USA > Arizona > History of Arizona, Vol. III > Part 11
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"'Captain: I have the honor to report for the information of the department commander, that on the 15th ultimo I left this post with compa- nies C. D. G. H. & L., first cavalry, New Mexican volunteers dismounted, for the purpose of ex- ploring the country west of the Oribi villages, and if possible to chastise the Navajos inhabiting that region. On the 16th I detached thirty men with Sergeant Herrera, of Company C. first cav- alry, New Mexican volunteers on a fresh trail which intersected our route. The sergeant fol- lowed the trail for twenty miles when he over- took a small party of Navajos, two of whom he killed, wounded two, and captured fifty head of sheep and one horse. En route the party came on a village lately deserted, which they de- stroyed. The energy and zeal displayed by the sergeant and his party on this occasion merit my warmest approbation.
"'On the 21st arrived at Moqui village. I found on my arrival that the inhabitants of all the villages, except the Oribis, had a misunder- standing with the Navajos, owing to some injus- tice perpetrated by the latter. I took advantage of this feeling, and succeeded in obtaining repre-
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sentatives from all the villages, Oribi excepted, to accompany me on the warpath. My object in insisting upon parties of these people accom- panying me was simply to involve them so far that they could not retract; to bind them to us, and place them in antagonism to the Navajos. They were of some service, and manifested a great desire to aid in every respect. While on this subject I would respectfully represent that these people, numbering some four thousand souls, are in a most deplorable condition, from the fact that the country for several miles around their village, is quite barren and is en- tirely destitute of vegetation.
" 'They have no water for purposes of irriga- tion, and their only dependence for subsistence is on the little corn they raise when the weather is propitious, which is not always the case in this latitude. They are a peaceable people, have never robbed or murdered the people of New Mexico, and are in every way worthy of the fos- tering care of the government. Of the bounty so unsparingly bestowed by it on other Pueblo Indians, ay, even on the marauding they have never tasted, and I earnestly recommend
that the attention of the Indian Bureau be called to this matter. I understand that a couple of years' annuities for the Navajos, not distributed, are in the possession of the Superintendent of Indian Affairs at Santa Fe, and I consider that if such an arrangement would be legal, these goods would be well bestowed on these people.
"'C. CARSON,
" 'Colonel First Cavalry, New Mexican Volun- teers,
" 'Captain Benjamin C. Cutler, A. A. G.'
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"In antagonism to these interesting people, we have the barbarous Apaches, the Bedouins of the desert and the robbers of the mountains.
"Time immemorial their hand has been against every man, every man's hand against them; they disdain to labor, and live by robbery and plunder. For three centuries they have stayed the progress of civilization in that part of the continent, and now hold its richest mineral treasures from the grasp of the white man. They have successfully defended their mountain homes against the Spaniards, the Mexicans, and the Americans. A few hardy and enterprising Americans have been endeavoring to penetrate that El Dorado for several years, but for want of military support and on account of the desolat- ing war which has spread its ravages to the con- fines of Arizona, they are yet prevented from ex- ploring that inviting field of mineral wealth. The subjugation or extermination of this merci- less tribe is a measure of stern justice which ought not to be delayed. Their subjugation would open to our hardy miners an unexplored gold field north of the Gila, which the Spaniards considered the true El Dorado. A sickly sym- pathy for a few beastly savages should not stand in the way of the development of our rich gold fields, or the protection of our enterprising frontiersmen. The settlers around the Capital (Prescott) have kept one hundred men in the field for more than a year at their own expense; their leader, Colonel King Woolsey, has been ruined by the Apaches, and adopted this method of retaliation. They have waited in vain for the protection of the military branch of the govern-
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ment, and were forced in self-defense to take the matter in their own hands.
