Apache Land 5 . KILL ALL INDIANS

A holacaust alone was the policy to be favored. But these were not the Indios of Latin America these were people with attitude, killing them all was a word not an action.

He felt that after a long time God might miraculously show the hostiles the way to conversion and civilization, but that at present it was folly to think of such things.

The new policy was soon put into effect, and during the next 30 years, at great expense to the Spanish government, the Apaches enjoyed its fruits to such an extent that frontier warfare reached its lowest point up to that time. 

The comparative peace that existed from about 1790 to 1820 saw the work of the missionary priests attain a high point, and during these years came Tumacacori's heyday.

But it seemed that nothing should ever come easily for the town. Reports for 1790 and 1793 indicate that the missions, as a group, were prospering, with Tumacacori an exception. It is possible the reporter may have been more impressed with the physical evidence of handsome church buildings at other places than with the spiritual life of the natives alone. Certainly, the mission church of that time at Tumacacori was anything but an imposing structure. A description of 1795 says, "The church was a very cramped and flimsy little chapel, which has been made over piecemeal; and today it is big enough to hold the people of the Pueblo; it is made of earth and is in bad shape
 . . ."

It was in this year also that Father Balthazar Carrillo, who had been missionary at Tumacacori since 1780, died. He was buried by Father Narciso Gutierrez, who had come to work with him in 1794, and who was to labor here until his own death in December of 1820. Each of these men, much longer in service at Tumacacori than any others during the Franciscan period, was, during the greater part of the time, alone. Only during the last year of his life did Father Carrillo have a brother missionary to share his work.cts mexicans remember the same troops who fought the texans fought the apacheA most interesting census of Tumacacori was made in 1796  by Father Mariano Bordoy, who worked with Father Gutierrz during the period 1796-9. He counted 103 people for the pueblo, a population which was essentially Papago and Pima, with 48 of the former and 36 of the latter. There were also 12 Yaquis, 4 Spanish, 1 Apache, 1 Yuma, and 1 Opata.

 The majority of the older people were Pima, which indicates the probability, despite numerical superiority of Papagos, that the older and more stable element of the community was dominantly Pima. Most of the Yaquis were listed as"vezindarios," or from "surrounding area," or "vicinity," which suggests they had not been a part of the community long enough to merge their civic identity with that of the townsfolk."Routine" entries in a mission church register are not always a prosaic catalog of names and dates! Note what happened at Tumacacori on the harrowing day of June 5, 1801: Juan Antonio Crespo, a Caborca Pima of about 50 years, husband of Gertrudis Brixio, of Tumacacori, was killed by the Apaches, who attacked the town this day.

Jose Maria Pajanito, aged 20, died on the same day at the hands of the Apaches. "His body could not be brought until the 6th, por ser mucha la Apacheria, and the people did not dare to take out the body until the troops came."Felix Hurtado, a boy of 15, died, like the other two, at the hands of the Apaches. There was no opportunity to give any sacrament whatever, since the Apaches stayed until six o'clock of June 6. 

By then the people of the town had succeeded in getting the troops (evidently from the Tubac presidio) and such neighbors as they could muster in the two days, to come to Tumacacori to help them. The Apaches then departed, and it was possible to go out and bring back the bodies for burial.

It is not difficult from the above to understand what occasionally happened to those venturesome persons who got outside the safety of the town or its environs at the wrong time! 

Apaches did more than make a fast raid and a killing here—they loitered near the town for two days. Undoubtedly in that time they sampled liberally of any products of orchard and fields that could possibly have been ready for eating as early as June, and took away a little "beef on the hoof" when they 
left.

We have a reference of 1806 , a report on the missions, which says the minister at Tumacacori "had begun to build the church anew, because it was narrow and very deteriorated," but that the work had been halted.

 No reason was given for stoppage of the work, but this is not surprising. Many factors affected construction of mission churches. Donated native labor, requiring much urging and encouragement, was a part-time and very slow process in most cases. Indians had their own problems, and their own very deliberate tempo. There were times when harvests, or nut-gathering in the hills, or repair work on an irrigating system, must take precedence over everything
 else.

In this same year Juan Legarra, governor of the pueblo of Tumacacori, petitioned the intendente of the province to issue new title papers for the Tumacacori land grant . The previous title papers from the Spanish government had been lost. The petition asked the grant of four square leagues of land for the fundo legal (farming purposes) and two sitios for the estancia (stock farm) of the pueblo. 

After measurements and testimony, the final petition was sent to the intendente in 1807. It is interesting to note that Legarra also asked, in an attached petition, for the lands previously occupied by the pueblos of Calabasas and Guevavi, explaining that ". . . the stock cattle and horses are increasing each day under the direction of the present minister, Fray Narciso Gutierrez; wherefore the whole land is necessary for the preservation of said livestock .It was in this terrible winter of 1848 that we believe the Tumacacori people finally abandoned their village. 

They were undoubtedly a very saddened and disheartened group. Plagued by Apache raids in the district, having their home ground sold even while they lived on it, having no priest or hope of one again, suffering from the unprecedented weather, they took such cherished items of church property as they could, including the statues,(Below is remains of the Pete Kichen ranch) and left, never to return
.

 They transferred to San Xavier(below), donating the furnishings they carried to the church there (also abandoned at that time), and joining their kinsmen of the town.In December of the same year another visitor, by the name of Hayes, wrote a description of Tumacacori. He refers to some 50 peach trees in an enclosure, and states that in places the ground was covered with the seeds
.

"The fruit has fallen and none to gather it. Corrals still standing—not a living thing seen. It had a melancholy appearance. The walls of the church still stand, no roof, and only the upright piece of the cross. It looks desolate indeed . . . built of beautiful large burnt brick; the walls inside plastered with cement, and adorned with paintings in the cement. The dome over the altar covered with cement which shines white in the sun; portico in front, with two tier of columns; rich and exquisite carving inside, 4 bells, one has been taken down; . . ."With the Gadsden Purchase of 1853, ratified by the American Congress in 1854, all of Arizona south of the Gila River became property of the United States, instead of continuing as part of northern Sonora. Not long after the year of the Boundary Survey, 1855, Gandara abandoned the ranch.below replicants, shame they took on steve weston .

A member of the survey party wrote: "Tubac is a deserted village. The wild Apache lords it over this region, and (below is Pete Kitchens stronghold)the timid husbandmen dare not return" to their homes
. "The mission of Tumacacori another fine structure of the mother church stands, too, in the midst of rich fields; but fear prevents its habitation, save by two or three Germans . . 

.For a number of years after the Civil War southern Arizona was literally a "no man's land," which the Apaches made into one of the most dangerous places on earth.