The Pima Indians/History/Relations with Americans

by Frank Russell

HISTORY

Relations with Americans

CIVIL AND MILITARY EXPEDITIONS

Early in the nineteenth century American beaver trappers began to penetrate through the Apache-infested mountains that bordered Pimería on the north and east. Beaver were then fairly abundant in the mountain streams and down the Colorado Grande to the very end in the burning lowlands. The annals of the Pimas make no mention of these earliest visitors from the United States, but it is known that several parties reached the "Pimos Gileños," who were found uniformly friendly. The Patties, father and son, journeyed from the Rio Grande to trap beaver in the Gila country between 1825 and 1828, and in the latter year pushed on to California.^[1] Kit Carson, with a party of trappers, returned from his first trip to California by this route during the winter of 1829–30. The famous trapper, Paul Weaver, inscribed his name on the walls of Casa Grande in 1833.^[2]

Besides the self-reliant and well-armed trappers, a few parties of settlers made their way to California through the Gila valley while it was yet in the possession of the Mexicans, though the best-known route was then north of the Colorado canyon. With the opening of the new era of American ownership began the journeys of surveyors and explorers. The first military invasion was by General Kearney, with a party of 200 troopers, in 1846. Emory's excellent Notes of a Military Reconnoissance and Johnston's Journal give details of this journey with the first reliable information concerning the Pimas. Kearney was followed by Lieutenant-Colonel Cooke in command of the Mormon battalion, which opened a practicable wagon road to California by way of Tucson and the Pima villages. In his official report Colonel Cooke states:

I halted one day near the villages of this friendly, guileless, and singularly innocent and cheerful people, the Pimos. They were indeed friendly, for they refused to surrender supplies that had been left at the villages to be held for the Mormon battalion, and they threatened armed resistance to the Mexicans who demanded the mules and goods.

A battalion of dragoons under Maj. L.P. Graham marched westward to California by way of the Pima villages in 1848. Bancroft states that he has a manuscript diary from Capt. Cave J. Coutts, of this battalion, in which it is recorded that the Pimas were very hospitable and exhibited conspicuous signs of thrift.^[3]

The parties of the Boundary Survey Commissioners passed down the Gila in 1851, and the account of the Pimas by J.R. Bartlett, the American commissioner, is by far the best that has been published thus far.^[4] Bartlett's party returned eastward through the Pima villages in 1852.

In 1854 Lieuts. J.G. Parke^[5] and George Stoneman began at the Pima villages the survey for a railroad which was destined to pass through just a quarter of a century later. In 1855 Lieutenant Parke, with another party, made a second survey and again visited the villages.

From the time of the discovery of gold in California, in 1849, parties of gold seekers, numbering in all many thousand persons each year, followed the Gila route, meeting with hospitality from the Pimas and almost equally uniform hostility from the Apaches. The location of the Pimas in the midst of the 280-mile stretch between Tucson and Yuma was a peculiarly fortunate one for the travelers, who could count upon supplies and if need be protection at a point where their journey otherwise must have been most perilous.^[6]

The United States Government first recognized the value of the assistance rendered by the Pimas when by act of Congress of February 28, 1859, $1,000 was appropriated for a survey of their lands and $10,000 for gifts.^[7]

Maricopa Wells, near the lower villages, became an important stage station when the overland mails began to pass late in the fifties.^[8]

With the advent of the stage, the emigrant and the military trains began the breaking down of the best that was old and the building up of the worst that was new. For a period of thirty years, or from 1850 to 1880, the Pimas were visited by some of the vilest specimens of humanity that the white race has produced. Until 1871 the tribe was without a teacher, missionary, or, to judge from their own story and the records of the Government, a competent agent. Bancroft has thus summarized the conditions prevailing during that period:

