"Dancing with the Dead" Sample

Introduction

“You can’t fight the desert…you have to ride with it.”*

Dancing with the Dead: The Unnatural History of Tucson was written to entertain, enlighten and provoke outrage—Why didn’t they teach us this in school?—not only from people interested in Tucson’s history, but anyone fascinated by lost stories of people and places, among them Tucson’s colonial presidio, Native Americans, Chinese pioneers, frontier medicine, prostitution, cemeteries, segregation, the 1918 flu epidemic, and Elvis Presley’s 1956 concert at the Pima County fairgrounds.

The book does not attempt to present a truly comprehensive history, or an objective analysis of the modern city, because there is always another mystery to investigate, more viewpoints to reconcile, more stories to tell about the complex interactions among history and myth, injustice, violence and corporate greed; tragedy, compassion, courage and humor sardonic, boisterous, irrepressible.

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*Louis L’Amour. The Lonely Men. Bantam. 1984. Pg. 41

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(1). Map: Modern Arizona/ Tucson to Nogales (Full Page)

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PART ONE:

(I)

ORATORIO: THE PASSION OF PÍMERIA ALTA

(1)

Overture

An autumn afternoon in 1692

Near the Rillito River running bank-to-bank with no fixed edges; a marshy riparian oasis with dense stands of cattail, river cane, massive Sycamore and Cottonwood trees, a group of Sobaipuri O’odham who’ve finished clearing irrigation ditches and repairing brush-and-wood lattice check-dams walk to their village where about three hundred people live in single-story flat-roofed houses. Between the houses, free-standing open-sided ramadas made of posts with brush and saguaro-rib roofs provide shade for work and socializing, next to family granaries and roasting pits. Small pumpkins and melons, mesquite pods and saguaro fruit; tubers, wild onions, beans, corn and squash in baskets and net bags hang from roof poles, or are spread on the ground to dry. (1).

Only the youngest children play. Older ones cook, run errands or learn from adults how to make fine clay pottery; tools out of stone, ’carrying nets’ from woven grass, and clothing from deer skin and rabbit hide. Several men use mud plaster to water-proof a new house.

Beneath a ramada, an extended family of women gossiping, laughing, sometimes scolding or giving orders to small children, use stones to pound water-soaked Yucca leaves from which they strip the fibers and set them aside to be twisted and plaited into belts, ropes and sandals. Another group coil baskets from foundation “bundles” of split cattail stems, sticking them together with strips of willow.

Beneath another ramada, three adult men and several young boys craft rattles out of gourds, three-hole flutes out of River Cane, “rasps” from deer antlers and clavicles, and drums from inverted baskets made of willow branches. Nearby, an old man using a small horizontal loom weaves cotton yarn into fine tough cloth for breechcloths, aprons, ponchos, blankets, belts and headbands. (2)

In the central plaza, sitting in a circle, several men negotiate with a group of traveling traders offering turquoise, macaw parrot feathers, sea shells and other rarities from the far edges of the vast pre-colonial O’odham territory between Southeast Arizona, Phoenix and the Salt River Valley, Hermosillo and the Gulf of California.

Inside his house, a shaman removes dried plants from baskets and arranges them on a plaited floor mat alongside quartz crystals, chalcedony “lightning stones,” small selenite slabs, a gourd rattle, tiny clay pots filled with colored powder, and tubular stone pipes for blowing smoke across a patient’s body.

Three men who’d been out hunting run into the village, shouting a warning: Black Robes are approaching the village.

(2)

Processional

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(2). Map. Arizona-Sonora Frontier After 1767. Kessell, John L. Friars, Soldiers and Reformers: Hispanic Arizona and the Sonora Missions, 1767-1856. Courtesy of the University of Arizona Press (1/2 Page)

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For generations, the People had heard rumors carried along trade routes north out of Mexico about aggressive light-skinned strangers with odd clothes, an incomprehensible language and bizarre behavior, including often forcible attempts to convert the People to a system of beliefs with no relationship at all to their own lives and traditions.

In 1691, Father Kino and his Jesuits entered O’odham territory—Pimería Alta—for the first time. (3).

At the end of the 17th century, out of necessity, the O’odham and Spanish pioneers forged an alliance against nomadic raiders who called themselves Nnēē ( “Human Beings” or “People”) whom the O’odham called ‘O:b, “Enemy,” and the Spanish, “Apache.”  The first documented confrontation occurred in 1699, when Spaniards and O’odham pursued and attacked Apache stock raiders. (4).

By the early 18th century, between Nogales (Sonora) and Tucson, the Jesuits had established two missions (Guevavi and San Xavier del Bac) and five mission outposts called visitas (Calabazas, Sonoita, Tumacacori, Arivaca and Tucson).

In the 1730s the first official accounts of permanent Spanish settlers appear in Guevavi Mission records.

In July of 1737, a Jesuit missionary, Father Ygnacio Xavier Keller, baptized people at the village he called Tuxshon, a Northern Piman place name which can be written and pronounced in several different ways, including schookson and stjukshon. Schook or tjuk designates the color black, while the suffix son or schon designates a place “at the foot of.” To the Northern Pimans, this was a specific place name for a hill that Spanish settlers called Sierra de la Frente Negra (“Black-browed Range”). Anglos named it Sentinel Peak and Warner’s Hill. Its modern name is “A” Mountain.

Among the O’odham, as the mission system grew more powerful, there were no doubt emotional, contentious arguments about whether or not to convert and accept the new religion’s restrictions and regimentation, as well as taking advantage of new varities of crops; malleable iron that could be forged, or cold-hammered into tools, and fortified mission buildings offering at least some protection against the Apache.

(3)

Lamentation

In Pimería Alta during the mid-18th century, approximately 15,000 O’odham (whom the Spaniards called “Pima”) lived in independent villages sharing a common language and culture, but with no central authority. By the 1740s, O’odham in the Santa Cruz Valley were threatened by Apache raids, decimated by European diseases, and increasingly oppressed, brutalized and dispossessed by Spanish settlers who seized mission lands that legally belonged to the Indians.

In 1751, united by the charismatic leader Luis Oacpicagigua, the O’odham rebelled. In the Santa Cruz Valley, over 100 Spanish settlers were killed, along with Indians who had not joined the revolt. Guevavi and San Xavier del Bac were severely damaged.

In 1752, despite a negotiated peace between Oacpicagigua and Captain José Díaz del Carpio, the conflict flared again. In May of 1753, when Oacpicagigua and another O’odham , Luis of Pitic, met voluntarily with Spanish officials in the new garrison outpost called Tubac, they were arrested, sent to Mexico and imprisoned at the Presidio of San Miguel de Horcasitas. After intense interrogation, both tried unsuccessfully to commit suicide. In 1755, Oacpicagigua died in prison. The fate of Luis of Pitic is not known.

In Pimería Alta, Oacpicagigua’s sons continued the rebellion, which lasted sporadically until the end of the 18th century.

(4)

Vigil

On August 20th, 1775, red-haired Irishman Hugh O’Connor, Commandant Inspector of the Spanish King’s presidios in Pimería Alta, established San Agustín del Tucson in what is now downtown, in an area bounded approximately by West Pennington Street, North Church Avenue, West Washington Street and North Main Avenue.

Two years later when the new commandant, Captain Pedro Allande y Saavedra arrived at the Presidio, he was horrified to discover that despite the danger from Apaches who were killing settlers, burning cornfields, stealing livestock, taking captives and raiding up to the edge of the settlement, approximately 150 soldiers and civilians, with no money to finish the log palisade, still lived in an open post with only rudimentary fortifications. In 1779, Captain Allande used his own money to complete the palisade of rough logs with four bulwarks, two ramparts with small canon, powder magazines and a guardhouse. The palisade itself was protected by a gate and wide defensive ditch. However, possibly because space inside the presidio was already cramped, most of the houses for both soldiers and civilians were still outside the walls, beyond the ditch.

On November 6, 1779, after Apaches stole the Presidio’s cattle:

He [Allande] pursued 350 Apaches with only fifteen men...Among the Apaches he killed were the brother of Chief Quilche and another war captain, whose head he cut off before the very eyes of the enemy. Then he charged the Apache line single-handed, with the head stuck on his lance. The maneuver took the enemy off guard and they stampeded. (5).

By 1780, the presidio had approximately 350 permanent residents, including women and children. Among the men, fewer than thirty were professional soldiers.

