In January 1691, at the request of the O'odham (Pima) Indians of the Santa Cruz River Valley, Jesuit Father Eusebio Francisco Kino established the mission of Tumacácori, dedicated to Saint Cajetan (San Cayetano). The Pima rebellion of 1751 briefly caused the abandonment of the mission, as Tumacácori's native governor, Felipe Huvuacam, gathered his people and fled to the Santa Rita Mountains; they returned a few months later and eventually moved the village from the east side of the river to this site. In 1756, the mission was rededicated to Saint Joseph (San José). The first Jesuits celebrated Mass in a small adobe house, and in the mid-1700s they began to use a newly constructed church, but the expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767 interrupted the mission's evangelizing work until the first Franciscan, Juan Crisóstomo Gil de Bernabe, arrived a year later. In 1807, Tumacácori's native governor, Juan Legarra, traveled to Arizpe to secure title to the mission lands from the commandant of the Internal Provinces. Construction of the present church began about 1800, and the community began to use it in 1822. The mission included farmlands, fields, grazing land, orchards, workshops, and housing for the community. Tumacácori was abandoned in 1848 amid Apache attacks and other indigenous uprisings, recurring epidemics of measles and smallpox, hard winters, the expulsion of the Jesuits, the banishment of priests and other Spanish-born residents after Mexican independence in the first decades of the 19th century, and the war between Mexico and the United States in 1847. Today, Tumacácori is protected by the United States National Park Service.