History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530-1888, Volume XVII, Part 51

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Oak, Henry Lebbeus, 1844-1905
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: San Francisco : The History Company
Number of Pages: 890

USA > Arizona > History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530-1888, Volume XVII > Part 51
USA > New Mexico > History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530-1888, Volume XVII > Part 51

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476

ANNALS OF ARIZONA.

The war of 1846-8, except in the treaty that ended it, had but slight bearing on the history of Arizona. The plans of the United States did not include the occupation of the Pimería towns south of the Gila, and north of that river there were no towns to be occupied, though in a certain sense the conquest of California on the west and New Mexico on the east may be regarded as having included that of the broad region lying between the two. The war also led to the crossing of this region in the southern parts by several parties, thus involving its first exploration by Americans but for the previous exploits of Pattie and other trappers and traders. In August, 1846, General Castro, driven from California, found his way by the Colorado and Papaguería to Altar in Sonora, accompanied by a small party;6 and at the end of the same month Kit Carson went east by the Gila route as the bearer of despatches from Commodore Stockton,

all the live-stock outside the walls carried off, and 3 or 4 persons killed; then the foe sued for peace (!), offering to give up all their booty, and asserting that there was a division in their ranks as to peace or war. While negotia- tions were in progress Pápago reenforcements arrived, and the Apaches were attacked and driven off. Son., Jan. 10, 1851. June 1851, mil. comandante acc. to instruc. of this date had no authority over vecinos except in case of an attack. Id., June 27th. July, friendly Apaches attacked by hostiles, and 59 either killed or carried off. Id., Oct. 24th. Pay of the colony for Oct .- Nov., $2,077; paymaster, Jose M. Elias Carrillo. Id., Nov. 14th. Feb .- April 1852, campaign of Luguez with Pimas and Papagos. Pinart, Doc. Hist. Son., MS., v. 21-2. In March an exped. from Tubac was defeated by the Ind. Id., 14-15. June, Tucson again attacked and cattle driven off, but hy the prompt action of Capt. Agustin Romanos, now com., aided by the juez de paz and his vecinos, and also hy Apaches and Pápagos, and by 20 French settlers, the plunder was recovered. In following the foe, tracks of ' Ameri- can shoes ' were found, perhaps not on the feet of Americans. Id., v. 37-41. The French settlers were 57 in number, who this year became citizens, prob- ably with a view of cooperating with Raousset de Boulbon in his filibustering project in Sonora, as most of them joined his party. Id., 60-9, 99. In Nov. Capt. Andrés Zeuteno was put in command. Id., 34-6. In 1853 similar items on Apache warfare appear; no indication of any radical change. In July there were 112 friendly Apaches living at Tubac. Pinart, Col. Doc., MS., 118. See items of 1853-4, in Pinart, Doc. Hist. Son., MS., chiefly from El Sonorense, v. 176-8, 180-1, 186-90, 192, 212-13, 252-3. José Paredes was com. at Tu- bac in Sept. 1853. Id., Col. Dor., MS., no. 130. Americans join the Mex. against Apaches in Oct. 1834, killing 21.

6 Hist. Cal., v. 277-8, this series. The crossing of Arizona between Cal. and Sonora, both by the Tucson and Sonoita routes, was in this and the preceding years not a very unusual or dangerous matter, the Indians being generally well disposed.

477

KEARNY AND COOKE.,

announcing somewhat prematurely the conquest of the coast province.7

Meeting Carson and inducing him to turn back as guide, General Kearny, with a force of 200 dragoons, left the Rio Grande in the middle of October, reach- ing the Gila by way of the copper mines, and on the 22d crossed what was later the Arizona boundary. The march of some 400 miles across the entire width of the territory, following the river-except at the big bend-down to the Colorado junction, occupied exactly a month. The journey was marked by no startling adventures or hardships, except the exhaus- tion of the mules and horses. The few Apaches met were suspicious and would sell no mules; the Pimas far- ther down the river were altogether friendly and eager for trade, but had no animals for sale ; but near the Colo- rado the army's needs in this respect were supplied from a band of horses that a party of Mexicans under Captain Segura were driving from California to Sonora. The narratives, especially that of Captain Emory, contain a good description of the country traversed, with its plants and animals; and relics of the ancient inhabitants, in the form of ruins, pottery, and rock- inscriptions-now for the first time examined by Americans-attracted much attention. This may be regarded as the first in the series of scientific trans- continental surveys in the south.8

