Tumacacori Mission Mines RE: Sister Micaela Molina Document

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Hi my coffee sharing buddy Joe: You posted -->I believe there was only one (1) "system" in the above quote
*********************
Actually there were more Joe, the first was 'probably' around the middle 1600''s. When they returned, they apparently failed to find 'the' Tayopa itself, but continued mining in the complex and the surrounding areas for some 50 miles.

When they started the leap frog procedure, I cannot say, other than it existed and was in full swing when they were expelled in the 1760's.

I have located a no of them already, but until I finally end up on the East coast my work will not be finished. I have mentioned one that is inside of a large curve on the present Hermosillo - Chihuahua cross sierra hi way if anyone is interested in the various loads of metal still in it's subterranean room.

I might add, isn't it a curious co-incidence that the metal was left there on the day of the Jesuit expulsion?? Why didn't the original owners keep moving the shipment on? So they had to be Jesuits, no?

As for the mining, I sincerely doubt that the mining groups went around in full Jesuit dress, on the contrary, most were dressed and carried themselves as normal Mexican miners on the frontier. It would have absurd to do other wise.

The unsophisticated Indians would not consider them as Jesuits.

Don Jose de La Mancha

 

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[Infosponge]

Cactusjumper,

Here is another qualified opinion:

There is no doubt about Cynthia Radding’s qualifications for rendering her opinion, although I do find her account lacking of facts and a bit questionable.

the northern Pimas rebelled in 1751; the fury of their movement fell against the mission pueblos.

True.

As many as 1,000 warriors from the Altar and Concepción valleys and the Papagueria, moving in separate bands, attacked numerous villages and small mining and ranching settlements.

A questionable or at the very least an unclear statement. By reading this statement one would believe that there were a total of 1,000 warriors involved in the whole uprising, that is not so. Sedelmayr and Nentvig were attacked by at least a 1,000 warriors, and the attack on Arivaca involved over 2,000 warriors. Who knows how many were involved in the attacks on Tomás Tello at Caborca and Enrique Rúhen at Sonoitac.

In the ensuing investigation, it was alleged that rebel leaders had vowed to "finish off the Spanish nation and live alone in the land that belonged to them.

Exactly which ensuing investigation is she quoting from? Does she give the source? There was more than one official investigation, and the investigation which found the Jesuits innocent of all charges leveled against them, was of course their own investigation!

the area from Oquitoa to Bac was dotted with small mines and ranches that were the Pimas' principal targets.

I think it is a bit audacious, if not outright bias for her to make this statement when the missions were attacked by 1,000’s of Indian's. In Sedelmayr and Nentvig’s case the attack lasted for two full days!

It is equally significant that the Pimas singled out two missionaries for death, considering them espanoles and, as such, among the enemy. Padres Tello and Ruhen may have fallen victim to the Indians' wrath because of their relative isolation in Caborca and Sonoitac. The latter friar had only recently arrived at his post;

There is so much wrong with this statement, it is incredulous. Padres Tello and Ruhen were not singled out, and neither of them were Friars!

The Pimas' testimony before Governor Ortiz Parrilla expressed their resentment against work discipline, corporal punishment, and other burdens of mission life.

A true statement, but it does not go into detail.

Notwithstanding the Indians' articulate protest, the reason for the uprising went beyond these immediate grievances to questions of power and leadership within the Pima community

I would like to know where she got her information to come up with this conclusion, neither of the official investigations came up with that conclusion.

Of course these are just my opinions, and insights, into what Cynthia Radding has written. God knows she is more qualified than me, so there is a chance I have misconstrued things again and have it all wrong.

Sincerely,

Infosponge

 

[cactusjumper]

Don Jose,

"The production from the Tayopa complex was originally smuggled to Rome via the way stations / small churches After, when they knew that they were going to be expelled, they commenced to stockpile it at Tayopa in various deposits."

I don't know what you are thinking, but there is only one "system" in that quote.

"I might add, isn't it a curious co-incidence that the metal was left there on the day of the Jesuit expulsion?? Why didn't the original owners keep moving the shipment on? So they had to be Jesuits, no?"

Did they leave some kind of note......Like Father Killroy was here?

Takke care,

Joe

 

[cactusjumper]

Infosponge,

I will accept Ms. Radding's conclusions until you come up with something more than your opinion, which I'm sure is usually just fine. She provides sources throughout her book. Since that is something that is easily checked, I will assume she did not make it up.

