PEDRO ANTONIO DE ARRIQUIVAR
MILITARY CHAPLAIN AT THE PRESIDIO SAN AGUSTIN DEL TUCSON
Pedro Antonio
de Arriquivar was born in 1745
probably in Ceanuri (today Zeanuri), Vizcaya, Spain, son of Bentura de
Arriquibar and Magdelena de Leguizamon. He was baptized on 19 December 1745 at
Santa Maria or Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion, Ceanuri, Vizcaya Spain.[1] Pedro
had an older sister, Maria Antonia de Arrquibar, who was baptized in the same
church on 24 September 1738.[2]
The Vizcaya province is in the Basque region of Spain, along its northern
coast.
On 29 May 1770, Arriquibar was among 44 Franciscan
friars who arrived in Mexico from Spain. Members of the Jesuit order had been
expelled from the New World in 1768, after the Spanish monarch decided that the
Jesuits were too strongly aligned with the Papacy and were acting autonomous.
Arriquibar was to be assigned to a mission in southern
California, so he traveled from Mexico City to the town of Tepic in October
1770. He and the other missionaries waited for three months for the sailing
vessel San Carlos to take them to southern California. The vessel’s rudder
broke and they ended up in Manzanillo, Colima. From there most of the friars
walked to Santa Cruz and were picked up by the ship Concepcion, which delivered them to Loreto on the Baja on 24
November 1771.[3]
He was appointed to the Mission of Santa Rosalia deMulege in Baja California, where he remained for a year.
The Franciscans relinquished control of the Baja California missions to the Dominicans and Arriquibar set sail for Loreto on 19 October 1772, arriving in San Blas 11 days later.[4]
Sometime in the next two years he was sent north to
Sonora. On 26 February 1775 he performed a baptism at Tumacácori. He remained
there until at least 27 March 1780.[5] He
then moved to San Ignacio de Caborca in modern-day Sonora, where he was
stationed from 16 April 1780 until 30 November 1794. He apparently became a
military chaplain at this time, signing in his will that he had received
special permission on 10 February 1784 to dispose of his goods he received as
chaplain as he wished.[6]
Arriquibar arrived in Tucson by 21 January 1797. One
of his first tasks was to draw up an inventory of the furnishings of the
military chapel.[7]
Silver
A regular silver chalice with
its paten and spoon
A new silver monstrance sent
from Mexico by Captain Don Pedro Allande y Saabedra
A censor with its incense
vessel and spoon
Some wine and water cruets
with their plate and a handbell
White cloths
Two well-used albs of fine
linen with their amices
Two altar cloths of Brabant
linen
Two pairs of double corporals
One short-sleeved
sobrepellice with its consecrated stone and four purificators.
Chasubles
Two regular chasubles of all
colors
One black chasuble with
stole, etc.
One white cope with its stole
One black cope with its stole
An antependium of all colors
with its pall
Another black antependium
with its appropriate pall
One pallium with which to
administer the viaticum
One Altar with one small Holy
Christ
Two bronze candlesticks
One box where the vestments
are kept
One adobe confessional with
wooden lattice
Arriquibar spent the next 23 years as the Presidio
chaplain.[8] In
April 1801, he was at Arizpe. On 29 August 1813, Arriquivar escorted Francisco
Xavier Dias out of the Presidio chapel where he had taken refuge after
murdering his wife.[9] Rosters
of soldiers taken in Tucson were often signed by him. They provide only a few details
of his life. He was sick between October 1816 and January 1817.[10]
He recovered and was stationed at Tucson until his death, which occurred after
he prepared his will on 17 September 1820.[11]
He left his estate to his godson Teodoro Ramirez.
