A battalion of dragoons under Maj. L.P. Graham marched westward to California by way of the Pima villages in 1848. Bancroft states that he has a manuscript diary from Capt. Cave J. Coutts, of this battalion, in which it is recorded that the Pimas were very hospitable and exhibited conspicuous signs of thrift.[1]
The parties of the Boundary Survey Commissioners passed down the Gila in 1851, and the account of the Pimas by J.R. Bartlett, the American commissioner, is by far the best that has been published thus far.[2] Bartlett's party returned eastward through the Pima villages in 1852.
In 1854 Lieuts. J.G. Parke[3] and George Stoneman began at the Pima villages the survey for a railroad which was destined to pass through just a quarter of a century later. In 1855 Lieutenant Parke, with another party, made a second survey and again visited the villages.
From the time of the discovery of gold in California, in 1849, parties of gold seekers, numbering in all many thousand persons each year, followed the Gila route, meeting with hospitality from the Pimas and almost equally uniform hostility from the Apaches. The location of the Pimas in the midst of the 280-mile stretch between Tucson and Yuma was a peculiarly fortunate one for the travelers, who could count upon supplies and if need be protection at a point where their journey otherwise must have been most perilous.[4]
The United States Government first recognized the value of the assistance rendered by the Pimas when by act of Congress of February 28, 1859, $1,000 was appropriated for a survey of their lands and $10,000 for gifts.[5]
- ↑ History of Arizona and New Mexico, 479.
- ↑ Personal Narrative, 1854, 2 vols.
- ↑ "Their chiefs and old men were all eloquent in professions of friendship for the Americans and were equally desirous that we should read the certificates of good offices rendered various parties while passing through their country." Pacific Railroad Report, II, 5.
- ↑ "Since the year 1849 [they] have acted in the capacity of and with even more efficiency then a frontier military. They have protected American emigrants from molestation by Apaches, and when the latter have stolen stock from the emigrants, the Pimos and Maricopas have punished them and recovered their animals. Yet in all this time [ten years] nothing has been done for them by our Government." Extract from a letter in the Alta California, June 28, 1858, quoted in S. Ex. Doc. 1, pt. 1, 556, 35th Cong., 2d sess., 1859.
"A company of nearly one hundred of their best warriors was enlisted into the United States service in the latter part of 1865, which served one year with great credit to themselves and did much good service in quelling our common enemy. Seventy of them have just been mustered out [1867] of the United States service, after having performed six months' duty as spies and scouts, for which service they are invaluable." Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs, 1867, 163.
- ↑ Following is a list of the articles distributed among the Pimas and Maricopas, as reported by Mowry:
444 axes.
618 shovels.
31 hand saws.
706 butcher knives.
516 hoes.
240 sickles.
48 files.
270 harrow teeth.
48 mattocks.
72 whetstones.
15 grindstones.
36 hay forks.36 hammers.
48 rakes.
48 trowels.
12 screw-drivers.
1 "carpenter shop."
15 plows.
15 sets plow harness.
1 forge.
1 anvil.
1 vise.
1 set sledges.
1 cast-steel hand hammer.3 pairs tongs.
1 set stock and dies.
12 file handles.
36 hatchets.
120 picks.
7 kegs nails.
9 gross screws.
1,400 needles.
1 box sheet tin.
4,000 pounds barley.
1 pint turnip seed.
Mowry explains that a larger number of plows would have been included in this lot of tools and imple-
