It was a September morning in 2020, and Deni Seymour, an archeologist, was searching for artifacts along the Santa Cruz River near Nogales, Arizona.
She had been exploring the area a few months, looking for relics left behind by the Coronado Expedition, which Spanish conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led from what is now Mexico into the modern-day United States in 1540. Seymour's first find had come in July, and now she was systematically scouring the southern Arizona site, looking for – and finding – more.
Seymour had just started to sweep over the desert when her metal detector rang out with a hit.
She squatted and started to dig. Whatever had set off the detector was deeper than she expected. As Seymour watched it come into view, she wasn’t sure what she was seeing.
“I thought it was either a church bell, or a metal canister that perhaps – who knows – had a note in it or something,” she said.
It had a green hue, the mark of oxidized bronze or copper, and was partially ensnared in the roots of a mesquite tree. As she dug further, Seymour, with four decades of research under her belt, started to feel the buzz of a potentially significant find.
“You’ve got to see this,” she yelled out to her colleague.
The object was longer than they thought, stretching out under the dirt. The excavation took hours. Seymour was wary of damaging the object or disturbing its context, and they had to call a colleague for tools to tackle the thick mesquite roots. It was a hot fall day, the sun beating down as they worked.
Eventually, there it was: a 3.5-foot long, cast bronze cannon.
Seymour and historical weapons expert William P. Mapoles wrote about the find in a paper published last year by the International Journal of Historical Archeology.
Their conclusion: The cannon was the oldest gun ever found within the continental United States.
Firearms from this period are scarce. Most were made from bronze, a valuable and easily reusable material, and were often reforged into more modern shapes or different items altogether. They were also very expensive, and the Spanish explorers who carried them into the western U.S. were likely expected to bring them back.
The cannon Seymour uncovered in September 2020 didn’t appear to have been fired. It was poorly forged, but not defective. Chronometric dating techniques suggested it had lain on the floor of a collapsed stone-and-adobe structure for close to 500 years.
Why had it been left behind?
First, Seymour had to establish where it had been left behind.
The Coronado Expedition crossed from Mexico into what is now Arizona in 1540 and traveled to what would become New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. Its exact route, and the location of various settlements, remains debated, as researchers continue to piece together documentary and archeological evidence. The expedition returned to Mexico in 1542, without the riches it had hoped to find.
When Seymour first started exploring the area, she thought it was merely an overnight encampment. But then she found more artifacts, and then more. There was evidence of permanent structures. As the site swelled in size, so did the volume of artifacts: a flood of arrowheads and armor ringlets and ceramics, pieces of broken swords and daggers and fishhooks.
An encampment might have yielded between two and 10 artifacts, Seymour said. This site had “hundreds, if not thousands.” Something else had been going on by the Santa Cruz River.
Seymour is certain the site was once a settlement called San Geronimo III, also known as Suya.
“Once we settled on Suya, then I spent quite some time trying to rebut that idea,” Seymour said. “Ultimately, the evidence was overwhelming.”
She has since found 11 more sites, running from Nogales up to the Gila River. Seymour said it constitutes 150 miles of a trail taken by the Spanish explorers, one that, until now, had been overlooked.
The area in southeastern Arizona, Seymour said, is “much more important to the Coronado expedition in this first series of contacts than we realized.”
The settlement was led by Captain Diego de Alcaraz, a man broadly considered unfit to lead and who inflicted cruel and sadistic torture on the local indigenous Sobaipuri O’odham. It was also, Seymour wrote, where the expedition leaders sent weaker men: the sick, lazy and disobedient.
It initially consisted of about 40 Spanish expedition members and a range of others, including family members, slaves, servants and Native allies. It wasn’t long before half the Spaniards mutinied, leaving San Geronimo III with a weakened population of about 100 people.
What happened next, Seymour said, explained why the cannon was left behind.
She believes the O’odham struck at dawn, a blitz attack that left the Spanish explorers scrambling for their lives.
Various historical accounts suggest the O’odham were swift and efficient, killing many in their beds. Another suggests the O’odham from across the region may have united to descend on the township.
Seymour thinks the structure where the cannon was found may have been one of the first attacked.
It would have been tough to fire quickly, Seymour said. Think about it: adding gunpowder and shot and a wad of paper or grass to hold it in there, lighting a match from a fire, perhaps one down to coals, lighting the cannon, and waiting.
“That takes some time,” she said. “And if you're being overrun by hundreds of Natives, in this case the O'odham, then you're not necessarily going to have time to load a weapon like that.”
She believes the person manning the gun was either killed or fled, not stopping to grab a 40-pound cannon.