On May 1, 1782, over 600 Apaches overran houses outside the palisade, crossed the defensive ditch and stormed through the open gate.

Captain Allande, the soldiers, civilian volunteers and ten Indian scouts finally drove the Apache off, at the cost of three dead and Allande himself seriously wounded.

In 1782 on Christmas Day, Apaches stole the settlement’s livestock. Settlers, soldiers and their O’odham allies caught the raiders, killed ten Apaches and recovered the stock. Afterwards….“The soldiers cut off seven of their heads, which is our custom.” (6)

By 1783, the log palisade had been replaced by an adobe wall approximately 750 feet long on each side, in some places sixteen feet high and four feet thick with two square watch towers.

[In the Presidio wall] there was an entrance facing west….It was just an open space and formed the entrance through which teams passed, and there was always a guard of soldiers stationed there. On the east side…there was a small gate for people called the “Gate of the Camp” marked by a big heavy wooden door….At each of the entrances there was a canon which was used when the Indians got too near the city. (7).

All of the Apache attacks on this presidio have been repulsed with heavy losses to the enemy. Lines of countless Apache heads have crowned the palisade. (8).

In 1786, realizing that the Spanish could never defeat the Apache in open warfare, the royal Viceroy of New Spain, Bernardo de Galvez, implemented a new policy. If the Apaches stopped raiding and settled near presidios in Establecimientos de Paz (“Peace Settlements”), they would receive regular rations of food, guns and other items. In January of 1793, led by Nuatil Nilche, ninety-two Apaches settled just north of the Tucson Presidio. The new residents were called Apache Mansos (in Spanish,“tame” or “peaceful”).

According to the 1831 Sonoran census, Tucson had 554 Spanish inhabitants, including 143 women--113 of whom were married--and 161 children. Among the 250 men, 119 were bachelors.

In July of 1835, 486 people--106 men, 117 women and 263 children--were listed on Captain Comadurán’s census of Apache Mansos receiving rations from the Presidio, which meant that Tucson was as much an Apache town as a Spanish one.

The Galvez Policy is still a matter of dispute and controversy. Some sources state it was a benefit to Apaches who accepted it. Others label the policy as cultural genocide, designed specifically to create hostility and internal divisions between Apache bands who accepted the system, and those who did not. They argue that most Apaches, who did not farm, regarded “pastoralism” with scorn and contempt, while the Mansos, living as unproductive wards of the Spanish government, became dependent on the ration system which also included alcohol.

One source cited in Thomas Sheridan’s, Los Tucsonenses (page 13) states that the Spanish deliberately gave the Apache “defective guns” as part of the ration system, overlooking the fact that the Apaches, who were not fools, would have realized almost immediately the guns were useless. (9).

(5)

Terra Pacis

Peace lasted for a generation. Mexican settlers moved into the Santa Cruz and San Pedro River Valleys, establishing cattle and sheep ranches. Miners searched for gold and silver. The population grew so rapidly that competition developed over water rights, which increasingly favored the Presidio, the missions and Spanish settlers over the Indians.

Early settlers brought the ancient, rigid Spanish social hierarchies to the New World. However, in remote frontier outposts like Tucson, they were impossible to maintain. Communal solidarity and leveling of traditional class prejudices and privileges was inevitable among small, isolated mixed populations of aristocrats, commoners and mestizos, soldiers and civilians enduring the same physical hardships, harsh weather and threats from hostile Indians. For the elite, finding suitable marriage partners among their own class was difficult, which often resulted in commissioned officers and men from aristocratic families marrying women from a lower social status.

Enlistment records from the Tucson garrisons provide ideas of what men looked like. Unfortunately, no such descriptions exist for the women.

Juan Bustamente, born circa 1765. 5’1” with chestnut brown hair, brown eyes, an eagle-like nose and a rosy complexion.

José Fermin Chamorro, born circa 1760. 5’2” with black hair, brown eyes and a dark complexion.

Manual Chávez: 5’1” with red hair and eyebrows, brown eyes and a regular nose.

Bernardo Cruz: born about 1788. Worked as the Presidio armorer. He was 5’5” with black hair and eyebrows, a flattened nose and dark skin.

Conrado Herran: born circa 1800. 5’1 with red hair and eyebrows, brown eyes, a regular nose, white complexion, beardless.

Food was rough, but plentiful. Orchard crops included plums, apricots, peaches, pear, apples, pecans, walnuts, figs and pomegranates. The most common field crops were chickpeas (garbanzos), lentils, mustard, beans, squash, chiles, cabbage, pumpkins, onions, garlic, corn and wheat. The missions established vineyards. Food imported from Mexico included rice, vinegar, raisins, almonds, sugar and spices. People drank milk, beer and mescal. The most common domestic animals used for food were cattle, sheep, pigs and chickens. Wild game included deer, antelope, rabbits, javelina (peccary), wild turkeys, quail and waterfowl. Because the rivers ran all year, fresh fish was usually available.

When we needed provisions we made a lot of rag dolls and took them over to the Gila River where there were Pima and Maricopa Indian settlements and traded them for tapery beans, corn, wheat and black-eyed peas. From around home we gathered mesquite beans and dried them and then ground them into penole. We ate the nopal (prickly pear) and sahuaro fruit. Then we had tortiomo--a fruit off the tasejo, a cactus similar to the cholla. The fruit was tart and resembled a large berry or small apple. These were picked when the fruit was in blossom, then dried, and were used with penole. They tasted like a pickle. You see, we had to learn to use things as they came. We had plenty of meat, game and cattle. (10).

Before the opening of the Santa Fe Trail in 1821, everything that Tucsonenses could not grow, fabricate or recycle was brought on heavily guarded pack trains from Mexico City along the ancient El Camino Real de Tierra Adentro: a distance of approximately 1,340 overland miles at a time when the average speed of an ox-cart was less than ten miles per day.

Almost 700 miles north of Mexico City, at the town of Satevo or the city of Chihuahua, the trail split: eastbound to El Paso and Santa Fe, and westbound approximately 400 miles to Hermosillo, and from there, another 240 miles to Tucson. From Hermosillo, a one-way trip usually took three weeks. If the pack trains were not delayed by bad weather, equipment problems and Indian attacks, they might arrive in Tucson as often as once a month.

Paying in advance by cash or credit, people could special order items like firearms and tools, brass or pewter buttons, shawls, skirts, shoes, trousers, underwear and stockings made of wool or silk; blankets and cloth; tobacco, brandy, rosaries and writing quills. One of the most prized imports was chocolate, which was ground, then mixed with hot water flavored with chiles, sugar and cinnamon.

(6)

Dies Irae

In 1823, a Yaqui Indian rebellion in Mexico quickly spread into northern Sonora. Tucson’s military commander, Captain José Romero, left with ten of the garrison’s soldiers, joining other Mexican forces. In October of 1825, José Figueroa, Commandante General Inspector for the State of Occidente (Sonora and Sinola) recruited all of Tucson’s remaining soldiers.

In February of 1827:.

Chief Antuna, leader of our Apache scouts, got word from Chief José of the Santa Cruz Apache scouts that the Yaqui’s were maneuvering to attack Tucson. Then, once they have penetrated our district, they will ally with the Coyotero Apaches, Papagos and Yumas…Since we have no troops here, I called an emergency meeting immediately here at my house. We must first do something about the presidio wall, which has fallen down in many places. In a spirit of unity, and with admirable patriotism, all agreed to begin at once making adobes and securing timbers to restore our military wall to its original strength. (11).

In the spring of 1828, over 100 Apache warriors descended on the Santa Cruz Valley, killing settlers, miners and running off herds of cattle and horses. Already coping with major supply problems, including shortages in ammunition and food, and unable to protect their livestock without the permanent military garrison, the citizens of Tucson held a town meeting and voted unanimously to abandon the area completely and move to a safer location, perhaps farther south in Sonora.

Tucson was part of the Arizpe political department, controlled by the Political Chief, Manuel Escalante y Arvizu.

Every effort must be made to forestall the abandonment of the magnificent site occupied by Tucson…The first measure is to order our state military commander to provide Tucson’s civilian settlers with the ammunition they need to defend their strategic position…A second essential requisite for Tucson is a local military commander who would rather sleep with his gun than his wife. At the same time, he should have enough political sense to work along with the civilians to supply their needs, and understand their way of life. (12).