Because of her background and experience, I imagine she feels comfortable coming to her own conclusions based on the weight of evidence she has found in her years of research on the subject. Eventually, those of us who don't have the time and resources to do a professional job of research, will need to rely on people like Ms. Radding to provide us with a minimal amount of education, to at least be familiar with what took place.....and why.

One of the things that helped to fire the rebellion was draught. Food supplies were very low, and raids on the ranches and missions were one way to fill the larder. There were other factors, but working in Jesuit mines was never mentioned......except by treasure hunters, as far as I know.

Information can be both good or bad. As a sponge, isn't it possible that you could absorb both?

Take care,

Joe

 

[cactusjumper]

Infosponge,

I forgot to mention my source for the comment about the drought being a helpful catalyst for the rebellion:

"Drought conditions in the late 1740s and early 1750s further diminished mission revenues and subsistence. Weed was in short supply and in 1749 the price of a fanega (1.5 bushels) of maize in Chihuahua jumped from three to thirteen pesos. Some observers estimated that half of the livestock in the Durango area perished during that year and the next. The drought also stimulated an increase in Apache raids on livestock, forcing them to forage further south, and retarded the supply of beef products to Chihuahua."
"Defiance and Deference in Mexico's Colonial North" by Susan M. Deeds.

It is Susan's opinion that there is no evidence for Jesuit mining or treasure. Her exact words to me were: [You are quite correct in dismissing the "treasure" myth--there is no evidence that something like this ever existed. And you are now familiar with a lot of the historiography that shows the financial conditions of the missions and the reasons why such a treasure could not have gone so undetected.]

Take care,

Joe

 

[gollum]

there is no evidence for Jesuit mining or treasure-there is no evidence that something like this ever existed

Gee Joe,

Mayhaps she never got to read the Journals of Fathers Och and Nentvig? Maybe a quick little reminder is in order:

Nentvig SJ

Although in these miserable times opposing opinions have arisen among critics, some praising and others condemning the care and expense of adorning and maintaining the temples with all possible dignity and decency for the reverence due to the Supreme Maker of all creation, I will not enter into a dispute over the subject, but I believe in what Our Mother, the Holy Roman Catholic Church, has always praised, approved, practised, and in a certain fashion glorified in the lives of its Saints. One learns from the lessons of St Ignatius of Loyola, father and founder of the Society of Jesus, when he says in praise of that Holy Patriarch, “Templorum nitor, catechismi traditio, concionum ac Sacramentorum frequentia ab ipso incrementum accepere.”I shall say that my heart rejoices with delight, and I feel more inclined to worship and praise Our Lord when I enter any well adorned church. I must let the admiration argument prevail, a maiori ad minorem [from the highest to the lowest], for if we who are more rational than the Indians find incentive and devotion in temples that outshine others by their glowing adornments and will choose those in preference to the slovenly ones for Mass, Sermon, Confession, and Communion, how much more must the Indians be in need of such stimuli when nothing of what they hear takes hold upon them unless it enters through their eyes with some sort of demonstration of the Supreme Creator about whom the preacher is speaking? So, when they see that the house of God is well ordered, clean, and beautifully adorned, they perceive at once the magnificence of its Owner and Ruler. I praise the missionaries of Sonora for imitating their great Father St. Ignatius.

There was the REASON for Jesuit Wealth

All the churches have side altars, appropriate ornaments, and chalices of silver and in three instances of gold. There are other sacred vessels such as ciboriums, monstrances, large and small candlesticks and crosses, and nearly all churches have silver statues of the Virgin, organs, bassoons, oboes, and bells, not only at the principal missions but at the dependent ones as well. There are also choruses of Indian singers, and masses are celebrated nearly every Sunday, on days of obligation and on the principal festival days with vespers the evening before when required. And there are processions and other ceremonies of the Holy Church which are accomplished with all possible dignity in order to present a visual display of the majesty of our Holy Religion to the neophytes so that they may remain impressed with its splendor and be attracted to it. Their disposition piae affectionis is to believe through their eyes rather than their ears.

There was Father Nentvig SJ description of some wealth.

