CHAPTER X:
621In the aftermath of the Mexican War, the defeated Mexican nation under President José Joaquín de Herrera who took office June 3, 1848 (Bancroft 1885:V:550), undertook sweeping governmental reforms to strengthen the country. The armed forces had been so obviously inefficient and disorderly during the recent war as to turn popular opinion against the military establishment. On November 4, 1848, the standing army was cut to an authorized strength of 10,000 to be recruited on a volunteer basis (ibid., V:568). This ideal proved impractical and conscription was resorted to again in 1852 (ibid., V:569).
To achieve a more republican style of army, all males between eighteen and fifty-five were considered members of a national militia, with an active mobile corps of militia subject to six month's service outside the state of enrollment composed of six-tenths of one per cent of the population paid at the same rate as regular troops from state funds unless on federal service, and thus under state command (ibid., V:571). Thirty-four special mobile companies were authorized for duty on the new northern frontier. These measures were not sufficient to contain Indian raids on the boundary, however, 622and the concept of military colonies greatly resembling the royal Spanish presidio was revived and put into execution.
The plan of the military colony called for recruiting men to serve six-year enlistments, receiving six month's pay in advance and tools and animals necessary for farming plus material for houses. Married settlers received exemptions from all taxes, even church tithes. Six-year men should receive a 10-peso bounty and at the end of their enlistment obtains a tract of land. If a soldier re-enlisted for another six-year term, his land grant was to be doubled at the end of his second term.
The military colony plan was put into execution by decree on July 19, 1848, which ordered various colonies formed on the same financial footing as the frontier fort companies authorized by the organic legislation of March 21, 1826, provisions of which are outlined above. The frontier was sectioned into an eastern sector composed of Tamaulipas and Coahuila, a central sector made up of Chihuahua, and the western sector taking in Sonora and Lower California. Each section was to be under the control of an inspector ranking as colonel who was obligated to inspect every colony at least once every two months. Every two to three military colonies were to be commanded by an adjutant inspector ranking as lieutenant colonel, and post commanders were to rank as captains (ibid., V:573 fn 45). A thousand recruits were actually dispatched to the frontier in 1849 with the full authorized staff of commanding 623inspectors and quartermasters. Some 340 of these recruits were destined for the Western Section with five military colonies in Sonora and one in Lower California (ibid., V:573 & fn 46).
Amazingly enough the national congress followed up this basic reform with additional appropriations in the following years and by 1851 the military colony system was fairly functional and developing strength. About half of the planned colonies had been founded although authorized strength was still less than half achieved. The commanding inspector of the Western Section arrived on the frontier in January of 1851 with reinforcements of both men and supplies and he provisionally established military colonies at the old forts at Babispi, Fronteras, Santa Cruz, Tucson and Altar in Sonora, and Santo Tomás Mission in Lower California. The new regime regarded most of these sites as unpropitious and proposals were advanced to move Santa Cruz east to the San Pedro River, to retreat Tucson to Tubac, but to advance Altar to Tres Alamos (ibid., V:574 & fn 47).
In actuality the provisional arrangement turned out to be fairly stable, and the Tucson strongpoint was not abandoned until after Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna returned to the presidency and sold the Gadsden Purchase tract. Santa Cruz also survived (Gándara Nov. 9, 1853b), and garrisons remained at Babispe and Fronteras (Gándara Nov. 9, 1853c).
624A. Tubac Becomes A Military Colony
In the fall of 1851 shortly after the Mexican and United States boundary survey parties both found the site of Tubac still depopulated, a military colony was founded there, apparently with either new reinforcements from central Mexico or a composite company thrown together from the other Sonoran colonies, Altar in particular. The post was very likely reoccupied upon the urging of the commander of the Mexican boundary survey group. The officer who re-established Tubac as a military colony was Captain Gomez, previous comandant at Fronteras- or if he did not found the post he had taken command by July of 1852 (Bartlett 1854:II:302-303).
United States citizens were still traveling the southern emigrant road to California through Tubac, and soon after the post was reoccupied by Mexican troops, its commandat induced a Mormon party to stop there to farm on a commercial basis. Apparently Mexico had been able to send troops back to Tubac, but unable to find farmers willing to risk life on the Apache frontier in the upper Santa Cruz River Valley. The post commandat was clearly so eager to acquire a body of local farmers that he was willing to offer foreigners substantial concessions to persuade them to remain at Tubac. "He offered them lands in the rich valley, where acequias were already dug, if they would remain and cultivate it; assuring them that they would find a ready market for all the corn, wheat and vegetables they could raise, from the troops and from 625passing emigrants" (ibid., II:304) The fact that the commander could offer the Mormons previously cultivated fields with existing irrigation ditches shows that few if any Mexican settlers had accompanied the troops back to Tubac. Its total population was hardly a hundred persons (ibid.).
