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
With the passing of the Jesuits, the publication of Sonoran records
received a check from which the province has never completely
recovered. True, the place of the order was partly taken by the Colegio
Apostólico de Querétaro, which promptly dispatched fourteen Franciscan
friars to Sonora, early in 1768, to take possession of the old missions
and to found others;[127] it is also true that civil enactments and
commissions, as well as military orders and reports, increased with the
growth of population; but comparatively few of the events and actions
found their way to the press. Seri episodes continued to recur with
irregular frequency; according to Dávila, the Seri outbreaks and wars
“exceed fifty in number since the conquest of Sonora”,[128] and there
are decisive indications that the Franciscan régime was not without
its due quota of strife. Moreover, the period was one of somewhat
exceptionally vigorous pioneering, of the initiation of mining and
agriculture, and of conquest over the “despoblado” formerly ranged and
inhabited by the Seri. It was during this period that the Seri were
permanently dislodged from their outlying haunts and watering-places
in Cerro Prieto; and it was during this period, too, that exploration
and settlement were extended to Rio Bacuache with such energy as to
displace the Seri from their other outlying refuge in the barrancas of
this stream. But, as the events and lines of progress multiplied, the
burden for the contemporary chronicler augmented without corresponding
increase in incentive to writing, and it is little wonder that the
custom of writing, copying, manifolding, and printing the contemporary
records fell into desuetude.
[127] Dávila, Sonora Histórico y Descriptivo, p. 10; Bancroft, op.
cit., p. 672.
[128] Ibid., p. 319.
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