Father Och SJ

The cathedral church possesses an exceedingly rich treasure in its gold and silver church appointments. In Spain and the Indies the prebendaries and other canons do not have their choir at the high altar. Rather, not far from the church entrance is a large, high partition in front of their seats, and from the choir to the high altar for their sole use runs an aisle enclosed on both sides by railings. These railings run through the entire cathedral church and are of the finest cast silver, each amounting to at least eight hundred weight. The colossally large, silver hanging lamp inspires awe in all visitors. It is more than eight feet across and is very thick and massively decorated. The chains with finger-thick silver links are so heavy that when a ladder is leaned against them they do not move. A man can quite comfortably walk around the edge of the lamp. The decoration is rather ponderous, yet its manufacture by a goldsmith [sic] is supposed to have cost two thousand pesos. I omit mention of the many thick, large silver candlesticks, monstrances, and ciboria of finest gold. Suchlike are found in proportion and abundance in all churches, even those in the smallest villages for the glorious Divine service...................

................After this the dishes were ready for use in cookery. .... many were worth more than a ducat because of the thousands of gold scales found mixed in with the clay. This gold could not have been collected through washing without an expenditure of labor in excess of the cost. It was true gold as I proved with a bit of quicksilver with which it immediately formed an amalgam....

Joe, Susan was absolutely right! I agree that there is no evidence at all for Jesuit wealth!

Best-Mike

 

[Oroblanco]

Hola amigos,
Joe is everything all black, or all white in your view? You say how the Jesuits were hated, but obviously this hatred was only a part of the Indian population, not all hated them some loved them and were included in the wrath of the rebels.

The poverty-stricken Jesuit missions as good father Polzer would have us believe, clearly were not so poor. Consider what those who immediately followed them did find that could not be hidden.

In a letter of December 29 1768 he remarked that the Californias which had always passed for a sterile country would be able from 1769 on to maintain themselves without costing the king a sou. Judge what a profit the Jesuits must have had he said and yet they had drawn a subsidy from the king for many years on the pretext of the land's sterility. 61 Again January 25 1769 he mentioned Galvez's work in the peninsula saying how pleased the king would be with that province because of its pearls gold and silver a wealth which the Jesuits had in great part concealed 62 .
From letters, Teodoro de Croix to his brother, 'Correspondence' pp 216
The founding of Spanish California: the northwestward expansion of New Spain .pp86..
By Charles Edward Chapman

Baja California was supposedly one of the poorest regions on the planet, which was the grounds for why the Jesuits received an annual subsidy payment from the King and from the 'California Fund' which included a number of good farms and yes MINES that helped to provide financial support for the California Jesuits; yet de Croix found that California was not so poor as they had made everyone believe!


"the accusations against the Society were multiplied without number, and especially with that insatiable avidity of temporal possessions with which it was reproached."
Bull of Dominus ac Redemtor Noster, Clement XIV, 1773

Joe - do you deny that the Amerindians had silver mines of their own, when first contact was made with Spanish and Jesuits? What do you propose happened with those particular mines (such as the Opata silver mine)? Were the Jesuit padres to simply shut them down and put the men to work in the fields? Do you know the story of the Opata silver mine and how the Jesuits came to have it? Why would a Jesuit write in his complaint about runaway Indians, that often they refused to return even when promised a gold mine if they would - if the Jesuit had no gold mines to offer? You are welcome to put your trust in our modern politically-correct historians, but history is history, warts and all. Whom would deny that Winston Churchill was one of the greatest British leaders of all time, and likewise, whom would deny that he drank alcohol and smoked cigars? I propose that were he a Jesuit, those "faults" would be denied vehemently.

Good luck and good hunting amigos, I hope you find the treasures that you seek.
Oroblanco

 

[cactusjumper]

Mike,

"Joe, Susan was absolutely right! I agree that there is no evidence at all for Jesuit wealth!"

Is that what she said? I will just have to take more time with what I am reading.

Take care,

Joe

 

[Oroblanco]

Mike,

"Joe, Susan was absolutely right! I agree that there is no evidence at all for Jesuit wealth!"

Is that what she said? I will just have to take more time with what I am reading.

Take care,

Joe

Hmm, you just posted,

Her exact words to me were: [You are quite correct in dismissing the "treasure" myth--there is no evidence that something like this ever existed. And you are now familiar with a lot of the historiography that shows the financial conditions of the missions and the reasons why such a treasure could not have gone so undetected.]

How is this materially so different from what Mike said? Is it time for a fresh cup of coffee? I know that I need one!
Roy

 

[cactusjumper]

Hi Roy,

"Joe is everything all black, or all white in your view?"

My "hate" comment was tongue-in-cheek. There is nothing in my beliefs about the Jesuits that is "all black, or all white". As Infosponge mentioned, there are two sides to every coin.

Is it your opinion that de Croix was unbiased when it came to reporting the affairs of the Jesuits?

