1 Peoples of the Middle Gila: A Documentary History of the Pimas and Maricopas, 1500's - 1945 John P. Wilson Researched and Written for the Gila River Indian Community, Sacaton, Arizona 1998 (revised July 1999) Report No. 77 Las Cruces, New Mexico 2 CONTENTS 1 In The Beginning The Gila River The Pima and Maricopa People Southern Arizona Before 1694 The Hohokam and the Pima 2 Early Spanish Contacts, 1694-1700 Pimería Alta, 1687-1692 1694: To Casa Grande and the Pima Villages Fall 1697: Entrada to the Sobaipuris and Pimas Fall 1698: Return to the Pima Villages Spring 1699: To the Cocomaricopas and Pimas Fall 1700: To the Gila and Colorado River Junction Diaries and Journals: Using Historical Sources Native Populations and Settlements Dwellings "The Common Food of the Natives" The Question of Irrigation Melons in the Southwest and on the Gila Cotton in Early Arizona The l690s: A Window Opens 3 The Pimas and Cocomaricopas to the 1760's Father Velarde's Description of Pimería Alta Decline in the Early 1700's The Rivera Inspection and New Missionaries for Pimería Alta The Journeys of Father Ignacio Keller, 1736-1743 Fray Jacobo Sedelmayr and Pimería Alta, 1736-1751 The Pimas and Cocomaricopas to 1750 The Pima Revolt, 1751-1757 The Pimas in Father Juan Nentvig's Rudo Ensayo 4 The Pimas and Cocomaricopas in the Late 18th Century Francisco Garcés' 1768 Visitation of the Gila Population Growth on the Middle Gila Father Garcés' Journey to the Pimas and Opas, 1770 The Anza Expeditions, 1774-1775 The Yumas Close the Sonora Route to California Visitors to the Middle Gila in the 1790's The Native Defense of Pimería Alta 5 The Mexican Period, To 1846 Father Caballero Visits Sonora The Romero Expedition to California The Cocomaricopa Mail The Pimas in 1825 A Mexican Army on the Gila Pima Commerce and the Route to California Beaver Trappers in Southern Arizona 3 The Later Years of the Mexican Period The Pima Calendar Sticks The Cocomaricopas Join the Gila River Pimas 6 American Visitors at the Pima Villages, 1846-1849 James K. Polk and Manifest Destiny The Occupation of Northern Mexico The Army of the West on the Gila River Pima and Maricopa Farming in 1846 The Mormon Battalion at the Pima Villages The Argonauts of 1849 The '49ers at the Pima Villages Continuity on the Middle Gila 7 The Middle Río Gila in the 1850's John Hays and the Sub-agency on the Río Gila The Cholera Year Native Relations in the Early 1850's The U.S.-Mexico Boundary Commission, 1852 The Boundary Commission Along the Gila The Boundary Commission at the Pima Villages Trail Drives to California The Mexican Boundary Survey in the Middle 1850's The Pacific Railroad Surveys 8 New People on the Middle Gila, 1857-1859 Agent John Walker Arrives Stage Lines and Wagon Roads Massacre on the Gila Sylvester Mowry and the Promotion of Arizona Stage Station at Maricopa Wells John Walker and the Beginnings of the Tucson Agency Encouraging the Farmers of the Middle Gila The Butterfield Overland Mail and the Pimas Butterfield Stations on the Middle Gila The First Census of the Pima Villages The Government and the Pimas, 1858-1859 Agents and Special Agents to the Pimas Surveying the Pima and Maricopa Indian Reservation, 1859 Life at the Pima Villages in 1859 The Census of 1859 Trading Posts on the Middle Gila Future Prospects 9 The Pima Villages in 1860 A Time for Gifts Native Government on the Middle Gila Arms for the Pimas and Maricopas? Agents Come and Agents Go Farming on the Middle Gila Ammi White Comes to the Middle Gila 4 The Pima Villages in the 1860 Census Mortality in the 1860 Census Agriculture in the 1860 Census 10 The Civil War Years at the Pima Villages The Indian Agency in Decline Southern Mail to California Ammi White and the Pima Villages in 1861 The Civil War in Southern Arizona White's Mill in 1862 White's Ranch Fort Barrett and the Vedette Stations Buying From The Pimas, 1862-1863 Maricopa Wells and the Pima Villages in 1862 Arms (At Last) For the Pimas 11 Indian Agents, Settlers, and Life on the Middle Gila, 1863- 1869 Abraham Lyon, the Unhappy Agent The Treaty of 1863 Charles Poston and the Pimas Grain at the Pima Villages: The Army vs. Poston Campaigns Against the Apaches, 1864 The Pima Villages in 1864 The Pima and Maricopa Companies in the Arizona Volunteers Settlements Above the Pima Villages Agents and Superintendents, 1865-1869 The Pimas Prosper and Seek More Land The Question of a Reservation Expansion Traders and Trading on the Reservation, 1867-1869 A New Reservation Extension Proposal Farming on the Middle Gila, 1864-1869 Tools and Ox Carts for the Pimas Trading Posts on the Middle Gila, 1869-1870 Changes on the Middle Gila 12 Conflict and Change on the Middle Gila, 1869-1879 More Settlers Above the Reservation A Reservation Extension Takes Form Pima Settlements Off the Reservation