Only Escalante’s strong leadership, political skills and influence with the government of Occidente persuaded the people of Tucson to remain within the presidio.

Mexico’s War of Independence from Spain had lasted from September 1810 to September 1821. In 1827, Spain still refused to accept the new Mexican republic as legitimate. For centuries, Spanish-born (“Peninsular”) citizens in Mexico had enjoyed political and social superiority, as well as business and legal advantages with Spain and the monarchy. A week before Christmas in 1827, the Mexican Federal Congress passed the Decree of Spanish Expulsion, which included exemptions for Spaniards in “necessary posts,” including most priests and missionaries.

Implementing an even more Draconian decree, the state congress of Occidente gave Peninsular Spaniards only thirty days to leave the state, with no exceptions for priests and missionaries.

With too few native-born priests left behind to tend missions and parishes, the system effectively ended. Church communities and land were secularized or sold to private interests. Hispanic settlers seized O’odham land. Mission buildings fell into ruins.

In 1831, the federal government in Mexico abandoned the rationing system, leaving many Apaches with no choice but to leave their camps near European settlements and return to raiding. Many O’odham and Mexican settlers, along with the entire population of Tubac, abandoned their farms and ranches and moved to Tucson. The local economy collapsed.

Tucson survived, partly because of the Presidio walls, and because the Apache Mansos provided critical intelligence about events far beyond the Presidio.

In 1835, Don Ignacio Zúñiga, Commander of northern presidios, described the effects of Apache depredations in Pimería Alta:

Since 1820, no less than 5000 lives had been lost; that at least 100 ranchos, haciendas, mining camps and other settlements had been destroyed; that 3000 to 4000 settlers had been obliged to quit the northern frontier; and that in the extreme north absolutely nothing was left but the demoralized garrisons of worthless soldiers. (13.)

In 1846, the United States and Mexico went to war. American forces occupied New Mexico, then sent the Mormon Battalion, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Philip St. George Cooke, on a resupply mission to California. In December, as the Battalion marched across Southern Arizona on their way to San Diego, Lieutenant Antonio Comadurán in Tucson sent a letter to Cooke, asking him to bypass the town. Cooke refused and sent a message back saying that he intended to bivouac there and obtain supplies. Comadurán had most of the community evacuated to San Xavier del Bac, where they waited for several days until the battalion left.

On January 24th, 1848, gold was discovered at Sutter’s Mill in California. Tucson, with a population of 760, now had to deal with thousands of men traveling west along the Gila Trail, also known as the Southern Emigrant Trail, the Kearny Trail and the Butterfield Stage Trail.

On February 2nd, 1848, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ended the war between Mexico and the United States. For a payment of 15 million dollars, Mexico ceded territory that included the future states of California, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and part of Arizona north of the Gila River.

On April 25, 1854, the U.S. Senate ratified the Gadsden Purchase, which transferred over 30,000 square miles of present-day Southwest New Mexico and Southern Arizona, including Tucson, to the United States.

(7)

Requiem

In early January of 1856, Adjutant Inspector Ignacio Pesqueira arranged for the transfer of all but a few of Tucson’s soldiers and their families to a new post in Imuris, one hundred miles south. In March, a group of soldiers led by Captain García returned to supervise the final transfer of men and material, while Angel Elías arrived from Santa Cruz (Sonora) to escort civilian families south to Imuris.

In violation of an agreement with the U.S. Boundary Commissioners that the American flag would not be raised until the last Mexicans had departed, Anglos led by Edward Miles raised a flag over an adobe store that Miles had recently established. Captain García asked the men to desist. They refused, and drew their weapons.

Captain García chose to keep the peace.

As the soldiers and civilians headed south, they encountered an unusually heavy March storm...Recalling the event many years later, Elías said they left on foot, traveling as far as Tubac before resting. The children cried of hunger and some of the older people were close to death. Still, they reached Santa Cruz and settled there with the remnants of the Tubac garrison that had been transferred some time before. (14).

In 1856, William Oury found Tucson:

A dirty, wild, undisciplined place, filled with roistering trail drovers, ranchers, and its share of brigands, and cutthroats. There was little or no law, and virtually no one present to enforce whatever laws abided...Bill liked Tucson. [He] saw something there he had missed in the gentler communities--a free place where a man could stretch out and make his own way without the hand of authority to molest him. He could grow up with this land and become part of it, and so he decided to stay. (15).

Chapter Notes

(1). River Cane: Phragmites australis berlandri

(2). Cotton: Gossypium hirsutum, brought north along trade routes from Southern Mexico, and cultivated by the Hohokam as early as the beginning of the 8th-century.

(3). Pimería Alta: “Upper land of the Pimas.” Between the late 16th and early 19th centuries, a territory in Colonial Mexico encompassing what is now northern Mexico and southern Arizona.

(4), Jacoby, Karl. Shadows at Dawn: An Apache Massacre and the Violence of History. Penguin Books. 2008. Pages 20-21).

(5) McCarty, Kieran. Desert Documentary: The Spanish Years: 1767-1821, Arizona Historical Society. Historical Monograph #4. 1976. Page. 43. In his letters to the Spanish king, Allande always refers to himself in the third person.

(6). McCarty, Desert Documentary, page 45

(7). Gallegos, Hillario. born in Tucson, 1850. Reminiscences of an Arizona Pioneer. Arizona Historical Review, vol. VI, No. 1 January 1935. Pg. 75 and 76.

(8). McCarty, Desert Documentary. Allande, Letter, Undated. Page 46

(9). Sheridan, Robert E. Los Tucsonenses: The Mexican Community in Arizona, 1854-1941. 1986. University of Arizona Press. Page 13.

(10). Gallegos, Hillario. Pg. 77.

(11). McCarty, A Frontier Documentary. Report to Francisco Iriarte, Acting Governor of Sonora, by Juan Romero, Mayor of Tucson: March 4, 1827. Page 11.

(12). McCarty, A Frontier Documentary. Report to José María Gaxiola, Governor of Occidente, by Manuel Escalante y Arvizu: December 9, 1828. Page 14.

(13). The Works of Hubert Howe Bancroft, Vol. XVII: History of Arizona and New Mexico, 1530–1588. San Francisco. The History Company, 1889.  Page 403

(14). Officer, James E. Hispanic Arizona, 1536-1856,. University of Arizona Press. 1987. Pages 282-283.

(15). Smith, Cornelius C. William Sanders Oury: History-Maker of the Southwest. The University of Arizona Press. 1967. Pages 85-86

(II)

BALLET FOLKLORICO

(1)

Apache Moon

Moonlight nights in this country are not suggestive of the poetical emotions experienced at home. Here, we know that at that time the Apaches are abroad and caution is necessary. (1).

On inquiry about the Apaches [Mariana Días] spoke with considerable feeling…that they murdered her husband in the fields about two miles below Tucson, and that most of her relatives had gone the same way; that she was now left alone and would be in want but for such men as Samuel Hughes. (Mariana Días (1804?-1882). Tucson Citizen, 21 June 1873).

In 1854, A.B. Gray led a U.S. government expedition to survey a route on the 32nd Parallel for the Texas Western Railroad. On its way to Tucson, passing through Sonoita Canyon, the group encountered a large band of Apaches whose Mexican interpreter, Romero, originally a captive, had allied himself with the Indians. According to Peter Brady, a member of the expedition: (2).

[Romero] was as ugly and furious looking a scoundrel as I ever saw, and very bold and impudent. If he had his way I think [the Apaches] would have fought us, but we would have won the fight, probably with a big loss but we would have sent many of them to their hunting grounds. He told us they were going down [Sonoita Creek to Calabasas] where there was a big sheep and goat ranch. They were going to destroy the ranch, kill all the Mexican men and take the women and children captive. (3).

The encounter ended without violence, but because Romero had revealed that the war party numbered over 200, the expedition knew it was still in danger of being ambushed.

Towards evening the cold increased and it began snowing. We felt safe from the Apaches while this weather lasted, but nevertheless, kept a good lookout ahead of us and on the rear. We kept away from the main trail and especially where there was danger of an ambuscade. At dark we selected a good strong position for our camp, where we felt little danger of being attacked, tied our animals in camp and fixed guards for the night. By this time the ground was covered with snow. (4).