Following Kearny, but taking a more southern route that a way might be found for wagons, came Lieu- tenant-colonel Cooke with the Mormon battalion, ar- riving on the 2d of December at the rancho of San Bernardino near the south-eastern corner of what was later Arizona. Cooke's route from this point to the intersection with Kearny's, also a new one to any but

7 Id., 286, 336. There were several subsequent crossings of Arizona in 1847-9 by bearers of despatches, which I do not deem it necessary to record in this volume, as not belonging properly to Arizona annals.

8 Enory's Notes of a Military Reconnaissance, 63-94; Johnston's Journal; Grifin's Journal, MS. Names used by Emory, and apparently applied at this time on the upper Gila, were Night Creek, Steeple Rock, Mt Graham, Mt Turnbull, Saddle-back Mt, and Mineral Creek.

478

ANNALS OF ARIZONA.

Indians and Mexicans, was west to the Rio San Pedro, down that river northward some fifty miles, thence across to Tucson by the line of the later railroad, and north-westward, still not far from the railroad route, to the Gila. The march of the Mormons, by reason of their duty of opening a wagon road and their char- acter as infantry, was much more difficult than that of the dragoons; but they were under a special divine protection presumably not accorded to the less saintly branch of the service. Their only active foes were a herd of wild bulls on the San Pedro, with which they had a battle on the 11th of December, several men being wounded, one of them Lieutenant George Stone- man, since governor of California. Six days later the army camped at Tucson. Captain Comaduran had sent a request to the Americans not to pass through the town, as he had orders to prevent it; and Cooke had in turn proposed the turning-over of a few arms as a token of surrender, binding them not to fight during the war. This was declined, and the comandante with his garrison abandoned the presidio, as did most of the inhabitants. Accordingly, Cooke left a friendly letter for Governor Gándara, reminding him of Sonora's wrongs at the hands of Mexico and the Indians, and suggesting that "the unity of Sonora with the states of the north, now her neighbors, is necessary effect- ually to subdue these Parthian Apaches;"9 then he marched on, reaching the Gila on the 21st and the Colorado on January 9, 1847. The wagon road thus opened was not only utilized by the California emigrants in the following years, but as a possible railroad route it was a potent element in prompting the later purchase by the United States of territory south of the Gila.10

9 Dec. 17th, Capt. Comaduran wrote to the com. gen. of Sonora that an Amer. force of 500 men had arrived at Tucson. Dec. 28th, the com. gen. issued a circular stating that on receipt of the news he began organizing a force to repel the invaders, but soon heard that the enemy had evacuated Tucson and marched 'precipitately ' for Alta California. Sonorense, Jan. 1, 1847. There was in the night of the 17th a false alarm of attack from the Mexicans, which caused much excitement in camp.

10 Cooke's Journal, in U. S. Govt Doc., 30th cong. spec. sess., Sen. Doc. 2; Id., Report, in Emory's Notes, 549-62, with maps of route; Id., Conquest, 138-72,

479

GRAHAM'S DRAGOONS.

