Tumacacori

Sometimes the best laid plans go awry. My cousin Charlotte made reservations for us to take a tour of some caverns to the south of Tucson. Unfortunately, we misjudged the travel time and arrived too late to join the tour. We decided instead to visit one of the oldest missions in Arizona (now a state park). To get there we took a scenic road south to the Mexican border, then west to Nogales skirting the mountains that form tha natural border, then north for a bit. The mountainous scenery was impressive. The area of the Santa Cruz Valley was first visited by the Spanish in the 1690's. It wasn't until the mid 18th century that a settlement was established. The plans to build a self-sustaining mission and church were never fulfilled due to harassment by the Apaches and the changes in the political winds in that Mexico gained control of the area and evicted the Spanish clergy in the 1840's. The partially completed church mission buildings were then abandoned, the tower of the church never receiving its intended dome. Through neglect and wanton destruction the compound fell to ruin. It is a pity because it would have been a gem of colonial architecture. What remains is something of a wreck (see pic). The second pic is of one of the hand-carved doors, one of the few decorative elements to have survived the ravages of time. The interior of the church was once brightly painted, but the plaster has long since crumbled and even the choir loft has disappeared, either collapsed or purposely dismantled for its wood. The compensation for the less than spectacular architecture was in the very well-organized exhibit on the history of the place. The information presented did not avoid the fact that the arrival of the conquerors was catastrophic for the indigenous inhabitants. In my view, the Catholic missionaries forced the inhabitants of the area to abandon their superstitions and ignorance to replace them with their own version of superstition and ignorance. Behind it all is the eternal great motivator of man: money and power.