Unfortunately for the Mormons, they either planted the wrong crops for the seasonal runoff pattern in the Santa Cruz River or they encountered a drought year. They settled down at the post, plowed and planted at the spring season, but it did not rain and the river flow dried up so they could not irrigate their fields, so eventually they gave up their time, labor and money and abandoned Tubac to continue their journey to California (ibid., II:304-305). Half a century before a drought imperiled Toribio de Otero's land grant; this one saved it for his heirs, for had the Mormons held onto the fields at Tubac, the United States would undoubtedly have recognized their title instead of that of the original grantee's heirs who were evidently not on the land.
Some idea of the reliance of the Tubac garrison on imported supplies is provided by a statement of the basic food supplies required for a campaign against the Apaches planned for May of 1852 (Anonymous Apr. 27, 1852). The post was to receive ninety-eight fanegas of pinole with six mule loads of brown sugar and 100 arrobas of jerky. A ton and a quarter of jerky is a good deal of meat! (An arroba equals approximately twenty-five English pounds.
626One of the handicaps of the new military colony was a lack of a blacksmith (Bartlett 1854:II:305) unless Captain Gomez's message to U. S. Boundary Commissioner Bartlett that Tubac lacked a mechanic or tools useful for wagon repairing resulted from that officer's pique at snooping North Americans.
After the failure of the Mormon crop in the spring of 1852, little farming seems to have been attempted at Tubac in 1853. The Apaches who returned there in mid-July came too late to plant, and early in January of 1854 the Tubac post commandat was still scrounging for provisions. He obtained orders from the Adjutant-Inspector of Sonora permitting him to levy upon the stores of the company at Santa Cruz. At the same time the Adjutant-Inspector ordered the commander to even things up a bit by dispatching to Santa Cruz some oxen and carts.
The Tubac commandat informed his superior that the post possessed no carts, but that he was sending a privately-owned one to Santa Cruz with three yokes of oxen even though doing so would probably delay the Tubac wheat planting fatally. In addition he sent to Santa Cruz five mules, but only three of them belonged to the Tubac garrison-the other two were loaned by settlers at Tumacacori. Of the eleven and a half pack loads of bags Zenteño sent to Santa Cruz, five belonged to the proprietors of Calabazas. In his report to the Adjutant-Inspector, Zenteño (Jan. 18, 1854:1-2) stressed that his troop would have no food until the train returned from Santa Cruz, and requested an order allowing him to draw on that post for his February rations as well.
627When hostile Apaches attacked the food train at San Lázaro farther up the Santa Cruz River, running off all the oxen and mules, Tubac was left in desperate straits indeed (Zenteño Jan. 21, 1854:1). Captain Andrés B. Zenteño immediately sent a request to Tucson for reinforcements, and an order to the Santa Cruz commander for carts and oxen to transport the supplies needed at Tubac to avoid famine. If the latter did not promptly succor Tubac, its commander notified the state adjutant-inspector, he would be obliged to march to Santa Cruz in order to food his troops (ibid., p. 3).
The sorely needed provisions apparently arrived in time to enable Zenteño and his garrison to hold out a little longer, for "a few Mexican soldiers" were still stationed there as late as September 15, 1854 (Bell 1932:311). News of the ratification of the Treaty of the Gadsden Purchase apparently reached Tubac four days later with the same mule train from Guaymas which took word of the change in sovereignty to Tucson on September 21 (ibid., p. 316).
B. Apache Reinforcements
The weak condition of the Mexican forces sent to re-establish Tubac as a strongpoint against hostile Apaches prompted Sonoran authorities to attempt to strengthen the new post in the summer of 1853 about a year and a half after its reoccupation. Governor Manuel M. Gándara ordered some of the Peaceful Apaches living at Tucson to move to Tubac on June 29, 1853 (Zenteño July 6. 1853).
628The Tucson friendly Apaches arrived at Tubac on July 17, 1853, under their sub-chief Francisco Nichuy (Zenteño July 18, 1853:37:1). The Apache reinforcement numbered thirty-eight warriors (ibid., p. 3), which was the essential information so far as the post commander was concerned. "With respect to the total not even the aforesaid Nichuy knows it" (ibid., p. 1) although the commandat reported some fifty women and thirty-two children for a total increment of 120 (ibid., p. 3) to the Tubac population. This Apache reinforcement approximately doubled the size of the Tubac settlement, since Bartlett (1854:II:304) had found a scant hundred persons there one year earlier.