Take care,

Joe

 

[cactusjumper]

Mike,

"Joe, Susan was absolutely right! I agree that there is no evidence at all for Jesuit wealth!"

Is that what she said? I will just have to take more time with what I am reading.

Take care,

Joe

Hmm, you just posted,

Her exact words to me were: [You are quite correct in dismissing the "treasure" myth--there is no evidence that something like this ever existed. And you are now familiar with a lot of the historiography that shows the financial conditions of the missions and the reasons why such a treasure could not have gone so undetected.]

How is this materially so different from what Mike said? Is it time for a fresh cup of coffee? I know that I need one!
Roy

Roy, my friend,

Do you find no difference between "wealth" and "treasure", as we are discussing it here?

Take care,

Joe

 

[Oroblanco]

Hi Roy,

"Joe is everything all black, or all white in your view?"

My "hate" comment was tongue-in-cheek. There is nothing in my beliefs about the Jesuits that is "all black, or all white". As Infosponge mentioned, there are two sides to every coin.

Is it your opinion that de Croix was unbiased when it came to reporting the affairs of the Jesuits?

Take care,

Joe

I knew that was posted in sarcasm but it illustrates your attitude very well.

I have no idea whether de Croix was unbiased about the affairs of the Jesuits, but that is a poor defense to call every testimony that is on the negative side 'biased' isn't it? I would say that all Jesuit testimony is by definition biased as it must be; no self-respecting Jesuit could cast aspersions or make accusations against his own Order and not realize what that would mean for his career as a Jesuit. De Croix was no member of any religious Order however, so on what grounds do you accuse him of bias? Thank you in advance.

Mike,

"Joe, Susan was absolutely right! I agree that there is no evidence at all for Jesuit wealth!"

Is that what she said? I will just have to take more time with what I am reading.

Take care,

Joe

Hmm, you just posted,

Her exact words to me were: [You are quite correct in dismissing the "treasure" myth--there is no evidence that something like this ever existed. And you are now familiar with a lot of the historiography that shows the financial conditions of the missions and the reasons why such a treasure could not have gone so undetected.]

How is this materially so different from what Mike said? Is it time for a fresh cup of coffee? I know that I need one!
Roy

Roy, my friend,

Do you find no difference between "wealth" and "treasure", as we are discussing it here?

Take care,

Joe

"As we are discussing it here", no - the decorations of a church, in gold and silver, do amount to 'treasure' by a treasure-hunter's definition. We also have a written record from a Jesuit in which he stated that he hid the ornaments of a church, during an Indian uprising (the very one that has been of so much focus here recently) and these would fall into the category of treasure/wealth. Jesuit wealth in general, including LANDS, has never been studied in depth; the values of the properties alone might surprise even you. <There is a JSTOR article online on the Jesuit Wealth of Mexico, but I don't have JSTOR access.> What would you think if I said that ONE Jesuit mission, in the French colonial empire, had no less than 2000 negro slaves at work in the mission fields? Would you think I am exaggerating or making this up?

I know you prefer to keep the focus in the southwest, but much of the Jesuit 'empire' (if you will) was very much interconnected, world-wide. In fact a lot of the Spanish colonial activity in the American southwest, was really being done in order to facilitate and protect their communications with the Spanish colonies in the Philippines, and the Jesuits were deeply involved there as well.
Roy

 

[gollum]

Joe,

No, there is no difference between "treasure" and "wealth" as we are speaking of the subject. Whether it was 1800 pounds of cast silver banisters or 1800 pounds of silver or gold bars, it was still 1800 pounds of precious metal. Actually, Icons, Vestments, and Adornments would be much more valuable than ingots because of their artistic and historic significance.

I'll ask you; If you found the Virgen de Guadalupe, would it matter to you if it were stuffed with tons of silver and gold ingots or tons of Church Adornments (somehow I think I already know that answer)?

Best-Mike

 

[somehiker]

"Native peoples of north-western Mexico confronted their overlords orally,and their testimony is preserved in writing only through Spanish interlocutors."

From the introduction to Wandering Peoples by Cynthia Radding Murrieta

As the saying goes...History is Written by the Winners.

Regards:SH.

 

[Real de Tayopa Tropical Tramp]

Good morning Joe: first ---\_ _/.

You posted --> Why didn't the original owners keep moving the shipment on? So they had to be Jesuits, no?"
************
If you wish to review some of my earlier posts, you will see how it was organized. The way stations were set up one days animal travel apart. When they left for the next one in the morning, they were given a accurate record of what they carried to be delivered to the Jesuit Adjutor in the next one.

