“[Dobyns] has written a fascinating account of the ethnic development of early Tucson. Using a variety of methods and sources, he reveals how Spaniards, mestizos from New Spain, and Native Americans from many tribes laid the ethnic foundations for the modern city. The book also provides much insight into the general history of Spanish colonial society as it evolved in the Tucson area to 1821. . . . Dobyns, utilizing previously unpublished primary sources, allows the early inhabitants of the Tucson area to speak for themselves, and their comments add much to a very colorful and exciting but often grim story. . . . And his penetrating look at the ethnic development of early Tucson should attract attention from anyone interested in a better understanding of how the nation as a whole achieved its multi-cultural character.” —The Journal of American History

Henry F. Dobyns, a Tucson native son, has contributed distinguished publications to the fields of anthropology and history since 1948. Among the most widely recognized of his numerous works are more than 20 books and articles reporting research and action on rural development in Peru, several analyses of cultural change, and various studies of the Spanish colonial period. His work in demography has won him recognition for bringing to light the extent of Native American depopulation under colonial conditions. Dobyns holds a Ph.D. degree from Cornell University, and has received the Bronislaw Malinowski Award from the Society for Applied Anthroplogy and shared the Anisfield-Wolf Award from the Saturday Review for his writing.

“[Dobyns’s] probing history of the Spanish colonial times in the frontier desert colony says more than any other single source on early Tucson. Dobyns structures his study on the familiar institutional format of mission and presidio. Tracing the development of the community from Indian times into the era of Christian conversion.”—American Ethnologist

“Scholarship throughout is meticulous; excellent notes are provided and a very good bibliography is included. The demography presented here is most interesting.”—Pacific Historical Review