"The Pimas and Maricopas are a confeder- ated tribe, living on the Gila River, one hundred and eighty miles from its confluence with the Colorado. They are an agricultural people, liv- ing entirely by the cultivation of the soil, and number some seven thousand five hundred souls. They have always been friendly to the Ameri- cans, and boast that up to this day they do not know the color of the white man's blood. They hold one of the strongest positions on the conti- nent, accessible only after crossing deserts in every direction, and have here defended their homes and fields against barbarous Apaches from time immemorial. The early Spanish ex- plorers found them here in 1540, and ruined houses of grand proportions attest their occupa- tion for thousands of years before the Spaniards came. To the north for several hundred miles ruined cities, fortifications, and the remains of irrigating canals, indicate the places formerly occupied by a race now passed away without hav- ing left any history. The researches of the anti- quarian are in vain, and the degenerate Indian of the present day answers all questions about past grandeur with the mystic name of Monte- zuma. The Pimas know no more of their origin than if they had come out of the ground, as their tradition intimates. They have no religion, and worship no deity, unless a habit of hailing the rising sun with an oration may be the remains of some sun-worshipping tribe. They are exceed- ingly jealous of their females; and their chastity, as far as outside barbarians are concerned, re- mains, with a few exceptions, unimpeachable.
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They have a very good tract of land, set apart by metes and bounds plainly marked, have their irrigating canals in good condition, and present every evidence of a thrifty population, produ- cing more than they consume. They number some seven thousand five hundred. They de- serve the highest consideration of this Congress. It would have been impossible for the govern- ment troops in that Territory to have subsisted there but for the supplies furnished by these Indians. They are, in fact, the laboring popu-
lation of that Territory. They produce sup- plies both for the Army and for the miners. They were colonized by the Spanish Jesuits a hundred and fifty years ago, and they are monu- ments of the civilization and prosperity of that country at that time. They have cultivated the land there from time immemorial. When the Spaniards entered that country three hun- dred and forty years ago, they found these Indi- ans in a high state of civilization. It is a good country for agricultural purposes, and during my administration of Indian affairs in that Ter- ritory the last year, I had the pleasure of con- tributing something to the improvement of those Indians, by giving them cotton seed, hoes, spades, shovels, &c.
"The Papagoes are a branch of the great Pima tribe, speaking the same language and having the same manners and customs, modified by civiliza- tion; the only difference is, that upon being bap- tized, they were originally called Vapconia, in their language Christians, which has been cor- rupted into Papagoes; they also cut their hair short and wear a hat, and such clothing as they
11
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can get. The Papagoes all live south of the Gila River, in that arid triangle known as the western part of the Gadsden Purchase. Their lot is cast in an ungrateful soil; but the softness of the cli- mate reconciles them to their location, and con- tentment is their happiness. The fruit of the Cereus Giganteus furnishes them with bread and molasses; they plant in the rainy season, raise cattle, hunt, and labor in the harvest fields. Their principal settlement is around the old mis- sion church of San Xavier del Bac, nine miles south of Tucson. The mission was founded by the Jesuits in 1670, and is the grandest architec- tural monument in northern Mexico. Upon the expulsion of the Jesuits from Mexico they gave the Indians a solemn injunction to preserve the church, promising to return at a future day. It was a strange coincidence that two Jesuit fathers from the Santa Clara College, in California, ac- companied us to their long-neglected neophytes. They were received by the Indians with great demonstrations of joy ; and, amid the ringing of bells and explosion of fireworks, entered into possession of the long-neglected mission of San Xavier. These pious fathers immediately com- menced laboring with the zeal and fidelity of their order, and in a few days had the mass regu- larly chanted by the Papago maidens, with the peculiar softness of their language. Every fa- cility was rendered the holy fathers in holding intercourse with the Indians, and a great im- provement was soon perceptible in their deport- ment and habits. They seemed entering upon a new era of moral and material prosperity re- freshing to witness. The captain, Jose Victori- ana Solorse, is a highly intelligent Indian, and is
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exercising a beneficent influence on the tribe. The family relations of the Papagoes are con- ducted with morality, and their women are ex- amples of chastity and industry. These deserv- ing people should have additional aid to enable them to colonize the straggling members of the tribe; their principal wants are agricultural im- plements, carts, wheelbarrows, axes and hoes. With the necessary aids in agricultural imple- ments they can soon produce a surplus to ex- change for clothing and the comforts of life, so that they will be an advantage to the community instead of a tax upon the government. They number about five thousand souls living within our boundaries.
