USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. I > Part 13
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Lieut. Geo. D. Bretherton, who traveled the Virgen River route in 1848, in company with Kit Carson, was the narrator of a fantastic tale concerning Bill Williams, told him by a member of Carson's party. It was to the effect that, some years before, Williams had led a party of thirty men into Lower California and there had despoiled the Mexicans of 1,500 head of horses and mules. About 200 Mexicans followed and so hard pressed the Americans that two-thirds of the loot had to be abandoned on the desert. Beyond the edge of the desert, Williams halted his worn-out expedition and, in desperation, waited for the coming of the avengers. But three days passed without an attack and it became evident that none was intended. So Williams and his men proceeded to turn the tables. They ambushed the enemy's camp at night and drove away every horse and mule, leaving the Mexicans to return on foot, if they could, across the desert. But the tale was not then ended, for the great band of stock was run off by Indians somewhere to the eastward and Williams and his men had to tramp back to their starting point, Santa Fé. Williams is believed to have been killed in the winter of 1849, either by Utes or by Mexicans of his own party, in the Rockies, not far from the point where Fremont had to turn back. Triplett had a story, however, that he was killed by Blackfeet Indians in the Yellowstone country, and that his faithful horse refused to leave the body and had to be killed on his master's grave.
NEW MEXICO UNDER THE MEXICANS
The name "New Mexico" appears to have been applied first in 1563 hy Francisco de Ibarra, who led an expedition beyond Casas Grandes in Chihuahua
TUCSON IN 1856 (From Bartlett's Narrative by permission of D. Appleton & Co.)
FORT YUMA IN 1856 WITH SITE OF YUMA IN FOREGROUND (From Bartlett's Narrative by permission of D. Appleton & Co.)
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and the same region also appears to have been called Nueva Andalucia. The present name generally was accepted during Espejo's time, about 1583.
On September 27, 1821, the City of Mexico was entered by General Iturbide, who on March 19 of the succeeding year was made Emperor of Mexico with the title of Agustin I. Iturbide lasted only till March, 1823, when he was banished. He returned the following year, was apprehended and, on July 19, 1824, was executed.
The first New Mexican Governor under the new nation was Antonio Viscarra, installed July 5, 1822, but the first regular appointee was Bartolome Baca, who assumed office under the title of Jefe Politico. In 1824, New Mexico, Chihuahua and Durango were constituted a State of the Mexican Union. In 1828 all Span- iards were ordered to leave New Mexico, under the terms of an act of the Mexican Congress. Only two aged priests were permitted to remain, they on payment of $600 a year each.
The people of New Mexico revolted against the Mexican government August 1, 1837, following the imposition of new and heavy taxes and the arrival of Col. Albino Perez of the Mexican army, who, though a stranger, had been appointed Governor. Perez was deserted by his soldiers and himself was assassi- nated about a league southwest of Santa Fé by Indians from Santo Domingo, who had followed him as he sought to escape on foot.
The head was hewn from the body and taken to the headquarters of the in- surgents near Santa Fé. Santiago Abreu, a former Governor, two of his broth- ers and a number of government officials, were hunted down and killed. The revolutionary party installed José Gonzales of Taos as Governor. Gonzales him- self later was overthrown by a counter-revolution, started by Manuel Armijo, who immediately sent word to the central government of Mexico submitting his allegiance. In consequence he was given appointment as Governor, which he' held for nine years. In January, 1838, he defeated the rebel army and captured Gonzales, whom he caused to be executed at once.
