Mission Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi

La Misión de San Gabriel de Guevavi was founded by Jesuit missionary priests Eusebio Kino and Juan María de Salvatierra in 1691. Subsequent missionaries called it San Rafael and San Miguel, resulting in the common historical name of Mission Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi (O'odham: Geʼe Wawhia Big Well/Spring). Located in what is now Arizona, near Tumacácori, the mission served as a district headquarters for the Jesuits. History The mission location was originally a native Sobaipuri or O'odham (Upper Pima) settlement, which Eusebio Kino visited in 1690. The mission was established in 1691, with Juan de San Martín as resident priest. By the late 1690s, the mission consisted of a church, a carpentry shop, and a blacksmith's area. Under Jesuit supervision, Pima laborers built a small chapel in 1701, using adobe bricks and basic tools. Guevavi was designated as cabecera (headquarters) that same year. Juan de San Martín left the mission in 1701, leaving it to be administered remotely by Agustín de Campos, Ignacio Xavier Keller, and Luis Xavier Velarde. A new priest, Juan Bautista Grazhoffer, was not assigned to the mission until 1732. Grazhoffer changed the mission name to San Rafael; another priest changed it to San Miguel in 1744. In 1751, Joseph Garrucho contracted Joaquín de Casares of Arizpe to direct Pima laborers in building a new and larger 15-foot by 50-foot church, the ruins of which still exist today. The mother of Juan Bautista de Anza is buried in front of the altar. The church was damaged in the Pima Revolt, and renovated in 1754 under the supervision of Francisco Xavier Pauer. As of 1767, the mission had three asistencias: Mission San Ignacio de Sonoitac, Mission San José de Tumacácori, and Mission San Cayetano de Calabazas. At some times, it also had Mission San Luís Baconacos as an asistencia. The first Franciscan priest, Juan Crisóstomo Gil de Bernabé, arrived in 1768 and took up residency at the mission with about fifty families. The Apaches attacked in 1769 and killed all but two of the few Spanish soldiers guarding the mission; in 1770 and 1771 the natives continued their attacks and the cabecera was relocated to Tumacácori. Mission Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi was abandoned for the last time by 1776. Missionaries 1691–1701: Juan de San Martín 1701–1732: no resident priest 1732–1733: Juan Bautista Grazhoffer 1734: Philipp Segesser 1734–1737: no resident priest 1737–1740: Alexandro Rapicani 1740–1744: Joseph de Torres Perea 1744–1745: Ildefonso de la Peña 1745–1751: Joseph Garrucho 1751–1760: Francisco Xavier Pauer 1760–1768: no resident priest 1768–1771: Juan Crisóstomo Gil de Bernabé Archaeology The convento and church have been excavated by the Arizona Archaeological and Historical Society and the National Park Service. Historian John Kessell has written a comprehensive history of Guevavi. Archaeologist Deni Seymour has excavated a portion of the indigenous Sobaipuri-O'odham settlement of Guevavi and Father Kino's "neat little house and church." Tumacácori National Historical Park The Mission's ruins were incorporated into Tumacácori National Historical Park in 1990. It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1990., Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail The Mission Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi is a designated site of the Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail, a National Park Service area in the United States National Trails System. See also List of Jesuit sites List of National Historic Landmarks in Arizona National Register of Historic Places listings in Santa Cruz County, Arizona Spanish Missions in the Sonoran Desert References "Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi". Tumacácori National Historical Park. Retrieved November 7, 2006. Burrus, E. J., 1965 Kino and the Cartography of Northwestern New Spain. Tucson, AZ: Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society. Burrus, E. J., 1971a Kino and Manje: Explorers of Sonora and Arizona. In Sources and Studies for the History of the Americas, Vol. 10. Rome and St. Louis: Jesuit Historical Institute. Burton, Jeffrey F., 1992a San Miguel de Guevavi: The Archaeology of an Eighteenth Century Jesuit Mission on the Rim of Christendom. Tucson, AZ: Western Archaeological and Conservation Center National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Burton, Jeffrey F., 1992b Remnants of Adobe and Stone: The Surface Archaeology of the Guevavi and Calabazas Units, Tumacacori National Historical Park, Arizona. Tucson, AZ: Western Archaeological and Conservation Center National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. Karns, H. J., 1954 Luz de Tierra Incognita. Tucson, AZ: Arizona Silhouettes. Kessell, John L., 1970 Mission of Sorrow: Jesuit Guevavi and the Pimas, 1691–1767. Tucson, AZ: University of Arizona Press. Masse, W. Bruce, 1981 A Reappraisal of the Protohistoric Sobaipuri Indians of Southeastern Arizona. In The Protohistoric Period in the North American Southwest, A.D. 1450–1700. David R. Wilcox and W. Bruce Masse, editors. Tempe, AZ: Arizona State University Anthropological Research Papers No. 24, pp. 28–56. Robinson, William J., 1976 Mission Guevavi: Excavations in the Convento. The Kiva 42(2):135–175. Seymour, Deni J., 1993 Piman Settlement Survey in the Middle Santa Cruz River Valley, Santa Cruz County, Arizona. Report submitted to Arizona State Parks in fulfillment of survey and planning grant contract requirements. Seymour, Deni J., 1997 Finding History in the Archaeological Record: The Upper Piman Settlement of Guevavi. Kiva 62(3):245–260. Seymour, Deni J., 2007 A Syndetic Approach to Identification of the Historic Mission Site of San Cayetano Del Tumacácori. International Journal of Historical Archaeology, Vol. 11(3):269–296. Seymour, Deni J., 2007 Delicate Diplomacy on a Restless Frontier: Seventeenth-Century Sobaipuri Social And Economic Relations in Northwestern New Spain, Part I. New Mexico Historical Review, Volume 824):469–499. Seymour, Deni J., 2008 Delicate Diplomacy on a Restless Frontier: Seventeenth-Century Sobaipuri Social And Economic Relations in Northwestern New Spain, Part II. New Mexico Historical Review, Volume 83(2):171–199. Seymour, Deni J., 2009 Father Kino's 'Neat Little House and Church' at Guevavi. Journal of the Southwest 51(2):285–316. Seymour, Deni J., 2011 Where the Earth and Sky are Sewn Together: Sobaípuri-O’odham Contexts of Contact and Colonialism. University of Utah Press, Salt Lake City. External links National Park Service – Mission Los Santos Ángeles de Guevavi — Tumacácori National Historical Park National Park Service – Juan Bautista de Anza National Historic Trail Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) No. AZ-1, "San Gabriel de Guevavi, Santa Cruz River, Nogales, Santa Cruz County, AZ", 6 photos, 3 measured drawings, 2 data pages