During the war there were no more explorations or marches across Arizona to be noticed here; but in 1848, after the treaty of peace, a battalion of dragoons under Major Lawrence P. Graham marched from Chihuahua to California. Coming from Janos this party reached San Bernardino the 4th of October, but instead of following Cooke's trail, Graham kept on south of the line to Santa Cruz presidio, and thence followed the river down to Tucson. The Gila was reached at the end of the month, and the Colorado on the 22d of November. The Americans were delighted, as had been those under Kearny and Cooke, with the hospitality of the Gila Pimas, and the thrift displayed at their villages exceeding anything elsewhere seen in the transcontinental jour- ney. Owing to the drunkenness and consequent in- competence of the leader, this party endured greater hardships than either of the preceding. No narrative of this march has ever been published, but I have Captain Cave J. Coutts' manuscript diary, which con- tains an excellent account of adventures on the way, and many valuable notes on the country.11

The treaty of 1848 adopted the Gila as the inter- national boundary, so far as Arizona is concerned, except that the Bartlett line on latitude 32° 22' and longitude about 109° 50'- and the corrected line on latitude 31° 54', longitude 109° 20', and. the Santo Domingo River-gave the United States a small tract south of the Gila. The survey in 1851, under com- missioners Bartlett and García Conde, has been re- corded in the preceding chapter.12 The river, as a natural boundary, hardly required a formal survey,

with map; Tyler's Hist. Mormon Battalion, 211-40; Bigler's Diary of a Mor- mon, MS. Leroux and Charbonneaux were the principal guides; Stephen C. Foster served as interpreter. Says Tyler, when at the Pima villages on the Gila: 'Colonel Cooke very kindly suggested to our senior officers that this vicinity would be a good place for the exiled saints to locate. A propo- sition to this effect was favorably received by the Indians.' The Mormons take much pride in having thus been the pioneer surveyors of the Southern Pacific Railroad, while their companions at Salt Lake were 'paving the way for the Union Pacific.'

11 Coutts' Diary of a March to California in 1848, MS., p. 62-98.

12 See p. 467 et seq., this volume, and maps.

480

ANNALS OF ARIZONA.

especially after Emory's reconnoissance of 1846; still the most complete possible exploration of the region for general purposes, and particularly the search for a railroad route, were deemed essential. So far as can be learned from the confused records, the results were not very important. Mr Bartlett, departing from the copper-mine region in September 1851, for Sonora, and not returning on account of illness, left on the San Pedro a party under Gray and Whipple to com- plete the survey of the Gila. Gray, with two men, subsequently crossed the country to Tucson, went up the river, and met Bartlett again at Santa Cruz, returning to the San Pedro on the 2d of October. Next day the whole party started for the Gila, reaching it on the 9th at a point just below the San Carlos junction; and by December 24th the survey had been completed to a point within about 60 miles of the Colorado, when it was suspended for want of sup- plies, and the explorers found their way to San Diego in January 1852 .. Here they met Bartlett again, who in May, with Whipple and party, started for the Gila to complete the survey. Before reaching the Colorado, Colonel Craig, commanding the escort, was killed by deserters whom he was trying to arrest. The Yumas were found to be hostile, but an escort to the Pima villages was furnished from the garrison at Fort Yuma. The journey through Arizona, up the Gila and Santa Cruz, was accomplished between June 18th and July 24th. This seems to be all that is necessary, or possible in the space at my command, to say about the boundary survey under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, so far as it effects the subject of this volume, though there were many complications of some interest. It should be added that Bartlett's narrative contains an excellent description of the country visited, with notes on early history, and the aborigines, and views illustrating physical features, and especially ruins and relics of antiquity.13

13 Bartlett's Personal Narrative, i. 355-405, from copper mines to Sta Cruz; map of the regions surveyed; ii. 156-313, return from Ft Yuma in 1962,

481

GOVERNMENT EXPLORATIONS.

It was in 1851 that the first government explora- tion was made across northern Arizona. Captain L. Sitgreaves was ordered to follow the Zuñi, Colorado Chiquito, and Colorado rivers down to the gulf. With a party of twenty he left Zuñi in September, but did not attempt to follow the river through the great cañons, turning off to the west on the 8th of October, crossing the country just above the parallel of 35°, approximately on the route followed by Padre Garcés in 1776, reaching the Mojave region on the Colorado, November 5th, and following the main river south to Fort Yuma, where he arrived at the end of November. The condition of the animals and lack of supplies had not permitted this expedition to accomplish all that had been expected of it, but the result of this first exploration was an interesting itin- erary, a map of the route, and various scientific reports on a new region.14

