New Navarre () was at first an informal name given to the silver-mining region north of Sinaloa. Just before his death in 1711, the

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

Eusebio Kino Eusebio Francisco Kino, Jesuits, SJ (, ; 10 August 1645 – 15 March 1711), often referred to as Father Kino, was an Italian Jesuit, missionary, geographer, explorer, cartographer, mathematician and astronomer born in the Prince-Bishopric of Tre ...

drew a map of the area with that name. New Navarre would have included the Pimería Alta, where Kino spent 24 years establishing missions, along with the Navarrese Juan Matheo Manje.An Interview with Ernest J. Burrus, S.J. in the ''Hispanic American Historical Review'', Volume 65, No. 4, 1985, p. 650. Later Nueva Navarra was a province in the

Provincias Internas The ''Provincias Internas'' ( Spanish: ''Inner Provinces''), also known as the ''Comandancia y Capitanía General de las Provincias Internas'' (''Commandancy and General Captaincy of the Inner Provinces''), was an administrative district of the Sp ...

, one of the frontier provinces of the

Viceroyalty of New Spain New Spain, officially the Viceroyalty of New Spain ( ; Nahuatl: ''Yankwik Kaxtillan Birreiyotl''), originally the Kingdom of New Spain, was an integral territorial entity of the Spanish Empire, established by Habsburg Spain. It was one of several ...

. Brigadier Pedro de Rivera, who visited the northern presidios from 1724 to 1728, suggested to the viceroy Juan de Acuña, Marquis of Casafuerte, the political and administrative reorganization of the northwest provinces. The viceroy supported the idea, and it was approved by

Philip V of Spain Philip V (; 19 December 1683 – 9 July 1746) was List of Spanish monarchs, King of Spain from 1 November 1700 to 14 January 1724 and again from 6 September 1724 to his death in 1746. His total reign (45 years and 16 days) is the longest in the ...

in 1732, and executed the following year with the appointment of the first governor, Manuel Bernal de Huidobro, at that time mayor of Sinaloa. In the branches of government, finance and war, the governor was directly subject to the viceroy, while the field of justice was under the jurisdiction of the Royal Audience of Guadalajara (''Real Audiencia de Guadalajara'') of the Viceroyalty of New Spain. By 1806, the province was generally recognized as Sonora or Nueva Navarra, with the capital in

Arizpe Arizpe (or Arispe) is a small town and the municipal seat of the Arizpe Municipality in the north of the Mexican state of Sonora. It is located at 30°20'"N 110°09'"W. The area of the municipality is 2,806.78 sq.km. The population in 2020 was ...

, and including the area comprising

Sinaloa Sinaloa (), officially the (), is one of the 31 states which, along with Mexico City, compose the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 18 municipalities, and its capital city is Culiacán Rosales. It is located in northwest Mexic ...

(de Iriarte, 1806). After

Independence Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the status of ...

Sonora y Sinaloa became one of the constituent states of the

Mexican Republic Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

. The

Sonoran Desert The Sonoran Desert () is a hot desert and ecoregion in North America that covers the northwestern Mexican states of Sonora, Baja California, and Baja California Sur, as well as part of the Southwestern United States (in Arizona and California). It ...

ecoregion An ecoregion (ecological region) is an ecological and geographic area that exists on multiple different levels, defined by type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and c ...

covers much of the state. In the early years of European migration to Nueva Navarra, the Basques became a significant proportion of the population. The

Basque Basque may refer to: * Basques, an ethnic group of Spain and France * Basque language, their language Places * Basque Country (greater region), the homeland of the Basque people with parts in both Spain and France * Basque Country (autonomous co ...

immigrants reached 6% of total migrants in the first 15 years of colonization, the same percentage as those from the Castile or

Extremadura Extremadura ( ; ; ; ; Fala language, Fala: ''Extremaúra'') is a landlocked autonomous communities in Spain, autonomous community of Spain. Its capital city is Mérida, Spain, Mérida, and its largest city is Badajoz. Located in the central- ...

, most populated regions. More specific data shows ratios between 8% and 16% of Basques in the nuclei urban settlements of those first decades, indicating a trend which would persist in the future: the Basque-Navarre preference for urban settlement (Boyde-Bowman, 1964).

References

* Boyde-Bowman, Peter. (1964). ''Indice geobiográfico de cuarenta mil pobladores de América en el Siglo XVI.'' Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo. *
''Constitucion politica del estado libre de Occidente: Sancionada por su congreso en el año de 1825 en fuerte.''
(1825). Occidente, Mexico: Imp. Occidental. (Annotated Spanish version.) * de Iriarte, Tomas. (1806). ''Lecciones Instructivas sobre la Historia y la Geografía'' (Vol. 3). Malaga, Spain: Francisco Martinez de Aguilar. * Olea, Héctor Rosendo. (1985). ''Sinaloa a través de sus constituciones.'' Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas. México: UNAM. {{coord missing, Mexico Historical geography of Mexico 19th century in Mexico New Spain Colonial Mexico Sonora Sinaloa Spanish colonization of the Americas 1565 establishments in New Spain Former Spanish colonies

See also

References