Arizpe
Arizpe 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 1,666, with a population density of 1,365.57 habitants per square kilometer.
History
The region of Arizpe was occupied by the Opata people. The name Arizpe is a Basque word "Aritzpe" and translates to "Under the Oaks".Arizpe was founded in 1646 as Mission Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Arizpe by the Jesuit missionary Jerónimo de la Canal.
Provincias Internas
In 1776 and 1777, Arizpe was declared a city and made the capital of the Spanish colonial Comandancia y Capitanía General de las Provincias Internas.The Provincias Internas had jurisdiction over the provinces of:
- Sonora and Sinaloa
- Las Californias
- Santa Fe de Nuevo México
- Los Tejas
- New Kingdom of León
- Nuevo Santander
- Coahuila in Nueva Extremadura.
Juan Bautista de Anza
In 1775 an overland expedition, led by Captain Juan Bautista de Anza, of colonial soldiers, missionaries, and settlers was approved by the King of Spain, for a more direct land route to and further colonization of Spanish Alta California. The De Anza Expedition reached San Francisco Bay in 1776, where de Anza located sites for the Presidio of San Francisco and Mission San Francisco de Asis.Juan Bautista de Anza died in 1788 and is buried in Arizpe, at the Church of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Arizpe. In 1963, with the participation of delegations from the University of California, Berkeley and UC San Francisco, he was disinterred and reburied in a new marble memorial mausoleum at the same church.