TROUBLOUS ENDING OF MEXICAN RULE
No less than eighteen executives, many of them ad interim, held office in Santa Fé in the brief span of twenty-four years wherein New Mexico was a part of the Mexican Republic, even a worse record than known under the Iberian crown. In 1839 the United States established a consulate in Santa Fé, with Manuel Alvarez in charge, he continuing in office till the time of American occupation, occasionally in hot water through the hostility of the rabble population and of some of the Mexican officials. The Texans claimed westward to the Rio Grande and, following the start of a Texan expedition westward in 1841, the situation of Americans in Santa Fé became so grave that Alvarez and his local compatriots united in a petition asking help, addressed to Daniel Webster, then Secretary of State But the Texan army had naught save bad fortune, for General McLoud and his 320 men were captured by New Mexicans under Armijo at a point not far from the present Tucumcari. The prisoners were sent into Mexico, not executed. In the same year the Cook party of Americans was captured near San José by 100 New Mexicans, headed by Diego Archuleta and Manuel Chavez. John McDaniel, a Texan desperado, with fifteen of his kind, in April, 1843, at- tacked and murdered Don Antonio Chaves on the Arkansas river and looted
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his train. It is gratifying to read that McDaniels and nine of his crew later were hanged for the deed at St. Louis, Mo. A similar sort of bandit, "Colonel" Snively, was captured by Capt. John Cook, U. S. A., after Snively had raided a wagon train and killed sixteen men. This would appear to have been the same individual who first worked the Gila placers and who was killed by Indians in central Arizona. There was trouble with the Utes in 1844. The last days of Mexican rule were lean ones, with no money available for the pay or subsistence of the troops called to repulse the advance of the Americanos.
Following the transfer of New Mexico to the United States, the population, except Indians, was embraced within American citizenship, contingent only upon declaration otherwise. Very few made this declaration in order to con- tinne Mexican citizenship, but a number moved southward across the Rio Grande.
New Mexico was considered, roughly, as the land lying between Texas and the Rio Colorado. The northern boundary seemed indeterminate, but generally was considered as running westward from a point in the present Colorado, near the source of the Rio Grande, which then had the somewhat amplified designa- tion of El Rio Grande Bravo del Norte (The Great Brawling River of the North).
AMERICAN CONQUEST OF NEW MEXICO
The American conquest of the Southwest was one accomplished with little trouble and with seemingly little resentment on the part of the populace, though there were but few save Spanish-speaking residents in either Arizona or New Mexico. It is possible' that the pueblo-dwelling Indians, who comprised the greater part of the population, had no dislike to the proposed change of masters, though nominally included within the defensive forces raised by the Mexican officers.
Santa Fé was the objective point of an expedition organized at Fort Leav- enworth in 1846, under command of Col. Stephen W. Kearny. It consisted of 1,658 men and sixteen pieces of light artillery. An army of 5,000 men, mainly Indians, was gathered for defense and the brave Governor Armijo, after call- ing upon the people of New Mexico to rise and repel the invader, marched from Santa Fé to a mountain pass to the northward to offer battle. But his Indian forces stampeded at the mere narration of the prowess of the Americans and Armijo saw defeat certain and retreated without offering battle. Santa Fé was reached August 18 and captured without incident. Kearny, promoted to be General, did not stay in the city, however, but at once started the building of Fort Marcy on a mesa overlooking the city, where he could both command the settlement and repel possible attack. He gathered the people in the plaza and told them that their lives, property and religion were safe and that they had become American citizens. Juan Bautista Vigil was made Governor and most of the former officers were sustained in their positions after they had taken the oath of allegiance to the United States. Later, on September 22, Charles Bent of Taos was made Governor, with Doniciano Vigil as Secretary and Francis P. Blair as District Attorney.
After setting the government of the Territory in order, General Kearny on September 26 started for California, leaving behind Colonel Doniphan, who was under orders to join General Wool in Chihuahua. The Navajos thought about
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this time that the Americans had come to aid them in driving out the Mexicans, but Doniphan and his Missourians stayed for a while until he showed the wild Indians the error of their ways. December 14 he started for Mexico, leaving in command at Santa Fé Col. Sterling Price, later celebrated in the armnies of the Confederacy. Near the present Los Cruces, Doniphan made a good begin- ning by defeating an attacking Mexican force.
