Opata

The Opata are the agricultural Indians of the Opateria, the mountain valleys of Sonora, made up of the Eudeve, Teguima and Jova groups. From about 1350 to 1550 they lived in independent statelets along the Sonora, Moctezuma and Bavispe rivers, in adobe towns surrounded by irrigated fields, trading cotton blankets for Zuni turquoise.

In 1565 they drove off the expedition of Francisco Ibarra. Epidemics then broke the statelets into scattered rancherias. Jesuits led by Pedro Mendez opened the first mission in 1628 and had twenty-two by 1688; the Opata became Spanish allies and joined campaigns against the Apache.

By 1800 most were Christians speaking Spanish, yet revolts continued: warriors routed Spanish soldiers and sacked a town near Tonichi in 1820, and the leader Dolores Gutierrez was executed by the Mexicans in 1833. Their Uto-Aztecan language was losing ground to Spanish.