About This Project

Ask the Scientists

What is the context of this research?

For years historians have suggested that the standing ruins (now on National Park Service land) are the remains of the mission originally built in 1751. Yet, few Jesuit missions in this portion of the Pimería Alta (southern Arizona) are so large. Moreover, when new priests came they tended to consecrate new altars, and often this meant building a new mission. It is highly unlikely that the Franciscans would have used the same church as the Jesuits, as most Franciscan churches in this region are in different locations than the Jesuit ones, sometimes miles away. Additionally the artifacts found with this new building are consistent with this alternate structure being from the Jesuit period. It lacks artifacts from later in the era as well. The north-south orientation also suggests it is a church, as this is consistent with standard European mission building practices. This suggests that European missionaries started standardizing religious architecture at about mid century (1751), as they committed greater resources to the conversion of the area’s indigenous residents. Guevavi was a head mission at this time, with the better known missions of Tumacacori and San Xavier within its jurisdiction.

Spanish documentary sources indicate that several distinct chapels or churches were built at Guevavi, at least three during the Jesuit period before they were expelled in 1767. Subsequently the Franciscans took over and built the large church complex recognized today that is situated on NPS land.

A few years ago on this same parcel I uncovered Father Eusebio Francisco Kino’s chapel from 1701, which in his memoir he referred to as a “neat little house and church.” My excavations revealed that the chapel was destroyed by fire, probably during an indigenous uprising. A luminescence date on this structure showed that it dates to the correct time period to be this “neat little house and church.” It is also located in the midst of the native Sobaipuri-O’odham residential area that I also excavated. During Kino’s time the mission would have been placed within the existing indigenous village, and this is what we see here at Guevavi. The Sobaipuri-O’odham residential site was reused through the years, with houses built on top of one another. We see at least three distinct occupations. Houses related to the last occupation (sometime at the end of the 1700s or early 1800s) are densely packed and positioned close together, in a defensive formation, something documentary sources from the time mention with respect to other Sobaipuri-O’odham villages. This was a dangerous time on the frontier, with attacks on Sobaipuri-O’odham and Spanish settlements by Apaches as well as by O’odham who were not happy with the colonial condition.

More background information can be found in papers at the following web sites:

https://independent.academia.edu/DeniSeymour

and

http://www.seymourharlan.com/

What is the significance of this project?

I brought 40 O’odham elders and community members from San Xavier to this location to reconnect with their Sobaipuri-O’odham heritage. They are the direct descendants of the people who lived here and were ministered by Guevavi mission. Most of what scholars know of their ancestors comes from Spanish documentary records written at the time. Historians have written about this mission and the indigenous residents, but it seems that many of the basic assumptions have been incorrect. For example, because of my recent research and chronometric dating we now know that the Sobaipuri-O’odham were sedentary farmers who built irrigation canals and farmed along key rivers, not the mobile hunter-gatherers or part-time farmers of the western brethren. They resided in large, planned, well organized villages rather than the scattered rancherías of their western neighbors. Their specific way of life first shows up in the archaeological record in the A.D. 1200s, which is 400 years earlier than archaeologists have previously suggested. We also now know that instead of just a scattered and unconcentrated indigenous presence around the mission itself, we have six areas of Sobaipuri residence, making this the largest, densest, and most important Sobaipuri-O’odham mission site in existence! This is probably to be expected given this was the head mission for the region. We see changes in village layout through time as well, the latest being defensively organized and so houses are closely spaced and formed in a rectangle. We also have evidence of a Sobaipuri-O’odham presence after the mission was said to have been abandoned in 1775. We also know why Kino and other Spaniards never again mentioned Kino’s “neat little house and church.” This is because it was burned, probably during an indigenous uprising.

Now we have the opportunity to examine other aspects of received knowledge about the Sobaipuri-O’odham, the Spanish Colonial Mission period, and the development of Guevavi Mission itself. Yet it is critically important to get the place right when drawing inferences so that we may have an accurate assessment of history. This project will allow us to place each adobe structure in the correct temporal context, which means we will be able to pinpoint which structures go with which part of the historic record. We will know if Kino built two structures, a house and a church, or whether one building served both purposes. We will learn if another church-sized adobe and stone structure is the one built the year of the O’odham Revolt in 1751 and if so, this structure can be appropriately preserved. Once again I will invite O’odham descendants to step on the floor on which their ancestors prayed.

This research provides insights into new aspects of the Spanish Colonial period, Kino's contributions to the Pimería Alta, into indigenous acculturation, and Sobaipuri lifeways as they changed through time.

What are the goals of the project?

The funds will be used to run six optically stimulated luminescence dates on the walls of the adobe structures. These cost $400 each and I have included $50 for postage of the samples, which will include adobe and dirt, as required by the lab. The University of Washington Luminescence Laboratory will be used, as I have used them before with good results. I have previously run adobe wall samples with this lab and the results have contributed tremendously to our understanding of the construction sequence and development of Santa Cruz de Terrenate presidio. The sample material will be sent in as blind samples so that the results are not biased in any way by preconceptions.

If I get more funding than requested, I will run more dates and learn more about each of the Sobaipuri-O'odham residential loci and what they date to using luminescence dating of sherds.

I will update donors each month and when the results are published and public presentations given I will acknowledge donors for their important contribution to this work.