Kino’s first three years, he had recorded over 800 Baptisms (Spicer 123). He would have another 22 years of baptisms before his death. Kino’s methods of reduction included delivering cattle, wheat or other necessities to the rancherias to demonstrate good faith. And prior to visits he would send messengers to discuss Christian Doctrine. Kino describes one of his visits to Nuestra Señora de los Remedios on March 26, 1687 as, “they received with love the Word of God for the sake of their eternal salvation . . . and I began to catechize the people and to baptize children” (Kino 112). Descriptions like this are repeated throughout Kino’s memoirs.
Because of Kino’s success and the limited amounts of Spanish settlements this far north in the Pimeria Alta, the Pima wanted elements of the Spanish culture, but this was never fully realized due to inadequate missionary support this far north. Discussions of Missions’ cattle and curing rituals spread widely throughout the region. This created a receptive audience for conversion and mission life. And due to the lack of missions, missionary structure and the corresponding hard labor found in mission systems further south amongst other Indian peoples, the usual Indian resistance to missions did not follow (Spicer 130-131). These missions did work where implemented by “teaching rudiments of civilization without certain pressures such as forced labor and taxation” (337).
During the Jesuit mission period the Pima consolidated to their central area of the Santa Cruz River (Spicer 131). This Pima consolidation continued from the time of the Jesuit’s expulsion from Pimeria Alta in 1767 and Mexico’s independence in 1821. And contacts between Spaniards and Pima had decreased.
At this same time there were authorized Spanish decrees that would raise some Indian status’ to citizens, demonstrating another way for Indian assimilation. In 1765 Jose de Galvez arrived in New Spain as the Visitador Generál, Inspector General. He was tasked with implementing King Carlos III’s decrees, including that of expelling the Jesuits, allotting mission commons to individuals and increasing revenue for Spain (Kessell 259-261). Indians receiving mission commons were elevated to “tribute-paying citizens”. While others were transformed into “peasants and migrant laborers” (Kessell 267).
When the Franciscan Missionaries arrived, they focused efforts on the Santa Cruz River missions of San Xavier and Tumacacori (Spicer 132). Apache raids in the early to mid-1800’s forced the Sobaipuris Pima of the San Pedro Valley into more defensible settlements, desserts and north to the Gila River (Spicer 132). There is a cursory look by Spicer in Cycles of Conquest that states, after Mexico’s independence there was conflict between Mexican cattle ranchers and Pima Indians over water holes. And “slowly the Indians were killed off or, after the Gadsden Purchase in 1853, withdrew to the United States’ side of the new International Boundary” (Spicer 132). The Indians were not killed off as a result of conflict over water holes. There are only a couple documented conflicts of this kind. Spicer also states that the Pima remaining in Sonora would work for Mexican farmers and ranchers (132).
How “Mexican” Erased History and Identity
Who were these Mexican farmers and ranchers? There is no documentation of a mass migration of Mexicans, Aztec people from the valley of Mexico, traveling north during these early periods. If mass migrations did not happen, and the only people were 45 known Indian groups and Spaniards, then where did all the “Mexicans” come from that are discussed in the book, Cycles of Conquest, and other future writings of the late 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries? By this time, the mission system had successfully worked in the Pimeria Alta for approximately 170 years. Why did so many people of Spanish and Native American heritage identify as “Mexican” after Mexico’s independence? The answer is due to Mexico’s constitution.
In 1821 Mexico’s constitution required that for any citizen living in Mexico to be viewed equally under the law they must identify as “Mexican” and no other racial identification was allowed on government documents. Government records could not use the term, Indian (Spicer 334). What did this do? Mexico successfully erased many Native American identities with one action. The reasoning for this might have been to eliminate the Spanish caste system but the result was identity genocide (Spicer 335). “Indians no longer existed politically” (335).
