SONORA

Its Geographical Personality

ROBERT C. WEST

University of Texas Press, Austin

Copyright © 1993 by the University of Texas Press

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

First edition, 1993

Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, University of Texas Press, Box 7819, Austin, TX 78713-7819.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Library ebook ISBN: 978-0-292-76727-0

Individual ebook ISBN: 978-0-292-78560-1

DOI: 10.7560/765382

West, Robert Cooper, 1913–

Sonora : its geographical personality / Robert C. West.—1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-292-72258-3

1. Sonora (Mexico : State)—Historical geography. 2. Sonora (Mexico : State)—History. 3. Mexico—History—Colonial period, 1540–1810. 4. Human geography—Mexico—Sonora (State) 5. Mineral industries—Mexico—Sonora (State)—History. 6. Agriculture—Economic aspects—Mexico—Sonora (State) I. Title.

F1346.W47 1993

Contents

Abbreviations Used

Preface

1. Physical and Biotic Aspects of Sonora

2. The Aboriginal Cultures of Sonora

3. Spanish Settlement of Sonora: The Missions

4. Spanish Settlement of Sonora: The Mines and Ranches

5. Mine and Mission Relations in Colonial Sonora

6. Indian Depredations in Sonora

7. The Sonoran Gold Craze

8. The Growing Domination of Western Sonora

Appendix A. A Jesuit Memoria

Appendix B. Property of the Mission of Sahuaripa, 1735

Appendix C. Church Lands along the Lower Bavispe Valley, 1790

Appendix D. Sellos, 1684 and 1714

Appendix E. Monthly Statistics on the Mining Camp of San Francisco de Asís, 1805–1809

