By Al Bates
This article is one of a series that will appear in this space during this year and the next on historic events relating to the Arizona Territory’s Sesquicentennial.
The most recent episode in this series left the party of Territorial Governor John Goodwin and its military escort at the base of the Raton Pass leading from Colorado to New Mexico—and dreading the prospect. Fortunately the weather cooperated and the crossing of the 8000-foot divide on November 5, 1863, was uneventful, although some of their weather-beaten and malnourished livestock died on the way.
Two days later they had their first exposure to New Mexico land ownership patterns based on Mexican land grants still recognized by the United States. There the wealthy holders of the land lived like feudal lords, while the poor families who labored for them were held in a state of peonage. Beyond this, Judge Joseph Allyn, the Hartford Evening Press correspondent, was disturbed to discover at one large ranch, “All the house servants were Navajo girls, captive slaves in fact, for, in defiance of law, they are bought and sold. They make the best of servants it is said, but that is no very good reason why they should be stolen, although it is not very popular to suggest that here.”
Judge Allyn was more impressed with the prospects for cattle and sheep ranching than for the lure of gold. “Given security from Indians and this stock raising is a surer way to a fortune than the richest gulch in the new El Dorado to which we journey. Sheep almost treble annually and disease is a thing almost unheard of among them. Now that they are beginning to shear them the profit is enormous, for your capital more than doubles annually with out estimating the wool at all. The Navajo Indians today own several millions of sheep. A few years ago they had none; so you see thieving pays.”
The governor and party had arrived during the campaign by General James Carleton to pacify the Navajo Indians and to move them to a reservation far from their established homeland. Feelings against the Navajos were extreme because of their incessant stock raids on Pueblo tribes and the Mexican-American villages. Allyn quoted a prominent New Mexican resident who told of once splendid pasture with herds and flocks. “Now the Navajos reign supreme and the few sheep left are driven into town every night. So completely are the rancheros at the mercy of the Indian now, that tender mutton is an impossibility in this land of sheep, the animals having to be driven so far that they keep poor.”
The ruins of Fort Union, New Mexico (Photo Courtesy of Author).
Cultural differences continued to capture Allyn’s interest, “This day we camped at a Mexican village of several hundred inhabitants, nearly all peons of the same man. As this was our first real Mexican town, it excited considerable curiosity, and our party began to wonder if Tucson were like this, and I suspect that there was quite a general disgust; to one accustomed solely to American towns, nothing can be more forlorn looking than an adobe village.”
On November 9, 1863, they arrived at Fort Union, New Mexico and Allyn reported their greeting. “General Carleton was here waiting for us, and the Governor’s salute echoed from the surrounding mountains as we wheeled into camp.” After a meeting between the general and the governor it was announced that Tucson would be bypassed and they would proceed directly to the mines by the Whipple route.
Allyn, a member of a prosperous family, expressed doubts about the new destination: “We arranged at once to proceed to the field of the new discoveries in the centre of Arizona, and not go to Tucson at all. This saves us 200 miles of land, but leaves us in the woods, in the winter, in about the latitude of Memphis, at an elevation of at least 5,000 feet above the sea to found a city.”
On the other hand, would-be court clerk Jonathan Richmond, from a less affluent background, was gleeful that Tucson would be bypassed: “[W]e proceeded directly to the mines … every one in the party is gold struck. The fever is raging furiously.”
The governor’s party would spend the next month’s time more in delays than in travel, finally arriving at the army’s last New Mexican outpost, Fort Wingate, on December 13, 1863. This series resumes in a few weeks with an account of those events.
(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.)