In all my research there is no documentation of large migrations of Mexicans moving north into Sonora and southern Arizona. In fact, there are only discussion of missionaries, their assistants, and Spaniards moving north in pursuit of missions, mining opportunities and fertile lands for agriculture and ranching. And wherever they constructed these operations they used Indian labor. The Spaniards would mix with indigenous populations creating people known as Mestizo. Now, many of these descendants are categorized as Hispanic, Latino, and Ethnic Mexican.
“Mexican” became a term synonymous with converted, reduced or assimilated Indians and their mixed-race descendants. The Spanish and later leaders of future Mexican cities, including Tucson, would utilize converted Pima, Apache and Papago Indian soldiers for defensive and offensive operations against factions of these same Indian groups (Officer 129-130, Spicer 133). During times when these Indian identifications were still being used in Mexican territory, writers also spoke of settlers. Settlers to this point were Spanish and their Indian converts.
Prior to Mexico’s Constitution the Spanish identified people as Spaniards, Indians, and mestizos. This constitutional clause did not just erase self-identification, but it erased how other countries and their citizens would describe Native American descendants born in Mexican territory. This Mexican construct also worked at changing how Mexican citizens saw and categorized Indians. There is documentation that Mexican citizens called known Indians, “Mexicans” (Kessell 308). This demonstrates how effective this requirement was at forcing assimilation through language. It effectively erased Indian and Mestizo identifications from Mexico’s consciousness. Even into the 1900’s some Papago living north of the international border considered themselves Mexican (Melendez et al. 167).
Mexico’s Effect on Reduced Pima’s Identities and the Resulting Misconception That Pima and Other Indigenous People Were Largely Killed Off
The success of this assimilation tactic was further solidified by how Anglo explorers interacted with and differentiated between Mexicans and Indians. The first Anglo explorers reached Tucson in 1826 when this was Mexico territory, no longer New Spain. Mexico had existed now for five years and many choices were made to assimilate remaining Indians and dismantle the financial and political advantages that Spaniards enjoyed previous to Mexico’s independence (McCarty 16). The missionaries, beginning with Father Kino, were very successful at converting thousands of Pima to Catholicism. To understand missionaries and convert to Catholicism the Pima had to learn Spanish. When these Native Americans were then baptized, they were christened with Spanish versions of Christian names, surrendering their Native surnames. Therefore, it is understandable that to these Anglo explorers’, people speaking Spanish, with Spanish names, in Mexico territory must certainly be Mexican.
Spanish Expulsion and the Mission System’s Success
Success of the mission system at reducing Indians over centuries was well documented. But documents created during this system’s near collapse at the hands of the newly formed Mexican government provide further support for how successfully they assimilated Pima into Mexican culture. Two significant choices were made to destroy previously held Spanish advantages. The first occurred in December 1827 when the Mexican federal congress passed the Decree of Spanish Expulsion. This was the first of multiple decrees made through 1833 that attempted to expel various Spaniards from Mexico. One of these specifically addressed the expulsion of Spanish Clergy.
The second was made by the politicians of Occidente. Occidente was the original territory that would be split to create Sonora and Sinaloa. In 1828 Occidente was out of money. Its politicians “coveted the Indian properties of the Pimeria Alta” (McCarty 17). Jesuit and Franciscan Missionaries had always considered missions, Indian property. A commonly used argument was made by the Commissioner General of Pimeria, Fernando Maria Grande to acquire the missions and all property within in November, 1828. He claimed that Indians’ special treatment by the Spanish have made them disloyal to the Mexican federal government and their incompetence prevents them from understanding anything else (McCarty 17). However, Manuel Escalante, who would be Sonora’s first Governor, wrote to the headquarters of the Arizpe District to save the missions in January, 1830. His argument supported the missions’ strengths:
“Under the generous aegis of the missionaries, the Pimas had not only a sufficiency for their families but there was more than enough left over for the sick, the needy, and general emergencies. As early as December 1828 I had to hurry to some of the missions to pacify movements of rebellion. Under the benign administration of missionaries, the missionaries themselves provided the Pimas with oxen, plows, axes, and even the seeds to make decent planting.