The Peaceful Apaches continued to receive military rations under the system instituted back in the 1780's. Accordingly the Tubac commandat issued two almudes (about a sixth of a bushel) of wheat to men with families, one almud (a twelfth of a bushel) to men without families, and half analmud to widows. These Apache reinforcements were expected to raise at least a part of their food at Tubac, but when they arrived the spring planting season was already past, and the military colony had only two yoke of oxen for plowing (Zenteño July 18, 1853:38:1) anyhow. The post commander therefore requested the state commandat general to order the commanders at Tucson and Santa Cruz to send him two yoke of oxen from each place, and asked for as much farming equipment such as hatchets and plows as it might be possible to send him (ibid., p. 2).
D. Emigrant Road Way-Station
The North American emigration from the eastern states to California may have slacked off somewhat in volume after the initial push westward in 1849, but it did not cease. Emigrant trains continued to cross the territories to the new West Coast state, many of them taking the southern route along the Santa Cruz and Gila Rivers.
When a military colony was established at Tubac in the fall of 1851 these trains were provided with a little more protection against raiding Apaches, and one more populated stopping place along the route, although it is doubtful whether Tubac could offer much material assistance in the way of food or animals to passing emigrants. The first commander's attempt to add Mormon farmers among the passing emigrants to his post has already been described. Some attempt was made to maintain oxen and horses at the re-established post since the Apaches found some of both to steal on November 18, 1852 (Anonymous 1852)
By the time the emigrants reached Tubac many of them had lost so many animals they were ready to sell or abandon part 637of their wagons. U. S. Boundary Commissioner John R. Bartlett was able to replace one of his wagons late in July of 1852 within a mile of Tubac by purchasing another from an emigrant train from Arkansas with fifteen wagons (Bartlett 1854:II:305-306) and forty people. On the same July 22 the U. S. boundary survey party passed another emigrant train from Arkansas with a dozen wagons drawn by oxen on the road between Tubac and Calabazas (ibid., II:309) suggesting the amount of travel on this road.
So rapidly had California filled with people after the discovery of gold that the great port of San Francisco was already becoming a staging area for adventurers with their eyes turned toward recently defeated and still weak and turbulent Mexico. Not long after Captain Gomez re-established Tubac as a military post a French count, Charles de Pindray, sailed from San Francisco with eighty-eight Frenchmen bound for Guaymas (Lambertie 1855:209). Whether Count de Pindray shared the filibustering ambitions of another French count (Raousset-Boulbon) who later inherited his forces, his first move was to offer his services to the Sonoran government as a mobile Apache fighting force. His original contingent was reinforced so his total strength reached 150 men-a force half again as large as the total population of the Tubac military colony! Such a large increment to the frontier fighting forces was a godsend to harassed Sonorans and the French unit was urged north through Ures, Arispe., Banámichi, Bacuachi 638and Fronteras into the Apache country (thus relieving the Sonorans of the problem of what to do with such a strong force in state politics). Although Count de Pindray acquired a Sonoran guide named Joaquín, his Apache hunt turned into something more like comic opera than a military operation. The hostile Indians could easily stay out of the way of so large a party of Europeans totally inexperienced in Indian warfare, yet keep the Frenchmen in a constant state of psychological unease.
The Pindray expedition terminated on a tragic note. Its leader contracted a debilitating and painful fever after extensive if useless peregrinations through unsettled territory beyond the frontier. Finally, he advised his Frenchmen the only thing left for them to do was to try to make the post at Tubac, and shot himself with his pistol in front of the company (ibid., p. 257). The survivors headed for Tubac, and probably did reach settled territory again at that post. After recuperating for a while at a large estate farther south, they returned to Cocóspera to found a colony, only to be caught up by Count Gaston de Raousset-Boulbon in September of 1852 (ibid., p. 259) in his attempt to take over the government of Sonora.
The next year Tubac witnessed the passage of the first surveyors for the southern railroad from the South to the Pacific Coast (Gray 1856:51) and the first route recommended was from the San Pedro River up Babocomari Creek and across 639the divide to Sonoita Creek down to the Santa Cruz River and Tubac. From there the proposed line could follow the stream through the Pima Villages or save seventy miles by going west through the arid Pápago country to reach the Gila River (ibid., p. 60).
