Maricopa Wells, near the lower villages, became an important stage station when the overland mails began to pass late in the fifties.[1]
With the advent of the stage, the emigrant and the military trains began the breaking down of the best that was old and the building up of the worst that was new. For a period of thirty years, or from 1850 to 1880, the Pimas were visited by some of the vilest specimens of humanity that the white race has produced. Until 1871 the tribe was without a teacher, missionary, or, to judge from their own story and the records of the Government, a competent agent. Bancroft has thus summarized the conditions prevailing during that period:
In many respects there has been a sad deterioration during forty years of contact with civilization, notably by acquiring habits of intemperance, prostitution, and pilfering; yet they are still vastly superior to most other tribes. For several years, from 1868, serious troubles with them seemed imminent. Presuming on their military services and past immunity from all restraint, they became insolent and aggressive, straying from the reservation, robbing travelers, refusing all satisfaction for inroads of their horses on the settlers' fields, the young men being beyond the chiefs' control. Swindling traders had established themselves near the villages to buy the Indians' grain at their own prices, and even manipulate Government goods, the illegal traffic receiving no check, but rather apparently protection from the Territorial authorities. Whiskey was bought from Adamsville or from itinerant Mexicans; the agents were incompetent, or at least had no influence, the military refused support or became involved in profitless controversies. Worst of all, white settlers on the Gila used so much of the water that the Pimas in dry years had to leave the reservation or starve. General Howard deemed the difficulties insurmountable, and urged removal. Had it not been for dread of the Pima numbers and valor, the Apaches still being hostile, very likely there might have been a disastrous outbreak.[2]
As early as 1859 Lieut. Sylvester Mowry, special agent, Indian Bureau, foresaw danger threatening the interests of the Pimas and wrote:
There are some fine lands on the Gila and any extensive cultivation above the Indian fields will cause trouble about the water for irrigation and inevitably bring about a collision between the settlers and the Indians.[3]
Again in 1862 Poston gave additional warning:
If in the eager rush for farms or embryo cities the land above them should be occupied by Americans, and their supply of water be reduced, it might produce discontent.[4]
- ↑ "In August and September, 1857, the San Antonio and San Diego semimonthly stage line, under the direction of I.C. Woods, was established, James Burch acting as contractor. This continued till the Butterfield semiweekly line was put upon the route, in August, 1858, under a contract of six years with the Postmaster-General, at $600,000 a year." J.R. Browne, Adventures in the Apache Country, 19. The journey of nearly 2,500 miles was made in from twenty to twenty-two days.
- ↑ Bancroft's Works, XVII, 548.
- ↑ S. Ex. Doc. 2, 727, 36th Cong., 1st sess., 1859.
- ↑ Report of Commissioner of Indian Affairs 1863, 386, 1864.
ments had not the Indian Department distributed a few plows a short time previously. (S. Ex. Doc. 2, 723, 36th Cong., 1st sess., 1859.) The gifts were distributed by Lieut. Mowry and the survey was made under his direction by Col. A.B. Gray.
This original survey contained 64,000 acres—much less than the Pimas claimed and actually required for their fields and grazing lands. The commissioners who negotiated with them assured the tribe that the present boundaries were but temporary limits to protect the people in their rights, and that the Government would enlarge the reservation later. This promise was made good by a survey in 1869, which added 81,140.16 acres (U.S. Statutes at Large, 1869, II. 401). In 1876 9,000 acres about the village of Blackwater were added to the eastern end of the reservation.