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Figures

1. Surface forms and precipitation of Sonora and adjacent areas

2. The Sierra la Campanería, between the Yaqui River and the Valley of Sahuaripa

3. The Sonora River Valley near village of Suaqui, eastern Sonora

4. The Sahuaripa River Valley near Arívechi, eastern Sonora

5. Stylized geomorphic cross section of a typical river valley in eastern Sonora

6. The delta plain of the Río Sonora (Costa de Hermosillo)

7. Arboreal desert vegetation near the coast, southeast of Guaymas

8. Oak and mesquite grassland, northeastern Sonora

9. Open oak forest, east-central Sonora, on western flank of the Sierra Madre Occidental

10. Aboriginal languages and economies in Sonora, ca. A.D. 1500

11. Jesuit evangelization of Sonora, seventeenth century

12. A hand- or animal-powered flour mill, or tahona

13. An aboriginal Yaqui ground loom

14. Arizpe, Sonora River Valley, La Serrana, eastern Sonora

15. Bacanora, La Serrana, eastern Sonora

16. Mining centers and missions, Sonora, seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries

17. An arrastre, or animal-powered mill for pulverizing ore

18. The Alamos mining district, southern Sonora

19. Main trails joining Sonora and Chihuahua, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries

20. Repartimiento labor in selected mining centers, Sonora

21. Incursions of hostile nomadic Indians into Sonora, late seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries

22. Gold placer areas, Sonoran Desert, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries

23. Geology and mining techniques for dry placering

24. Gold coinage in Mexico, 1730–1820

25. Present-day apparatus for dry placering, near Quitovac, Altar Desert

26. Pocked surface reflecting years of dry placering, near Cieneguilla, Altar Desert

27. The main economies of Old and New Sonora, 1990

28. Irrigated agriculture, Valle del Yaqui and northern part of Valle del Mayo, 1980s

29. One of the main canals used to distribute water to fields in the Valle del Yaqui

30. Irrigated agriculture, Costa de Hermosillo, 1980s

31. Property divisions, central part of Costa de Hermosillo, 1980s

32. Area harvested in major irrigated districts of western Sonora, 1957–1976

33. Irrigated wheat field ready for harvest, Costa de Hermosillo

34. Olive grove and vineyard, Caborca irrigation district, northwestern Sonora

35. A chicken farm (granja avícola) south of Ciudad Obregón, Valle del Yaqui

36. Partial view of Puerto Peñasco, northwestern Sonora

37. Part of the fishing fleet docked at Yávaros

38. A recreational beach at Huatabampito near Yávaros, Valle del Mayo

39. Port city of Guaymas and adjacent tourist areas

40. Partial view of Hermosillo, state capital of Sonora

41. Population growth, state of Sonora and city of Hermosillo, nineteenth and twentieth centuries

42. Population distribution, state of Sonora, 1921

43. Population distribution, state of Sonora, 1990

44. Population trends, western and eastern Sonora, 1900–1990

Tables

1. The Three Major Fishing Centers of Sonora, 1989

2. Population and Industry in Western Sonora, 1985

3. Maquiladora Plants in Sonora, 1986

Abbreviations Used

Preface

The idea for this book developed while I was a visiting professor at the University of Arizona, Tucson, in 1972 and again in 1976. Given my training and academic interest in Latin American cultures, neighboring Sonora naturally beckoned. My familiarity with that part of northwestern Mexico stems mainly from the many field excursions into the state with students and faculty from Arizona and other universities over a period of nearly twenty years. I am grateful for the stimulating company of those field companions, especially for their keen observations and perceptive knowledge of the history and geography of that fascinating part of Mexico. Equally important was the encouragement of members of the Centro Nacional del Noroeste, a branch of the Instituto Nacional de Antropología e Historia, based in Hermosillo.

My introduction to the colonial records of Sonora came through Charles W. Polzer, S.J., organizer and present director of the Documentary Relations of the Southwest project at the University of Arizona. Father Polzer permitted me to peruse the large quantity of microfilm of colonial church and secular documents currently housed in the Archivo Histórico de Hacienda, Mexico City. Also in Tucson, in the University of Arizona Library Special Collections, I had access to microfilm of colonial documents on Sonora from the Archivo Municipal del Parral, Chihuahua, where I had worked many years on another topic. Microfilm and transcripts of documents in the Bancroft Library, Berkeley, California, and in the Benson Latin American Collection, University of Texas, Austin, were also consulted.

Subsequent archival research led me to the Archivo General de la Nación and the Archivo Franciscano (in the Biblioteca Nacional), both in Mexico City. Finally, the ultimate goal of any Latin Americanist historian or historical geographer was reached when I visited the Archivo General de Indias, Seville. I spent several weeks there reading colonial documents pertaining to Sonora from various ramos, or sections, of that great collection.

Published materials on Sonora are abundant and varied; only a small number of them could be cited in the text and listed in the accompanying bibliography. I gathered substantial information on colonial Sonora and northern Mexico from the many writings of the Spanish historian Luis Navarro García, who has ready access to the Archivo General de Indias in Seville. Among North American scholars the Jesuit missions of northwestern Mexico have been a favored topic for research, but comparatively little has been written on colonial mining in Sonora, a subject central to the present study.

I use historical geography in this book to describe the character, or personality, of Sonora and to illustrate how the cultural landscape of a given region in northwestern Mexico has developed through time, especially during the Spanish colonial period; but I bring that development up to the present day. My method is traditional and genetic, closely allied to Clifford Darby’s vertical approach to landscape evolution.¹

The term personality as applied to the physical and cultural character of a given geographical area was popularized nearly a century ago by French regional geographer Paul Vidal de la Blache, in his Tableau de la géographie de la France.² Gary Dunbar has traced the usage of the term by various geographers, mainly U.S. and British, and cites as examples Carl Sauer’s seminal article, The Personality of Mexico (1941), and E. Estyn Evans’s The Personality of Ireland (1973, 1981), among others.³ In essence, the geographical personality of an area derives from the genre de vie, or way of life, of its inhabitants as adapted to the physical characteristics of the land. Again, Paul Vidal de la Blache was one of the first to apply the term genre de vie in geographical study;⁴ the term was further defined by another French geographer, Max Sorre, who expanded its meaning to include not only the rural scene, but also an industrial and urban one.⁵

In tracing the history of Sonora’s human development, I came to realize early on that today the state presents a dual geographical personality in terms of area: (1) an eastern subhumid, mountainous section incised by narrow river valleys, inhabited aboriginally by native farmers, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries occupied by Jesuit missionaries and Spanish miners-stockmen, and today living largely in its colonial past; and (2) a western desert, most of which was sparsely populated by aboriginal nomads, exploited in the late eighteenth century by Spanish and Indian gold seekers, but today characterized in places by recently developed, government-sponsored modern irrigated agriculture, which has given rise to dense farming population, urbanization, and industrialization.