There, what was delivered was carefully compared to the invoice from the last way station. The metal was then stored in an underground room, the animals and men fed and rested. This was repeated each day throughout the journey.

When the expulsion order took effect, all metal that was stored over night remained stored. If it had been owned by someone else, other than a Jesuit, it would have continued on it's journey, since the expulsion order would not have had any effect upon it.

This is not to say that every way station had metal stored in their underground room since there wasn't a daily, continuous line of animals. How often, I cannot say. When I finish Tayopa, I probably will know after opening up the record room.

There have been several finds of this stored metal, but so far, no one has put the pieces together. The last one was near Nogales. A small group of men had purchased a deep seeking metal detector and stopped at the first ruin they saw, they hit it.

They had sent some pickup loads of metal across the border when they were discovered. the metal was confiscated, and returned to Mexico. They were charged with importing gold into the US without a permit, not declaring and paying the tax on it, not having an export permit from the country of origin etc. They were charged with similar crimes by the Mexican gov't. I have no idea as to their final legal disposition.

Don jose de la Mancha

 

[cactusjumper]

Wayne,

Does that quote mean that you must throw out all written history that is penned by the winners? There is no doubt that their perspective is not the same as the losers, but it does not follow that their accounts are false. Did the Spanish authorities, the winners, also admire the Jesuits enough to hide the testimonies of the native leaders of the rebellion, mentioning their enslavement in Jesuit mines?

From the same forward:

"Highland peasants defended their ethnic territory on a number of fronts, even as Spaniards and Indians alike tested the limits of the colonial pact. Spanish officials and miners tried to overrun the missions in order to gain access to land and cheap labor. Sonoran indigenous peoples, for their part, demanded autonomy and respect for their territory in return for their labor and militias to fight the nomads on the margins of Spanish dominion. Sonoran communities defended their ethnic space through the missions, but did so more persistently through their long-standing patterns of mobility which created new rancherías outside the confines of the pueblos. The potential for conflict contained within the colonial pact is illustrated particularly by the histories of the Yaqui and Opata nations of Sinaloa and Sonora."

Uninformed attacks on the scholars who have spent their lives researching the history of Colonial Mexico, including the archives in Mexico City and Spain, is the very reason I didn't want to continue this conversation. I am not discussing the rest of the Jesuit world, only Northern Mexico, in that era. Most of the missions were dirt poor. A wooden cross would be a sacred treasure to the Priests. In times of trouble, they would hide that as quickly as a cross of silver.

Take care,

Joe

 

[cactusjumper]

Don Jose,

"When I finish Tayopa, I probably will know after opening up the record room."

How does one know there is a "record room" prior to opening it? How is it know that any hidden gold or silver is Jesuit, as opposed to minerals withheld from government documentation by the miners, both then and in more modern times?

How is the book coming along?

Take care,

Joe

 

[gollum]

Uninformed attacks on the scholars who have spent their lives researching the history of Colonial Mexico, including the archives in Mexico City and Spain, is the very reason I didn't want to continue this conversation. I am not discussing the rest of the Jesuit world, only Northern Mexico, in that era. Most of the missions were dirt poor. A wooden cross would be a sacred treasure to the Priests. In times of trouble, they would hide that as quickly as a cross of silver.

Really Joe,

The decoration is rather ponderous, yet its manufacture by a goldsmith [sic] is supposed to have cost two thousand pesos. I omit mention of the many thick, large silver candlesticks, monstrances, and ciboria of finest gold. Suchlike are found in proportion and abundance in all churches, even those in the smallest villages for the glorious Divine service..

Best-Mike

 

[somehiker]

Joe:
I would assume that her statement was based on the same thorough research as everything else that she claimed in her publication.I also doubt that the Jesuits practised slavery as we know it.Forced labour might be a better description.
The subject of slavery is often a contentious subject in my workplace.We have two Germans and one Pole,all born in their respective countries during WW2.When the subject of Nazi enslavement of prison camp inmates (prisons attached to manufacturing and mining facilities) comes up,the Germans state firmly that it was not slavery because the inmates were paid (in the case of the non Jewish Poles) and given shelter.The Polish gentleman,of course,considers them wrong.

"Spanish officials and miners tried to overrun the missions in order to gain access to land and cheap labor."

"Spanish officials and miners"

Why not farmers,cattle ranchers and pottery makers? Isn't that what the cheap labour was schooled in by the Jesuits?