The next day, the expedition encountered a group of forty Apache Mansos scouting with Tucson’s commandante, Lieut. Comodurán; Don Gilanin García, and sixty Mexican calvary soldiers.

[A.B. Gray] recognized Capt. García, who had commanded the escort of Gen. Conde of the Mexican Boundary Commission several years before. [García] did not know Gray at first, so badly had the smallpox disfigured him, but they had little time to renew their former acquaintance. The first question asked was, Have you seen any Apaches? When and where? How many ? (5).

When García heard about the imminent attack on the ranch, “Don Gilanin, his companion and his allies, and the Apache mansos of Tucson hurried on to Calabasas.”

At the ranch, Gray and Brady paid their respects to the manager, Don Frederico Hulzeman. While the expedition was eating lunch, the Apaches attacked. In the chaos, as people who lived outside the compound hurried into the ranch buildings, and herders tried to crowd an estimated 6000 sheep into corrals. “The Mexican cavalry charged right into the herd of Indians and it was almost all over, so suddenly were they routed, the savages having been taken completely by surprise.” The cavalry pursued the retreating Indians, “picking them up on the point of their lances and lifting them off their feet.”

The carnage was awful...We soon saw that we could be of no help to the Mexicans at the ranch helping to kill the wounded, so we returned to our camp to finish our lunch which had been so rudely interrupted. (6).

After the battle:

Our hosts, Don Gilanin and Don Frederico, invited us to a room occupied as a mess room, and hanging outside, near the entrance, to a spike driven in the wall was the head of our friend of the previous day’s interview, Captain Romero. (7).

Don Gilanin and Don Federico proudly displayed another trophy, which Brady assumed at first were dried apples--until he realized it was a string of Apache ears almost three feet long.

There were also other evidences of the atrocities committed, which I shall not mention here, to show that the troops from Tucson were not a very tender hearted set and could come as near holding their own as the Apaches themselves. (8).

Santa Fe, June, 1861

Commanding Officer, Fort Buchanan:

On receipt of this you will abandon and destroy your post; burn your Commissary and Quartermaster’s stores, and everything between the Colorado and Rio Grande that will feed an army. March out with your guns loaded, and do not permit citizens within fifteen miles of your lines.

(Signed) Major General Lynde. (9).

In July of 1861, three months after the beginning of the Civil War, soldiers from Fort Buchanan outside Tucson and Fort Breckenridge at the junction of Aravaipa Canyon and the San Pedro River were sent east to join the Union army.

The wisest said we could not hold the country after the troops had abandoned it--that the Apaches would come down upon us by the hundred, and the Mexicans would cut our throats...The smoke of burning wheat fields could be seen up and down the Santa Cruz Valley, where the troops were in retreat, destroying everything before and behind them. The government of the United States abandoned the settlers of Arizona to the merciless Apaches. (10).

The Apaches have made a thorough cleaning out of the farming district along the San Pedro...Every settler on the river, with one exception, has been compelled to abandon his ranch...The settlers on the San Pedro, driven from their ranches, are concentrated at the house of Messrs. Hill and Mattison some eight miles below the Overland Mail station, on the river. They have fortified the place, and are determined to use every effort to maintain their ground. (11).

A renegade white man named Gay...is a trader among [the Apaches], selling them fire-arms and ammunition...receiving in exchange stolen stock. Remonstrances from settlers wrought no change in his conduct, and threats were met with defiance until he finally declared that if the settlers did not let him alone, he would raise the Indians and lead them on to the settlements, and clear us all out. (12).

In March of 1861, conventions at Mesilla (New Mexico) and Tucson, had adopted an ordinance of secession, declaring independence from the United States, and creating a provisional Confederate territory. On February 27, 1862, encountering no resistance, approximately 100 Confederate troops commanded by Captain Sherod Hunter entered Tucson (whose permanent population was just over 900). The formal raising of the Confederate flag took place on March 1st. The town was a stronghold of Southern sympathizers, not so much because the people supported slavery or the Confederate cause, but because they believed that the Union had abandoned the territory. Most residents saw the Confederates not as invaders, but saviors because the troops provided at least some protection from the Apaches.

Many pro-Union residents moved to Mexico. Some who remained, and refused to swear an oath of loyalty to the Confederacy, were imprisoned.

HDQRS. SECOND REGIMENT TEXAS MOUNTED RIFLES

Mesilla, March 20, 1862

Captain HELM Commanding Arizona Guards:

The Congress of the Confederate States has passed a law declaring extermination to all hostile Indians. You will therefore use all means to persuade the Apaches or any tribe to come in for the purpose of making peace, and when you get them together kill all the grown Indians and take the children prisoners and sell them to defray the expense of killing the Indians...Say nothing of your orders until the time arrives, and be cautious how you let the Mexicans know it. If you can’t trust them send to Captain Aycock, at this place, and he will send thirty men from his company--but use the Mexicans if they can be trusted, as bringing troops from here might excite suspicion with the Indians. To your judgement I intrust this important matter and look to you for success against these cursed pests who have already murdered over 100 men in this Territory.

I am, &c., yours, with great respect, JOHN R. BAYLOR

Colonel Commanding Second Regiment Texas Mounted Rifles. (13).

Whether Baylor lied or was simply mistaken is still debated; but the Confederate Congress had never issued any law or policy authorizing what could be defined as genocide, and Baylor had no authority to implement such a plan himself.

When Jefferson Davis received a copy of Baylor’s plan, he denounced it as “...an infamous crime;” demanded an investigation into the colonel’s behavior, and ordered the Confederate secretary of war, G.W. Randolph, to revoke Baylor’s commission in the Confederate Army and to remove him as Military Governor of Arizona. (14).

On May 15th, 1862, with over 2000 Union troops of the “California Column” led by Col. James H. Carleton advancing on Tucson, Col. Hunter and most of his soldiers retreated to Mesilla, New Mexico.

On May 20th, 1862, Captain Emil Fritz with Company B, First California Cavalry, entered Tucson and established a military government. Col. Carleton and his troops followed on June 7. On June 11, Carleton proclaimed martial law. Pro-Union residents returned from Mexico. Many Confederate sympathizers were arrested. Some had their land and property confiscated.

In 1866, Tucson was declared a permanent military post. At the end of July, seventy men from Company C, 1st Cavalry, under the command of Captain William Dean established Camp Lowell on the edge of Tucson, between what is now South 6th Avenue, 12th and 14th streets, about one block east of Barrio Libre.

The Apaches were so bad that it was not considered safe to go outside the city limits. Men always carried arms. We could see the signal fires on the mountains when there was an Indian outbreak. (15).

The children of the Apaches, when taken young, make good servants, and are sold by the Pimas in the [Arizona] Territory and in Sonora. (16).

Several Pima Indians are here with captured Apache children for sale. The Pima’s had a fight last week with some Pinals, killed eleven of them and brought in four children prisoners. They sell readily at from $45 to $100, and their condition is at once bettered. It would be well if all the juveniles of the wild tribes could be captured and introduced into families where they would be taught the customs of civilized life and fitted to become, as they grow up, useful members of society. (17).

According to Mrs. Sam Hughes, “There were a good many Indians killed and a lot brought in as captives, and they brought a lot of little ones into Tucson, too. These children were divide up among a number of us, but none of them lived long. They just drooped and got weak and died.” (18).

A herd of Juan Elías, while grazing at the Punta de Agua, about three miles from the mission of San Xavier, was captured by a band of Indians and hurried off toward the adjacent mountains...After a brisk ride of five hours [the posse] came suddenly upon the Indian sentinel, left to guard the trail and apprize his fellow thieves of the fact, in case he should discover a party in pursuit...this wily savage was quickly surrounded by Mr. [William] Zeckendorf and three of his Mexican companions...and having dropped his bow in the course of his flight sought to defend himself by hurling rocks at his assailants…But the thieving red was forced to submit and did not condescend to stretch himself at ease, until after his chest had been traversed by sixteen bullets. [Zeckendorf] could not suffer that Apache to lie there intact, so he just scalped him, and returned to town on Tuesday evening with the trophy swinging at his girdle [horse’s girth]. (The Weekly Arizonian, 15 April 1871)

I remember at one time they [Apaches] stole into the city at night, ran off a lot of horses from a stable on South Meyer Street, were followed by the citizens immediately thereafter, overtaken and one of the Indians was killed. Someone scalped this Indian and this scalp was on exhibit in the old Zeckendorf store [at the corner of Main and Pennington] for a long time thereafter. (Albert Steinfeld, Arizona Daily Star, Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, “Tucson in 70s: Isolated Post on West Front,” 1927).