An inventory was taken of his estate.[12]
House with a parlor and two
rooms, a storeroom, enclosure in rear of the back yard
-a table and chairs
-a statue of Our Lady of
Sorrows
-A Roman cassock
-a rosary from Jerusalem
-four Roman breviaries
-a book of sermons on
parchment
-11 Latin books bound in
yellow pasteboard
-Four Latin books bound in
pasteboard
-Six large sermon books on
parchment
-30 books bound in parchment
and two without bindings
-eight ordos in Latin
-A package of manuscript
sermons
-A wood mattress much worn
- two Pima sheets much worn
and a pillow
-one black blanket and cot
with horsehair rope lacing
-a palm leaf hat bound with
cotton duck
-some drawers, a shirt, some
breeches of cotton duck, and some hose
-a large handkerchief and
some shoes
-a mantle of blue wool cloth,
a large snuff box, a snuff canister, and some glasses
a razor case, two razors and
a hone
-an inkwell and two small
bottles
-four pottery wine jars
-a saddle with saddle skirts,
horn bags, sweat leathers, and spurs
-a metal knife and fork and
spoon
-a tin can
-a candlestick and snuffers
-seven saddle horses and one
mule
-five mules
-fifteen mares and their
stallion
-about 40 head of cattle
-596 pesos, three reales,
which remained ...after deducting 200 pesos...for the stipulated pious works
and the redemption of captives in Jerusalem
In 1855, an inventory of the military chapel of the
Presidio San Agustin del Tucson was prepared, prior to its contents being
packed up and taken to Imuris. The document reveals that Arriquibar had
enlarged the number of religious artifacts in the chapel (the last military
chaplain was expelled from Mexico in 1828 when all foreign-born priests were
exiled from the country.
The Spanish-language document was translated by Fred
McAninch and Sergio Castro-Reino.[13]
Tucson
company
Inventory
of the sacred vessels, priestly ornaments which are in the military chapel of
the company.
1
chest with the following [contents]
Wrought
Silver
1
gilded silver monstrance
1
silver chalice, paten and spoon
1
gilded ciborium
1
small plate and cruets of silver [a set]
1
small silver bell
1
censer and boat of silver and 1 silver baptismal shell
2
deteriorated missals
2
manuals [rituals]
6
chasubles with all accessories of various colors, 3 corporals
3
[altar] frontals, black and purple, and one white [frontal], unusable
1
useless, deteriorated veil
1
humeral veil
2
copes, white and black
3
albs and amices
3
deteriorated veils
1
surplice
2
cinctures
3
altar cloths
1 black
dress for [the image of] Our Lady of Sorrows, a reliquary, gold earrings and a
string of pearls
2
boxes for holy oils [one] in wood and a box in brass
1
usable tabernacle and another deteriorated
1
baptismal font in poor condition
2
Missal stands and altar cards, without one being unusable
1
a statue of Our Lady of Sorrows with its ornaments
!
A painting of Our Lady of Piety
1
Our Lady of Guadalupe, a large oil painting
2
[?] small paintings of the same [Our Lady of Guadalupe]
5
Saints statues- Saint Anthony, Saint Joseph with fine robes,[14]
Saint Francis, Saint Augustine, Saint Gertrude
11
paintings of saints, 1 Our Lady of the Angels with the heavenly court on the
sides,
1
[of] Saint Joseph, 2 Our Lady of Light, Saint Maxima, Saint Joaquin, Our Lady
Saint Anne, a medium sized one with archangels, now without its frame
1
holy water bucket of copper
2
Altar stones, one is in Santa Cruz where it was taken to the pueblo for
[illegible]
1
bronze shell in the same place [Santa Cruz] for burials
1
gilded cross and candlesticks in fair usable condition
2
candleholders in copper or metal in fair condition
3
bells, one of them cracked without a clapper
1
table in fair condition
May 14, 1855, Joaquin Comaduran
[1] See https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FR4K-CQF.
His father was christened at the same church on 24 April 1708, son of Augustin
de Arriquibar and Maria de Angoitia.
[3]Stoner, Victor T. 1959 Fray Pedro de Arriquivar,
Chaplain of the Royal Fort at Tucson. Edited by Henry F. Dobyns. Arizona and
the West, Vol. 1(1), page 72.
[4]Stoner 1959:72.
[5]Stoner 1959:74.
[6]Stoner 1959:74.
[7]Stoner 1959:75.
[8]AGS, Section 7047, document 18; AGN 233, 1818 rosters; AGI,
GUAD 294.
[9]McCarty, Kieran 1976 Desert Documentary: The Spanish
Years, 1767-1821, Historical Monograph No. 4. Arizona Historical Society,
Tucson, page 96.
[10]Dobyns, Henry F. 1976 Spanish Colonial Tucson: A
Demographic History, University of Arizona Press, Tucson, page 160.
[11]Stoner 1959:75-79.
[12]Stoner 1959:78-79.
[13] Document M-M 381
#143, Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.
[14] Lustrina is a fine material with silk and
silver thread
