Finding Gold in the Sonoran Desert
A Mining Boom Town: La Cieneguilla in the 1770s
Spanish Colonial Desert Architecture. Artist: Ignaz Tirsch, Jesuit Missionary
The following is a translated letter describing Spanish Colonial frontier mining and the formation of a boom town around gold placer deposits in western Sonora, Mexico.
Offering further context before the letter is a brief introduction by Kieran McCarty, editor of Desert Documentary, the source of this document.
The writing from someone who lived in the 1770s represents a unique window into the world of the Sonoran Desert during this time period for the reader.
A compilation of Spanish colonial primary documents - an early documentary history of the Sonoran Desert.
The mines of Cieneguilla, ninety miles south of the present border in the district of Altar, formed the focus of successful mining in Spanish Arizona. Social and cultural phenomena accompanying Spanish mining activities must be studied there. Many pioneer Spanish families of Tucson and the Santa Cruz Valley were attracted to the north by the Cieneguilla Bonanza of 1771.
San Ildefonso De La Cieneguilla
Cieneguilla was located in the region of Pitiquito, Sonora, Mexico.
A detachment of Spanish soldiers from the Cerro Prieto campaign accidentally discovered these fabulous gold placers in January of that year. The Cieneguilla operation had a sophistication a hundred years ahead of its time, including wealthy stockholders or accionistas in Mexico City and heavy gambling and riotous living in the settlement itself. When the American Argonauts [49ers] passed through the desert and raided the settlement in June of 1849, the location was still famous, though long past its glory. Sporadic dry-placer mining is still carried on in the area today.
Soldado de Cuera & His Daughter. Artist: Ignaz Tirsch, Jesuit Missionary
The following documents give an idea of the first years of the bonanza. Pedro Tueros, author of the first account, was the royal official in charge.
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Cieneguilla.
July 23, 1772.
TO FISCAL INTENDANT PEDRO CORBALAN.
This is my report on the gold placers of San Ildefonso de la Cieneguilla:
These placers are very rich. The whole area is producing gold in abundance. Only June and July slack months. There are two reasons for this. One is that the heat is so intolerable during those months that heavy work is almost physically impossible. Another is that the miners have to take these two months to plant and harvest their crops. Then, however, the mining resumes and continues without let up.
Artist: Ignaz Tirsch, Jesuit Missionary
When the mining began about a year ago, the gold was quite close to the surface. Now they have to dig often as deep as ten to fifteen feet into the rock formations of the arroyos and ridges. There, however, the gold is more than plentiful and even runs in veins as in shaft mines. Some tunnels have been dug where the miners continue working night and day. When the rains are heavy, the gold is flushed out of the rocks and congregates in the dips and depressions, where it can be easily separated from the loose sand and dirt.
Lack of water. however, is our main problem. Where there is no water, we have to throw the dirt and sand into the air. The wind carries the loose material away, including the finer gold, and only the heavier particles fall back to the ground. A great deal is lost in this way. Since most of are six to ten miles away from available the placers water here at the settlement, it is not only difficult to carry the water but we have nothing to carry it in.
In most cases we have to resort to throwing the dirt in the air, hoping that most of the gold will fall back into our wooden trays [bateas]. If we had water, we could double the gold we take.
These gold placers surround us on every side in a welter of arroyos and ridges dominated by seemingly endless low hills. The richest of the deposits lie to the west of us. As I have mentioned, our greatest problem is the lack of any water in the immediate vicinity of the placers. I have even tried to dig wells there. I have dug as deep as fifty feet and have found the ground just as dry as on the surface. I stopped at that, especially since many of the placers are on high ground.
Artist: Ignaz Tirsch, Jesuit Missionary
This new settlement here is laid out, as formally as the terrain will allow, with streets and plazas. Here in the settlement, we have wells with water in abundance. Wherever a well is dug, there is always water aplenty. The little lake [cieneguilla] in our midst is always full of water even in the dryest seasons and even with the numberless pack trains that come and go and take their water there. lts springs were so abundant even in the month of April that the lake was overflowing.
PEDRO TUEROS
Artist: Ignaz Tirsch, Jesuit Missionary
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