[Jesús María Elías] saw at the Cañon del Oro, forty miles north of Tucson, two men, after they had been murdered, stripped and horribly mutilated by Apache Indians; about thirty days later he saw the bodies of two men who had been murdered, about one mile below Camp Grant. (19).

Jesús María Elías (1829-1896) was the son of Juan Bautista Elías. In 1857, Luis Elías (Juan Bautista’s youngest brother, and the uncle of Jesús María) was killed by Apaches. In 1861, Apaches had killed Jesús María’s younger brother, Ramon, and in 1865, another brother, Cornelio.

All of my uncles were Indian fighters but my uncle, Jesús María Elías, was the boss of all the wars. (20).

In April of 1871, a group of Pinal and Aravaipa Apaches surrendered to the U.S. Army at Camp Grant, about fifty miles northeast of Tucson. The post commander, First Lieutenant Royal Emerson Whitman, a Civil War veteran, treated them kindly. Other bands arrived, and received rations of beef and flour. Eventually, almost 500 people occupied the refuge along Aravaipa Creek.

On Friday morning, April 28, 1871, Bill [Oury] met with Jesús María Elías on the banks of Pantano Wash outside the town. With them were five other Americans, forty-seven Mexicans and ninety-two Papagos, a force of 146 all told. Sam Hughes, the Adjutant General of the Territory, was there to deliver a wagonload of guns and ammunition. He did not go on the raid, although he was “heart and soul in it” according to William Bailey, a participant. Mrs. Hughes had helped mold the bullets and load the cartridge belts for the expedition. Bailey states that the rifles were government issue, Springfields, each numbered, and each coming from a government crate with an inspector’s number affixed on the cover. (21).

At sunrise on April 30th, while most of the Apache men were out hunting, the vigilantes surrounded the camp and opened fire. The Indians not killed outright were clubbed to death or battered with rocks. At least two of the adult women were raped. Many bodies were mutilated. As many as 150 may have been killed, all but eight of them women and children. Most of the eight men were elderly. Twenty-nine children were captured, taken to Mexico and sold into slavery.

On the morning of April 30th...a dispatch was brought to me by a sergeant of Company P, 21st Infantry, from Captain Penn, commanding Camp Lowell, informing me that a large party had left Tucson on the 28th with the avowed purpose of killing all the Indians at this post. I immediately sent two interpreters, mounted, to the Indian camp [about five miles away] with orders to tell the chiefs...to bring their entire party inside the post. As I had no cavalry, and but about fifty infantry (all recruits) and no other officer, I could not leave the post to go to their defense. My messengers returned in about an hour with intelligence that they could find no living Indians. Their camp was burning, and the ground strewed with their dead and mutilated women and children. (22).

Lt. Whitman sent scouts into the mountains to find the Apache men and assure them that his soldiers had not participated in the massacre.

In Southern Arizona, every newspaper, and the majority of citizens and public officials declared that the massacre had been justified.

Evidence is found that the Camp Grant Indians killed L.B. Wooster and Trinidad Iguera, at Tubac, on March 20. A breast pin—$2.50 gold coin—worn by the murdered woman.was found there by the raiders last Sunday. How did this pin, the horse, ammunition etc., get there? Let those explain who may denounce the killing of them. (Arizona Citizen, 6 May 1871).

The Eastern press condemned it as murder. President Grant told Governor Anson P.K. Safford that if the perpetrators were not brought to trial, he would place Arizona under martial law. In October of 1871, a Tucson Grand Jury indicted 100 assailants with 108 counts of murder. The trial took place in December. It took the jury less than twenty minutes to pronounce the defendants not guilty.

General George Crook ordered Lt. Whitman court-martialed for “conduct unbecoming an officer.” The trial, held at Camp Lowell, opened on December 4, 1871. The charges were dismissed on a technicality.

In early May of 1872, while serving as acting Indian agent at Camp Grant, Lt. Whitman was again arrested and held for court-martial, this time at the behest of Major-General John M. Schofield, Commander of the Military District of the Pacific, for disobeying orders requiring the Indians to muster for a daily roll call.

In August of 1872, accused of breaking arrest while awaiting his second trial, he was court-martialed again. This time he was convicted, sentenced to reprimand, suspension of rank and command for six months, and confined to post for the duration.

Fearing further violence, many Apaches abandoned their ancestral land in the Santa Cruz and San Pedro valleys. Some took refuge in central Arizona’s Tonto Basin, joining Yuman-speakingYavapai (sometimes called Apache Mohaves or Apache Yumas) in a guerilla war that lasted until 1875.

A band of Chiricahua Apaches had already murdered several settlers...Mr. Sam Hughes who has had his family at Camp Crittenden account of their health, lost no time in making ready to go to their rescue…He first [sent] a messenger to Crittenden to warn those there, and then to go farther down the valley towards the Huachuca mountains to apprise the settlers of their danger...The insurrection spread like a contagion, soon embracing all the Indians…except a chief known as Towza, or Kah-Cheez, a son of old Cochise, and a few followers…[Sam Hughes] got in with his family from Crittenden and from there sent messengers to all the settlements down the valley to the line [the Mexican border] and to Santa Cruz, including the Huachuca ranches, Trench mine and Sonoita. All the families were brought in, some being left at Crittenden and others brought to the placer settlement in the Santa Ritas, where there are about 150 men, but few arms. (Arizona Citizen, 15 April 1876).

Camp Lowell was on the front lines of the Apache threat. Since the camp had opened in 1866, military effectiveness had been compromised by the tense, volatile relationship between soldiers and Tucson civilians; the camp’s poor sanitation, and lack of adequate housing.

Regular soldiers lived in two-man A-frame tents. Thatched, open-sided ramadas provided additional shade. Officers on duty stayed in larger walled tents, or rented rooms in town while off-duty.

The camp’s site was marshy and infested by mosquitos. Malaria was epidemic.

Because privies for the nine-bed adobe hospital were just behind the building, bounded by a corral, a hog pen, hen house and stable, clean water had to be carried from a source over 300 yards away.

In March of 1873, Camp Lowell relocated seven miles northeast, near the junction of the Rillito River and Pantano Wash. By the mid-1870s, it contained over thirty wood and adobe buildings housing as many as 240 officers, enlisted men and their families. In 1876 it was renamed Fort Lowell. Soldier’s duties included escorting wagon trains, protecting settlers and guarding supply depots. The increased military presence at Fort Lowell, Fort Grant, Fort Huachuca, Camp Crittenden, Fort Apache and Fort Bowie at Apache Pass tipped the balance of power against the Apaches, and their control over southern Arizona began to weaken.

On a rocky hill...in bold outline against the sky, stood a rude cross upon which hung the dried body of an Apache, crucified about two years ago by the Maricopas. The arms and legs were fastened with cords, and the head hung forward, showing a few tufts of long hair still swinging about the face. The Maricopas do not profess the Christian faith, but this much they had learned from the missionaries who had attempted their conversion, that crucifixion was a species of torture practiced by the whites. As it was a novel mode of punishment to them, the probability is that they adopted it as a warning to their enemies not to come into the neighborhood again. (23).

Chapter Notes

(1). Altshuler, Constance. Latest from Arizona: The Hesperian Letters: 1859-1861. February 22, 1860, page 35. In the spring of 1859, Thompson M. Turner, a printer from Cincinnati, Ohio, arrived in Tubac. Under the pen name “Hesperian,” he began sending letters to the St. Louis  Missouri Republican, and the San Francisco Evening Bulletin.

(2). Survey of a Route on the 32nd Parallel for the Texas Western Railroad, 1854: The A.B. Gray Report, Including the Reminiscences of Peter S. Brady Who Accompanied the Expedition. Ed. L.R. Bailey, Westernlore Press, Los Angeles, 1963

(3). Bailey, Survey, page 208

(4) Bailey, page 208

(5). Bailey, page 209

(6). (Bailey, page 211

(7). Bailey, page 212.

(8). Bailey, page 213.

