Tubac’s Patron Saint: San Ignacio
Perhaps the most important artifact of the Tubac Presidio is an iron spear tip with an engraving of the full patronage name of the Tubac Presidio spelled in an abbreviated and antiquated fashion.
El Presidio de San Ignacio de Tubac: Founded in 1752
Ignatius Loyola by Francisco Zurbarán
The reasons for the selection of the founder of the Jesuit order as the protector of Tubac are still not certain. Naming a new settlement after a saint by following the Catholic calendar of feast days the town would be founded on was the most common place naming tradition during the Spanish colonial era, however, there were exceptions. It is not certain if Tubac was founded on July 31, 1752, the feast day of Saint Ignatius.
When the war drums of the 1751 Pima Rebellion began to fade away, the Spanish military established a garrison of leather-jacketed calvary at a settlement adjacent to the Santa Cruz River, the first of its kind in what is now the state of Arizona.
A title was selected for this new Spanish presidio, meant to prevent future revolts from happening as well as being a buffer to the Apache threat to mining operations further south. The name is a fusion of an Indigenous place name, “Tubac,” and in the Spanish custom assigning a saint as a protector of the community or patron. In this case, the patron of new outpost of Tubac would be Saint Ignatius of Loyola or San Ignacio.
San Ignacio monument depicting his injury during the siege of Pamplona.
Depiction of the Spanish Royal Presidio of Saint Ignatius of Tubac.
What we know about good ol’ San Ignacio, is that he is the patron saint of soldiers, as he was one himself. In fact, he nearly perished during the siege of Pamplona. It was during his recovery from his injury that he had an epiphany directing him to leave the soldiering life behind to follow the spiritual life and eventually found the black-robed Company of Jesus, or Jesuits.
He was also ethnically Basque, like many of the men who served in this Sonoran Desert frontier earthen work installation of the Spanish empire. Being Basque and a soldier would have been a double plus for this saint for a military post. The Pimeria Alta, the region Tubac was located in, was also a Jesuit zone of evangelization. Yet another possibility regarding the patron name is that a temporary military headquarters was established in San Ignacio de Caborica (near present-day Magdalena de Kino, Sonora, Mexico) during the Pima Rebellion. Many of the men stationed here, simply transferred to Tubac, perhaps carrying on their patronage with them.
Whatever the case, we should be celebrating our community every year on July 31, just as they do in the rest of Latin America and Spain on the town’s patron saint day.
Urrutia 1767 Map of San Ignacio de Tubac.
Take the fast track to understand Tubac, Arizona in person on Borderlandia’s Tubac’s Heritage Tour.