The stream of overland travel through Tubac continued through the entire period of Mexican sovereignty in the Gadsden Purchase area, its volume unknown for lack of records of traffic at any point along the southern route to California. The number of published accounts of travel along this route indicates a considerable movement of people. A German businessman who passed through Tubac in early July of 1854 noted of the Peaceful Apaches that "The women and girls of this people sat by the road-side, staring at us with their broad, fat, mongol, expressionless faces" (Froebel 1859:503). A cattle-train from Texas passed through Tubac on September 15, 1854 (Bell 1932:311) and it was only one among many which drove stock overland to the booming California market.
E. Morality
The moral tone set for the reconstituted Tubac post by its founding commander was not very high in the view of North Americans of the time. U. S. Boundary Commissioner John R. Bartlett visited the post on July 21, 1852, on his second try at defining the new international boundary, and found the 640commandat to be the "new captor" of a young lady Bartlett's party had earlier rescued from captivity among the Apaches and restored to her home and family at Santa Cruz. The commandat, who had met Bartlett while commanding the Fronteras post was familiar with the girl's history, said nothing to the U. S. Commissioner about her being in his quarters. The North American official heard of her presence from others, and demanded to see her despite the commandat's excuses that she was ill and about to return to Santa Cruz with her mother. Commissioner Bartlett (1854:II:302-303) found his interview with Inez Gonzales very unsatisfactory with the Mexican captain present but found himself unable to do much about it.
Commissioner Bartlett evidently did not realize that the operational morality of the Mexicans in regard to female captives recovered from the Apaches differed markedly from puritanical North American ideals. The great emphasis placed upon bridal virginity in Hispanic culture and the social devices for insuring it such as seclusion of young ladies, the use of dueñas to guard them., etc., led Mexicans to regard any nubile female thrown into the company of a man without the traditional safeguards as automatically defiled and therefore not a suitable marriage match. Under the circumstances, Inez Gonzales had probably done very well for herself, since a post commander was a good catch, formally or informally.
It might be added that Commissioner Bartlett's truculent attitude toward the Tubac post commandat provides one of the641very frequent if not very edifying spectacles of a U. S. official abroad judging behavior of persons of a different cultural tradition than his own in terms of his personal ideals rather than his country's actual cultural practice. For it must be pointed out that whatever the North American ideal with regard to recovered female captives, North American operational morality differed very little from that of Mexicans.
F. Aftermath
After the Gadsden Purchase Treaty was ratified, Mexican troops withdrew gradually from the purchased tract and the Tubac garrison moved to Santa Cruz just south of the new international boundary. There it continued to deteriorate in the culmination of long years of neglect and faltering command during the republican period.
On April 1, 1857, the commander of the combined companies excused himself to the Adjutant-Inspector for not keeping up with his paperwork. He sent in monthly reports for the Santa Cruz and Tubac companies which were in arrears since February, but continued working up Tucson company reports which were in arrears to the previous August (Anonymous April 1, 1857). The reporting situation had not improved particularly by the beginning of June (Anonymous June 8, 1857), testifying to a declining quality of officer in the military colonies of this frontier.
642By that time the military colonies had been reduced to a state of military inaction by their miserable condition which seemed to responsible commanders an open invitation to further attempts at filibustering by United States citizens across the new international boundary in the growing settlements of Tucson and Calabazas. The morale of the remaining troops had been seriously undermined by their going a year without receiving a single real in pay, serving for only enough food for their families. They had gladly served as long as they received sufficient rations but for five months prior to June 20 they had been receiving only enough rations for each man so their wives and children were going hungry. To forestall wholesale desertions the senior officer on the frontier was purchasing wheat in the San Ignacio Valley with his personal credit (Anonymous June 20, 1857).
The sorry climax of years of neglect of frontier troops by federal and state governments arrived on June 21, 1857, when the soldiers of the Santa Cruz-Tubac company refused to stand guard after standing morning formation. They said that they would not give any service if they were not paid or at least rationed punctually.
The commander of the frontier ordered the Santa Cruz captain to exhort his men to return to duty, but exhortation was useless. The soldiers repeated their demands and then dispersed to their houses, carrying their rifles with them instead of returning them to the headquarters arsenal (Anonymous July 2, 1857). This was open mutiny.
643The commander of the frontier allowed the troopers to sleep in peace until midnight. Then he took the Santa Cruz and Tubac commandats, three sergeants, two staff aids and four trusty citizens and surprised the mutineers in their homes, imprisoning them in the post jail.
Bravery and astute tactics on the part of local officers could hardly overcome basic failings of a frontier army system engendered by decades of neglect, however, and on July 2 the frontier commander was forced to release the prisoners for lack of supplies to feed them, securing their abundant protestations of future subordination (ibid.).
On this inglorious note of frustrated futility the history of the Tubac military colony can end.