The Yaqui Rebellion of 1740: Prelude to Jesuit expulsion from New Spain

Abstract

This article analyses the ranges of an indigenous rebellion in the Jesuit mission context of Northwest New Spain. Supported by different indigenous nations, the Yaqui rebellion of 1740 was caused by the labor pressures imposed by civil authorities and colonizers on the population of the mission. However the insurrectional environment was originated during the previous decade in an attempt to face the autocratic and paternalist practices imposed by the Jesuits in the Missions project. Later on, the Yaqui aligned with the priests because of hunger and natural disasters. But the rebellion was one of the events that prelude the Jesuit expulsion in the region, after which a process of secularization of the doctrinas began and Spaniards and castas came to settled down in towns as judges and capataces. In this sense, the paper studies, from an specific case, the influence of borbonic reforms and the reconfiguration of the social, economic and ethnic map of northern New Spain