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Search for a Southern Route
Fages
For the remainder of the period of Spanish sovereignty in Mexico, no
further advance was made in development of the trails to California.
Two mission-pueblos were established on the Colorado River among
the Yuma Indians, the purpose being both to minister to the Indians
and to strengthen Spain's hold on this strategic point on the overland
trail. Though the Yumas had long asked for missionaries to live
among them, they had not asked for Spanish settlers or soldiers. The
Yumas soon became exasperated at the offenses of the latter and
revolted in 1781. In three days, the Spanish presence on the
Colorado vanished, and the Sonora-California road was closed.
Lieutenant Colonel Don Pedro Fages the same year led a somewhat
successful punitive expedition against the Yumas, but it had no
effect on re-opening the trail. Fages passed through Yuma lands
again in 1782 en route to California to deliver messages to the
governor, but he made no attempt to re-establish Spain's hold on the
region.
At the opening of the nineteenth century, Spanish control in the
upper frontier was approaching an end. The Colorado- Gila region
by this time had been abandoned. New Mexico continued to exist,
but while the Mexican war for independence raged intermittently in
the south, it existed more as an autonomous region than as a
province of New Spain. As the Spanish military presence in the north
declined, Indian depredations grew, and the towns of New Mexico
became islands from which settlers rarely ventured far. For about
275 years, Spanish explorers had trekked the upper frontier ; by the
second decade of the nineteenth century, few of their trails were
visible or safe.
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Fages, Pedro
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