Sitgreaves' exploration was followed in 1853-4 by the 35th parallel Pacific Railroad survey under Lieu- tenant A. W. Whipple. With Lieutenant J. C. Ives as chief assistant in a corps of twelve, and an escort of the 7th U. S. infantry under Lieutenant John M. Jones, Whipple, having completed the survey from Fort Smith across New Mexico, left Zuñi on Novem- ber 23, 1853. His route was for the most part some- what south of that followed by Sitgreaves, though

and p. 597-602, Lieut Whipple's report of the trip down the Gila. Another report of Whipple is attached to Graham's Report, 32d cong. Ist sess., Sen. Ex.'Doc. 121, p. 221-5. See also, on the killing of Craig, Webb's report, etc., in U. S. Govt Doc., special sess., 1853, Sen. Doc. 129, p. 125-36. See also Mex. and U. S. Boundary Survey, 32d cong. Ist sess., Sen. Ex. Doc. 119, passim, especially reports of A. B. Gray, on p. 267-9, 305.7, and that of Thos H. Webb, sec. of the commission, p. 465-8. Gray states that monu- ments were erected all along the line.

14 Sitgreaves, report of an Expedition down the Zuñi and Colorado rivers, by Captain L. Sitgreaves, corps topographical engineers. Accompanied by maps, sketches, views, and illustrations. Wash., 1853, 8vo, 198 p., 80 pl. and map. The appendices are Woodhouse (S. W.), Report on the Natural History, with chapters on zoology, botany, etc., by different men; and Woodhouse, Medical Report. The plates are many of them colored. The party consisted of Capt. Sitgreaves, Lieut. J. G. Parke, Dr S. W. Woodhouse, physician and naturalist, R. H. Kern, draughtsman, Antoine Leroux, guide, 5 Americans, and 10 Mexicans, packers, etc. An escort of 30 men of the 2d artill. was com -- manded by Maj. H. L. Hendrick.

HIST. ARIZ. AND N. MEX. 31

482

ANNALS OF ARIZONA.

his survey covered the same region. Descending the Zuñi, and Colorado Chiquito, and later the Santa María and Bill Williams fork, this party reached the Colo- rado the 20th of February, followed that river up to latitude 34°, 50', and thence in March continued the survey across California. The resulting report as published by government, though of similar nature, is very much more elaborate and extensive than that of Sitgreaves, containing an immense amount of the most valuable descriptive, geographic, and scientific matter on northern Arizona, profusely illustrated by fine colored engravings and maps.15

The Mexican government having permitted, a little in advance of the new treaty, the survey for a rail- road route south of the line, Lieutenant John G. Parke with a party of about 30 and an escort under Lieutenant George Stoneman left San Diego January 24, 1854, and began his survey at the Pima villages on the Gila. He reached Tucson the 20th of Febru- ary, thence proceeding to the San Pedro and eastward by a route somewhat north of Cooke's wagon road for a part of the way, known as Nugent's trail. Coming again into Cooke's road on March 7th, he followed it to the Rio Grande. 16 Again in May 1855 Lieuten-

15 Whipple, Report of Explorations for a railway route, near the thirty-fifth parallel of north latitude, from the Mississippi River to the Pacific Ocean, by Lieu- tenant A. W. Whipple, corps of topographical engineers, assisted by Lieutenant J. C. Ives, etc., 1853-4. Wash., 1856, 4to, being vol. iii. of the Pacific Rail- road Reports, 33d cong. 2d sess., Sen. Ex. Doc. 78. There is an introduction consisting of extracts from Whipple's preliminary report, 36 pages; then Part i., Itinerary, 136 p. (the Arizona matter being on p. 67-120); Part ii., Report of Topographical Features, 77 p .; Part iii., Whipple, Ewbank, and Turner, Report upon the Indian Tribes, 127 p., a standard authority on the subject, with many colored plates, résumés of aboriginal traditions and Span- ish history, etc .; Part iv., Report on the geology of the route, 175 p., maps. Whipple's preliminary report may be found in 33d cong. Ist sess., Ex. Doc. 129, with maps. Also in Pac. R. R. Repts, i. 1-134, passim, is some informa- tion on this route in doc. attached to the report of the sec. war, Feb. 27, 1855. Excellent résumés of this and other surveys may be found in Warren's Memoir. The principal members of the corps were J. M. Bigelow, surgeon and botanist, Jules Marcou, geologist, C. B. R. Kennerly, physician and naturalist, A. H. Campbell, railroad engineer, H. B. Möllhausen, topographer and artist. The Tagebuch einer Reise von Mississippi nach den Küsten der Südsee von Baldwin Möllhausen, Leipzig, 1858, 4to, 499 p., colored plates, map, is an excellent narrative of the same exploration.

