New Navarre ( es, Nueva Navarra, eu, Nafarroa Berria) was at first an informal name given to the silver-mining region north of Sinaloa. Just before his death in 1711, the

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

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 in ...

drew a map of the area with that name. Nuevo Navarre would have included the Pimeria Alta, where Kino spent 24 years establishing missions, along with the Navarrese Juan Matheo Manje.An Interview with Ernest J. Burrus, S.J. in the ''Hispanic American Historical Review'', Volume 65, No. 4, 1985, p. 650. Later Nueva Navarra was a province in the

Provincias Internas The Provincias Internas, also known as the Comandancia y Capitanía General de las Provincias Internas (Commandancy and General Captaincy of the Internal Provinces), was an administrative district of the Spanish Empire created in 1776 to provide m ...

, one of the frontier provinces of the

Viceroyalty of New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( es, Virreinato de Nueva España, ), or Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain during the Spanish colonization of the Amer ...

. Brigadier Pedro de Rivera, who visited the northern presidios from 1724 to 1728, suggested to the viceroy Juan de Acuña, Marquis of Casafuerte, the political and administrative reorganization of the northwest provinces. The viceroy supported the idea, and it was approved by

Philip V of Spain Philip V ( es, Felipe; 19 December 1683 – 9 July 1746) was King of Spain from 1 November 1700 to 14 January 1724, and again from 6 September 1724 to his death in 1746. His total reign of 45 years is the longest in the history of the Spanish mona ...

in 1732, and executed the following year with the appointment of the first governor, Manuel Bernal de Huidobro, at that time mayor of Sinaloa. In the branches of government, finance and war, the governor was directly subject to the viceroy, while the field of justice was under the jurisdiction of the Royal Audience of Guadalajara (''Real Audiencia of Guadalajara'') of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. By 1806, the province was generally recognized as Sonora or Nueva Navarra, with the capital in Arispe, and including the area comprising

Sinaloa Sinaloa (), officially the Estado Libre y Soberano de Sinaloa ( en, Free and Sovereign State of Sinaloa), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 18 municipalities and ...

(de Iriarte, 1806). After

Independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the st ...

Sonora y Sinaloa became one of the constituent states of the

Mexican Republic Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatem ...

. The

Sonoran Desert The Sonoran Desert ( es, Desierto de Sonora) is a desert in North America and ecoregion that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the southwestern United States (in Arizona ...

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of l ...

covers much of the state. In the early years of European migration to Nueva Navarra, the Basques became a significant proportion of the population. The

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

immigrants reached 6% of total migrants in the first 15 years of colonization, the same percentage as those from the Castile or

Extremadura Extremadura (; ext, Estremaúra; pt, Estremadura; Fala language, Fala: ''Extremaúra'') is an autonomous communities in Spain, autonomous community of Spain. Its capital city is Mérida, Spain, Mérida, and its largest city is Badajoz. Loc ...

, most populated regions. More specific data shows ratios between 8% and 16% of Basques in the nuclei urban settlements of those first decades, indicating a trend which would persist in the future: the Basque-Navarre preference for urban settlement (Boyde-Bowman, 1964).

References

* Boyde-Bowman, Peter. (1964). ''Indice geobiográfico de cuarenta mil pobladores de América en el Siglo XVI.'' Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo. *
''Constitucion politica del estado libre de Occidente: Sancionada por su congreso en el año de 1825 en fuerte.''
(1825). Occidente, Mexico: Imp. Occidental. (Annotated Spanish version.) * de Iriarte, Tomas. (1806). Lecciones Instructivas sobre la Historia y la Geografía(Vol. 3). Malaga, Spain: Francisco Martinez de Aguilar. * Olea, Héctor Rosendo. (1985). ''Sinaloa a través de sus constituciones.'' Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas. México: UNAM. {{coord missing, Mexico History of Mexico 19th century in Mexico New Spain Colonial Mexico Sonora Sinaloa Spanish colonization of the Americas 1565 establishments in New Spain

See also

References