City: Tucson

Join the Arizona Historical Society and Dr. Paul Conrad for an installment of AHS Summer History Talks: Spanish Period in Arizona! This is a virtual program.

This presentation will consider the history and legacies of Spanish colonialism in Arizona and the Southwest from the vantage point of Apache history. Apache (Ndé) peoples are known for their independence from and resistance to Spanish, Mexican, and U.S. governance. Yet colonial efforts to subjugate them—including through long-distance forced migrations–were also deeply impactful to their communities. Dr. Paul Conrad will discuss this history through the stories of specific individuals and the broader themes their life experiences reveal.

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Join the Arizona Historical Society and Dr. Nick Myers for an installment of AHS Summer History Talks: Spanish Period in Arizona!

In 1765, as part of a royal inspection of the Kingdom of New Spain, Visitador General José de Gàlvez travelled to the far northern reaches of Spanish colonization in North America. Gálvez was charged with enacting fundamental reforms in the systems of defense and taxation across the Viceroyalty as a whole. This talk will relate the strange story of the royal visita to the northern frontier and uncover the roots of the regions peculiarity, wildly diverse population, and prevalence of political autonomy that characterized the western portion of today’s U.S.-Mexico Borderlands in the Spanish Colonial Era.

Help us keep programming free! Consider registering as a supporter and making a $10 donation to the Arizona Historical Society.

The Arizona Historical Society and the Mexican American Heritage and History Museum present Borderwomen: Matriarchal Business Networks in Territorial Tucson with Dr. Katherine Massoth, live at the Arizona History Museum!

Dr Massoth will explore the matriarchal networks that led to Federico José María Ronstadt starting a successful business in Tucson after 1882. How did his mother’s kin networks lead to Tucson? How did the gendered epistolary bonds stretching from Magdalena, Sonora to Tucson, Arizona, foster a transborder identity across generations? Unraveling these small kinship details exposes a more intricate and delicate story of maternal kinship networks and borderland entrepreneurial projects. By uncovering matriarchal networks, we find that his mother was in the background, interlacing familial and entrepreneurial webs across the newly established U.S.-Mexico border.

Help us keep programming free! Consider registering as a supporter and making a $10 donation to the Arizona Historical Society.

Join the Arizona Historical Society and Dr. Cynthia Radding for an installment of AHS Summer History Talks: Spanish Period in Arizona!

Power, knowledge, and religion converge in the imperial networks that created the sinews of early modern globalization. In consonance with the historical frameworks that guide this celebration of the historical and cultural legacies of Tucson, Arizona, this presentation focuses on the peoples of the Sonoran Desert, the borderlands of imperial power, and the re-working of institutions and performative expressions of spiritual power. For both Amerindian and Iberian peoples of the early modern world, the spiritual and political realms of religion were not inseparable; rather the exercise of power through ritual was closely interlaced with the institutions of local governance and imperial rule. Set in the cultural and ecological borderlands of the Iberian imperial spheres in northern New Spain (northwestern Mexico), this presentation highlights the spiritual dimension of “the shining desert” as expressed by the Tohono O’odham and neighboring peoples. It places the founding of Tucson as a presidio on the borderlands of the Spanish imperium, in a O’odham village along the Santa Cruz drainage within the environmental and historical contexts of the enduring peoples of the Sonoran Desert.

Help us keep programming free! Consider registering as a supporter and making a $10 donation to the Arizona Historical Society.

Join the Arizona Historical Society and Dr. Rosina Lozano for an installment of AHS Summer History Talks: Spanish Period in Arizona!

After the U.S.-Mexican War, the Spanish language became a language of politics as Spanish speakers in the U.S. Southwest used it to build territorial and state governments. Spanish was visible on a broad array of items: on ballots; on stage, where translators next to political speakers could be seen and were expected; in governors’ proclamations; and in officially sanctioned translations of state laws. In the twentieth century, Spanish became a political language where its speakers and those opposed to its use clashed over what its presence in the United States meant and whether to allow its continuation.

Help us keep programming free! Consider registering as a supporter and making a $10 donation to the Arizona Historical Society.

Join the Arizona Historical Society and Mark Santiago for an installment of AHS Summer History Talks: Spanish Period in Arizona! Note: this talk will be in-person at the Arizona History Museum in Tucson.

This presentation will examine the strategy behind Hugo O’Conor’s decision to expand Spanish power into what is now southern Arizona and specifically how and why he chose to locate a new presidio at what is today Arizona’s second largest metropolis.

Help us keep programming free! Consider registering as a supporter and making a $10 donation to the Arizona Historical Society.

Celebrate 250+ years of Tucson with us and enjoy FREE admission to the Arizona History Museum, Tucson on August 23, 2025! Open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., get out of the summer HEAT and enjoy walking through our COOL museum. Part of the All Things Tucson 250+ Celebration

Afterwards, you can spend the evening at the Presidio San Agustín del Tucson Museum to continue the celebration from 6:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. 

Join the Arizona Historical Society for the installment of AHS Summer History Talks: Spanish Period in Arizona!

This roundtable discussion features authors from the forthcoming special issue of the Journal of Arizona History (Autumn 2025), which takes a fresh look at Spanish colonial history in this region. The authors will discuss topics ranging from Spanish-Indigenous relations and Spanish missionary efforts to the impact of the weather, the colonial soundscape, and plants and animals.

Help us keep programming free! Consider registering as a supporter and making a $10 donation to the Arizona Historical Society.