16 Parke, Report of Explorations, etc., between Doña Ana and Pimas Villages on the Gila, in Pac. R. R. Repts, ii., no. 6, 28 p.

483

CALIFORNIA IMMIGRATION.

ant Parke with another party started from San Diego for the Pima villages, and made a more careful survey by several routes of the country stretching eastward from the San Pedro.17

After the discovery of gold in California, emigrants in large numbers began to cross southern Arizona, from Sonora and other Mexican states in 1848, and from the eastern United States in 1849. Of this movement, which continued for many years, we have naturally no records except for a few parties. The route followed was by the Santa Cruz and Gila val- leys, though some Mexican parties preferred to cross Papaguería; and the Americans reached Tucson from the Rio Grande for the most part by Cooke's wagon road of 1846, though various cut-offs were likewise attempted. It was a journey of much hardship always, and especially so in seasons of drought, though not more difficult apparently than on other routes. The experiences of the gold-seekers on any of the great lines of travel to California would supply ma- terial for a fascinating volume, but only a few of the diaries are extant, and not even one of them can be closely followed here. The journal kept by Benjamin Hayes in 1849 is the most complete that I have seen, minutely describing the events of each day's progress of his large party from the end of October, when they left the Rio Grande, to the end of December, when they crossed the Colorado into California. The tedious march, novel features of the country and its products noted, the search for grass and water, petty accidents to men and mules, occasional meeting with Indians,

17 Parke, Report of Explorations from the Pima Villages to the Rio Grande, 1854-5, in Pac. R. R. Repts, vii., pt ii. pp. 19-42, with maps. Description of the country and colored plates of scenery. See also Warren's Memoir, 80-1. In El Nacional, March 24, 1854, is a communication from Ayud. In- spector Bernabé Gomez at Tucson, dated March 2d, reporting Parke's arrival to survey boundaries.

In Brown's Apache Country, 18-19, is a mention of exploring expeditions in these years, which is repeated substantially in Hinton's Hand-book, 32-3, Hamilton's Resources, 21, Arizona Hist. (Elliott & Co.), 62-3, and in other works. This would seem to be a carelessly prepared record, omitting some explorations and adding others that did not reach Arizona.

484

ANNALS OF ARIZONA.

the frequent and careful perusal of records left on trees and rocks by preceding parties, delays caused by illness and occasional deaths, passing the graves of earlier emigrants, discussions on the route and specu- lations on the prospects offered by the land of gold, and the thousand and one petty items that make up this journal and hundreds of others written and uu- written-all give a strong fascination to the monoto- nous record, but all resist condensation, or if condensed show simply that an emigrant party once on a time passed that way. The parties numbered hundreds, and the emigrants tens of thousands, but details must and may safely be left to the imagination.18

Both exploring and emigrant parties had occasional troubles with the Apaches, who could not always resist the temptation to steal animals, though their chief fury was directed against the Mexicans, and they often professed friendship for the Americans, and even aided them for compensation. Large parties with due vigilance had no serious difficulty in Apachería, but small and careless companies were sometimes less fortunate;19 and after 1854 depredations seem to have increased. The most notable, or at least the best re- corded, of their outrages before that date was the Oatman massacre of 1851. Roys Oatman, with his wife and seven children, left Independence, Missouri, in August 1850, with a party of about 50 emigrants, part of whom remained at Tucson and the rest at the

18 Hayes (Benj.), Diary of a journey overland from Socorro to Warner's Ranch, 1849-50. Autograph MS. presented by the author. There are many scat- tered items in books and newspapers about individuals and parties who crossed the plains by the southern route, but none of these seem to require notice in connection with Arizona history. Information about the country is better derived from the official surveys. The journals of the explorers, how- ever, often note the meeting with an emigrant party.

