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 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 may shock many of you. Not because this information is radical or unknown, but because people have chosen not to include this information in textbooks and discussions. What I’m sharing 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.
In the chapters that follow, I will explain how we descendants are unaware of this connection and what this connection actually is. Growing up in Southern Arizona provided me with such a rich cultural experience. But I always questioned what it meant to be Mexican. No one talked about that. My father told stories of how his mom would pick “weeds” from the yard to eat. She enjoyed a corn fungus that was some strange delicacy. He mentioned her stripping bark from mesquites to create a tea to sooth his father’s 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. Thoughts promoted 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 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). Between the Aztecs native lands of Mexico City and the current region of the Sonora and Southern Arizona there were over forty distinct Native American groups.
Ethnic lineage links us to places, ideas, cultures, and ultimately ourselves. Unfortunately, our American education in the 1970s through the 1990s did not teach that there was more to being Mexican than being racially mixed, mestizo, descendants of the Aztec and Spanish peoples. And if you were interested, which I was, you could have learned the more contemporary struggles of being Chicano or Latino. So, as a young man, without much knowledge on the matter, I yearned to exclaim my heritage so I happily sat through the humming pain of an Aztec eagle tattoo. It symbolized a very shallow understanding of my paternal ancestry of being 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 the result of a history, due to geography, governmental and religious intentions, and other circumstances that hid the truth from our contemporary understanding. This misunderstanding resulted from centuries of colonial changes swirling around people, who like many, were mainly concerned with survival.
Spanish Contact with Native Americans
Hundreds of years ago during the Spanish rule of the Americas, the Spanish were exploiting its treasures. This exploitation required labor, manufacturing this labor took a couple forms. (First) When converting Native Americans to Catholicism the Spanish did not define this as “conversion” it was termed “reduction.” The term “reduction” suggests that the Spanish Royalty’s focus was not saving souls through religious enlightenment; it 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. Sonora and Sinaloa Indian folk-lore suggests that their ancestors came from the north, not the south (Bandelier 588). 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).
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; looking 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. And millions of other Mexicans are descendants of more than forty other Indian groups.
I hope that organizing this information concisely will make understanding and sharing it easier. This shared Native American and more specifically, Pima lineage will never again be forgotten. All Native American cultures and identities should be cherished. As descendants we should be encouraged to understand, have pride and love for this heritage.
Spanish Identification of Indigenous People
Early Spanish explorations traveling 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 Native American groups. These groups were distinguished primarily by language. 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; 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.
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 thousands of Pima would wait for his arrival. 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 he documented over 6,000 Pima. Throughout his Memoires he tracked the numbers of Pima and Yuma Indians visited at the many diverse rancherias, including 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 Southeastern 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. 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 reportedly 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. 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 were successful 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. Contacts between Spaniards and Pima had also 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. He writes, “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). Spicer also states that the Pima remaining in Sonora would work for Mexican farmers and ranchers (132).
How “Mexican” Erased History and Indigenous Identity
Who were these Mexican farmers and ranchers? There is no documentation of a mass migration of Mexicans 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 been successfully working 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). Therefore, “Indians no longer existed politically” (335).
There were only a couple groups of people living in this region at that time. There were those moving into this area: missionaries, their assistants, and Spaniards moving north in pursuit of missions, mining opportunities and fertile lands for agriculture and ranching. And the preexisting Indians that were used as laborers to construct these Spanish endeavors. The Spaniards would mix with indigenous populations creating people known as Mestizo. Now, these descendants are categorized as “Hispanic” and “Latino”.
“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). At the times when these Indian groups’ names were still being used as identifications, writers also spoke of settlers. Settlers to this point were Spanish and any Indians that they intermarried with.
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 Indians 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. 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. Thus the dominant culture’s version makes it into most history books.
Historians of the 20th century also inserted biases of that time defining of when Indigenous populations 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 descant. Kessell and others are defining Indians as vanished people once they have 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’ claims to property rights by reducing possible opposition numbers. If there are fewer or no Indians, then Europeans’ claims of stronger property rights are more easily rationalized.
Some authors claim of small populations in Southern Arizona and Sonora Mexico contradicts what we know of the area through contemporaneous writings. Some of these writings discussed population within missions or towns that fluctuated greatly. There were numerous reasons for these fluctuations including, harvesting seasons at other localities, disagreements with missionaries and Spaniards, and complete rebellions. But these discussions avoided rancherias or other Indian community references. It might be argued that this was due to poor to no record keeping within these communities, and little desire for such records.
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”. Any Pima language speaking people living south of the Gila were called Papago (Spicer 134).
It is my assertion that many of the thousands of reduced Pima Indians’ descendants, “Mexicans” of Southern Arizona and Northern Sonora, Mexico are alive and well. Some of their 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 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 golf 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 80,000 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 very 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 into question their motives. 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 Mexican is not a monolithic category. There exist descendants of Spaniards and at least 45 different Indian groups. We have access to consolidated information now to bring this historical heritage back to life. I urge everyone affected to claim this heritage when possible, so it is not lost. Bringing our ancestors’ stories and regional connections to the world begins with us. Let’s ensure that they, and we, are appropriately remembered.
Written By:
Phillip Robles, J.D.
09/27/2020 (Last updated on 04/28/26)
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.