That part of the country known later as Arizona remained a Mexican possession down to the signing of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, and all south of the Gila, the only portion inhabited by any but Indians, for five years longer, or until the signing of the treaty of December 1853, or its approval in 1854. The annals of this southern region, the ancient Pimería Alta, might almost be disposed of by adding ‘etcetera’ to the chapter in which the record has been brought down to 1845. That is, the Mexicans under the Sonora government barely maintained a precarious possession of Tucson and a few other establishments in the Santa Cruz valley. The Apaches continued their raids, sometimes driving off live-stock from under the very walls of the presidios. Retaliatory raids of the soldiers became less and less effective, though the Pápago allies were somewhat more successful in repelling and pursuing the savages. There was a constant diminution of the population, and most of the few remaining ranchos were abandoned. A census report of September 1848, gave Tucson 760 inhabitants, and Tubac 249. In December of the same year, after an attack in which nine persons were killed, Tubac and the adjoining settlement of Tumacácori were abandoned, the people transferring their residence to Tucson. Between this presidio and that of Santa Cruz south of the line it does not clearly appear that a single Mexican establishment of any kind remained, though before 1852 a small garrison had reoccupied Tubac. In the meagre and fragmentary record of Mexican annals down to 1854, I find only an occasional complaint of impending ruin, as in earlier times, with appeals for aid, mention of a few Apache depredations and campaigns, and the names of a few officials, but nothing from which to form anything like a continuous narrative, or to form any more definite idea of the general condition of affairs than that expressed in this paragraph.

The war of 1846-8, except in the treaty that ended it, had but slight bearing on the history of Arizona. The plans of the United States did not include the occupation of the Pimería towns south of the Gila, and north of that river there were no towns to be occupied, though in a certain sense the conquest of California on the west and New Mexico on the east may be regarded as having included that of the broad region lying between the two. The war also led to the crossing of this region in the southern parts by several parties, thus involving its first exploration by Americans but for the previous exploits of Pattie and other trappers and traders. In August, 1846, General Castro, driven from California, found his way by the Colorado and Papaguería to Altar in Sonora, accompanied by a small party; and at the end of the same month Kit Carson went east by the Gila route as the bearer of despatches from Commodore Stockton, announcing somewhat prematurely the conquest of the coast province.

Meeting Carson and inducing him to turn back as guide, General Kearny, with a force of 200 dragoons, left the Río Grande in the middle of October, reaching the Gila by way of the copper mines, and on the 22d crossed what was later the Arizona boundary. The march of some 400 miles across the entire width of the territory, following the river—except at the big bend—down to the Colorado junction, occupied exactly a month. The journey was marked by no startling adventures or hardships, except the exhaustion of the mules and horses. The few Apaches met were suspicious and would sell no mules; the Pimas farther down the river were altogether friendly and eager for trade, but had no animals for sale; but near the Colorado the army’s needs in this respect were supplied from a band of horses that a party of Mexicans under Captain Segura were driving from California to Sonora. The narratives, especially that of Captain Emory, contain a good description of the country traversed, with its plants and animals; and relics of the ancient inhabitants, in the form of ruins, pottery, and rock-inscriptions—now for the first time examined by Americans—attracted much attention. This may be regarded as the first in the series of scientific transcontinental surveys in the south.

Following Kearny, but taking a more southern route that a way might be found for wagons, came Lieutenant-colonel Cooke with the Mormon battalion, arriving on the 2d of December at the rancho of San Bernardino near the south-eastern corner of what was later Arizona. Cooke’s route from this point to the intersection with Kearny’s, also a new one to any but Indians and Mexicans, was west to the Río San Pedro; down that river northward some fifty miles, thence across to Tucson by the line of the later railroad, and north-westward, still not far from the railroad route, to the Gila. The march of the Mormons, by reason of their duty of opening a wagon road and their character as infantry, was much more difficult than that of the dragoons; but they were under a special divine protection presumably not accorded to the less saintly branch of the service. Their only active foes were a herd of wild bulls on the San Pedro, with which they had a battle on the 11th of December, several men being wounded, one of them Lieutenant George Stoneman, since governor of California. Six days later the army camped at Tucson. Captain Comaduran had sent a request to the Americans not to pass through the town, as he had orders to prevent it; and Cooke had in turn proposed the turning-over of a few arms as a token of surrender, binding them not to fight during the war. This was declined, and the comandante with his garrison abandoned the presidio, as did most of the inhabitants. Accordingly, Cooke left a friendly letter for Governor Gándara, reminding him of Sonora’s wrongs at the hands of Mexico and the Indians, and suggesting that “the unity of Sonora with the states of the north, now her neighbors, is necessary effectually to subdue these Parthian Apaches”; then he marched on, reaching the Gila on the 21st and the Colorado on January 9, 1847. The wagon road thus opened was not only utilized by the California emigrants in the following years, but as a possible railroad route it was a potent element in prompting the later purchase by the United States of territory south of the Gila.

