USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. II > Part 14
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In the days of its activity it disbursed about $1,500,000 in dividends, and was one of the few Arizona stocks regularly quoted on the San Francisco Stock Exchange. Its mill was at Pinal, five miles from the mine, a camp better known to old timers as "Picket Post," for the most prominent feature of its landscape was Picket Post Butte, one of the signal stations of the Apaches, from which they could sight the passing of enemies for many miles around.
To this camp, in 1876, came Harry Brook, a professional newspaper man, who, for awhile, tried to find fortune in the editing there of a weekly newspaper, The Pinal Drill; but "The Drill" left pay-rock behind long ago, and the towns of Pinal and Silver King are mere heaps of crumbling adobes. Probably the hest historian of the Silver King is Brook himself and the liberty, therefore, is taken of quoting from his writings on the subject :
Great chunks of absolutely pure virgin silver were dug out of the Silver King. The superintendent, Aaron Mason, would sometimes drive down from the mine to the mill with a string of wire silver several feet long twisted around his sombrero. They sent native silver to the mint and had it made into silver dollars, which were given away as souvenirs. We have heard much, of late, in regard to "high grading"-in plain English, stealing-of rich gold ore in Nevada. Well, at the Silver King the stealing of silver ore was a common thing, and several "fences" were prosecuted and sent to jail. Men on the big ore teams would throw off chunks of rich ore, which were picked up by confederates. It was said that the dust of the five-mile stretch between the mine and the mill would average at least $5 a ton in silver.
OLD SILVER KING MILL AND PICKET POST BUTTE
SENATOR MILL ON THE HASSAYAMPA, BELOW PRESCOTT
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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 armies 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 foe's 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 allowance 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- 7
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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. Sumner, 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. II. 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- graphical 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 marand- 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 useful 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."
The Indians had had a taste, however, for the white man's firewater and mention is made of an interpreter who "told the General he had tasted the liquor of Sonora and New Mexico and would like to taste a sample of the United States. The dog had a liquorish tooth and when given a drink of French brandy pro- nounced it better than any he had ever seen or tasted."
Emory had written in his daily journal of continually finding ruined remains of the habitations of ancient peoples. Sharing interest with the good Indians was Casa Grande, within the Pima country. He called it the remains of a three- story mud house. The Indians called it "Casa Montezuma," but the bibulous interpreter admitted that the Pimas after all knew nothing of its origin. Emory was, however, told the old Pima story of the primeval woman of surpassing beauty, who rejected all courtiers, though her goodness and generosity were unlim- ited when there came a time of drouth. One day as she was lying asleep a drop of rain fell upon her and from an immaculate conception she bore a son, the founder of a new race, who built all these houses. An immaculate conception
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story, of one sort or another, is to be heard among most of the southwestern tribes, as well as a tale of the Flood.
EMORY PROPHESIES ON THE SOUTHWEST
Not far from Yuma the expedition unexpectedly ran across a number of Mexicans, driving about 500 horses from Sonora to California, undoubtedly for the use of the Mexican forces on the coast. The chief of the party represented himself as the employee of several rich rancheros, but later it was learned that he really was a colonel in the Mexican army. The horses, though nearly all wild and unbroken, were a valuable find, for the horses and mules of the Kearny expe- dition were lean and worn out. That the horses were indeed for the remounting of General Castro's command in California was definitely determined through the capture of a Mexican messenger, eastward bound with letters for Sonora, telling how the Californians had thrown off the detestable Anglo-Yankee yoke and had re-established Mexican authority.
Before leaving Arizona, Lieutenant Emory made a few observations concern- ing the country at large that are of interest to-day. He said: "In no part of this vast tract can the rains from Heaven be relied upon to any extent for the cultiva- tion of the soil. A few feeble streams flow in from different directions from the great mountains, which in many places traverse this region. The cultivation of the earth is therefore confined to those narrow strips of land which are within the level of the waters of the streams, and wherever practiced in a community with any success or to any extent involves a degree of subordination and absolute obedience to a chief repugnant to the habits of our people." He believed that along the Salinas (Salt) and some other rivers land could be found capable of irrigation. A memorandum was made of the Mexican highroad between Sonora and California, which, from the ford of the Colorado below the mouth of the Gila, crossed a fearful desert toward the southeast, that endured for nearly a week's journey.
There were also some observations concerning the Indians at large. The Pimas were considered the best, with a high regard for morality and with a desire for peace, though without any incapacity for war. The Maricopas were considered a bit more sprightly than their neighbors. The Apaches lived prin- cipally by plundering the Mexicans, and near the headwaters of the Salinas was told of the existence of a band of Indians known as the "Soones," who in manner, habits and pursuits "are said to resemble the Pimas, except that they live in houses scooped from the solid rock. Many of them are Albinos, which may be the consequence of their cavernous dwellings." This description of the Zuñi pueblo dwellings, on hearsay evidence, is about as good as any heard by Friar Marco de Niza.
The Colorado River was crossed by the expedition November 24. The stream was forded at a point where it was about one-third of a mile wide and four feet in extreme depth, with a river bottom about ten miles wide, overgrown with thicket. Prediction was made by Captain Johnston that the river "would at all seasons carry steamers of large size to the future city of 'LaVaca' at the mouth of the Gila."
Emory stated his belief that the Colorado always would be navigable for steamboats, though full of shifting sandbars above the mouth, and that the Gila
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might be navigated up to the Pima villages, and possibly with small boats at all stages of water. He wrote of seeing near the junction of the two streams, on the north side, the remains of an old Spanish church, built near the beginning of the seventeenth century, by the renowned Padre Kino. "The site of this mission," he predicted, "will probable be the site of a city of wealth and importance, most of the mineral and fur regions of a vast extent of country being drained by the two rivers." That the Gila was in rather abnormal state of clarity is shown by his reference to the "sea-green waters lost in the chrome-colored hue of the Colorado." In these latter days the Gila usually discharges a flood that is nearly black into the brick-red waters of the Colorado.
The column was met at La Pascual, on December 6, by a superior force of Mexicans under command of Gen. Andrés Pico. Kearny did not wait for attack, but set his column in motion at 2 a. m., with Captain Johnston in command of the vanguard. The enemy, encountered about daylight, was charged and driven from the field in disorder. That resistance was keen was indicated by the fact that the United States forces had a casualty list of eighteen killed and thirteen wounded. Among the killed were Captains Johnston and Moore and Lieutenant Hammond, while the wounded included General Kearny, Captains Gillespie and Gibson and Lieutenant Warner. It is told that the Mexican losses were much heavier. Carson and Lieutenant Beale thereafter slipped through the Mexican lines to summon help from San Diego.
The following day the Californians reformed and made an unsuccessful attack. The enemy being in so much greater force, the situation of Kearny's command was not enviable, and it is possible that the long journey might have ended in disaster had it not been for reinforcement received on the evening of December 10 of 180 sailors and marines, sent out from San Diego by Commodore Stockton, bringing clothing, provisions and ammunition. The Californians, unaware of the approach of this body, were surprised and they fled, leaving many of their cattle.
The following day the Americans entered San Diego in triumph, and the Kearny column later took a prominent part in the final overthrow of Mexican rule within Alta California.
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