I will say it again though.I do like the concept of dirt poor blameless Jesuits and wooden crosses.

Regards:SH.

 

[cactusjumper]

Really Mike,

I have Nentvig's book and find it to be full of contradictions:

"Although the province of Sonora is rather large and complex with many reales de minas, towns and ranches peopled by Spaniards and gente de razon, there are only three curacies. The first is San Juan Bautista which was abandoned May 3, 1751, as stated in chapter ix, section one, and while in a physical sense its church still remains, its minister resides at San Miguel de Horcasitas where services are conducted in the presidio's chapel. The church edifice at San Miguel de Horcasitas was begun in 1753 by Governor Don Pablo de Arce y Arroyo during the boom days of the Antunez gold mine. Today the edifice remains roofless and its adobe walls subjected to ruin by the rains. Because of the decadence of the Antunez real, there is little hope the building will be completed unless a rich mine is discovered in that region soon. Its residents are extremely poor and support themselves solely by working their fertile land. But they have no outlet for their produce. They have plenty of food, but they go almost naked.

Another curacy is located at Nacozari with a well equipped church of suitable capacity, but because of the meager population of the real of Nacozari and for security reasons, its father, Curate Don Joaquin Felix Diaz, resides at the presidio of Fronteras where he has better facilities for escort when he visits the ministries under his charge. Services are conducted in the fort's chapel, newly erected in 1763.

The areas of both these curacies are so large that the two priests, having no assistants, find it extremely difficult to attend them. To visit the places of their respective jurisdictions, each priest must travel more than two hundred leagues with imminent risk of being attacked by Apaches or Seris.

The third curacy, San Francisco de Asis, is no smaller than the others, for it covers not only a part of Ostimuri Province but a good portion of Sonora as well, comprising the area from the right bank of the Yaqui River on the south and east to San Miguel de Horcasitas on the north, excluding Ures, Matape, and Batuc. The residence of the curate, formerly in San Miguel, is now in the real of Rio Chico in the province of Ostimuri. And because there are only three diocesan priests in Sonora, the Jesuit missionaries, without neglecting their own districts, help them as much as they can by imparting the faith, performing all religious functions and turning over all tithes collected to the curate. Because I am bound to tell the truth, I must say that the Jesuits ministering in this section do it all except in the place and its immediate vicinity where the curate Florencio de Alarcon, Bachelor of Theology, resides. He does visit the closer churches occasionally, but as for the more distant parishes, he merely sends someone to gather the dues accrued through the labors of others.

Regardless of the size of these curacies, when the province was booming, not beset by enemies, all its pueblos inhabited and its mines worked with zeal and very productive, even then the province was not a large source of income for the church.

Father Juan Jose de Grijalva, Bachelor of Theology, informed me that the curacy he had administered for thirty years, the San Juan Bautista, had an estimated annual tithe income of two to three thousand pesos a year beyond his 2,000 pesos yearly salary. Yet he was only netting 1,000 pesos a year. To live with some degree of comfort he had to pledge the tithes to purchase a ranch.

If the San Juan Bautista Curacy, supposedly the best in Sonora, was in such shape, it seems to me that the reason for its meager income was due to the charity of this venerable curate emeritus who condoned all dues to the poor, took livestock from others in payment, and gave nearly all the revenues to his assistants in the parishes they attend. He passed away—morte justorum—in January, 1763, and was buried in Our Lady of the Rosary Chapel in the Oposura church.


The Nacozari Curacy could be as productive as the San Juan Bautista, perhaps even more so by as much as 300 pesos a year, because the Tubac presidio has been added to it. However, because the soldiers are not paid in coin but in goods at prices set by government regulations, this possible source of income is questionable.

These curacies are under the diocese of Durango. When a vacancy occurs, its bishop submits a list of three names of persons the bishop feels are competent to serve as curate in that curacy. The vicar selects one from the list whom he deems best suited for the post. However, since the curate of Nacozari, Don Joaquin Rodriguez Rey, was murdered by Apaches in 1755 despite the military escort that accompanied him, there are few diocesan priests willing to come to these regions. At present Joaquin Felix Diaz, vicar and ecclesiastic arbiter, is serving temporarily as curate. However, the curates of San Miguel de Horcasitas and Rio Chico acquire their positions only after surviving competition and receive prebends which go with the post. The first was obtained by minister Miguel de Arenivar and the second by curate Florencio de Alarcon."

Did you read this to mean great wealth as well?

Take care,

Joe