Soon thereafter a general uprising was planned by the deposed Mexican officers, supported by Padres Ortiz and Gallegos. It was planned that there should be a general rising December 19. A delay till Christmas Day afforded time for the information of the Americans, who promptly arrested the leaders. The following month the insurrection broke out unexpectedly and on January 19 a body of Mexicans'and Indians at Taos killed Governor Bent, Prefect Vigil, District Attorney Leal, Narciso Baubien and Pablo Jaramillo, the last named the Governor's brother-in-law. Americans also were killed at a number of other places. Colonel Price had only a small force, in all amounting to 310 men. Some of these were local Americans who had rushed to the colors and a number of prominent New Mexicans. The American commander did not wait for the arrival of a hostile force that was marching down the Rio Grande, but offered battle in the field. There were two engagements near Santa Cruz and Embudo and one at Taos, to which the New Mexicans, inferior to the Americans in everything but numbers, had been driven. The rebellion finally was wiped out by an engagement at Fernandez de Taos, in which the Americans at short range battered down the walls of the church that had been transformed by their foes into a fortress. The battle was a sanguinary one. Captain Burgwin and about a score of Americans fell, but at least 150 of the insurgents were killed. Their leader, Montoya, and fourteen others were executed, after trial for the murder of Governor Bent and his associates. Others sentenced to death for treason were pardoned by the President of the United States on the ground that no treason could be shown while Mexico was at war with the United States.
BEGINNINGS OF AMERICAN GOVERNMENT
After Bent's death, Donaciano Vigil, a native New Mexican, was made Governor and a Legislature was called, to meet December 6, 1847. Ten acts were passed, approved both by the Governor and by the military commander, Price. One of the ten was for the foundation of a university. Price thereafter, by military order, abolished the offices of Territorial Secretary, United States Marshal and United States Attorney, as unnecessary. He laid a 6 per cent import tax at the territorial border and assessed gambling houses $2,000 a year. This military domination, passed on to Col. J. M. Washington, continued even after the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, when the country naturally might have been assumed to have passed under civil authority. It should be noted also that Kearny's military code had not been fully approved at Washington. A four-day convention, which met in October, 1848, its chairman Rev. Antonio José Martinez, a Catholic priest, made petition to Congress for the allowanee of the common rights of territorial government, declaring against the introduction of slavery and against any cession of territory to Texas. The population of New Mexico was stated at from 75,000 to 100,000. In September, 1849, a similar convention urged about the same action by Congress. It elected Hugh N. Smith as Delegate Vol. I- 1
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to Congress, but he was refused recognition at Washington. Even at that early date there was discussion over statehood, though much complicated by slavery questions. President Taylor favored statehood at once for both California and New Mexico.
While these questions of admission were being debated, Texas was attempting to take possession of the eastern half of New Mexico, but its Commission, sent to start several county governments, was turned by the military. The boundary trouble finally was settled by an act of Congress September 9, 1850, offering Texas $10,000,000 to abandon her claims to New Mexico and to certain other lands farther to the northward, in Colorado and Kansas, especially. This was accepted by the Texas Legislature in the following November.
A following legislative assembly memorialized Congress against the harsh military rule and against taxation without representation. Embezzlement was charged in office and intimidation even of the church. The only printing press was said to be in the hands of the military party. Stiff charges of malfeasance were filed against Chief Justice Houghton by Attorney Rich. H. Weightman, who had come from Missouri as captain of an artillery command, who later killed Felix Aubrey and who in the Civil War died a colonel in the Confederate forces. Col. John Monroe, military commandant and local court of last resort, refused to consider the charges. Houghton challenged Weightman and there was a duel, in which neither was hurt.
Colonel Monroe called a convention for May 15, 1850, at which was formu- lated a constitution for a proposed State. This document was approved by the electors and Henry Connelly and Wm. S. Messervy were elected, respectively, Governor and Delegate to Congress. The popular action was nullified by Colonel Monroe, bringing out a protest to Washington. As a result, Monroe was ordered to keep his hands off civil affairs.
Not until March 3, 1851, was New Mexico given a full civil government, under the terms of an act passed by Congress September 9, 1850, at the same time that California was made a State. The first Governor appointed by the President was Jas. S. Calhoun. Under his call, a Legislature convened at Santa Fé June 2, 1851, with Padre Martinez as President of the Council. Theodore D. Wheaton, an American lawyer, was Speaker of the House. Governor Calhoun had been Indian Agent in New Mexico and was well acquainted with local con- ditions. His term of office included grave troubles with the Navajo and Apache Indians, and also with Col. E. V. Smnner, the military commander, who appears to have been very much at outs with the civil government. In one of the Gov- ernor's final reports, he pathetically wrote: "We are without a dollar in our territorial treasury, without munitions of war, without authority to call out our militia and without the co-operation of the military authorities." He started to Washington in May, 1852, but died enroute. He was succeeded by former Mayor Wm. C. Land, of St. Louis, and he, in 1857, by Abraham Rencher, of North Carolina.
