Stranger than Fiction: The First Anglo-American in the Sonoran Desert
Pressed into frontier soldier service at the Presidio of Altar, Pascual Mitchell would have resembled this depiction of a Spanish trooper or Soldado de Cuera.
The American Smuggler turned frontier Spanish Trooper
New England ships began to arrive along the Pacific coast of New Spain (today’s Mexico) in the 1810s to engage in commercial activities. However, at the time, foreigners were forbidden from entering New Spain and engaging in economic activities with the Spanish colony and its resources.
New England ships departing for commercial activities in Pacific waters.
During this early nineteenth-century "California fur rush" (that preceded the more famous gold rush), the crew of the Boston-based American ship, the Cossack, was accused of engaging in smuggling sea otter furs from the coasts of Alta and Baja California.
The California Sea Otter.
An American man named Pascual Mitchell is believed to have been aboard the Cossack. The ship departed New England in May 1815 and was confiscated in December 1817 by the Spanish port authorities in Guaymas, Sonora’s harbor. Its sailors were subsequently imprisoned. The Cossack’s Captain Myrick was noted to have been held until March of 1821, and the vessel was later pressed into Spanish governmental service.
Guaymas, Sonora, Mexico harbor.
Also pressed into Spanish military service was Pascual Mitchell, who arrived at the Presidio of Altar sometime in 1819 to serve as a soldier at the frontier military installation. During this period of the Mexican War of Independence, the practice of sending prisoners north to defend the colony was common due to a lack of soldiers.
Drawing of the frontier fort of Altar, Sonora founded in the 1750s and the base from which Pascual would serve.
Pascual Mitchell was eventually baptized in 1819, married a local woman from Altar, and even contributed to the construction of the San José de Tumacácori mission church by providing an 80-peso loan to the Franciscan priest, Fray Ramón Liberós.
Thanks to the financial aid of the Sonoran Desert’s first resident Anglo-American, the Arizona icon of Tumacacori mission was constructed.
The American is recorded to have passed away as a result of a cholera epidemic that swept over northern Sonora between November 1850 and June 1851 and is buried in Tubutama, Sonora, along the Altar River.
Tubutama mission, near the final resting place of Pascual Mitchell.
This historical anecdote was brought to light by Father Kieran McCarty (1925-2008), the former priest of San Xavier del Bac.
Kieran's research in the archives of both the State of Sonora and the Cathedral of Hermosillo offers a window into life during the first half of the 19th century in the binational region we call home through the unique story of this first American resident.
Source:
McCarty, Kieran. “The First American Settler in Pimería Alta.” The Journal of Arizona History 20, no. 1 (1979): 3–6. http://www.jstor.org/stable/42678150.