(9). Poston, Charles. F. Building a State in Apache Land. Aztec Press, Incorporated. Tempe, Arizona. 1963. pg. 101

(10). Poston, pg. 101

(11). Altshuler, August 23rd, 1860, page 116; September 5, pg. 119

12). Altshuler, August 23, pg. 117

(13). The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series I, Volume L, 2 Parts (Part I), Washington D.C., GPO, 1897 Chapter LXII, “Operations on the Pacific Coast,” pages 399, 942 Hereafter cited as AOR

(14). The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Series 1. Volume 15. United States War Department. Government Printing Office. 1886. Page 43.

(15). Excerpt from a letter by Rosa Drachman, quoted in Roy Drachman’s This is Not a Book, Just Memories, 1979. Page 15

(16). Mowry, Sylvester. Arizona and Sonora: The Geography, History and Resources of the Silver Regions of North America. Harper & Brothers, New York. Page68

(17). Altschuler, November 23, 1860, pg. 150

(18). Arizona Historical Review, page 71, Vol. VI, No. 2 (April 1935)

(19). Memorial and Affidavits Showing Outrages Perpetrated by the Apache Indians in the Territory of Arizona During the Years 1869 and 1870, Published by Authority of the Legislature of the Territory of Arizona, San Francisco, Francis & Valentine, Printers, 517 Clay Street, 1871

(20). Elías, Emelia. Born 1859. “Reminiscences of Amelia Elías. Arizona Daily Citizen, 2 August 1893: Box 38, Biography Collection, MS 1475, Arizona Historical Society.

(21). Smith, Cornelius. William Sanders Oury, page 192

(22). Letter from Lieut. Royal E. Whitman, to Colonel T.G.C. Lee, published in the Report of the Board of Indian Commissioners for 1871. Royal E. Whitman retired from the army in 1879 with the rank of captain. He died in 1913, and was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

(23). Browne, John Ross. Adventures in the Apache Country: A Tour through Arizona and Sonora with Notes on the Silver Regions of Nevada. Harper & Brothers, New York. 1871, Page 104

(2)

The Papago: A Chronicle

1870-1880

When [Mariana Días] was a girl, [the Apaches] made two attempts to take Tucson. The first time the soldiers and males were nearly all away. The Apaches found it out and took advantage…[they] attacked the town, and would have taken it and murdered everyone in it, but for the timely assistance of the Pima and the Papago Indians who came to the rescue in large numbers and attacking the Apaches on two sides, killed some of them and drove them off. (Tucson Citizen, 21 June 1873).

1870

On Sunday last some 8 or 10 Papago women, carrying baskets of wood from a forest of mesquite, some three miles from town, were met by two Mexicans who attempted to commit an outrage upon one of the women. As soon as their intentions became obvious, one of the women dropped her basket and “put out” for the Papago Village, about two miles distant, to inform her lord and the other braves of the occurrence…Some 30 warriors started for the scene of desecration…Sweeping through Main street [in Tucson] at a breakneck speed, they reached their better halves and found everything tranquil—their squaws having combined their strength and courage, attacked the would-be destroyers of their honor and put them to flight. (Tucson Citizen, 2 April 1870).

1871

THE PAPAGOES had, in the streets yesterday, what was said to be a jollification war dance over the killing by their tribe, of several Apaches across the line in Sonora lately. This is all we know about it. (Arizona Citizen, 15 April, 1871).

We will now turn attention to a tribe…pursuing the arts of peace, and, as an example of industry, worthy of imitation by hundreds of the Caucasian race in Arizona. This is the Papago tribe, and it is mortifying to observe the sad neglect, by government, of these good industrious people, on the one hand, and the pampering of the accursed Apache on the other. If the government can afford to feed three or four thousand Apaches at the military reservations in Arizona, the better to enable them to desolate the country, it is only fair that good, industrious Indians in actual want should likewise obtain succor. For two successive seasons the crops planted by the Papagos have failed from want of rain…[notwithstanding want and extreme suffering] these Indians, with the best opportunities to rob and steal have never been known to unlawfully appropriate one single dollar’s worth of property belonging to any settler…the men are ever ready to labor with the axe, the sickle or the hoe, while the women manufacture coarse earthenware which the carry to market, upon their heads, a distance of nine miles, or gather hay and carry it in like manner a distance of three and even five miles. And these are the people who are left to the mercy of circumstances. (The Weekly Arizonan, 22 April 1871).

1873

Wednesday of this week, Agent Wilbur and Bishop Salpointe went to San Xavier to take some steps towards starting a school there for the Papago children. The result is that in a few weeks a school will be opened there under the immediate charge of two of the Sisters of St. Joseph. As the Papago are Catholic Indians, there is a special fitness in putting their children under charge of the Sisters. They are kind and in all respects capable of teaching these unlettered but well disposed children. (Tucson Citizen, 22 February 1873).

The Papago women are first bringing barley into market. They follow after the reapers and gather up the heads that are left. In this way each woman gathers from ten to thirty libs. prepay, and after cleaning it nicely, they exchange it for flour and such other articles as they desire. If everyone would work as hard to pay their way and save what would otherwise be lost, the world would be much richer than now, and beggars would very nearly disappear. (Tucson Citizen, 31 May 1873).

The Papago bucks are bringing in considerable venison, and the squaws are daily on the streets with loads of new ollas. (Tucson Citizen, 22 November 1873).

1874

The Papagos have been the main protection to the country southwest of Tucson, and, by their raids on the Apaches, have exercised a larger influence on the country all about here, than most men realize. They are an industrious, well-behaved people…as honest as the average of civilized whites. (Tucson Citizen, 14 March 1874).

We have for sometime regarded [the Papago] as a part of our population and look with jealous eye upon anything affecting their interests. As an instance of the feeling of the better class of our community towards these Indians we might call to mind the occurrence of a month ago, when a party of them was maltreated by some emigrants [from Texas] on the road just west of town…Had it not been for the prompt and energetic action of Agent Wilbur in procuring satisfaction and apology for the insult to the Papagos, the citizens of Tucson would have taken upon themselves to avenge the wrong…Sitting in the shadow of their hoary church they have actually followed some of its professed teachings and all their ways have been paths of peace. They are of course not perfect, for those who are not dead are still human. Some of them have even been accused of stealing eggs from a setting hen, but if the majority of us had never done anything worse than that we should have long ago have been translated to the company of Elijah. But O, you child of shame, look in the eyes of their women and learn what virtue is. (Tucson Citizen, 23 May 1874).

The Papago Indians have brought considerable salt to this market during the last two weeks. They bring it all the way from the Gulf of California, by pack animal. (Tucson Citizen, 10 October 1874).

1875

The Papagos brought about five thousand pounds of salt to Tucson yesterday. E.N. Fish & Co. brought about one thousand pounds. D. Velasco buys and grinds fine a great deal of this salt, and puts it up in convenient packages for table use. (Tucson Citizen, 9 October 1875).

1877

Some of the Papago Indians are having a lively drunk just south of town. Somebody sells them liquor and whoever does so, is guilty of a crime and ought to be put in the penitentiary for life. (Tucson Citizen, 13 January 1877).

1878

It is useless to advocate a system to make whites and Indians tenants in common….The whites are the superior and wherever they come in contact with Indians on unreserved soil they will gradually acquire whatever of the red man’s possessions they may covet…It is now proposed to remove the Pima, Maricopa and Papago Indians to [the Indian] Territory [in Oklahoma] and it is our intention to encourage, aid and abet, and if necessary become a party to such removal. These Indians have usually been industrious and quiet, but during the last two years the water has failed them and they have been compelled to leave their reservation and cultivate lands elsewhere for their support. This has been the cause of considerable trouble with and complaint from the whites, and this state of affairs will not be easily mended nor will the conditions of the Indians be much improved so long as they remain on the desert lands of Arizona. (Arizona Citizen, 24 May 1878).

1880

Parties who have lately visited the Papago Indian reservation report that the crops are looking well. This tribe of Indians, whom we believe has never asked the government for a dollar, but who have repeatedly fought our battles with the Apaches, are self-sustaining. They are a virtuous and industrious people, and have ever been a friend of the white man. (Arizona Citizen, 10 April 1880).

(3)

Estevan Ochoa

[Circa 1870] This rather undersized gentleman coming down the street is a man with a history--perhaps it might be perfectly correct to say with two or three histories. He is Don Estevan Ochoa, one of the most enterprising merchants [and] one of the coolest and bravest men in all the southwestern country. He has a handsome face, a keen black eye, a quick business-like air with very polished and courteous manners. (1).

