UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations 1-1-2003 Biology, culture, and environment: The struggle for hegemony in Arizona Sondra Kae Cosgrove University of Nevada, Las Vegas Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalscholarship.unlv.edu/rtds Repository Citation Cosgrove, Sondra Kae, "Biology, culture, and environment: The struggle for hegemony in Arizona" (2003). UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations. 2565. http://dx.doi.org/10.25669/dmn8-fu3t This Dissertation is protected by copyright and/or related rights. It has been brought to you by Digital Scholarship@UNLV with permission from the rights-holder(s). You are free to use this Dissertation in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s) directly, unless additional rights are indicated by a Creative Commons license in the record and/or on the work itself. This Dissertation has been accepted for inclusion in UNLV Retrospective Theses & Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Digital Scholarship@UNLV. For more information, please contact [email protected]. BIOLOGY, CULTURE, AND ENVIRONMENT: THE STRUGGLE FOR HEGEMONY IN ARIZONA by Sondra Kae Cosgrove Bachelor of Arts University of Nevada., Las Vegas 1996 A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree in History Department of History College of Liberal Arts Graduate College University of Nevada, Las Vegas May 2004 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3143378 Copyright 2004 by Cosgrove, Sondra Kae All rights reserved. INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. UMI UMI Microform 3143378 Copyright 2004 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Copyright by Sondra Cosgrove 2004 All Rights Reserved Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Dissertation Approval The Graduate College University of Nevada, Las Vegas A p ril 30 ■ 20 04 The Dissertation prepared by Sondra Cosgrove Entitled BIOLOGY, CULTURE, AND ENVIRONMENT:THE STRUGGLE FOR HEGEMONY IN ARIZONA is approved in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of PH.D HISTORY DR. ROLLINGS - y Examination Committee Cbair Dean of the Graduate College m r-COUGHT Examination Committee Member ^xâminÂfm Committee Member EfRT-toAWOTA Graduate College Faculty Representative 11 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ABSTRACT Biology, Culture, and Environment: The Struggle For Hegemony in Arizona by Sondra Kae Cosgrove Dr. Willard Rollings, Examination Committee Chair Associate Professor of History University of Nevada, Las Vegas This is an examination of the various cultural groups who have attempted to extend hegemonic control over what is now the state of Arizona. Each chapter focuses on the ways different societies adapted to the region’s challenging environment; paying particular attention to those that sought to integrate their neighbors into their own socioeconomic systems, whether by force or through negotiation. The rise and fall of the indigenous Hohokam civilization marks the first phase in this struggle for hegemony, while conflicts between Spaniards and Indians characterize the second. The third, and so far, final cycle concludes with Euro-Americans seizing the region from Arizona’s Hispanic and Native Americans residents. A brief preface introduces this work’s underlying, interdisciplinary methodology, while the body of the text proceeds chronologically from prehistory to 1886. The first chapter examines the various prehistoric people who took up residence in Arizona. It describes how the Hohokam Indians were able to adopt a sedentary lifestyle and then translate their 111 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. subsistence success into political power. The chapter concludes with the collapse of Arizona’s prehistoric political economy due to climatic change. Chapter two then provides an overview of the conflicts, beginning in the seventeenth century and continuing into the early nineteenth century, between Athapascan Indians and Spanish colonists. Throughout this period, both groups endeavored to exert control over the Southwest’s trade economy, yet each blocked the other’s efforts. Chapter three analyzes the American ideology of Manifest Destiny and its role in westward migration; while the arrival of Americans in the Southwest and their successful quest to capture Arizona’s resources is the focus of the remaining chapters. A brief summation then concludes this work. IV Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT............................................................................................................................ iü PREFACE............................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER 1 INDIGENOUS ARIZONA AND THE FIRST COMPLEX CIVILIZATION................................................................................................................ 1 CHAPTER 2 ATHAPASCANS AND IBERIANS....................................................... 31 CHAPTER 3 SPANISH BOURBONS AND THE MEXIAN INTERIM................... 60 CHAPTER 4 MANIFEST DESTINY AND THE AMERICAN WEST..................... 78 CHAPTER 5 THE AMERICANS OFFICALY ARRIVE .............................................93 CHAPTER 6 AMERICAN VICTORY; HEGEMONY ACHIEVED ........................116 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................... 146 VITA...'................................................................................................................................. 164 V Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. PREFACE Human occupation of what is today the state of Arizona stretches back for thousands of years. For most of this time, however, the region’s inhabitants were nonliterate and therefore left no written records detailing their thoughts, beliefs, or important life events. While this lack of documentation does pose a formidable challenge to writing even a partial state history, it fortunately does not create an impenetrable barrier. Instead, it merely necessitates utilizing an interdisciplinary approach, conversant in alternative forms of evidence, to integrate this community into the larger, historical fabric. As such, this examination of Arizona, from prehistory to 1886, will rely heavily on a range of non- historical sources. These include the archaeological record as well as theoretical models from disciplines such as paleoanthropology, psychology, and cultural anthropology.' The field of paleoanthropology, in particular, offers tremendous investigative ' This synthetic approach is particularly popular in the field of psychology where proponents seek not only universal cognitive processes but also the means for determining how fixed biological traits interact with known ecological domains to produce varied, yet reliable behavior. Research psychologist Mike Knight writes, "An egregious error we have made in doing science in psychology is to think of prediction as synonymous with predicting the future. It is possible to formulate hypothesis that make specific testable predictions about the past. In the speculative approach, one first discovers a psychological mechanism, and then one speculates about what adaptive problem it evolved to solve. The approach advocated here is the reverse: first, one uses existing and validated theories from evolutionary biology to define an adaptive problem that the human mind must be able to solve, and then deduce what properties a psychological mechanism capable of solving the problem must have. It is a constrained and predictive approach, rather than a compilation of post hoc explanations tor known phenomena.” See Mike Knight, "Functional Darwinism: A Cognitive Science Paradigm," Psychological Record 44, no. 2 (Spring 1994): 44. See also Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Genes, People, and Language (New York: North Points Press, 2000), 32, who concurs, “Multidisciplinary research provides, in a way, a sort of replication of an event, which is generally possible only in experimental science.” VI Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. assistance in interpreting the prehistoric and protohistoric periods. Because paleo­ anthropology