During the war there were no more explorations or marches across Arizona to be noticed here; but in 1848, after the treaty of peace, a battalion of dragoons under Major Lawrence P. Graham marched from Chihuahua to California. Coming from Janos this party reached San Bernardino the 4th of October, but instead of following Cooke’s trail, Graham kept on south of the line to Santa Cruz presidio, and thence followed the river down to Tucson. The Gila was reached at the end of the month, and the Colorado on the 22d of November. The Americans were delighted, as had been those under Kearny and Cooke, with the hospitality of the Gila Pimas, and the thrift displayed at their villages exceeding anything elsewhere seen in the transcontinental journey. Owing to the drunkenness and consequent in­competence of the leader, this party endured greater hardships than either of the preceding. No narrative of this march has ever been published, but I have Captain Cave J. Coutts’ manuscript diary, which contains an excellent account of adventures on the way, and many valuable notes on the country.

The treaty of 1848 adopted the Gila as the international boundary, so far as Arizona is concerned, except that the Bartlett line on latitude 32° 22' and longitude about 109° 50'—and the corrected line on latitude 31° 54', longitude 109° 20', and the Santo Domingo River—gave the United States a small tract south of the Gila. The survey in 1851, under commissioners Bartlett and García Conde, has been recorded in the preceding chapter. The river, as a natural boundary, hardly required a formal survey, especially after Emory’s reconnaissance of 1846; still the most complete possible exploration of the region for general purposes, and particularly the search for a railroad route, were deemed essential. So far as can be learned from the confused records, the results were not very important. Mr Bartlett, departing from the copper-mine region in September 1851, for Sonora, and not returning on account of illness, left on the San Pedro a party under Gray and Whipple to complete the survey of the Gila. Gray, with two men, subsequently crossed the country to Tucson, went up the river, and met Bartlett again at Santa Cruz, returning to the San Pedro on the 2d of October. Next day the whole party started for the Gila, reaching it on the 9th at a point just below the San Carlos junction; and by December 24th the survey had been completed to a point within about 60 miles of the Colorado, when it was suspended for want of supplies, and the explorers found their way to San Diego in January 1852. Here they met Bartlett again, who in May, with Whipple and party, started for the Gila to complete the survey. Before reaching the Colorado, Colonel Craig, commanding the escort, was killed by deserters whom he was trying to arrest. The Yumas were found to be hostile, but an escort to the Pima villages was furnished from the garrison at Fort Yuma. The journey through Arizona, up the Gila and Santa Cruz, was accomplished between June 18th and July 24th. This seems to be all that is necessary, or possible in the space at my command, to say about the boundary survey under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, so far as it effects the subject of this volume, though there were many complications of some interest. It should be added that Bartlett’s narrative contains an excellent description of the country visited, with notes on early history, and the aborigines, and views illustrating physical features, and especially ruins and relics of antiquity.

It was in 1851 that the first government exploration was made across northern Arizona. Captain L. Sitgreaves was ordered to follow the Zuñi, Colorado Chiquito, and Colorado rivers down to the gulf. With a party of twenty he left Zuñi in September, but did not attempt to follow the river through the great canons, turning off to the west on the 8th of October, crossing the country just above the parallel of 35°, approximately on the route followed by Padre Garcés in 1776, reaching the Mojave region on the Colorado, November 5th, and following the main river south to Fort Yuma, where he arrived at the end of November. The condition of the animals and lack of supplies had not permitted this expedition to accomplish all that had been expected of it, but the result of this first exploration was an interesting itinerary, a map of the route, and various scientific reports on a new region.

Sitgreaves’ exploration was followed in 1853-4 by the 35th parallel Pacific Railroad survey under Lieutenant A. W. Whipple. With Lieutenant J. C. Ives as chief assistant in a corps of twelve, and an escort of the 7th U. S. infantry under Lieutenant John M. Jones, Whipple, having completed the survey from Fort Smith across New Mexico, left Zuni on November 23, 1853. His route was for the most part somewhat south of that followed by Sitgreaves, though his survey covered the same region. Descending the Zuñi, and Colorado Chiquito, and later the Santa María and Bill Williams fork, this party reached the Colorado the 20th of February, followed that river up to latitude 34°, 50', and thence in March continued the survey across California. The resulting report as published by government, though of similar nature, is very much more elaborate and extensive than that of Sitgreaves, containing an immense amount of the most valuable descriptive, geographic, and scientific matter on northern Arizona, profusely illustrated by fine colored engravings and maps.

