Two hundreds years ago, the famous "grito," or shout, of "Viva Mexico!" marked the beginning of Mexico's independence struggle from Spain.
But it took months for an echo of the cry from central Mexico to reach the Presidio of Tucson, then one of the far northwestern outposts of New Spain.
Today, Mexico is celebrating the bicentennial of the beginning of its war for independence, which finally was won in 1821.
For remote parts of the Spanish Empire such as Tucson, the grito had mixed effects. Suddenly, there emerged for the Spanish soldiers stationed in Tucson an urgent reason to engage with the provinces to the south, which normally seemed so distant. In late 1810, Lt. Col. Pedro Sebastián de Villaescusa, an officer stationed at the Tucson Presidio, led soldiers south to Sinaloa to try to stop a northward-surging rebel army, James Officer wrote in "Hispanic Arizona, 1536-1856."
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His forces lost in the first of several engagements by Tucson's Spanish soldiers in Mexico's war for independence. None of the battles happened close to Tucson.
When the Spanish eventually lost, life on Mexico's northern frontier changed for the worse, said Hector Soza, whose great-great-great-grandfather was an officer in the Tucson Presidio. The missions, presidios and other institutions deteriorated because support from the Mexican government was so much slimmer than it had been under New Spain's viceroy, said Soza, also president of Los Descendientes del Presidio de Tucson, a group dedicated to local history.
UA anthropology professor Thomas Sheridan said the wars for Mexico's independence left the country bankrupt and unstable.
"1810, when the war broke out, was a time of relative peace and prosperity," said Sheridan, author of "Los Tucsonenses," a history of the local Mexican community. "For the first 50 years after independence on the frontier, things were worse than they had been during the late colonial period."
During a century of involvement in Sonora, Spain had figured out a few things. Frontier communities such as Tucson, which had a few hundred residents 200 years ago, were semi-cooperative enterprises aimed at survival, Sheridan said. The social divisions that were so strong they prompted Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla to call for revolution in central Mexico were not as strong on the frontier.
"Everybody in the Tucson basin depended on one another for survival," he said. "You couldn't get much further away from Mexico City than Tucson."
In the 30-plus year reign by independent Mexico over Tucson, the biggest change in local life was that it became more dangerous.
Sheridan quotes Manuel Escalante y Arvizu, a regional political leader, as writing in 1828: "It is well known that Tucson is the most isolated outpost of our frontier. Despite their constant vigilance, the civilian settlers there are unable to guard their livestock and other possessions from Apache rapacity. . . . This manner of life has finally driven the Tucson settler to the brink of despair."
In 1831, a census put the number of Tucson residents at 465, not counting friendly Apaches, Officer wrote. In 1854, when the United States took Southern Arizona through the Gadsden Purchase, a U.S. officer estimated the population at 600.
Mexican soldiers remained to protect the area until an American detachment arrived in early 1856.
Contact reporter Tim Steller at 520-807-8427 or tsteller@azstarnet.com
