Father Kino came first into what is now southern Arizona in 1691, when
he visited, at the request of the inhabitants, the small Pima village of
Tumacacori, which he called San Cayetano. The village was a few miles
from the site of the present mission. He said Mass under a brush shelter
built by the Indians for that purpose. By 1698, according to Father
Kino, Tumacacori had an “earth-roofed house of adobe,” fields of wheat,
and herds of cattle, sheep, and goats. At every opportunity he and his
successors visited Tumacacori to hold services and to encourage ranching
and farming. When a missionary was assigned to Guevavi, to the
southeast, Tumacacori became a _visita_ of that mission, that is, a
place where the missionaries went and occasionally held services. After
the Pima Rebellion of 1751, the village was moved to the site where the
mission now stands. It was renamed San Jose de Tumacacori. A small
mission was erected here and a presidio was established at Tubac, 3
miles north of Tumacacori.
The Jesuits were expelled from all Spanish dominions in 1767, and the
following year the Franciscan Order took over the Sonora mission chain.
About 1772, because of Apache Indian raids, Guevavi was abandoned and
San Jose de Tumacacori became the headquarters for the missions of the
district. Apparently, construction of the present church was not begun
until nearly 1800. It was in use by 1822.
[Illustration: _Diorama in the monument museum_]
To the south, important events were occurring. Mexico won her
independence from Spain in 1821. This change in government brought about
abandonment of most of the frontier missions. The new government was
unable to provide adequate military defense against hostile Indians.
Mexico passed laws tending to weaken the power of the church, and
mission churches were required to become parish churches. The close of
the mission building period was further hastened when Mexico ended the
Spanish custom of providing government money for mission aid.
Exactly when the last resident priest left Tumacacori is not known,
although this area was under the jurisdiction of a nonresident priest as
late as the 1840’s. It is known that after the Spanish settlers,
soldiers, and priests departed, frequent Apache raids made life here
almost impossible. In 1844, Mexico sold the Tumacacori mission lands to
a private citizen. When the devout Indians finally left Tumacacori in
1848, they carried the church furnishings with them to the mission of
San Xavier, near Tucson, where some of the statues are still in use.
The church, deserted, slowly began to fall into ruins. Treasure hunters
and the eroding elements gradually wrought havoc with the beautiful
structure, until only its massiveness preserved it from complete
destruction.