The Mexican government having permitted, a little in advance of the new treaty, the survey for a railroad route south of the line, Lieutenant John G. Parke with a party of about 30 and an escort under Lieutenant George Stoneman left San Diego January 24, 1854, and began his survey at the Pima villages on the Gila. He reached Tucson the 20th of February, thence proceeding to the San Pedro and eastward by a route somewhat north of Cooke’s wagon road for a part of the way, known as Nugent’s trail. Coming again into Cooke’s road on March 7th, he followed it to the Río Grande. Again in May 1855 Lieutenant Parke with another party started from San Diego for the Pima villages, and made a more careful survey by several routes of the country stretching eastward from the San Pedro.

After the discovery of gold in California, emigrants in large numbers began to cross southern Arizona, from Sonora and other Mexican states in 1848, and from the eastern United States in 1849. Of this movement, which continued for many years, we have naturally no records except for a few parties. The route followed was by the Santa Cruz and Gila valleys, though some Mexican parties preferred to cross Papaguería; and the Americans reached Tucson from the Río Grande for the most part by Cooke’s wagon road of 1846, though various cut-offs were likewise attempted. It was a journey of much hardship always, and especially so in seasons of drought, though not more difficult apparently than on other routes. The experiences of the gold-seekers on any of the great lines of travel to California would supply material for a fascinating volume, but only a few of the diaries are extant, and not even one of them can be closely followed here. The journal kept by Benjamin Hayes in 1849 is the most complete that I have seen, minutely describing the events of each day's progress of his large party from the end of October, when they left the Río Grande, to the end of December, when they crossed the Colorado into California. The tedious march, novel features of the country and its products noted, the search for grass and water, petty accidents to men and mules, occasional meeting with Indians, the frequent and careful perusal of records left on trees and rocks by preceding parties, delays caused by illness and occasional deaths, passing the graves of earlier emigrants, discussions on the route and speculations on the prospects offered by the land of gold, and the thousand and one petty items that make up this journal and hundreds of others written and unwritten—all give a strong fascination to the monotonous record, but all resist condensation, or if condensed show simply that an emigrant party once on a time passed that way. The parties numbered hundreds, and the emigrants tens of thousands, but details must and may safely be left to the imagination.

Both exploring and emigrant parties had occasional troubles with the Apaches, who could not always resist the temptation to steal animals, though their chief fury was directed against the Mexicans, and they often professed friendship for the Americans, and even aided them for compensation. Large parties with due vigilance had no serious difficulty in Apachería, but small and careless companies were sometimes less fortunate; and after 1854 depredations seem to have increased. The most notable, or at least the best re­corded, of their outrages before that date was the Oatman massacre of 1851. Roys Oatman, with his wife and seven children, left Independence, Missouri, in August 1850, with a party of about 50 emigrants, part of whom remained at Tucson and the rest at the Pima villages, while Oatman and his family went on alone in February 1851. He was passed on the 15th by John Lecount, by whom he sent a letter to Major Heintzelman at Fort Yuma, asking for aid. A few days later while encamped on the Gila just below the big bend, at a place since known by his name, he was visited by a party of Indians who seemed friendly at first but soon attacked the family, and killed father, mother, and four children, leaving one son, Lorenzo, aged 14, stunned and presumably dead, and carrying off as captives two daughters, Olive aged 16, and Mary Ann a girl of 10. The Indians are said to have been Tonto Apaches, though there was some doubt on this point not yet entirely removed, I think. Lorenzo Oatman recovered and found his way back to the Pima villages, thence going with the other emigrant families to Fort Yuma, and to San Francisco. The commandant of the post, on the receipt of the letter, sent two men with supplies; but on hearing of the disaster did not feel at liberty to pursue the savages or attempt the captives’ recovery, because the massacre had been committed on Mexican soil. The captive girls were carried northward into the mountains, and after a time sold to the Mojaves. The younger died after a year or two, but Olive was kept as a slave until 1857, when, chiefly by the efforts of a Mr Grinell, she was ransomed, brought to the fort, and joined her brother, the two soon going east to live in New York. Her sufferings as a captive had of course been great, though her fate was in some respects less terrible than might have been expected. A volume founded on her statements and those of her brother had a very wide circulation.

