First in a Series: The Presidio of Tubac

CAVALCADE THE PRESIDIO OF TUBAC

Fourscore years before the Mayflower's prow touched Plymouth Rock, Spanish colonial soldiers were already seasoned veterans at defending the northern frontiers of their New World empire.

The soldados de cuera, so named for their leather armor, preceded the mountain men, the argonauts, the Anglo pioneers, and the cowboys, bequeathing to such successors a legacy of legendary horsemanship, pluck, and resiliency in the face of adversity.

Home to these lancers of the Spanish crown was the presidio, or defensive fortress. Eventually a line of garrisons extended from the Gulf of Mexico to the Sea of Cortés. One of the walled camps was Tubac, located on the Rio Santa Cruz in what one day would be southern Arizona.

In 1736 a Yaqui Indian miner uncovered chunks of silver at Arissona (or Arizonac), a temporary Catholic mission southwest of Nogales, and a rush of Spanish hopefuls arrived to pick up an estimated 4000 pounds of the precious metal. The melodic word Arissona became identified with easy riches and sang in the imaginations of the Spaniards and, later, the Anglos who subsequently would name the territory.

The influx of silver hunters proved still another disquieting Spanish intrusion on the slow-paced culture of the Indians of the area. At last a Pima leader named Luis Oacpicagigua used growing unrest to instigate an uprising. In 1751, promising the wealth and possessions of the Europeans to his own people, Oacpicagigua led a bloody rebellion that reduced Spanish settlements to ashes and took the lives of priests, miners, and farmers.

In 1752 the Spanish retaliated, and Tubac was built. During the twenty-four years from 1752 to 1776, the soldados de cuera of Tubac fought still another fierce tribe on the desert of southern Arizona: the Apaches. Spanish cannon, lances, and muskets failed to prevail against these skillful guerrillas. In the end, the guns rusted, the adobe walls of the presidio crumbled, and Spanish and subsequent Mexican rule were withdrawn. Left be hind was Tubac, the first military post in our state and the oldest European settlement in Arizona.