Mission San Cayetano de Calabazas, also known as Calabasas, is a Spanish Mission in the Sonoran Desert, located near present-day

Tumacacori, Arizona Tumacacori (; ood, Cemagĭ Gakolig) is an unincorporated community in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, United States, which abuts the community of Carmen. Together, the communities constitute the Tumacacori-Carmen census-designated place (CDP). The ...

, United States. The Mission was named for the Italian

Saint Cajetan Gaetano dei Conti di Thiene (6 October 1480 – 7 August 1547), known as Saint Cajetan (), was an Italian Catholic priest and religious reformer, co-founder of the Theatines. He is recognised as a saint in the Catholic Church, and his feast day i ...

History

18th century

The original San Cayetano mission at Tumacacori Mission San Cayetano del Tumacácori was founded by Father

Eusebio Kino Eusebio Francisco Kino ( it, Eusebio Francesco Chini, es, Eusebio Francisco Kino; 10 August 1645 – 15 March 1711), often referred to as Father Kino, was a Tyrolean Jesuit, missionary, geographer, explorer, cartographer and astronomer born i ...

in 1691 on Kino's first major exploration trip into the Pimeria Alta. During the O'odham rebellion of 1751, the original San Cayetano mission was destroyed. Afterward a new San Cayetano mission was founded to the south of the original mission on the Santa Cruz River, upstream from its confluence with

Sonoita Creek Sonoita Creek is a tributary stream of the Santa Cruz River (Arizona), Santa Cruz River in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, Santa Cruz County, Arizona. It originates near and takes its name from the abandoned Pima people, Pima mission in the high val ...

by Spanish

Jesuit , image = Ihs-logo.svg , image_size = 175px , caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits , abbreviation = SJ , nickname = Jesuits , formation = , founders ...

missionary Father Francisco Xavier Pauer in 1756. He took at least seventy-eight

O'odham The O'odham peoples, including the Tohono O'odham, the Pima people, Pima or Akimel O'odham, and the Hia C-ed O'odham, are indigenous people of the Americas, indigenous Uto-Aztecan peoples of the Sonoran desert in southern and central Arizona and ...

to the site from their village of ''Toacuquita'' nearer the Santa Cruz River to the new site on the bluffs above it to the east.San Cayetano de Calabazas
from nps.gov accessed July 19, 2019San Cayetano de Calabazas
from southwestmissions.org accessed July 20, 2019 By 1761 a report said the Mission had a house with a lock and a half built church. A church report in 1772 described the mission as having a population 64, 21 men, 24 women and 19 children. It described the location as being on an open plain with good lands, but that the Indians do little or no farming, and that there was no church or house for the Missionary. However by 1773 the church was functional and in 1775, Father

Pedro Font Pedro Font (1737–1781) was a Franciscan missionary and diarist. Biography He was born in 1737 in Girona, Catalonia, Spain. Font received his training at Querétaro Missionary College. From 1773 to 1775, he served at Mission San José de Tu ...

said mass there during the first

Juan Bautista de Anza Juan Bautista de Anza Bezerra Nieto (July 6 or 7, 1736 – December 19, 1788) was an expeditionary leader, military officer, and politician primarily in California and New Mexico under the Spanish Empire. He is credited as one of the founding fa ...

expedition to the upper part of

Las Californias The Californias (Spanish: ''Las Californias''), occasionally known as The Three Californias or Two Californias, are a region of North America spanning the United States and Mexico, consisting of the U.S. state of California and the Mexican stat ...

. In 1777, the mission church, houses and the granary filled with maize, were sacked and set afire during a raid by part of a band of

Apache The Apache () are a group of culturally related Native American tribes in the Southwestern United States, which include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Ndendahe (Bedonkohe or Mogollon and Nednhi or Carrizaleño an ...

