IN PRESCOTT-

Early 18th CENTURY ARIZONA

ALTHOUGH this discussion is entitled "Early EighteenthCentury Arizona," as a matter of fact it might better read "Early Eighteenth-Century Sonora," for Sonora in those days included Arizona. There is little to be found in the annals of Sonora that would help us to make much distinction between Arizona and Sonora in those days. In fact, since the time that white men first visited Arizona there is no period in her history more obscure than is the quartercentury following the death of Padre Kino, that is, the years 1711-1736. In 1736 we begin to get a slight lift of the curtain, due to the discovery of rich silver deposits, which cause a renewed in terest in the country; and from that time until the outbreak of the Seri War and the Pima Rebellion in 1750-1751, we know a fair amount of the records of the region. But the twenty-five years mentioned, 1711-1736, are almost a blank in Arizona's past. To be sure, we have the records of missionaries, some of whom were diligent explorers; and we have the writings of Juan Matheo Mange, one-time friend and companion of Kino. Yet Mange's compilation, known as La Luz de Tierra Incognita, does not cover the whole of this period; while the missionary records are somewhat erratic and not always trustworthy. What was the cause of this hiatus? Perhaps one cause was the slow but perceptible decline of the Pima missions after Kino's death. This decline was not