For technical assistance in preparing the manuscript I am indebted to Clifford P. Duplechin, senior cartographer, Mary Lee Eggart, artist/research associate, and Maudrie Eldrige and Adriane Kramer, word processors.

CHAPTER 1

Physical and Biotic Aspects of Sonora

Physically Sonora is composed of two distinct areas: to the west an arid zone of low, scattered mountains separated by extensive plains; and to the east a semiarid to subhumid mountainous region that flanks the western edge of the Sierra Madre Occidental (fig. 1). Each of these areas has undergone different cultural developments.

Eastern Sonora, or La Serrana

Composed of a series of north-south-trending ranges separated by narrow valleys, eastern Sonora, often called La Serrana, until recently was the more important of the two areas in terms of human occupation and economy. The river valleys, filled with narrow strips of Recent alluvium bordered by Tertiary and Pleistocene gravel terraces, have been the sites of agriculture and permanent settlement since long before the Spanish period, and during colonial days they were the main producers of food in Sonora. The adjacent mountain ranges are rugged, rising as up-faulted blocks eight hundred to one thousand meters above the river valleys. Their Mesozoic to Recent sediments (quartzite and limestone) and volcanics (rhyolite, basalt, and surficial lava) are in places intruded by plutons of granite and andesite. Mineralization occurs at contact zones and along fault lines, giving rise to silver, gold, and copper ores that have attracted miners since the seventeenth century (fig. 2).¹

Channeled within the elongated valleys, five rivers and their tributaries drain La Serrana: the Río San Miguel on the west; followed eastward by the Río Sonora; the Moctezuma (or Oposura); and the Upper and Lower Bavispe in the northeast, both of which flow into the Río Yaqui, the largest of the Sonoran rivers. The narrow alluvial floodplains of most of these streams rarely exceed two kilometers in width; they usually form discontinuous stretches of arable land separated by narrow box canyons, or cajones, where the river has cut through consolidated volcanic ash or even granite (figs. 3 and 4). Each of the five main rivers is fed by springs and intermittent tributaries or arroyos that occur along their entire lengths. Along the Yaqui and Mayo, however, only small pockets of alluvium afford opportunities for farming until the rivers break out of the mountains to form large delta plains along the coast of southern Sonora.

Surface forms and precipitation of Sonora and adjacent areas.

FIG. 1

The Sierra la Campanería, elevation 1,500–1,700 meters, between the Yaqui River and the Valley of Sahuaripa, is typical of the north-south ranges of La Serrana, eastern Sonora.

FIG. 2

Flanking the floodplains along most of the rivers are remnants of thick gravel beds that rise twenty to one hundred meters above the Recent alluvium. Deposited by late Tertiary and Pleistocene rivers thousands of years ago, most of the gravel beds are sharply dissected; others are less so, however, and form flat-topped terraces or mesas overlooking the present valley (fig. 5). Free of flood, such terraces have served as habitation sites since prehistoric times, and today most of the river hamlets and pueblos, as well as the river roads, are found perched along them. As in the past, the north-south-trending valleys, some of them connected by transmontane roads and trails, form the main land routes of travel within La Serrana.

Other than the narrow river valleys, flattish surfaces within mountainous La Serrana are rare indeed. One extensive plain is the Llano de Tepache (650–700 meters elevation) east of the Río Moctezuma. However, the widespread lava flows (malpaís) that cover most of its surface have precluded its use as an agricultural area of any importance.

The Sonora River Valley near the village of Suaqui, eastern Sonora. Dissected Pleistocene terraces backed by north-south ranges border both sides of the river floodplain.

FIG. 3

The Río San Miguel marks the western boundary of La Serrana and roughly coincides with the mean annual isohyet (rainfall) of four hundred millimeters (16 inches) (fig. 1). Annual precipitation increases eastward with higher elevations, resulting in subhumid conditions near the western flank of the Sierra Madre Occidental. In general, the valleys receive less rain (four hundred to five hundred millimeters) than the higher mountain slopes and summits, where yearly precipitation may reach eight hundred to one thousand millimeters (thirty-two to forty inches).² Valleys thus support only arid to semiarid vegetation, in contrast to the adjacent oak-and-scrub-covered mountain slopes and pine and oak forests on crests over two thousand meters elevation.

