This article details the history of Sonora. The Free and Sovereign State of Sonora is one of 31 states that, with the Federal District, comprise the 32 Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 72 municipalities; the capital city is Hermosillo. Sonora is located in Northwest Mexico, bordered by the states of Chihuahua to the east, Baja California to the northwest and Sinaloa to the south. To the north, it shares the U.S.–Mexico border with the states of Arizona and New Mexico, and on the west has a significant share of the coastline of the Gulf of California.
Name There are various possible histories as to the origin of the name Sonora. One states that the name was derived from "Nuestra Señora", the name given to the territory when Diego de Guzmán crossed the Yaqui River on 7 October, the day of Nuestra Señora del Rosario (Our Lady of the Rosary). The name's pronunciation may have changed in part because none of the indigenous languages of the area have the "ñ" sound. Another version states that Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his companions, who were wrecked on the Florida coast and made their way across the continent, were forced to cross present-day Sonora from north to south, carrying an image of Nuestra Señora de las Angustias (Our Lady of Anguish) on a cloth. This group encountered the Opata people, who could not pronounced "Señora", instead saying Senora or Sonora. A third version, written by Cristóbal de Cañas in 1730, states that the name comes from the word for a natural water well, "sonot" which the Spanish eventually modified to Sonora. It is not known if any of these stories are true. The first to use the name Sonora was explorer Francisco Vásquez de Coronado who passed through the state in 1540, calling part of the area the "Valle de La Señora". In 1567, Francisco de Ibarra also traveled through and referred to the "Valles of Señora".
Pre Hispanic period
Evidence of human existence in the state dates back over 10,000 years, with some of the best known remains at the San Dieguito complex in the El Pinacate Desert. The first humans were nomadic hunter gatherers and used stone, seashell and wooden tools.Gonzalez, pp. 36–37Foster, p. 242
The oldest Clovis culture site in North America is believed to be El Fin del Mundo in northwestern Sonora. It features occupation dating around 13,390 calibrated years BP. In 2011, remains of Gomphothere were found; the evidence suggests that humans did in fact kill two of them here.
In much of the prehistoric period, the environmental conditions were less severe than they are today. Vegetation was similar, but its distribution was wider and denser.Foster, p. 243
Agriculture first appears around 400 BCE and 200 CE in the river valleys. Ceramics developed after 750 CE and would diversity between 800 and 1350. Between 1100 and 1350, the region had small but somewhat socially complex villages, which were involved in well-developed trade networks. One exception to this was the lowland central coast, which never truly adopted agriculture. Sonora and much of the northwest is not considered to be part of Mesoamerica, with Guasave in Sinaloa the most northwestern Mesoamerican settlement known, but there is evidence of trade between the peoples of Sonora and Mesoamerica.Foster, p. 150
Three distance cultures developed in the low flat areas of the state near the coast called the Trincheras tradition, the Huatabampo tradition and the Central Coast tradition. The Trincheras tradition is dated to between 750 and 1450 CE and mostly known from sites in the Altar, Magdalena and Concepción valleys, but their range extended from the Gulf of California into northern Sonora. The tradition is named after trenches found in a number of sites, the best known of which is the Cerro de Trincheras. The Huatabampo tradition is centered south of the Trincheras along the coast, with sites along extinct lagoons, estuaries and river valleys. The pottery is distinctive. The culture shows similarities with the Chametla to the south and the Hohokam to the north. It probably disappeared around 1000 CE. Unlike the other two tradition, the Central Coast remained a hunter-gatherer culture, as the area lacks the resources for agriculture.Foster, p. 18
The higher elevations of the state were dominated by the Río Sonora and Casas Grandes traditions. The Río Sonora culture is located in central Sonora from the border area to modern Sinaloa. A beginning date for this culture has not been determined but it probably disappeared by the early 1300s. The Casas Grandes tradition in Sonora was an extension of that based in the modern state of Chihuahua, and these people exerted their influence down to parts of the Sonoran coast.Foster, p. 19Foster, p. 251
Climatic changes in the middle of the 15th century resulted in the increased desertification of Sonora and northwest Mexico in general. This is the probable cause for the drastic decrease in the number and size of settlements starting around this time. Those peoples who remained in the area reverted to a less complex social organization and lifestyle.Foster, p. 252 Whatever socially complex organization existed in Sonora before the Spanish was long gone by the 16th century.