During Col. Sumner's administration of military affairs were built several army posts, including Fort Defiance on the Navajo reservation and Fort Union. In 1859 trouble with the Navajos became acute and it is told that during two years no less than 300 citizens were killed by the Indians, who, on February 7,
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1860, tried to capture Fort Defiance. Colonel Canby thereafter undertook an active campaign against the hostiles, whom he punished severely.
At the outbreak of the Civil War, New Mexico, possibly through irritation over Texas' attempts at encroachment, was generally Union in sentiment, though nearly all her territorial officials, appointees of President Buchanan, headed by Gov. Abraham Rencher and Delegate M. A. Otero, were rated as disaffected. The same was true of the ranking officers.of the regular army in New Mexico. In 1861, by Lincoln, Henry Connelly was appointed Governor, with a complete overturning of the territorial offices and with abrogation of a slavery statute.
THE SEPARATION OF ARIZONA
The association of Arizona with New Mexico ended February 24, 1863, when Congress passed an act establishing the Territory of Arizona, which formally was organized at Navajo Springs in December of that year. Arizona appears to have had very little consideration in the days when it was embraced within New Mexico and best was known as the haunt of troublesome Indians. The only really settled portion was along the Santa Cruz River, including Tucson and Tubac, and there the residents appear to have had and to have demanded very little government.
New Mexico to-day is a sort of linguistic island within the United States, probably the only section wherein a foreign language is more commonly used than English. At the same time there is presented the curious anomaly that of its population at the last census, 304,155, only 23,146 are recorded as foreign born, a percentage of native born probably unsurpassed in any other State of the Union.
The history of New Mexico would be the richer had it not been for an American Governor who, in 1869, according to W. H. Davis, having despaired of disposing of the immense mass of old documents and records deposited in his office, by the slow process of using them to kindle fires, had sold as junk the entire lot, an invaluable collection of material bearing on the history of the Southwest and its early European and native inhabitants.
Peonage seems to have been given official sanction within New Mexico fol- lowing the American occupation. Witness to this, a letter written by order of General Carleton to Capt. J. H. Whitlock, commanding Fort Selden, reproving that officer for failure to deliver a peon to the latter's master and for the tenor of the Captain's letter asking instruction on the matter at issue. Peonage in the order is treated as voluntary servitude and not as real slavery. The practice later was forbidden by Congressional act.
General Carleton was selected to command the New Mexican expedition of 1862 not only for personal fitness for independent action, but because he had had prior military service in the country and knew it well. In 1853, while a captain of dragoons, he had led several parties of exploration from the Rio Grande settle- ments, and of at least one such trip, taken to the ruins of the Gran Quivera, there remains a record. It is especially interesting in its criticism of the Spanish- speaking inhabitants of the region, reciting: "In no rancho or village have we seen a solitary indication of industry, cleanliness or thrift since we left Albu- querque ; and it may be remarked, parenthetically, that we have yet to see in that town the first evidence of these cardinal virtues. Indolence, squalid poverty,
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filth and utter ignorance of everything beyond their cornfields and acequias seem to particularly characterize the inhabitants who are settled along the east bank of the Rio Grande." Of the town of Manzana was remarked: "It enjoys pre-eminently the widespread notoriety of being the resort of more murderers, robbers, common thieves, scoundrels and vile abandoned women than can be found in any other town of the same size in New Mexico, which is saying a good deal about Manzana." All of which rather indicates that Carleton was hardly prepossessed in favor of the people of the land he was to hold within the power of the Union.