Under the new system, many Pimas are leaving their traditional river villages to roam in the open dessert with the Papagos. As the Pimas themselves told me: ‘if the fruit of our labor is no longer our own, it is better for us to leave. If the missionaries no longer administer our villages, soon there will be no villages anyway.’” (McCarty 20).
This letter demonstrates how reliant Pima were on the missions in 1830. It shows that at this time People were still referring to Indians within Mexico by previously designated names and not yet as Mexicans. This letter also provides a Mexican perceived distinction between the Pima, living in river valleys and the Papago, living nomadically in the desserts. One more strength of the mission system is evidenced here, and that is its parishioners’ continued reliance.
Although there were only four Missionaries in the Pimeria Alta at this time, they were attending to 22 named churches and missions and other “ranchos.” Most of these communities still exist today and some continued growing into cities. And they included: San Ignacio, Imuris, La Mesa, Terrenate, Santa Ana, San Lorenzo, Magdalena, Cocospera, Santa Cruz, Tubac, Tumacacori, San Xavier del Bac, Tucson Pueblito, Oquitoa, Atil, Santa Teresa, Tubutama, Saric, Caborca, Pitiquito, Bisanig and surrounding ranchos (McCarty 20). The missions existed to reduce the Indians, in this case the Pimas’ reduction into towns and missions. This proves that these Indians did not disappear or get killed off. The mission system worked. It brought the Pima into towns and missions and was so successful that in 1830 all of these communities were still supporting their Pima converts.
Why Dominating Colonial Powers Minimized Native American Population Size and Identity
While Spanish Settlers, Mexican soldiers, Pima and Apache Indians all lived in Tucson there was in close proximity a Pima settlement on the west bank of the Santa Cruz River named El Pueblito. This settlement has been continuously occupied for 3,000 years. This water was so important to the people of this region that it was never neglected. “Some historians believe it may be the longest continually occupied site in North America” (Melendez et al. 276). Through wars, drought and changing governments the spring water located here sustained life. This water was so valuable that the Mexican government established treaties with the Pima for its use.
On December 9, 1828 in a letter from Manuel Escalante y Arvizu to the Governor of Occidente, he lays out an argument to increase Tucson’s water rights (McCarty 15). By utilizing an often-used claim of decreasing native (Pima) population and therefore better use by the citizens of Tucson. Charges like this provide fuel for the dominant culture’s claim to having stronger property rights because it can better use the property. And the dominant culture’s version makes it into most history books.
Historians of the 20th century also inserted their biases into the definition of when Indians were no longer considered, “Indian” thereby erasing them from history. John L. Kessell wrote in Friars, Soldiers, and Reformers, that in the 1830’s there were more than 500 people living around Tubac presidio. However, even though this garrison was called “Compañía de Pimas it probably by now included more mixed breeds than Pimas” (283). Kessell makes a similar claim in Mission of Sorrows, claiming that the Indian population kept declining while the non-Indian population kept rising. . . and in 1818 for every one Indian, the Padre at San Ignacio “ministered to three dozen Españoles y Castas” (157). The term Españoles y Castas historians agree means of mixed descent. Kessell and others are defining Indians as vanished people once they have any mixed heritage. This idea accounts for many writings that claim Indians were disappearing while “Mexicans” and “settlers” were increasing. Utilizing this definition helped future Europeans’ claim to property rights by reducing possible opposition numbers. If there are less or no Indians then Europeans’ claims of stronger property rights are rationalized.
Some authors’ claim of small populations in Southern Arizona and Sonora Mexico contradict what we know of the area through contemporaneous writings. And they are also subjective. Some of these writings discussed population within missions, that fluctuated greatly, or towns but avoided rancherias or other Indian community references. Diminishing the substantiality of groups has been used for centuries when claiming property rights. Property law arguments have used population size, competency and best use when asserting rights for property acquisition. If there are not enough people to properly care for the land, and incompetent people are not utilizing it for its best use, then arguments for stronger property rights have been won in courts.