In many respects there has been a sad deterioration during forty years of contact with civilization, notably by acquiring habits of intemperance, prostitution, and pilfering; yet they are still vastly superior to most other tribes. For several years, from 1868, serious troubles with them seemed imminent. Presuming on their military services and past immunity from all restraint, they became insolent and aggressive, straying from the reservation, robbing travelers, refusing all satisfaction for inroads of their horses on the settlers' fields, the young men being beyond the chiefs' control. Swindling traders had established themselves near the villages to buy the Indians' grain at their own prices, and even manipulate Government goods, the illegal traffic receiving no check, but rather apparently protection from the Territorial authorities. Whiskey was bought from Adamsville or from itinerant Mexicans; the agents were incompetent, or at least had no influence, the military refused support or became involved in profitless controversies. Worst of all, white settlers on the Gila used so much of the water that the Pimas in dry years had to leave the reservation or starve. General Howard deemed the difficulties insurmountable, and urged removal. Had it not been for dread of the Pima numbers and valor, the Apaches still being hostile, very likely there might have been a disastrous outbreak.^[9]

As early as 1859 Lieut. Sylvester Mowry, special agent, Indian Bureau, foresaw danger threatening the interests of the Pimas and wrote:

There are some fine lands on the Gila and any extensive cultivation above the Indian fields will cause trouble about the water for irrigation and inevitably bring about a collision between the settlers and the Indians.^[10]

Again in 1862 Poston gave additional warning:

If in the eager rush for farms or embryo cities the land above them should be occupied by Americans, and their supply of water be reduced, it might produce discontent.^[11]

Agent R.G. Wheeler protested against the diversion of the water of the Gila from the Pima reservation at the time the Florence canal was projected in 1886 and succeeded in gaining the attention of the Department of the Interior which instructed the Director of the Geological Survey to investigate the matter. As a result of the investigation the following facts were established:

(1) That the water supply of the Pima and Maricopa reservations under present conditions is no more than sufficient for the wants of the Indians.
(2) That the construction of a dam by the Florence Canal Company of the character represented in the correspondence will give the control substantially of all the waters of the Gila river.
(4) That if the water supply from the river be shut off, the Indian reservation would become uninhabitable.

Other facts were presented, but these are the essential ones that directly concern us here.^[12] Notwithstanding the above finding, no effective efforts were made to prevent the water from being diverted from the reservation, and the result was nearly as predicted—a result that should bring a blush of shame to every true American. A thrifty, industrious, and peaceful people that had been in effect a friendly nation rendering succor and assistance to emigrants and troops for many years when they sorely needed it was deprived of the rights inhering from centuries of residence. The marvel is that the starvation, despair, and dissipation that resulted did not overwhelm the tribe.

AGENTS

In 1857 John Walker was appointed Indian agent for the territory embraced in the Gadsden Purchase, with headquarters at Tucson. The Pimas were of course within his territory, though his control over them could not have been very great with the agency separated from the villages by a 90-mile stretch of desert in the scarcely disputed possession of the Apaches. Walker presented no report to his superior at Santa Fé in 1858, but in 1859 gave some account of the condition of the Pimas.

In 1864 Charles D. Poston was appointed superintendent of Indian affairs for Arizona, but he resigned that year. He was succeeded by four others during the next eight years, at the end of which period the office was abolished. Abraham Lyons was appointed agent for the Pimas in 1862, and he also lived at Tucson. Ammi M. White, appointed in 1864, was a resident trader. He had built a mill at Casa Blanca, which was destroyed by the flood of September, 1868. Levi Ruggles, appointed in 1866, administered affairs from Tucson. During 1867 C.H. Lord acted as deputy agent. Fairly adequate adobe buildings were erected for the agent at Sacaton in 1870, and the agents thereafter resided at that place. The present commodious dwelling was erected in 1883. Following is a list of the later agents, with the dates of their appointment:

Capt. F.E. Grossman, 1869. J.H. Stout, 1871-1875, 1877-78. Charles Hudson, 1876. A.B. Ludlam, 1879. E.B. Townsend, 1881. R.G. Wheeler, 1881. A.H. Jackson, 1882.

R.G. Wheeler, 1885. C.M. Johnson, 1888. C.W. Crouse, 1889. J.R. Young, 1893. Henry J. Cleveland, 1897. Elwood Hadley, 1898. J.B. Alexander, 1902.