19 In Bartlett's Pers. Narr., and Cremony's Life among the Apaches, as well as in the journals of other railroad and boundary surveyors, are found many items of Indian affairs; others are given in such works as Cozzens' Marvellous Country; and many more in newspaper records, though the latter are often indefinite in respect of date and other details. Arizona was in these years a part of New Mexico, and much that is recorded of Indian affairs in the annals of that territory as given in government reports may be applied to this west- ern region. April 11, 1849, John C. Hays is appointed sub-Indian agent for the Gila tribes. Cal. & N. Mex., Mess., 1850, p. 230-1.

485

THE OATMAN MASSACRE.

Pima villages, while Oatman and his family went on alone in February 1851. He was passed on the 15th by John Lecount, by whom he sent a letter to Major Heintzelman at Fort Yuma, asking for aid.20 A few days later while encamped on the Gila just below the big bend, at a place since known by his name, he was visited by a party of Indians who seemed friendly at first but soon attacked the family, and killed father, mother, and four children, leaving one son, Lorenzo, aged 14, stunned and presumably dead, and carrying off as captives two daughters, Olive aged 16, and Mary Ann a girl of 10. The Indians are said to have been Tonto Apaches, though there was some doubt on this point not yet entirely removed, I think. Lorenzo Oatman recovered and found his way back to the Pima villages, thence going with the other emigrant families to Fort Yuma, and to San Francisco. The commandant of the post, on the receipt of the letter, sent two men with supplies; but on hearing of the disaster did not feel at liberty to pursue the savages or attempt the captives' recovery, because the nias- sacre had been committed on Mexican soil.21 The captive girls were carried northward into the moun- tains, and after a time sold to the Mojaves. The younger died after a year or two, but Olive was kept as a slave until 1857, when, chiefly by the efforts of a

20 I have this original letter, furnished by Capt. G. C. Smith, U. S. A., at Camp Grant, A. T., in 1877. Misel. Hist. Pap., MS., 18; also a letter of Heintzelman of March 27th in which he says he has heard from a party of emigrants that O. had been killed on Feb. 18th, probably by Maricopas; also the testimony of Lorenzo D. Oatman on the occurrence.

21 The excuse seems to me insufficient under the circumstances. Stratton and young Oatman bitterly complained of Heintzelman's refusal to succor the emigrants or pursue the murderers, stating that he brutally disregarded the entreaties of his men and others. There is probably much exaggeration in the charges. It seems that Hewitt and Lecount wrote to the newspapers on the subject, but Heintzelman answered in the S. F. Alta of July 24, 1851, claiming that he could not have prevented the disaster, since it occurred two days before he received Oatman's letter, giving his reasons as in my text for not pursuing the Indians, and stating that Hewitt and Lecount were acting in a spirit of revenge because he had refused to furnish an escort for their gold-hunting operations. Bartlett, Pers. Narr., ii. 203-4, who was at the fort in 1852, says: 'The major immediately despatched a party of soldiers with provisions for those still behind, and with orders to scour the country, and endeavor if possible to recover the missing girls. But they saw no Indians, nor has it yet been ascertained by what tribe the outrage was committed,'

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History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530-1888, Volume XVII, Part 51

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Oak, Henry Lebbeus, 1844-1905 Publication date: 1889 Publisher: San Francisco : The History Company Number of Pages: 890

Author: Bancroft, Hubert Howe, 1832-1918; Oak, Henry Lebbeus, 1844-1905
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: San Francisco : The History Company
Number of Pages: 890