Papigochic

Papigóchic lies in a fertile valley of the Sierra Tarahumara, in the homeland of the Rarámuri. Its river runs through the high country toward the west, and the valley became a focus of competition between Spanish missionaries and settlers.

After the Tarahumara uprising of 1648, Spanish authorities established a military post at Papigóchic, then called Villa Aguilar. The mission was re-established in the 1670s as Jesuits returned to the region. Franciscans and Jesuits disputed control of the fertile valley, while further Rarámuri resistance challenged Spanish expansion. Church records from the eighteenth century preserve traces of the people who lived at the mission, part of the chain known as the Alta Tarahumara. The mission was among the communities administered by Jesuits before their expulsion in 1767.