Arizona Colonial Records

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United States

U.S. Colonial Records

Arizona

Colonial Records

Sources

• Records for Tucson, 1793-1849 available on microfilm at the University of Arizona in Tucson, Arizona and the Magdalena parish archives in Sonora, Mexico (from 1684).
• Parish registers, San José de Tumacácori (near Tubac), 1768-1825 available on microfilm at the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson.
• Catálogo Archivo Histórico de Estado Sonora, 4 Vols. by Cynthia Radding de Murrieta and María Lourdes Torres Chavéz. (Hermosilla, Mexico: Centro Regional de Noroeste, 1974-7). Holdings of parish archives.
• Catálogo de Archivo de las Parroquia de la Purisima Concepcion de los Alamos, 1685-1900 by Cynthia Radding de Murrieta and María Lourdes Torres Chavéz. (Hermosilla, Mexico: Centro Regional de Noroeste, 1976). These registers are available on microfilm at Arizona State University, Tempe.
• Documents of Southwestern History: A Guide to the Manuscript Collections of the Arizona Historical Society by Charles C. Colley. (Tucson: Arizona Historical Society, 1972).
• Friars, Soldiers, and Reformers: Hispanic Arizona and the Sonora Mission Frontier, 1767-1856 by John L. Kessell. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1976).
• Spanish Frontier in the Enlightened Age: Franciscan Beginnings in Sonora and Arizona by Kieran McCarty. (Washington, DC: Academy of American Franciscan History, 1981).
• Seventeenth-Century Spanish Missions of the Western Pueblo Area by Watson Smith. (Tucson: tucson Corral of the Westerners, 1970). Arizona, New Mexico, and northern Mexico make up the Western Pueblo.

History

Franciscans began establishing Spanish missions in northeastern Arizona in 1629. The Jesuits established missions in southeast Pima in 1692. A chain of missions, known as the Pimería Alta, dotted the Arizona-Sonora frontier. Arizona became a part of Mexico in 1810, and became a U.S. territory in 1863.

Additional Readings

• History of the Pacific States of North America: Arizona and New Mexico by Hubert Howe Bancroft. 1888. Reprint. Tucson: W.C. Cox, 1974, film 0934827.
• Spanish and Mexican Records of the American Southwest: A Bibliographical Guide to Archive and Manuscript Sources by Henry Putney Beers. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1979. This includes Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico.
• Materials in the National Archives Relating to the Mexican States of Sonora, Sinaloa, and Baja California by John P. Harrison. Washington, DC: The National Archives, 1952
• Pioneer Days in Arizona from the Spanish Occupation to Statehood by Frank C. Lockwood. New York: Macmillan & Co., 1932.
• Desert Documentary: The Spanish Years, 1767-1821 by Kieran McCarthy. Tucson: Arizona Historical Society, 1976.
• Hispanic Arizona, 1536-1856 by James E. Officer. Tuscon: University of Arizona Press, 1987.
• Paths of the Padres Through Sonora: An Illustrated History and Guide to Its Spanish Churches by Paul M. Roca. Tucson: Pioneers' Historical Society, 1967.
• Sources for Tracing Spanish-American Pedigrees in the Southwestern United States: California and Arizona by Thomas Workman Temple. Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 1969, fiche 6039366.