He was a typical frontiersman, bold, aggressive, and fertile in resource, laughing danger to scorn, rarely daunted by any obstacle, and in brief, possessing just those qualities which are essential in the foundation of a new state. Force of character was his, yet, withal, his was a kindly and sympathetic heart, and many a time he shared his scanty meal on the desert or in the mountains with some poor traveler or Indian. (2).

Estevan Ochoa was born on March 17, 1831, in Aldama, Chihuahua, Mexico, the first of José de Jesús Benito Ochoa and María de Jesús Carrasco’s seven children. By the late 1850s, the family was living in the township of Las Cruces (post office, Mesilla) New Mexico.

The Ochoa family owned a freight-hauling business, following the Chihuahua Trail over 900 miles to Independence, Missouri, through the territories of the Apache, Commanche, Kiowa, Araphao and Pawnee. From an early age, Estevan accompanied the wagon trains, acquiring fluency in English, business expertise, and the skills and scars earned from hard lessons in endurance and survival. (3).

The March 3rd, 1859 edition of the Weekly Arizonian has the earliest known reference to Estevan Ochoa as an Arizona resident: “On the 12th [of December, Apaches] took eight mules from Senor Ochoa, who resides eight miles from Ft. Buchanan. No pursuit.”

Prior to 1861, Ochoa moved to Tucson.

During the Civil War, when Tucson was occupied by Confederate troops, Captain Sherod Hunter demanded that Ochoa, who was pro-Union, swear a loyalty oath to the Confederacy. Ochoa replied: “Captain Hunter, it is out of the question for me to swear allegiance to any party or power hostile to the United States government; for to that government I owe my prosperity and happiness. When, Sir, do you wish me to leave?” (4).

Captain Hunter allowed Ochoa to select a horse and pack two saddlebags before giving him a rifle with twenty rounds of ammunition, and having him escorted out of town.

Alone, he survived a 250-mile journey through Apache territory to Mesilla, which might seem an illogical destination since Mesilla was occupied by the Confederates, and most pro-Union exiles went to Mexico, only sixty miles south of Tucson. On the other hand, in Mesilla, Ochoa had family and friends, while the Confederates had bigger problems than a lone stranger.

In 1862, after Tucson was retaken by Union troops, Ochoa returned and expanded his freighting and mercantile business, obtaining lucrative government contracts to supply Indian reservations and U.S. military outposts with grain, cattle and sheep.

In 1864, Ochoa and Pinckney R. Tully formed Tully & Ochoa, which rapidly grew into one of the Territory’s largest and most prosperous businesses.

Tully & Ochoa intend to start a woolen factory as soon as the Apaches become Christianized or killed to such an extent that sheep can be raised. Mr. Ochoa has already placed a young man in a factory in the East to learn the business, with the view of starting and conducting the manufactory as soon as circumstances permit. (Arizona Citizen, 7 September 1872)

TULLY, OCHOA & Co. are running two looms in their woolen factory. The operators were making this week some of the most beautiful serrapas we ever saw...The firm is doing very much to add to the resources of the country and give employment to the people. (Arizona Citizen, 5 June 1875).

By 1875, Tully & Ochoa was the second largest business in Tucson (only E.N. Fish & Company was larger) handling approximately $300,000 in transactions a year. (In 2025, equivalent to $6,249,000). Through their general mercantile firm, the company retailed merchandise through stores in Camp Grant and Fort Bowie. Ore from Tully & Ochoa’s copper mines was smelted in two furnaces located near the current intersection of Stone Avenue and Ochoa Street.

Purchasing goods from as far away as Philadelphia, and using a system of relay stations and armed convoys, the firm’s wagons hauled freight into Arizona via Kansas City, Yuma and Guymas.

Ochoa was a city councilman and justice of the peace. In 1875 he was elected mayor of Tucson. Privately, and through several terms as a member of the territorial legislature. He was also president of “The Mexican Society for Mutual Benefit.”

The Mexican people here have organized a society for the relief of its own members and such other worthy members of the community as they may find destitute…Up to January 1, the membership numbered 120. The by-laws permit men of any nationality becoming members, and no one of bad character can join. (Arizona Citizen, 16 January, 1875).

In the Tucson Diocese Burial Register, the entry for José Ochoa, age 30, buried on 5 September 1876, includes a note: Soltero indio Navajo hijo adoptivo de Esteban Ochoa. José Ochoa’s probable birth year would be 1846. Until the late 1850s, Esteban (born in 1831) lived with his family in New Mexico. By 1859, he was living in Tubac or Tucson. If he had adopted José as an infant or a toddler, Esteban would have been a teenager. José, possibly an adopted son of the Ochoa family, may have accompanied his step-brother to Arizona. (5).

In 1876, Esteban was a prominent citizen. And yet the death of his adopted son was not mentioned in Arizona newspapers.

The event of the week is the marriage of Don Estevan Ochoa...who on the evening of the 5th instant was united in the bonds of wedlock to Altagracia Salazar, of this city, by the Rev. Antonio Jouvenceau. (Arizona Citizen, 9 November, 1877).

In the 1880 Federal Census, Estevan Ochoa’s household includes Altagracia (born 1854); her sister, Sylvestre (born 1862) and a child, listed as the daughter of Altagracia and Estevan Sr. The child was actually a son, Estevan, Jr., age eleven, born in 1870.

According to the Portrait and Biographical Record and the 1900 birth record for Estevan Jr.’s son, Stephen Troy Ochoa, Estevan Jr. had been born in San Ignacio, Sonora, Mexico. Other documents give his birthdate as January18, 1870, which indicate that he’d been conceived in April of 1869. According to his 1902 death certificate, he’d lived in Tucson for thirty years, suggesting that he’d been brought to Tucson in 1872. (6).

There is no record in volume one of the St. Augustine (church) Baptismal Record (1861-1878) for a child of Estevan Ochoa.

In 1869, Estevan Sr. lived in Tucson. According to the 1870 census, he was 40, unmarried with only one servant, a cook, and it’s unlikely that a middle-aged bachelor continually on the road while trying to build a business on the frontier would have taken on the care of an infant, even his own.

He and Altagracia married in 1877. Estevan Jr. could have been Estevan Sr.’s biological child, but not Altagracia’s.

No documents or records for young Estevan prior to 1880 have been found in Mexico, Arizona or New Mexico. However, there is a tenuous connection to the Salazar family.

Like young Estevan, Altagracia Salazar and her sister, Sylvestre, were born in San Ignacio, Sonora. Their mother was Petra Elías Salazar. Her father was “unknown.” (Thus far, no records have been found for “Petra Elías Salazar” in Arizona or Mexico). According to Altagracia’s 1907 death record, she’d lived in Tucson forty years, suggesting that she and her family had settled in Arizona circa 1867. The 1900 Arizona census gives the year of immigration for Altagracia and Sylvestre—and for Sylvestre in the 1910 census—as 1875. According to the 1930 census, “Sylvestra” had immigrated to Arizona in 1871--possibly at the same time as Estevan, Jr.

Mr. Estevan Ochoa, one of our oldest and best citizens has recently built for himself a large and elegant residence...The yard is ornamented with trees and flowers and for the purpose of irrigating these, Mr. Ochoa has erected a fine wind-mill and constructed a large resevoir. Only day before yesterday we were permitted to pick a handsome bouquet of delicate flowers from Mr. Ochoa’s garden, where a rich variety is now in bloom. Mr. Ochoa believes in enjoying the best this life affords, and all who know him will attest to his large heartedness and generous hospitality. (Arizona Citizen, 9 November 1878).

On the map, George Hand’s Tucson, 1870-1880,  the property, at the northeast corner of Stone Avenue and Camp Street (now Broadway), is shown with its garden, an arbor, and two 12’ high walls separating it from the less sedate house of the prostitute/madam Refuga Riviera, called La Churea. ‘The Road Runner.’

The reception given by Mr. Estevan Ochoa last Saturday evening to Gen. Willcox and staff, was in every respect a success. The guests must have numbered over two hundred. The military string band furnished excellent music, the wines and viands were of the choicest character and everyone seemed to enter heartily into the joyous festivities. (Arizona Citizen, 16 November, 1878).

