By Andrew Wallace

The story of white settlement in northern Arizona is littered with tales of Indian ambush and white retaliation, mostly exaggerated.  This is especially so in the Prescott region where pioneer settlers indeed regarded the placers of Lynx Creek, ranches in Skull Valley and the whole wide Chino Valley as dangerous on account of “hostile” Indians.  Nothing, however, like a war occurred in these places, much less in Prescott.  Indians did occasionally take food and stray cattle and always mistrusted—with good reason—the approach of heavily armed prospectors.  Miners, in turn, despised “Yampays” and sometimes shot at them in “self protection.”

Prescott, which likes to advertise its “Wild West” history, was settled long after most of the Far West.  No beaver dammed the Hassayampa drainage or played in Granite Creek, so few trappers passed this way.  Ewing Young’s party that included a young Kit Carson, after denuding the Rio Verde of otter and beaver in 1829 packed their plunder on Big Chino prairie before trekking west to the Colorado River.  Joe Walker, dean of the mountain man fraternity, did not appear on Lynx Creek until 34 years later when he and Jack Swilling explored from the Gila up the Hassayampa.

Meanwhile, a small tribe of Indians called Yavape circulated in the country west of the Rio Verde.  Unlike their Havasupai and Walapai cousins, who farmed peacefully in the Grand Canyon, the Yavape were hunters and gatherers, working in small bands to follow traditional rounds in search of game and wild foods.  They numbered fewer than 2,000 but were apt to be seen anywhere from the Verde River to the Colorado and north from the Gila to the San Francisco Mountains.  Without political or central leadership, they occupied simple winter camps of brush shelters in warm low country and traveled widely in family groups in summer, especially to take big game.

A chief of the Yavapai Indians, c. 1877 (Photo Courtesy Sharlot Hall Museum – Call Number: IN-Y-2136p).

Northern Arizona has scant wild food resources and white men saw “Yampays” as impoverished “diggers” who would eat a lizard, pilfer your camp or steal a mule for food.  Their allies were the Tonto Apaches who ranged eastward of the Verde to the White Mountains, often joining with Yavapais to raid westward.  Whites scarcely knew the difference and called them all “Yavapai-Apaches.”

After the Beale Road opened in 1857 the desert west of Bill Williams Mountain attracted many white travelers throughout a territory contested by small bands of Yavapais.  Here too were Mohaves from the Colorado River.  The drainage of the Little Colorado, however, was Hopi land with small parties of Navajo who had evaded the Long Walk to New Mexico after Kit Carson conquered Canyon de Chelly in 1863.

It would seem that, if contemporary newspapers are believed, Yavapai-Apaches were a constant threat to hard working miners, freighters and traveling citizens away from Prescott, then territorial capital and commercial center of northern Arizona.  The Arizona Weekly Miner in 1866 told of “Indian outrages” and reported a citizens meeting on November 23 that demanded formation of a company of rangers: thirty volunteers to serve three months.  Their pay, rations, ammunition and bounties for Indian scalps would come from a public subscription of $2,000.  The Miner on December 15 reported the “well armed and equipped” ranger company had been raised from Skull Valley, Walnut Grove, Turkey Creek, Big Bug and Woolsey’s Ranch.  Expenses apparently were greater than anticipated but another meeting on January 26, 1867, failed to raise more funds.

The rangers took the field in the spring of 1867 and directed their efforts toward the Colorado River, through traditional Yavapai country.  How many hostile “Yampays” they encountered remains unknown but a secondhand report says “a considerable of marauders” were killed.  Territorial Governor Richard C. McCormick attended the November citizens meeting and did not object.  No records have been found to tell if the rangers were paid or when they were discharged.  At least they took the political heat off Governor McCormick and it did lead to sending the Fifth U.S. Cavalry to Fort Whipple and bringing General John I. Gregg to command the Military District of Prescott.

The Yavapai-Apache Nation is still here on several reservations, one in Prescott, and numbers 2,050 enrolled members.  Ironically their splendid resort hotel casino overlooks old Fort Whipple.

(Days Past is a collaborative project of the Sharlot Hall Museum and the Prescott Corral of Westerners, International (www.prescottcorral.org).The public is encouraged to submit articles for Days Past consideration. Please contact SHM Library & Archives Reference Desk at 928-445-3122 Ext. 14 or via email at archivesrequest@sharlothallmuseum.org for information.)