, apostate O’odham, and

Seris The Seri or ''Comcaac'' are an indigenous group of the Mexican state of Sonora. The majority reside on the Seri communal property ( es, ejido), in the towns of Punta Chueca ( sei, Socaaix) and El Desemboque ( sei, Haxöl Iihom, link=no) on the ...

that had similarly attacked Magdalena and other

Pimería Alta The ''Pimería Alta'' (translated to 'Upper Pima Land'/'Land of the Upper Pima' in English) was an area of the 18th century Sonora y Sinaloa Province in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, that encompassed parts of what are today southern Arizona in th ...

communities during 1776. The mission O’odham killed 14 of the raiders but lost 7 of their own. The Mission was abandoned in 1786 when the last of the O'odham left because of continuing hostilities by the Apaches.

19th century

Between 1807 and 1830 the settlement area was used as an ''estancia'' (farm) for nearby

Mission San José de Tumacácori Mission San José de Tumacácori ( ood, Cemagĭ Gakolig) is a historic Spanish mission preserved in its present form by Franciscans in 1828. History Mission San Cayetano del Tumacácori was established by Jesuits in 1691 in a location near a Soba ...

. In 1808, Spanish settlers and Christian Indians moved into the Calabazas area and restored the chapel. In response, the Apaches again attacked in 1830, setting fire to the buildings and carrying off sacred vessels and vestments in the process. This discouraged anyone from living there for more than two decades, but

vaquero The ''vaquero'' (; pt, vaqueiro, , ) is a horse-mounted livestock herder of a tradition that has its roots in the Iberian Peninsula and extensively developed in Mexico from a methodology brought to Latin America from Spain. The vaquero became t ...

s from Tumacácori continued to run cattle in the vicinity. In 1837, the Mexican government built

Presidio de Calabasas The Presidio de Calabasas, also known as Fort Calabasas or Camp Calabasas, was a stone fortress built by Mexico in 1837 south of Tumacacori, Arizona. It was built on the land of the Grant of Manuel María Gándara, by Gándara to protect his land ...

to protect the area. In 1844, Mission Calabasas and its lands were sold at auction to the brother-in-law of

Sonora Sonora (), officially Estado Libre y Soberano de Sonora ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sonora), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Administrative divisions of Mexico, Federal Entities of Mexico. The state is d ...

n governor Manuel María Gándara. Gandara established a rancho at the old mission stocked with 6,000 cattle. The 1854

Gadsden Purchase The Gadsden Purchase ( es, region=MX, la Venta de La Mesilla "The Sale of La Mesilla") is a region of present-day southern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that the United States acquired from Mexico by the Treaty of Mesilla, which took effe ...

, of land by the U.S. from México, included this area in

New Mexico Territory The Territory of New Mexico was an organized incorporated territory of the United States from September 9, 1850, until January 6, 1912. It was created from the U.S. provisional government of New Mexico, as a result of ''Santa Fe de Nuevo México ...

Mexican Army The Mexican Army ( es, Ejército Mexicano) is the combined land and air branch and is the largest part of the Mexican Armed Forces; it is also known as the National Defense Army. The Army is under the authority of the Secretariat of National De ...

soldiers, in the Tucson garrison to protect the citizens from Apaches, withdrew from the Gadsden Purchase territory early in 1856. With their withdrawal the Gándara ranch came to an end. Late in 1856, the Mission church, now ranch house, became the temporary home of

Major Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...

Enoch Steen Enoch Steen (February 22, 1800 – January 22, 1880) was a United States military officer and western explorer. He joined the United States Army in 1832, serving at posts throughout the United States, including many remote locations in the w ...

, commander of four companies of the First Regiment of United States Dragoons who established

Camp Moore Camp Moore, north of the Village of Tangipahoa near Kentwood, Louisiana, was a Confederate training base and principal base of operations in eastern Louisiana and southwestern Mississippi. The base was named for Louisiana Governor Thomas Overton ...

, at the former Presidio de Calabasas, as the first military post in the New Mexico Territory’s Gadsden Purchase area.

Ignacio Pesqueira Ignacio Pesqueira García was a 19th-century Mexican general and politician. He was the Governor of Sonora over six times, with two of the six terms being an insurgent governor during the Second French intervention in Mexico. Childhood His par ...

