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Updated: June 13, 2025
Priests, whose names even have been lost in the chronicles, were murdered on the altars here, thrown down the stairs, cut to pieces in their own Mission yard. Before a death which they coveted as glory, what a life they must have led. To Tucson Mission was nine miles; but to Tumacacori was eighty; to Old Mexico, 900.
The earliest Spanish settlement of Arizona, within its present political boundaries, was in the Santa Cruz Valley not far from the southern border. There was a large ranch at Calabasas at a very early date, and at that point Custodian Frank Pinkley of the Tumacacori mission ruins lately discovered the remains of a sizable church. A priest had station at San Xavier in 1701.
The raid was unexpected owing to the fact that the Samaniego brothers had contracts with the government and the stuff in their outfit was intended for the very Indians concerned in the ambuscade. One of the Samaniegos was slain at this massacre. Then there was the Tumacacori raid, at Barnett's ranch in the Tumacacori Mountains, when Charlie Murray and Tom Shaw were killed.
San Xavier, as it at present stands, is supposed to have been completed in 1797; but in 1827-9, came another political turnover and all foreign missionaries were expelled. Tumacacori and San Xavier were always the most important of the Arizona Missions. Originally quite as magnificent a structure as San Xavier, Tumacacori has been allowed to go to ruin.
When you think of the ruthless slaughter of the conquistadores, think also of the friars tramping the parched sand plains for 900 miles. While Fray Juan de la Asuncion and Pedro Nadol are the first missionaries known in Arizona about 1538, Father Kino was the great missionary of 1681 to 1690, officiating at the Arizona Missions of San Xavier del Bac and Tumacacori.
Tubac as a presidio dates from 1752, Tumacacori from 1754 and Tucson from 1776. These, however, were Spanish settlements, missions or presidios. In the north, Prescott was founded in May, 1864, and the Verde Valley was peopled in February, 1865.
The beautiful valley of San Xavier, or Santa Cruz, some two years ago when I passed through it, was entirely deserted. The once thriving towns of Tumacacori and Tubac had not the sign of a living soul about them except the recent moccasin track of the Apaches. The orchards and vineyards of the once highly cultivated fields and gardens bore the marks of gradual decay and destruction.
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