“Most of the people were killed and the few that survived ran for their lives with hardly any possessions,” Seymour said. “I guess they had the clothes on their back, barely.”
It was left discarded, and lay hidden for nearly 500 years.
This one was fired in the attack, Seymour said. The side of it had blown out, possibly due to faulty construction.
“What we're thinking is that they possibly did kind of a 'Hail Mary' type situation, overloaded it with powder and shot to try to keep from being overrun,” she said.
Seymour said the cannons appear to have been forged in the same foundry in either Mexico or the Caribbean, due to their relatively poor quality and lack of maker’s mark. If true, it would make the cannons the oldest surviving firearms manufactured in the Americas.
The evidence is strong, Seymour said, but analysis to confirm it would require cutting into the cannons.
“I really am opposed to damaging these specimens,” she said.
It’s important to highlight “voices of sanity in the midst of horrendous acts,” she said. “Because if we remember that, then we might be more likely ourselves to stand up against injustice.”
Her professional interest is in the period of first contact between Native Americans and Europeans, a topic she has studied for decades.
Seymour continues to excavate sites in southeastern Arizona, hungry for more information about the Coronado Expedition and the Native Americans who encountered it.
It was previously thought the expedition had either bypassed the area or only traveled through rapidly, any trace of the Spanish explorers long erased. Seymour’s finds in southern Arizona have upended her view of what happened.
“It turns out the O’odham are central to the story,” she said. “And they were formidable opposition for the Spaniards.”
The oldest gun found in the continental U.S. makes for a great headline, and Seymour has been besieged by media since the paper was published.
The superlative attached to the cannon is of course important. But so is the tangible link it offers to the past.
To Seymour, it gives us a glimpse into the Europeans who wielded it, the Native Americans who faced it and the ways these groups interacted five centuries ago.
“When I show people this cannon,” she said, “they feel like they’re connecting to history.”
SOURCE
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/01/18/oldest-gun-in-us-arizona/77802506007/
She had been exploring the area a few months, looking for relics left behind by the Coronado Expedition, which Spanish conquistador Francisco Vázquez de Coronado led from what is now Mexico into the modern-day United States in 1540. Seymour's first find had come in July, and now she was systematically scouring the southern Arizona site, looking for – and finding – more.
Seymour had just started to sweep over the desert when her metal detector rang out with a hit.
She squatted and started to dig. Whatever had set off the detector was deeper than she expected. As Seymour watched it come into view, she wasn’t sure what she was seeing.
“I thought it was either a church bell, or a metal canister that perhaps – who knows – had a note in it or something,” she said.
It had a green hue, the mark of oxidized bronze or copper, and was partially ensnared in the roots of a mesquite tree. As she dug further, Seymour, with four decades of research under her belt, started to feel the buzz of a potentially significant find.
“You’ve got to see this,” she yelled out to her colleague.
The object was longer than they thought, stretching out under the dirt. The excavation took hours. Seymour was wary of damaging the object or disturbing its context, and they had to call a colleague for tools to tackle the thick mesquite roots. It was a hot fall day, the sun beating down as they worked.
Eventually, there it was: a 3.5-foot long, cast bronze cannon.
Seymour and historical weapons expert William P. Mapoles wrote about the find in a paper published last year by the International Journal of Historical Archeology.
Their conclusion: The cannon was the oldest gun ever found within the continental United States.
A rare find with a compelling story behind it
The cannon is a wall or rampart gun, designed to rest on the parapet of an adobe house, a tripod in the field, or – in a pinch – the fork of a tree. It weighs about 40 pounds, heavy by today’s standards, but light for the 16th century, when it could be easily carried long distances on the back of a horse or mule.Firearms from this period are scarce. Most were made from bronze, a valuable and easily reusable material, and were often reforged into more modern shapes or different items altogether. They were also very expensive, and the Spanish explorers who carried them into the western U.S. were likely expected to bring them back.
The cannon Seymour uncovered in September 2020 didn’t appear to have been fired. It was poorly forged, but not defective. Chronometric dating techniques suggested it had lain on the floor of a collapsed stone-and-adobe structure for close to 500 years.
Why had it been left behind?
First, Seymour had to establish where it had been left behind.
The Coronado Expedition crossed from Mexico into what is now Arizona in 1540 and traveled to what would become New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas. Its exact route, and the location of various settlements, remains debated, as researchers continue to piece together documentary and archeological evidence. The expedition returned to Mexico in 1542, without the riches it had hoped to find.
