The Seri Indians. (1898 N 17 / 1895-1896 (pages 1-344*))McGee, W J
History
The Seri Indians. (1898 N 17 / 1895-1896 (pages 1-344*))
McGee, W J
Seri Indians; Seri language; Yuman languages
The remarkably vigorous expedition of Andrade and Espence occurred
within the memory of men still active, and naturally it lives in
tradition at Hermosillo and Bacuache, and among the ranchos lying
toward the border of Seriland; indeed, one of the two Mexicans
accompanying the 1895 expedition, Don Ygnacio Lozania, retained shadowy
impressions of participating in an invasion of the island, which
could have been none other than that planned by Governor De Leon and
executed by Colonel Andrade. Yet it is not uncharacteristic of Sonoran
history that the wave of anti-Seri activity culminating in 1844 hardly
outlasted its own breaking; certainly Escudero, writing less than five
years later, declared of “la nacion _Seri_”: “During thirty-three years
they have committed not a single act of hostility and live in peace
and perfect harmony with the Sonorenses.” He added that they occupied
the islands of Tiburon and Tepoca (sic) and the coasts of the gulf
contiguous to Sonora and California, and from the most remote antiquity
had been known by the names of “_tiburones_” or “_seris_”. Describing
Pueblo Seri, he observed: “It now contains hardly a dozen aged Seris of
both sexes”; and he forecast the early extinction of the tribe, since
the people were incapable of abandoning their independent and solitary
existence.[168]
[168] Noticias Estadisticas, pp. 141-142.
* * * * *
Here ends, practically, the history of Pueblo Seri as a Seri
settlement, for, although one of the tribe survived for half a century
and a few others may have survived for a decade, the “aged Seris of
both sexes” melted away so rapidly as to leave no later record, and
were apparently never replaced by others. Briefly, the history of the
pueblo began with the establishment of a presidio or military post
in 1741 in the natural gateway and watering-place leading into the
settled valleys of the Opodepe and upper Sonora, for the sole purpose
of protecting the settlements against the wandering Seri, who used
this typical Sonora watergap as a way-station on forays but never
as a place of residence. The history grew definite when the Jesuits
obtained the allotment of lands for the Seri and established for them
a mission, which was at the same time a place of catechizing for
Seri neophytes, a place of detention for Seri captives, a place of
refuge for Seri weaklings, and a place of resort for Seri sneaks and
spies. The history proceeded with many vicissitudes, as the presidio
was alternately abandoned under Seri attacks and reoccupied when the
attacks were repulsed, and as the neophytes alternately escaped and
suffered recapture; the formal history waned in relative importance
as the population and interests of Pitic and afterward of Hermosillo
waxed, and as the lands originally allotted to the Seri were gradually
taken and held by Mexican settlers, and ended when the Seri tenure was
formally extinguished in 1844, as described by Cabrera and Velasco;
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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