Two periods of precipitation characterize the annual moisture regime of much of northwestern Mexico and adjacent portions of the American Southwest.³ Most rain falls in the summer months of July, August, and September, whereas less than a third as much comes in the winter period, from late November through early February. Severe drought occurs in late fall and late spring. Fed by moist air from the Gulf of Mexico, the monsoon rains of summer come as heavy, isolated afternoon thunderstorms, which sometimes cause flooding in the river valleys. Weak frontal storms from the Pacific bring in the light winter rains, locally called equipatas,⁴ which often last for days over wide areas, with snowfall in the higher elevations of the Sierra Madre Occidental. Infrequently, tropical storms of subhurricane force that develop over the eastern Pacific Ocean in late summer and fall reach northwestern Mexico, causing disastrous floods that severely damage crops and erode valuable farmland in the valleys.⁵ Along the coast of Sonora and Sinaloa such a storm is called el cordonazo de San Francisco, or the lash of Saint Francis, since it occurs around the feast day (October 4) of that saint.⁶ Despite occasional river valley floods in La Serrana, the duality of the rainfall season has permitted local farmers to cultivate two crops annually, perhaps since prehistoric times. Although the major crops are grown during the summer rains, the scattered and variable nature of the thunderstorms often requires the use of artificial irrigation, as does the lesser rainfall of winter.

The Sahuaripa River Valley (500 meters elevation) near Arívechi, eastern Sonora. A flat-surfaced terrace and north-south mountain range are seen in the background.

FIG. 4

Stylized geomorphic cross section of a typical river valley in eastern Sonora.

FIG. 5

Because of its subtropical latitude (26°–32° N), the Sonoran Serrana enjoys cool to mild winters but hot summers. In the valleys daytime summer temperatures often reach above 40° C (104° F), whereas in winter mild (15°–20° C, or 60°–70° F) days prevail, but occasional light nighttime frosts are not uncommon. In the adjacent mountains temperature decreases with altitude, and in winter snow occasionally falls on the higher crests.

Western Sonora, or El Desierto

Geologically, Western Sonora constitutes part of the southwestern craton of North America, its dominant pre-Cambrian rocks having been formed an estimated 1.2 billion to 1.7 billion years ago; for much of that time the older granites and metamorphosed sediments, as well as the younger limestones and shales, have been exposed to atmospheric weathering.⁷ Thus, the former mountain ranges of the area have been eroded down almost to their roots, forming isolated rock masses, or inselbergs, separated by wide, gently sloping bajadas composed of alluvial fans and pediments.⁸ In places near the coast, Pleistocene and present-day rivers have created flattish deltaic plains. In the bajadas rich deposits of gold dust and nuggets, eroded from the former mountains, have formed placers, exploited since the late eighteenth century.

Western Sonora is also part of the most arid portion of North America. This dry zone, usually called the Sonoran Desert Region, which includes also the southeastern tip of California, southwestern Arizona, and much of Baja California, for most of the year lies under the influence of a high-pressure cell, the main cause of the excessive aridity. The northern part of western Sonora, called the Altar Desert, receives a mean annual rainfall of less than 250 millimeters (10 inches). In general, annual rainfall increases from the coast (100 millimeters, or 4 inches) inland toward La Serrana and southward from the Colorado River delta (50 millimeters or 2 inches) to Navojoa (380 millimeters or 14 inches), near the Sinaloa border.

As in La Serrana, in western Sonora precipitation is seasonal, with half to two-thirds of the annual total falling in summer convectional thunderstorms, the rest as light rains in winter. But the desert rainfall is far more variable than in La Serrana; some places along the coast may not receive rain for more than a year; other areas not too far distant may experience a single storm that brings more rain than the annual mean.⁹

Except the Colorado on the extreme northwestern margin of Sonora, the larger rivers that cross the desert toward the Gulf of California originate in La Serrana, but often their lower reaches are intermittent; their waters usually disappear in the desert gravels and flow to the Gulf only during summer floods. Until recently, such were the characteristics of the Magdalena-Asunción and Sonora rivers in the north. Since Pleistocene times both have built extensive delta