When Seymour first started exploring the area, she thought it was merely an overnight encampment. But then she found more artifacts, and then more. There was evidence of permanent structures. As the site swelled in size, so did the volume of artifacts: a flood of arrowheads and armor ringlets and ceramics, pieces of broken swords and daggers and fishhooks.
An encampment might have yielded between two and 10 artifacts, Seymour said. This site had “hundreds, if not thousands.” Something else had been going on by the Santa Cruz River.
Seymour is certain the site was once a settlement called San Geronimo III, also known as Suya.
“Once we settled on Suya, then I spent quite some time trying to rebut that idea,” Seymour said. “Ultimately, the evidence was overwhelming.”
She has since found 11 more sites, running from Nogales up to the Gila River. Seymour said it constitutes 150 miles of a trail taken by the Spanish explorers, one that, until now, had been overlooked.
The area in southeastern Arizona, Seymour said, is “much more important to the Coronado expedition in this first series of contacts than we realized.”
A troubled townsite and a dawn attack
In 1541, all was not well at San Geronimo III.The settlement was led by Captain Diego de Alcaraz, a man broadly considered unfit to lead and who inflicted cruel and sadistic torture on the local indigenous Sobaipuri O’odham. It was also, Seymour wrote, where the expedition leaders sent weaker men: the sick, lazy and disobedient.
It initially consisted of about 40 Spanish expedition members and a range of others, including family members, slaves, servants and Native allies. It wasn’t long before half the Spaniards mutinied, leaving San Geronimo III with a weakened population of about 100 people.
What happened next, Seymour said, explained why the cannon was left behind.
She believes the O’odham struck at dawn, a blitz attack that left the Spanish explorers scrambling for their lives.
Various historical accounts suggest the O’odham were swift and efficient, killing many in their beds. Another suggests the O’odham from across the region may have united to descend on the township.
Seymour thinks the structure where the cannon was found may have been one of the first attacked.
It would have been tough to fire quickly, Seymour said. Think about it: adding gunpowder and shot and a wad of paper or grass to hold it in there, lighting a match from a fire, perhaps one down to coals, lighting the cannon, and waiting.
“That takes some time,” she said. “And if you're being overrun by hundreds of Natives, in this case the O'odham, then you're not necessarily going to have time to load a weapon like that.”
She believes the person manning the gun was either killed or fled, not stopping to grab a 40-pound cannon.
“Most of the people were killed and the few that survived ran for their lives with hardly any possessions,” Seymour said. “I guess they had the clothes on their back, barely.”
It was left discarded, and lay hidden for nearly 500 years.
A second cannon, but damaged
Last year, Seymour found a second cannon at the same site. This one lay in an area that appears to have been where most of the fighting took place, with abundant projectiles and other artifacts.This one was fired in the attack, Seymour said. The side of it had blown out, possibly due to faulty construction.
“What we're thinking is that they possibly did kind of a 'Hail Mary' type situation, overloaded it with powder and shot to try to keep from being overrun,” she said.
Seymour said the cannons appear to have been forged in the same foundry in either Mexico or the Caribbean, due to their relatively poor quality and lack of maker’s mark. If true, it would make the cannons the oldest surviving firearms manufactured in the Americas.
The evidence is strong, Seymour said, but analysis to confirm it would require cutting into the cannons.
“I really am opposed to damaging these specimens,” she said.
Indigenous O'odham are 'central to the story'
When Seymour tells the story of the battle, she shares her view that the mutiny – the fatal weakening of San Geronimo III – was a protest against Alcaraz’s brutal approach to the O’odham.It’s important to highlight “voices of sanity in the midst of horrendous acts,” she said. “Because if we remember that, then we might be more likely ourselves to stand up against injustice.”
Her professional interest is in the period of first contact between Native Americans and Europeans, a topic she has studied for decades.
Seymour continues to excavate sites in southeastern Arizona, hungry for more information about the Coronado Expedition and the Native Americans who encountered it.
It was previously thought the expedition had either bypassed the area or only traveled through rapidly, any trace of the Spanish explorers long erased. Seymour’s finds in southern Arizona have upended her view of what happened.
“It turns out the O’odham are central to the story,” she said. “And they were formidable opposition for the Spaniards.”
The oldest gun found in the continental U.S. makes for a great headline, and Seymour has been besieged by media since the paper was published.
The superlative attached to the cannon is of course important. But so is the tangible link it offers to the past.
To Seymour, it gives us a glimpse into the Europeans who wielded it, the Native Americans who faced it and the ways these groups interacted five centuries ago.
“When I show people this cannon,” she said, “they feel like they’re connecting to history.”
SOURCE
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2025/01/18/oldest-gun-in-us-arizona/77802506007/