SCHOOLS

The first school (pl. V, b) among the Pimas was opened by Rev. C.H. Cook, in the employ of the Government, February 18, 1871, in an adobe building about 2 miles west of the present agency of Sacaton. This day school had a good attendance from the first, and much of the present beneficial influence of the missionary may be ascribed to the command over the children which he obtained during the seven years that he occupied the position of teacher. The change to a boarding school located at the agency was made in 1881, and a Mr Armstrong was the first superintendent. The school buildings were destroyed by fire in November, 1888, and the mission church was occupied during the remainder of that year. The capacity of the school is now 225, though during our stay at Sacaton more than 300 were crowded in. Two and three children were apportioned to sleep in narrow single beds and even in the hospital the beds were overcrowded. For years the accommodations have been inadequate to receive all the children that desired education. Day schools at Gila Crossing and Salt River take care of a few, and three or four new buildings for day schools have been erected at Blackwater, Lehi, Maricopa, and Casa Blanca.

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1. Pattie’s Personal Narrative.
2. J.R. Browne, Adventures in the Apache Country. New York, 1869, 118.
3. History of Arizona and New Mexico, 479.
4. Personal Narrative, 1854, 2 vols.
5. "Their chiefs and old men were all eloquent in professions of friendship for the Americans and were equally desirous that we should read the certificates of good offices rendered various parties while passing through their country." Pacific Railroad Report, II, 5.
6. "Since the year 1849 [they] have acted in the capacity of and with even more efficiency then a frontier military. They have protected American emigrants from molestation by Apaches, and when the latter have stolen stock from the emigrants, the Pimos and Maricopas have punished them and recovered their animals. Yet in all this time [ten years] nothing has been done for them by our Government." Extract from a letter in the Alta California, June 28, 1858, quoted in S. Ex. Doc. 1, pt. 1, 556, 35th Cong., 2d sess., 1859.

   "A company of nearly one hundred of their best warriors was enlisted into the United States service in the latter part of 1865, which served one year with great credit to themselves and did much good service in quelling our common enemy. Seventy of them have just been mustered out [1867] of the United States service, after having performed six months' duty as spies and scouts, for which service they are invaluable." Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1867, 163.

7. Following is a list of the articles distributed among the Pimas and Maricopas, as reported by Mowry:

   444 axes. 618 shovels. 31 hand saws. 706 butcher knives. 516 hoes. 240 sickles. 48 files. 270 harrow teeth. 48 mattocks. 72 whetstones. 15 grindstones. 36 hay forks.

   36 hammers. 48 rakes. 48 trowels. 12 screw-drivers. 1 "carpenter shop." 15 plows. 15 sets plow harness. 1 forge. 1 anvil. 1 vise. 1 set sledges. 1 cast-steel hand hammer.

   3 pairs tongs. 1 set stock and dies. 12 file handles. 36 hatchets. 120 picks. 7 kegs nails. 9 gross screws. 1,400 needles. 1 box sheet tin. 4,000 pounds barley. 1 pint turnip seed.

   Mowry explains that a larger number of plows would have been included in this lot of tools and imple- ments had not the Indian Department distributed a few plows a short time previously. (S. Ex. Doc. 2, 723, 36th Cong., 1st sess., 1859.) The gifts were distributed by Lieut. Mowry and the survey was made under his direction by Col. A.B. Gray.

   This original survey contained 64,000 acres—much less than the Pimas claimed and actually required for their fields and grazing lands. The commissioners who negotiated with them assured the tribe that the present boundaries were but temporary limits to protect the people in their rights, and that the Government would enlarge the reservation later. This promise was made good by a survey in 1869, which added 81,140.16 acres (U.S. Statutes at Large, 1869, II. 401). In 1876 9,000 acres about the village of Blackwater were added to the eastern end of the reservation.

8. "In August and September, 1857, the San Antonio and San Diego semimonthly stage line, under the direction of I.C. Woods, was established, James Burch acting as contractor. This continued till the Butterfield semiweekly line was put upon the route, in August, 1858, under a contract of six years with the Postmaster-General, at $600,000 a year." J.R. Browne, Adventures in the Apache Country, 19. The journey of nearly 2,500 miles was made in from twenty to twenty-two days.
9. Bancroft's Works, XVII, 548.
10. S. Ex. Doc. 2, 727, 36th Cong., 1st sess., 1859.
11. Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs 1863, 386, 1864.
12. U.S. Geol. Surv., Water-Supply and Irrigation Papers, no. 33, p. 10.