At the Salt River settlement a Mexican under the influence of whisky killed a Pima, but the Indians "were good enough not to want to kill" the murderer.
Gila Crossing (a), Salt River, Blackwater (b). In the spring of 1891 occurred the last and most disastrous of the Gila floods. The Maricopa and Phoenix Railroad bridge was swept away and the channels of both the Gila and Salt rivers were changed in many places. The destruction of cultivated lands led to the change of the Salt River Pimas from the low bottoms to the mesas.
1891–92
Gila Crossing. A boarding school[1] for Indian children was established at Phoenix.
Two men died at Gila Crossing during the autumn, and it was supposed that they were poisoned by the tizwin which they had been drinking.
In a tizwin drunk on the Salt River reservation a Papago shot a Pima and fled to escape the consequences, leaving his wife at the village.
Blackwater. The chief and one of the headmen at Blackwater died during the year.
1892–93
Gila Crossing. Two friends went to Maricopa and got drunk on whisky. One cut the other's throat; he then went to the villages on the river above Gila Crossing and in maudlin tones said he thought he saw himself striking someone under him.[2]
The schoolhouse was moved out of Phoenix to a point 3 miles north of the city during the summer of this year (1892).
A woman was struck by lightning at Hi’atam, the village above Gila Crossing.
A dance at Salt River occurred in which two men, drunk with whisky, killed each other.
In the spring of 1892 the Gila Crossing chief, Ato’wâkäm, died.
The Government issued barbed wire for fencing at Gila Crossing, and directed the people to make a road across the fields, which should be fenced to form a lane.
Blackwater. A woman was gored to death at Blackwater by a cow.
The chief, who had been bitten some years before by a rattlesnake but had recovered, died in the spring of 1893.
- ↑ It was opened in leased hotel building in September, 1891. Owing to lack of facilities only boys, to the number of 42, were admitted.
- ↑ The passion for distilled liquor had arisen within the last quarter of a century. Lieutenant Emory wrote, in November, 1846, "Aguardiente (brandy) is known among their chief men only, and the abuse of this and the vices which it entails are yet unknown."