, the new governor of Sonora, allowed quartermaster wagons to cross into Sonora for supplies. Now with the arrival of military protection, the Gandara ranch, and the surrounding area filled with American squatters. The following year, Steen received orders from Colonel

Benjamin Bonneville Benjamin Louis Eulalie de Bonneville (April 14, 1796 – June 12, 1878) was an American officer in the United States Army, fur trade, fur trapper, and explorer in the American West. He is noted for his expeditions to the Oregon Country and the Gre ...

, the departmental commander in Santa Fe, to move closer to

Tucson , "(at the) base of the black ill , nicknames = "The Old Pueblo", "Optics Valley", "America's biggest small town" , image_map = , mapsize = 260px , map_caption = Interactive map ...

. Regarding the vices of Tucson as a danger to the good order and discipline of his troops, Steen instead moved his camp 25 miles northeast to the headwaters of Sonoita Creek. The new post was named Fort Buchanan in honor of the recently inaugurated President

James Buchanan James Buchanan Jr. ( ; April 23, 1791June 1, 1868) was an American lawyer, diplomat and politician who served as the 15th president of the United States from 1857 to 1861. He previously served as secretary of state from 1845 to 1849 and repr ...

.UNITED STATES MILITARY POSTS ON THE MEXICO BORDER (1856 TO PRESENT)
from archaeologysouthwest.org accessed July 21, 2019 Subsequently, the former mission buildings served a number of purposes, a customs house in 1857 and the ranch house was occupied by family of

Larcena Pennington Page Larcena Pennington Page (January 10, 1837 – March 31, 1913), born Larcena Ann Pennington, was an American pioneer known for surviving a kidnapping by Apache as a young married woman of 23 years old in present-day Arizona. Left for dead and u ...

before September 1859. In September 1865 the

Union Army During the American Civil War, the Union Army, also known as the Federal Army and the Northern Army, referring to the United States Army, was the land force that fought to preserve the Union (American Civil War), Union of the collective U.S. st ...

garrison at

Tubac, Arizona Tubac is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Cruz County, Arizona, United States. The population was 1,191 at the 2010 census. The place name "Tubac" is an English borrowing from a Hispanicized form of the O'odham name ''Cuwak'', which tr ...

was transferred to Old Camp Moore at Calabasas and it was first named Post at Calabasas then

Fort Mason Fort Mason, in San Francisco, California originated as a coastal defense site during the American Civil War. The nucleus of the property was owned by John C. Frémont and disputes over compensation by the United States continued into 1968. In 188 ...

in honor of General Mason, who was then the commander of the

California Volunteers California State Volunteer Units 1861 – 1866 The following are California State Volunteer Units that were active between 1861 – 1866 serving in the Union Army, most west of the Rocky Mountains in place of Federal troops: California Brigade ...

in Arizona. The

1st Battalion of Native Cavalry, California Volunteers The 1st Battalion of Native Cavalry, California Volunteers was a cavalry battalion in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Recruits were largely drawn from the Californio population (colloquially known as "Native Californians"), though it ...

and 7th Regiment California Volunteer Infantry occupied the post until they were relieved by troops of the United States Army in May 1866. Due to persistent malaria, the Regulars abandoned the fort in October 1866 and established Camp Cameron. Mission Calabazas was a completely abandoned ruin by 1878, with only a roofless shell remaining.

Preservation

Father Norman Whalen recruited preservation volunteers who capped the adobe walls, and placed a concrete foundation in 1960. The Arizona Historical Society took over site management and ownership in October 1974. The Mission became part of

Tumacácori National Historical Park Tumacácori National Historical Park is located in the upper Santa Cruz River Valley in Santa Cruz County, southern Arizona. The park consists of in three separate units. The park protects the ruins of three Spanish mission communities, two o ...

in 1990. It was declared a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1990, and is on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mission San Cayetano De Calabazas Tumacácori National Historical Park Buildings and structures in Santa Cruz County, Arizona Roman Catholic churches completed in 1756 National Historic Landmarks in Arizona National Register of Historic Places in Santa Cruz County, Arizona Churches on the National Register of Historic Places in Arizona Catholic Church in Arizona Former populated places in Santa Cruz County, Arizona History of Santa Cruz County, Arizona Historic American Buildings Survey in Arizona 18th-century Roman Catholic church buildings in the United States