"Now I come to the Indians of (the) Colorado. They never reaped the benefit of the Spanish colonization, because the Spaniards never ex- tended their conquests north of the Gila. They are of the same family, and are affiliated with the Pimas, and desire to live in the same manner. But they have no means of exercising their in- dustry. As far as that portion of our Indian country is concerned, they never have had an officer of the government among them until the last year. As Superintendent of Indian Affairs, I called the confederated tribes of the Colorado in council together. The council was attended by the principal chiefs and head men of the Yumas, Mohaves, Yavapais, Hualapais, and Che- mihuevis. These tribes have an aggregate of ten thousand souls living near the banks of the Colorado, from Fort Yuma to Fort Mohave. They cultivate the bottom lands of the Colorado River, where an overflow affords sufficient moist- ure; the failure of an overflow, which sometimes
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happens, is considered a great calamity, and breeds a famine. Their resources from game, fish, and wild fruits have been very much cur- tailed by the influx of Americans, and it would be dangerous for them to visit their former hunt- ing-grounds. The fruit of the mesquite tree, an acacia flourishing in this latitude, has been the staff of life to the Indians of the Colorado. A prolific mesquite will yield ten bushels of beans in the hull; the beans are pounded in a mortar and made into cakes of bread for the winter season, and a kind of whisky is also made of the bean before it becomes dry and hard. This resource for the Indians has been very much reduced since the irruption of the Americans and Mexicans, as the mesquite bean is more nutri- tious and less dangerous for animals in that cli- mate than corn. The beans command, at the dif- ferent towns and stands where they are sold, from five to ten cents per pound as they fall from the tree. The improvidence of the Indians leads them to sell all the beans in the autumn, saving none for the winter consumption. During the past winter they were in such a famished con- dition that they killed a great many horses and cattle on the river, mostly belonging to American settlers, for which claims are now made.
"But as the representative of the government of the United States at that time, I did not un- dertake to make a written treaty with these In- dians, because I considered that the government was able and willing to treat them fairly and honestly without entering into the form of a written treaty, which has been heretofore so se- verely criticised in both Houses of Congress, and with some reason. These Indians there assem-
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bled were willing, for a small amount of beef and flour, to have signed any treaty which it had been my pleasure to write. I simply proposed to them that for all the one hundred and twenty thousand square miles, full of mines and rich enough to pay the public debt of the United States, they should abandon that territory and confine themselves to the elbow in the Colorado River, not more than seventy-five thousand acres. But I did not enter into any obligation on ac- count of the United States to furnish them with seeds and agricultural implements. I simply told them that if I was elected to represent that Territory in this Congress, I would endeavor to lay their claims before the government, which they understood to be magnanimous, and that I hoped that this Congress would have the gener- osity and the justice to provide for these Indians, who have been robbed of their lands and their means of subsistence, and that they may be al- lowed to live there where they have always made their homes. They desire to live as do the Pueblo Indians of New Mexico and Arizona. Those Pueblo Indians live in settlements, in towns, in reservations, according to the wise policy of the Spanish Government, which colonized the Indians in reservations, and made their labor valuable in building improvements for their own subsistence, for churches, and public improve- ments, and in that manner made them peaceable Indians, instead of having everlasting and eter- nal war with the people whom they had robbed of their land.
"These people having been citizens of the Mex- ican government, are not, according to our theory, entitled to any right in the soil ; and there-
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fore no treaty with these Indians for the extinc- tion of their title to the soil would be recognized by this government. It is a fiction of law which these Indians in their ignorance, are not able to understand. They cannot see why the Indians of the Northeast have been paid annuities since the foundation of this Government for the ex- tinction of their title, while the Indians who were formerly subject to the Spanish and Mexican governments are driven from their lands with- out a dollar. It is impossible for these simple- minded people to understand this sophistry. They consider themselves just as much entitled to the land which their ancestors inhabited be- fore ours landed on Plymouth Rock as the In- dians of the Northeast. They have never signed any treaty relinquishing their right to the public domain.