Doña Altagracia, dressed in the finest silks and swathed in pearls, kept a pet peacock so spoiled it wandered through the house like a lord of the manor, fanning its plumes and eating from people’s hands. That peacock in the parlor symbolized the elegance of Tucson’s pioneer Mexican elite at its zenith, just before the railroad destroyed the frontier and drove a deep wedge between the Anglo and Mexican communities. (7).

With the arrival of the railroad in 1880, Tully & Ochoa’s investment in freight wagons and livestock became virtually worthless.

FORECLOSURE OF MORTGAGE:

Notice is hereby given that on Saturday, the 5th day of July, A.D. 1884, between the hours of 10 o’clock a.m. and 2 o’clock p.m. in front of the courthouse door, in the city of Tucson, in the county of Pima, Territory of Arizona, I will sell all the above described property [of Tully & Ochoa] at public auction to the highest bidder for cash, in lawful currency (or) of said property as may be necessary to satisfy the several sums above stated and found due together with interest thereon and all costs. (Arizona Weekly Citizen, 28 June 28, 1884).

Tully & Ochoa owed creditors a total of $78,720 ($2,000,000). Profits from the sale were divided among the creditors, and Tully & Ochoa went out of business. With income from his wife’s fortune and other business interests, Estevan Ochoa was not bankrupt, although his own fortune was depleted.

In 1888, during a visit to family in Las Cruces, he contracted pneumonia, and died on October 27. He was buried in Las Cruces at San José Cemetery. (8).

In 1896, although the Tucson Sanborn Fire Insurance Map, Plate 004, shows the Ochoa’s mansion, garden and the arbor apparently intact, the Tucson City Directory gives the address for Altagracia and her son, Estevan, as 56 West McCormick. On the 1901 map, the Ochoa’s property is subdivided, although Altagracia retained ownership until at least 1904. (9.

Estevan Ochoa, Sr.—seventeen in 1848 at the end of the Mexican-American War; twenty-five when the Americans took control of Tucson; almost forty when his son was born, and forty-nine when the railroad arrived—carried the scars, physical and emotional of a time when building a business required fighting Indians, bandits, the desert--and surviving by any means necessary.

Only ten when the railroad arrived in 1880; coming of age when control of the town was passing inexorably from the Mexican elite to the Anglo newcomers, young Estevan was part of the generation bridging two worlds. His father, who saw the future, made certain his son was highly educated. Estevan attended St. Michael’s College in Santa Fe, and Phillips’ Academy in Exeter, New York.

In 1888, his father died. At the age of eighteen, Estevan came home.

Skillfully and efficiently, he administered his mother’s extensive cattle ranch in Sonora, as well as his own cattle ranch south of Tucson near Arivaca, and the “Old Mission Farm” 1/2 mile south of the Tucson city limits. In 1898 he and Genaro S. Manzo formed “Manzo & Ochoa,” with diversified interests in freight shipping, contracting and copper mining. The firm also owned a general store.

On April 18, 1899, Estevan married Gertrude McCleary, daughter of Arizona pioneers Troy and Carmen (Valenzuela) McCleary. In the 1900 census, Estevan, Gertrude and their infant son, Stephen, are living with Gertrude’s parents at 241 W. Franklin Street. (Altagracia lived at 60 West McCormick).

In 1902, Manzo & Ochoa’s contracting business did the heavy excavation work for the Santa Rita Hotel. (10).

On Sunday evening, July 6, 1902, while Ochoa and his book keeper, R.D. La Pine, worked in Manzo & Ochoa’s main office at 329 South Meyer, a drunken employee named Manuel Borquez entered and demanded an advance on his pay. Ochoa refused, told him to go home, sleep it off and get ready for work on Monday.

Borquez went home, got a rifle and returned to the store…raised his gun and aimed it at Mr. Ochoa. The latter quickly left his seat and grappled with his assailant. With his left hand Ochoa caught the barrel of the gun and pulled it downward, and as it dropped it was discharged and the ball entered Ochoa’s left leg above the knee, passed downward and shattered the kneecap and entered the large bone running down the center of that leg and passing out below the calf of the leg. Meanwhile La Pine had secured a revolver and attempted to shoot Borquez, but fearing to hit Ochoa, he failed to fire. Ochoa…was taken to the middle of the store and made more comfortable on blankets. La Pine had made all haste to Dr. Burton’s and secured that physician, who was followed some time later by Dr. Lennox...About 8 o’clock, it was decided to take the injured man to his home on Franklin Street, and there amputate the limb as a last resort…Although the physicians named, in addition to whom were Drs. Olcott, Whitmore and Purcell, carried out the surgical course of amputation, death came at 11 o’clock...Borquez was arrested at his home where he had a horse saddled, and was hastily preparing for flight. (Arizona Silver Belt, 10 July 1902).

In October, of 1902, Borquez was sentenced to life imprisonment at the Yuma penitentiary.

Altagracia died in 1907. Gertrude Ochoa never remarried. Outliving both her children, she died in 1978, at the age of ninety-eight.

Estevan and Gertrude, Doña Altagracia and Don Estevan are buried in Tucson, in Holy Hope Cemetery.

Chapter Notes

(1). Bourke, John G. On the Border with Crook. Charles Scribner’s Sons. 1892. Page. 76

(2). Portrait and Biographical Record of Arizona. Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago. 1901. Page 675

(3). The Chihuahua Trail, sections of which were pre-Hispanic, was part of the “Royal Road” connecting Mexico City to Santa Fe. Until the Santa Fe Trail opened in 1821, it was virtually the only route between Chihuahua, New Mexico and the outside world.

(4). Farish, Thomas Edwin. History of Arizona, Volume 2, Phoenix, The Filmer Brothers Electrotype Company, Typographers & Stereotypers, San Francisco. 1915. Page 203.

(5). Entry # 122. Tucson’s National Cemetery: Greater Tucson Fire Foundation. Summary of Information in the Tucson Diocese Burial Register, 1863-1887. tucsonfirefoundation.com. 2012. (And) O’Mack, Scott. Tucson’s National Cemetery: Additional Archival Research for the Joint Courts Complex Project, Tucson, Arizona.

(6). Portrait and Biographical Record. Chapman Publishing Company, Chicago, 101. Page 675.

(7). Sheridan, Robert E. Peacock in the Parlor: Frontier Tucson’s Mexican Elite. The Journal of Arizona History. Autumn, 1984. Volume 25. #3.

(8). Although a headstone still marks the original grave site, in 1940, his grandson, Steven Ochoa III, had his grandfather’s remains re-interred in Tucson.

(9). 1896 Sanborn Fire-Insurance map for Tucson, (and) The Block Book: City of Tucson, Pima County, A.T., volumes 1 and 2, 1898-1904. Arizona Historical Society.

(10). Obituary for Genaro S. Manzo. Tucson Daily Citizen, 20 February, 1954.

(4)

The Freighter’s Song: Ten More Miles to Tucson

[InTucson] If one wanted to visit the outer world he had to take a stage journey of 500 miles to San Diego, thence by steamer to San Francisco, or a 900-mile journey stage trip to Trinidad, Colorado, the nearest railroad point on the east, with all the chances in the world of meeting Indians. (1).

Until the railroad arrived in 1880, the only fast, reliable way to send or receive letters, legal documents, books and newspaper was by stage, while bulk merchandised was “freighted,” a dangerous but lucrative business that brought great wealth to Tucson entrepreneurs like Estevan Ochoa, Pinckney Tully, the Zeckendorfs and Leopoldo Carrillo.

In California, freight was sent by train to Southern Pacific railheads in Banning, Indio or Dos Palmas. From San Francisco, freight was shipped by sea around Baja California to Fort Yuma, where the cargo was loaded onto steamships traveling as far as 200 miles up the Colorado River to ports like Castle Dome Landing, Ehrenberg, Liverpool Landing and Hardyville. From the ports and railheads, wagons carried the freight east into Arizona.

From Denver, freight was delivered by the Rio Grande Railroad and the Kansas-Pacific Railroads to Fort Garland or El Morro, Colorado, then hauled by wagon convoys through New Mexico into Arizona.

The largest, called “Murphy Wagons,” had a box approximately sixteen feet long, six feet wide and eight feet high. Wheels as large as seven feet in diameter had rims covered in double layers of iron. A single wagon could carry up to 18,000 pounds (8 long tons) pulled by ten yoke of oxen or a team of twenty mules, at an average speed of ten miles per day. Three wagons were sometimes hitched together; the first two full-sized, while the third or “tag” wagon was about one-half size.