Colonial period
There is little reliable information about the area for the 16th century, just after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire. Some state that the first Spanish settlement was founded by Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca in 1530, near Huépac. Others state that Francisco Vásquez de Coronado founded a village on the edge of the Yaqui River in 1540 on his way north... Others state that the first Spanish presence was not until 1614, by missionaries such as Pedro Méndez and Pérez de Rivas, working with the Mayo.Gonzalez, p. 37 Unlike Mesoamerica in central Mexico, there was no central social or economic centralization in the Sonora area, given the collapse of population centers in the 15th century. The five traditions of the past had broken down to a number of fractured ethnicities. There was no empire or other system for the Spanish to co-opt for domination purposes. In addition, there was Yaqui resistance to European intrusion on their lands, which would keep the Spanish out of their area until the 1600s.Hamnett, p. 105 While there was exploration of the area through the expeditions of the 16th century, significant permanent Spanish settlement would not be possible until the establishment of the mission system.FosterFoster, p. 241
Jesuit priests did begin to work in the Sonora area in the 1610s in the lowlands near the coast. Originally, these missionaries worked out a peaceful compromise with the 30,000 Yaquis allowing for the establishment of more than fifty mission settlements in the Sonora river valleys. This broke down when the Jesuits opposed the native shamans who mediated between the living and the dead. The Opata were more receptive to the missionaries and allied with them. After this, the Jesuits began to move into Pima and Tohono O'odham territories. Spanish exploration and missionary work was sufficient to consider the territory part of New Spain. An agreement between General and the viceroy of New Spain resulted in the general shaping of the province, initially called Nueva Andalucia in 1637, but renamed Sonora in 1648.
The most famous missionary of Sonora, as well as much of what is now the U.S. Southwest, is Italian Jesuit Eusebio Francisco Chini, better known as Father Kino. He arrived to Sonora in 1687, beginning missionary work in the Pimería Alta area of Sonora and Arizona. He began his first mission at Cucurpe, then established churches and mission in other villages such as Los Remedios, Imuris, Magdalena, Cocóspera, San Ignacio, Tubutama, Caborca and others. He also taught European farming techniques to the indigenous he preached, in order to develop an economy for the benefit of the natives. He died in 1711.Gonzalez, p. 38
The initial attraction of Sonora for the Spanish was its fertile farmlands along the river valleysYetman, p. 4 and its position as part of a corridor that linked the central Mexican highlands (Mexico City area) up the Pacific coast and on into Arizona and points north. This corridor still exists in the form of Federal Highway 15.Foster, p. 139 After the establishment of the mission system, Spanish colonists followed. Indigenous response was a mixture of accommodation and violence, as different strategies were employed by different groups at different times. The sporadic violence, which would continue throughout the colonial period, resulted in the Spanish building presidios and other fortifications to protect missions and Spanish settlements. While the colonization process was not especially violent, the impact on the indigenous of the area was severe, as it almost completely disrupted their formerly very independent lives, forcing them to conform to an alien centralized system. One consequence of this was alcoholism among the native peoples.
In 1691, what are now the states of Sonora and Sinaloa were joined into an entity called the Provincias de Sonora, Ostimuri y Sinaloa. They would remain as such through the rest of the colonial period until 1823. At this time, there were about 1,300 Spanish settlers in the area.Hamnett, p. 107 Colonization increased in the 18th century, especially from 1700 to 1767, when mineral deposits were discovered, especially in Álamos. This led to the establishment of a number of royally controlled mining camps, forcing many natives off their agricultural lands. Loss of said lands along the Yaqui and Mayo rivers led to native uprisings during this time. A major Seri rebellion took place on the coast area in 1725–1726, but the largest uprising was by the Yaquis and Mayos from 1740 to 1742 with the goal of expelling the Spanish. Part of the reason for the rebellion was that the Jesuits as well as the secular Spanish were exploiting the indigenous. This rebellion destroyed the reputation of the Jesuit mission system. Another Seri rebellion occurred in 1748, with Pima and Tohono O'otham support and lasted into the 1750s. This kept the settlement situation in disarray. With population of the Mexican north roughly split half indigenous and half Spanish, about one quarter of the indigenous population lived in Sonora alone.Hamnett, p. 108 In 1767, the king of Spain expelled the Jesuits from Spanish controlled territories, ending the mission system.Gonzalez, pp. 37–38
Independence