Suma Indians - History

History

The Suma and their neighbors the Manso are believed to be the descendants of the Jornada Mogollon culture. About 1450, the Mogollon pueblos near El Paso were abandoned and the Mogollon people seem to have abandoned agriculture to become hunter/gatherers.

The Suma were not politically united, but rather seem to have been a group of closely related autonomous bands and sub-tribes each of which acted independently. The Suma were probably encountered by Cabeza de Vaca in 1535, but the first definite mention of them was by Antonio de Espejo in 1583 who called them the Caguates. He was received cordially by more than one thousand of them near the Rio Grande. The first mention of them by the name "Suma" came in 1630. The Suma at the time were at war with the Opata in Sonora and endangering Franciscan missions. In 1659, a mission was established for the Manso and the "Zumanas", in present-day downtown Ciudad Juárez, and in 1663 another mission was established for them near the city of Chihuahua. Some of the Suma, Manso, and Jumano sought Spanish protection from the growing danger of Apache raids. Others seem to have continued their nomadic ways and joined the Apache.

By 1680, the Missions at El Paso were ministering to over 2,000 Indians, including Sumas. But the Pueblo Revolt in New Mexico caused an additional 2,000 Spaniards and allied Indians to take refuge in El Paso and stretched resources to their limits. A famine resulted in 1683-1684, and in 1684 the Indians revolted and fled the missions. Some of the Sumas returned to the mission later that same year, unable to find enough food to survive. However, some of the Suma, Janos, and Jocomes continued to be hostile to the Spanish, finding a stronghold in the Chiricahua Mountains in Arizona and becoming associated with the Apache and absorbed by them over time. A Chiricahua Apache band, the Chokone or Xocone, may be named after the Jocomes.

During the 18th century, the Suma living at the Mission of San Lorenzo near El Paso were servants of the priests, grew crops, worked as laborers, and adopted many Spanish customs. They also revolted frequently, in 1710, 1726, 1745, and 1749, fleeing the mission and taking refuge in the mountains, often with the Apache. San Lorenzo Mission had a population of 300 in the 1750s of which 150 were Sumas. A smallpox epidemic in the 1780s killed most of the Sumas living at the mission and they soon lost their ethnic identity, the survivors absorbed into the Hispanic population.

The last known Suma, a man, died in 1869.