Agent R.G. Wheeler protested against the diversion of the water of the Gila from the Pima reservation at the time the Florence canal was projected in 1886 and succeeded in gaining the attention of the Department of the Interior which instructed the Director of the Geological Survey to investigate the matter. As a result of the investigation the following facts were established:
(1) That the water supply of the Pima and Maricopa reservations under present conditions is no more than sufficient for the wants of the Indians.
(2) That the construction of a dam by the Florence Canal Company of the character represented in the correspondence will give the control substantially of all the waters of the Gila river.
(4) That if the water supply from the river be shut off, the Indian reservation would become uninhabitable.
Other facts were presented, but these are the essential ones that directly concern us here.[1] Notwithstanding the above finding, no effective efforts were made to prevent the water from being diverted from the reservation, and the result was nearly as predicted—a result that should bring a blush of shame to every true American. A thrifty, industrious, and peaceful people that had been in effect a friendly nation rendering succor and assistance to emigrants and troops for many years when they sorely needed it was deprived of the rights inhering from centuries of residence. The marvel is that the starvation, despair, and dissipation that resulted did not overwhelm the tribe.
AGENTS
In 1857 John Walker was appointed Indian agent for the territory embraced in the Gadsden Purchase, with headquarters at Tucson. The Pimas were of course within his territory, though his control over them could not have been very great with the agency separated from the villages by a 90-mile stretch of desert in the scarcely disputed possession of the Apaches. Walker presented no report to his superior at Santa Fé in 1858, but in 1859 gave some account of the condition of the Pimas.
In 1864 Charles D. Poston was appointed superintendent of Indian affairs for Arizona, but he resigned that year. He was succeeded by four others during the next eight years, at the end of which period the office was abolished. Abraham Lyons was appointed agent for the Pimas in 1862, and he also lived at Tucson. Ammi M. White, appointed in 1864, was a resident trader. He had built a mill at Casa Blanca, which was destroyed by the flood of September, 1868. Levi Ruggles, appointed in 1866, administered affairs from Tucson. During 1867 C.H. Lord acted as deputy agent. Fairly adequate adobe buildings were erected for the agent at Sacaton in 1870, and the agents
- ↑ U.S. Geol. Surv., Water-Supply and Irrigation Papers, no. 33, p. 10.