The Reservation Under Frederick Grossmann The Pima Villages in the 1870 Census Farming Changes on the Middle Gila The Pimas Confront a Continuing Water Shortage The Continuation of Subsistence Farming Frederick Grossmann Confronts the Traders John Stout Steps In John D. Walker and the Pimas Schools on the Gila River Reservation The Question of Removal The Reservation Extensions in 1876 and 1879 5 13 New Era In Indian Affairs, 1880-1900 From Steamboats to Railroads Agriculture on the Reservation, 1880-1900 What Happened to the Water in the Gila? The Pima Food Supply Under Pressure Barley Hay and Markets on the Middle Gila Wheat A Downhill Trend: Raise the Same Crops and Earn Less Money Rations for the Pimas Government Farmers: A Lost Opportunity? Tracing Village Movements in the Late 19th Century Reservation Additions in 1882 and 1883 Villages and Canals, 1880-1900 The Techniques of Irrigation Land Steals and Indian Rights The Pima Boarding School and Other Schools for the Pimas New Ways Appear, Old Ways Disappear, 1880-1900 The Indian Police and Court of Indian Offenses Charles Cook and the Presbyterian Church 14 Land and Water in the Early Twentieth Century The Florence Canal Project The Original San Carlos Dam Proposal, c. 1900 Walter Graves' Buried Ditches W. H. Code and Irrigation Wells The Meskimons Survey An Overview of the Districts in 1904 The Board of Indian Commissioners and the Committee on Investigation The First Government Irrigation Systems on the Reservation The Sacaton Contract The Gila River Survey The Small-Scale Irrigation Projects - Little Gila, Blackwater, Agency, etc. First Steps Towards a San Carlos Project The Florence-Casa Grande Project More Water for the Reservation? Faces Old and New: Other Changes on the Reservation Agricultural Economics in the Early 20th Century 15 From Allotments to Subjugation Prelude to Allotments Allotting the Gila River Indian Reservation Measuring Indian Incomes The San Carlos Irrigation Project Subjugation of San Carlos Indian Irrigation District Lands, 1929-1936 The Public Works Administration (PWA) and Indian Emergency Conservation Work (IECW) Programs on the Reservation 16 Government Studies and Government Policies in the 1930s The TC-BIA Survey of 1936 6 A Summary of Economic Conditions in 1936 A View of Traditional Pima Social Organization Pima Government: From Chiefs to Council The Gila River Decree Health on the Reservation The Gila River Indian Reservation in the Late 1930s 17 The Pimas and Maricopas in the War Years Native Americans in the U. S. Army The National Guard and the Mexican Border "The Great War" Interlude The Second World War The Gila River Relocation Center An End and A Beginning Appendix I: Agents for the Pimas and Maricopas, 1849-1949. References. 7 Chapter I IN THE BEGINNING The Gila River The perennial flow of the Gila River has been the principal water resource of south central Arizona for many centuries. The river takes its course from east to west across the entire state, from its origins in the Mogollon Highlands of western New Mexico to where it joins the Colorado River at Yuma. Three major tributaries - the Salt, Santa Cruz, and San Pedro - and numerous minor ones join the Gila along its length. Both the Salt and the Gila were once perennial, but now flow only intermittently in their middle and lower courses. The Gila River is usually divided into three primary alluvial reaches. The upper Gila flows through the mountainous Central Highland zone of eastern Arizona to where it emerges from the mountains about sixteen miles above Florence, Arizona. The middle Gila crosses a broad desert plain interrupted by rugged, low-lying mountains, to its juncture with the Salt River just below Phoenix. From there the lower Gila continues within the Basin and Range physiographic province, mostly as a wide, unconfined flood plain, to its confluence with the Colorado River. Our study of the Gila and its peoples is confined mainly to the middle reaches of the river (Olberg and Reed 1919: 14-22; Huckleberry 1996; Thomsen and Eychaner 1991). In this century, the normal appearance of the middle Gila River has been a wide, braided channel that seldom contained a running stream, except during floods (Hoover 1929: 41; Huckleberry 1996: 8). Historical descriptions, extending back to 1697, show that this was not always so. The earliest visitor on record, the Jesuit missionary Father Eusebio Francisco Kino, described the prominent prehistoric ruin at Casa Grande in detail during his 1694 trip, but he scarcely mentioned the nearby river (Bolton 1919 I: 127-129). Three years later his keen-eyed companion, Captain Juan Mateo Manje, wrote that the “rio grande de Jila,” at its confluence with the San Pedro, had a great many groves of trees that graced and surrounded its stream courses.