"I beg to lay before you a memorial of the Territorial Legislature on the subject.
" 'To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled :
" 'Your memorialists, the Council and House of Representatives of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Arizona respectfully repre- sent, that the four tribes of Indians known as the Yavapais, Hualapais, Mojaves and Yumas, numbering about ten thousand, are now scattered over an extent of country from the Gila River on the south to the northern boundary of the Territory, and from the Colorado River on the west to the Rio Verde on the east; that these Indians are now roaming at large over the vast territory above described, gaining a precarious subsistence from the small patches of land along the Colorado River, which they cultivate, and
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from fishing and hunting; that when the seasons are unfavorable to their little farming interests, or the Colorado River does not overflow to irrigate and enrich their fields, they are reduced to a starv- ing condition, and compelled, by necessity to make raids upon the stock and property of the whites, and not infrequently do they ambush the traveler and miner, and waylay and stampede the stock of trains and plunder their packs and wagons; that the whites are settling up the country, and necessarily diminishing their means of subsist- ence, and increasing the dangers of a collision with them ; that the late Superintendent of Indian Affairs of the Territory, Hon. Charles D. Pos- ton, in view of their scattered and destitute con- dition, selected and caused to be laid off, on the east bank and bottom of the Colorado River, a reservation ample enough for the accommoda- tion and support of all the above named tribes; that an irrigating canal can be constructed at an expense of a small amount (the Indians per- forming the labor) that will render highly pro- ductive a large tract of land that will yield an abundance for their support, and afford a large surplus to be disposed of for their education and improvement; that when placed upon said reservation they can, under judicious manage- ment, be made not only self-sustaining, but to produce largely for the market; that, to enable those who may be placed over them or have charge of them to open said canal, to remove them upon said reservation, and sustain them until they can, by their own labor, provide enough for their subsistence, your memorialists respectfully ask of your honorable body an ap- propriation of $150,000; that to secure the atten-
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tion and favorable consideration of the subject and matters of this memorial by the Congress of the United States.
" 'Be it resolved by the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of Arizona, That our Delegate in Congress, Hon. Charles D. Poston, be re- quested to use all honorable means to bring the subject before Congress.
"'And be it further Resolved, That his Excel- lency the Governor of the Territory of Arizona be requested to forward this memorial, together with such other information touching the sub- ject as he may have in his possession, to Hon. Charles D. Poston, our Delegate in Congress.
"'W. CLAUDE JONES,
" 'Speaker of the House of Representatives. " 'COLES BASHFORD, " 'President of the Council. " 'Approved November 7, 1864.
"'JOHN N. GOODWIN.'
"In order that the proposition may be clearly understood I will read the report of the engineer who accompanied me on an examination of the valley of the Colorado to select a reservation for these Indians:
" 'La Paz City, Arizona, " 'May 30, 1864.
" 'Sir: At your request I have made an exam- ination of the lands on the eastern bank of the Colorado River from La Paz to Corner Rock.
"'I have been surprised at the great quantity of rich bottom land and alluvial soil, traversed by many sloughs and lagunas, which extend from the banks of the river for several miles into the valley. Most of them are dry now, as the river did not rise high enough last year to fill them.
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" 'I directed my special attention to the lands between Halfway Bend and the Mesa. With the exception of a few stretches of heavy sand land which I estimated at about one-fifth of the entire area, I found the soil excellent, most of it consist- ing of a light loam, of which many thousand acres are covered with mesquite trees, a sure indica- tion of rich ground, while willows and cotton trees grow luxuriantly in the vicinity of the river, the sloughs and lagunas.
" 'At some places I noticed alkaline efflores- cences, but they are not extensive. If these places could be regularly overflowed, much of the salts would be carried off. It is well known, moreover, that Indian corn and wheat grow well in alkaline soil.