RECORD OF KEARNY'S WESTERN DASH
General Kearny's special command or escort on leaving Santa Fé for Cali- fornia, September 25, 1846, comprised 300 United States dragoons under Lieut .- Col. E. V. Sumner. With him was Lieut. W. H. Emory of the Corps of Topo- graphieal Engineers, who had been ordered to join the expedition to chart its progress through the unexplored regions of the Southwest, and to Emory is to be credited a very clear and interesting account of the journey. This was the same Emory who later was at the head of the Boundary Survey and who became the best topographical authority of his day upon the Southwest. Another journal was kept by Capt. A. R. Johnston, but this latter chronicle abruptly closed on the death of its author at the battle of San Pascual in southern California, before the command had reached the coast. Leading the van was none other than the famous scout, Kit Carson, who had come eastward over the same route a few months before. With his party of scouts was François de van Cœur.
Kearny's column traveled fast, though delayed at times by the hauling of a couple of small but cumbersome howitzers mounted on small wheels. The Gila was followed closely, save for the logical detour around the middle box cañon, where the Aravaipa Canon trail was taken leading into the San Pedro Valley. This trail was found a veritable highway, with many tracks of horses, mules and cattle, most of them pointing northward, for it was used continually by maraud- ing Apaches returning from Sonora with the spoils of war. From the Gila Valley northward, Indians showed an extension of the same trail, that led to the Moqui and Zuñi villages, constituting the shortest and best route that could have been taken by the Kearny expedition had it been properly advised. There was little doubt that this same aboriginal trail was that taken by de Niza and Coronado, who thereby must have been saved a vast amount of tribulation in the wilderness.
On the upper Gila much trouble was experienced in gaining the confidence of the Apaches, who made a most unpleasant impression upon the party, though the Indians did no damage and finally were made to understand that the Amer- icans were far different from their hereditary enemies, the Mexicans. One chief tried to fix up a scheme with General Kearny to raid the Mexican settlements of Sonora, offering to bring up a large force of Indians as reinforcement for the troops. The Apaches were called "Gilands" ("Gileños").
The San Pedro was followed down to its junction with the Gila, which was crossed at about the site of the present town of Winkelman. Thence the party worked down the Gila, most of the time near the stream, which was crossed and recrossed a score of times. Lieutenant Emory notes the naming by himself of Mineral Creek, where croppings and stains of copper were seen, and he predicted
THE NATURAL BRIDGE
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that the time would be seen when the Gila would bear on its tide heavily laden flatboats, floating down to deep water, with copper ore for reduction. Mineral Creek has borne that name to this day and in the hills along its course are some of the richest and most productive copper mines in the Southwest. Lieutenant Emory's flatboats must be represented, however, by the trains of ore cars taking the product of the Ray mines, 10,000 tons a day, to the concentration works and smelter at Hayden, near Winkelman.
Finally the explorers, footsore and with sore-backed and half-starved horses, made their way through the last canon of the Gila, the great gash in The Buttes, a dozen miles above the site of Florence, and with joy and wonderment beheld the great Casa Grande plain stretching away to the blue mountains in the far distance.
In the first day's journey thereafter there were encountered the first Pima and Maricopa Indians seen. These Indians received the warmest of good words from the historians of the expedition. While passing through the Pima country the camps were continually full of Indians, offering melons, grains and provisions for sale, asking white beads or money in exchange. Johnston was struck with their unassumed ease and confidence in approaching the camps, "not like the Apaches, who bayed at us like their kindred wolves until the smell of tobacco and other agreeable things gave them assurance enough to approach us. The Pimas have long lived at their present abode and are known to all the trappers as a virtuous and industrious people. . . . The Indians exhibit no sentiments of taciturnity ; but on the contrary give vent to their thoughts and feelings with- out reason, laughing and chatting together; and a parcel of young girls with long hair streaming to their waists, and no other covering than a clean, white cotton blanket folded around their middle and extending to their knees, were as merry as any group of like age and sex to be met with in our own country."
Emory wrote something to the same effect : "To us it was a rare sight to be thrown in the midst of a large nation of what are termed wild Indians, surpassing many of the Christian nations in agriculture, little behind them in the usefnl arts and immeasurably before them in honesty and virtue. During the whole of yesterday our camp was full of men, women and children who wandered among our packs unwatched and not a single instance of theft was reported."
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