As more explorers from the United States moved through Arizona, they called Pima Indians living in the Gila River Valley “Pima”. And any Pima language speaking people living south of the Gila were called Papago (Spicer 134).
However, there are tens of thousands of descendants of the reduced Pima Indians still living in Southern Arizona and Northern Sonora, Mexico. We have been taught to identify as “Mexican.” Of course, some of their other descendants also consist of Tribal members of the Tohono O’Odham, Gila River, Ak-Chin and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Tribes.
A Family’s True Racial Identity
My Great Grandfather, Carlos Lopez was born in 1873 in Atil, Sonora. This was one of the mission towns referenced earlier in the 1830 letter attempting to save mission property. As a boy Carlos walked to Florence, Arizona to work the farms. Travelling for agriculture was common practice by the Pima for centuries. He would live to own and lose his own farm in Florence. Carlos Lopez was Pima Indian.
Over the past six years I’ve submitted DNA tests with both Ancestry.com and 23andMe. Ancestry provided results showing Native American DNA being shared with people in an area from approximately the Gila River to the north, the northern Sinaloa boarder with Sonora to the south, the Arizona-New Mexico border to the east, and the Gulf of California to the west. It is no coincidence that this is nearly the same area as described by Father Kino containing Pima Indians. And an interesting fact, over 90,000 people who’ve taken the DNA test share this particular Native American DNA. Ancestry described this DNA as “Sonora Mexico & Southwestern Arizona” Native American DNA.
However, 23andMe did something strange. It graphed almost the exact same area in Sonora Mexico but it cut right through the middle of it at the International Border. Not showing anything in Arizona. It then went on to call the DNA Mexican and Central American. For some reason that company was trying to push this Native American DNA outside of the United States border. This curiosity called their motives into question. I reached out to them providing a brief synopsis of the Pima people and resources for their research. They insisted that they were going to update and provide more accurate information.
Being of Mexican descent is not a monolithic category. There exist descendants of Spaniards and at least 45 different Indian groups. Along with many others whose stories are not discussed here. We have access to consolidated information now to rectify this historical wrong and bring this heritage back to life. I urge everyone affected to claim this heritage wherever and whenever possible. Bringing our ancestors’ stories and connections to this amazing place begins with us. We have a responsibility to ensure that they are properly remembered.
Written By:
Phillip Robles, J.D.
09/27/2020 (Last updated on 06/20/21)
References
Bancroft, Hubert Howe. History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530 – 1888, San Francisco, The History Company, 1889. Albuquerque: Horn and Wallace, 1962.
Bandelier Adolph. Final Report of Investigations Among the Indians of the Southwestern United States, Carried on Mainly in the Years from 1880 to 1885, Part II. Papers of the Archeological Institute of America, American Series, Volume II. Cambridge: John Wilson and Son, 1892.
Kessell, John. Friars, Soldiers, And Reformers: Hispanic Arizona and the Sonora Mission Frontier, 1767 – 1856. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976.
Kessell, John. Mission of Sorrows: Jesuit Guevavi and the Pimas, 1691 – 1767. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1970.
Kessell, John. Spain in the Southwest: A Narrative History of Colonial New Mexico, Arizona, Texas, and California. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2002.
Kino, Eusebio Francisco. Kino’s Historical Memoir of Pimeria Alta. Bedford: Applewood Books, 1919.
McCarty, Kieran. A Frontier Documentary. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1997.
Melendez, Gabriel, et al. The Multicultural Southwest. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 2001.
Officer, James. Hispanic Arizona 1536 – 1856. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1987.
Officer, James, et al. The Pimeria Alta, Missions & More. Tucson: The Southwestern Mission Research Center, 1996.
Spicer, Edward. Cycles of Conquest: The Impact of Spain, Mexico, and the United States on the Indians of the Southwest, 1533 – 1960. Tucson: The University of Arizona Press, 1962.