"'If the eastern boundary of the intended reservation runs from the mouth of the principal slough at Halfway Bend (the Indians call it Mad-ku-dap) in a direction nearly north, 26° 30' east to Corner Rock, it will include an area of about 118 square miles, equal to 75,520 acres. Of this, six square miles are mesa land, leaving 112 square miles, or 71,680 acres of valley land. One- fifth deducted as sand land leaves 90 square miles, or 57,600 acres, of bottom land or light loamy soil. About one-fourth of this, say 22 square miles, or 14,080 acres, is covered with mesquite trees. A large mesquite tree yields several bushels of beans. Supposing, then, that in this year every acre produced five bushels, the crop would amount to 70,400 bushels, which, with rabbits, lizards, tuli roots, the fish of the river, the little wheat and pumpkins they can raise, and the sale of hay, may give a precari- ous subsistence this year to the ten thousand In-
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dians for which the government intends to make provision.
"'But, not taking into consideration that many Indians do not relish mesquite beans, the mesquite trees do not bear every year, and agri- culture depends entirely on the casual overflows of the river. Last year the crops of the Indians amounted to very little, and if the river does not soon rise it will be the same this year.
" 'The most humane and cheapest way to pro- vide permanently for the Indians, and educate at least their rising generation to useful labors, would be, in my humble opinion, that the gov- ernment not only give them the land between Halfway Bend and Corner Rock, but also assist them in digging an irrigation canal from the Mesa toward Halfway Bend. They would then become independent of the uncertain rise and fall of the river, could raise regular crops, and would soon be able to sell a large surplus.
" 'From Halfway Bend to the Mesa I noticed at various points that the ground slopes gently back from the bank of the river toward the val- ley. The best proofs of this are the numerous sloughs. Ascending finally the Mesa and look- ing down the valley, I was struck with the evi- dent facility with which a canal could be dug to irrigate many thousand acres of the richest soil, barren only for want of moisture.
" 'According to Lieutenant Ives' report the fall from the foot of the Mesa to Halfway Bend is fifty-five feet, the distance by land twenty- seven miles. The foot of the Mesa seems to have been destined by nature for the head of a canal. The river flows to this point between hills of conglomerate, upon which freshets can
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make but little impression. A few piles would make an efficient wing dam. A belt of willows and ash trees should protect the lower embank- ment for the first few miles.
" 'At the foot of the Mesa I estimated the dif- ference of level between the bottom of the river and the top of its upper bank fourteen feet.
"'Following the natural level of the country, and giving one foot fall to the mile, which is much for a large body of water, then, after four- teen miles of canal, all the land between the canal and the river for the remaining thirteen miles could be irrigated. If the canal were at this point only two miles distant from the river, de- ducting one-fifth for sand land, 20 square miles, or 12,800 acres, up to Halfway Bend, could be irrigated. But long before the canal has reached the first-mentioned point, sloughs could be filled, depressed flats overflowed by branch ditches, and many Indians could plant little patches along the embankments of the canal while it is in prog- ress of construction.
" 'Taking, now, twenty square miles as a mini- mum of irrigable land, at thirty bushels of In- dian corn per acre, they could produce 384,000 bushels; and at twenty bushels of wheat per acre, 256,000 bushels; one-third of which, even with the propensity of the Indians to waste, would be more than sufficient for home consumption of ten thousand souls, allowing to each of them, women, children and babies included, five hun- dred pounds of corn or grain.
"'How the canal should actually be laid out, how branch ditches and flood-gates have to be constructed and distributed, what amount of earth the Indians have to remove, what dimen-
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sions it should have-what, finally, the cost of this canal would be, (probably less than one hundred thousand dollars), all this can only be ascer- tained by a systematic survey of the valley for that special purpose.
" 'Since for years accustomed in my profes- sion to ascertain scientifically if the plans con- ceived by practical men can be executed, I feel some reluctance in making estimates before I have reduced them to a thorough scientific basis. The estimates of the amount of land to be re- claimed from a desert, and its productiveness, are, therefore, rather underrated.
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