The number of emigrants crossing the Colorado near the Gila junction before the end of 1851 has been probably overestimated at 60,000, but they were very numerous. They and the Indians and the soldiers made this the most bustling point in the country for several years. The Indians were not at first openly hostile, though they required constant watching, and the different tribes were often at war with each other, but rendered the emigrants some aid in crossing. Lieutenant Cave J. Coutts, commanding an escort to the boundary surveyors under Whipple, established Camp Calhoun on the California side at the end of September 1849, and for two months greatly aided the worn-out and hungry gold-seekers, whose arrival is noted almost every day. The 1st of November there arrived a flat-boat which had made the voyage down the Gila from the Pima villages with Mr Howard and family and two men, a doctor and a clergyman, on board. During this voyage, also, a son was born to Mrs Howard, perhaps the first child of American parents born in Arizona, and named, as Coutts tells us, Gila. The lieutenant is understood to have purchased the craft, which plied as a ferry-boat during the remainder of his stay, and was then transported to San Diego, where it was used on the bay. Such was the history of the first Colorado ferry. After the departure of Coutts, the Mexican surveying party remained till the end of the year, and the ferry service—perhaps with another boat—was continued by the officer commanding the escort.

Early in 1850, Lincoln seems to have engaged in the business of running the Colorado ferry, soon forming a partnership with one John Glanton, described as leader of a gang of cutthroats, who had been engaged in hunting Apaches for a scalp premium in Sonora and Chihuahua, but had been driven out by the government, when it was discovered that they brought in the scalps of friendly Indians or even of Mexicans. On the Colorado these villains continued their evil ways, plundering emigrants and attributing their depredations to the Indians. The Yumas were at first friendly, but soon became hostile, especially when the manager of their opposition ferry—said to have been a deserter from the army—was killed by Glanton; and they attacked their white rivals, killing about a dozen, including the leaders. A little later, in July of the same year, we are told that another party under Jaeger and Hartshorne reestablished the ferry, bringing lumber from San Diego for the construction of their boat, and continuing the business profitably for over a year. On November 27, 1850, Heintzelman arrived from San Diego to establish a garrison and protect the emigrants. His post was called at first Camp Independence, but was transferred in March 1851 to the site of the old Spanish mission, and was soon named Fort Yuma. There was much trouble about supplies, but the Indians were not hostile, and in June the fort was left in charge of Lieutenant L. W. Sweeney with ten men. Soon the Yumas became troublesome, killing some immigrants and even attack­ing the post; the scurvy also became prevalent and supplies exhausted; Captain Davidson took command in November; and in December fort and ferry were abandoned. Heintzelman came back in February 1852 to rebuild the fort and permanently reestablish the garrison. Complicated Indian hostilities, chiefly on the California side, continued until late in the same year, when a treaty was made, though the Yumas and Cocopas still fought occasionally among themselves. Fort Yuma was in California, and across the Colorado there seems to have been no permanent settlement until 1854, though temporary structures may have stood there at times in connection with the ferry. In 1854 a store was perhaps built, and a site for Colorado City was formally surveyed; but in 1861 there were still only one or two buildings, which were washed away in the flood of 1862; and the real growth of the place, later called Arizona City and finally Yuma, seems not to have begun until about 1864. The early navigation of the Colorado is a subject demanding notice in this connection. When Major Heintzelman was ordered to establish a military post at Yuma, an exploration of the river was determined on with a view to the furnishing of supplies by that route. Lieutenant George H. Derby, of later fame as a humorist under the name of John Phoenix, was put in charge of the survey, and sailed from San Francisco, November 1, 1840, on the schooner Invincible, Captain A. H. Wilcox. The month of January 1851 was spent in the river, up which the schooner, drawing eight or nine feet of water, could only ascend some 25 miles to latitude 30° 50', but in his boat Derby went up 60 miles farther, meeting Heintzelman and a party from Yuma. It appears that also in the spring of 1851 George A. Johnson arrived at the river’s mouth on the schooner Sierra Nevada with supplies for the fort, and lumber from which were built flat-boats for the trip up the Colorado. In 1852 the first steamer, the Uncle Sam, was brought by Captain Turnbull on a schooner to the head of the gulf, and there put together for the river trip. She reached Fort Yuma at the beginning of December, but had been obliged to land her cargo of supplies some distance below. After running on the river for a year or two, the Uncle Sam grounded and sank, being replaced in January 1854 by the General Jesup, under Captain Johnson, the new contractor, but exploding in August. The Colorado, a stern-wheeler 120 feet long, was put on the route in the autumn of 1855, and from this time the steam navigation, with an occasional opposition line, seems to have been continuous.