Ode to the Sonoran Desert: Part 3 - Culture and People contd.

The idea that the US/Mexico border has been and should be static; immovable and impermeable, with the exception of designated ports of entry, goes against the grain of American history.

Just very slightly less than 200 years ago, when Mexico won independence from Spain in 1821, the border was all the way up at, what was then, the Oregon Territory. In 1845, 174 years ago, it made its first move, when the US annexed Texas. Three years later, it moved again, this time southward to the Gila River in central Arizona, with the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Its most recent move, to a straight diagonal line from El Paso to the Colorado River at Yuma, occurred just 164 years ago, during my great-grandmother lifetime, in 1854, when James Gadsden, as President Franklin Pierce’s Ambassador to Mexico purchased of 29,640 square miles of Mexico from President Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna for $10 million. In the process it split another nation in two; the border bisected the Tohono O’odham and Hia’Ced O’odham lands in the first instance of government sanctioned “family separation” in the borderlands.

Not only has the border not been immovable, it has also not been impermeable. Long after the Gadsden Purchase, ranches, cattle, ore and, most importantly, people came and went across the border in the Sonoran Desert on a daily basis.

In the late 19th and early 20th century the cross-border economy sustained Mexican, US American and O’odham miners, ranchers and retailers.

One of the mine shaft at Ortega's La Americana mine

Cipriano Ortega (1832 to 1904) was all three. From his hacienda at Santo Domingo, (see Map in Part 2), Ortega managed a cross-border empire that included the La Americana mine, located in the Montezuma Mining District, now the Puerto Blanco Mountains in Organ Pipe National Monument; a well, corral and butcher’s shop a few miles northeast of Quitobaquito Springs and 25,000 hectares of land around Santo Domingo. In addition to his own enterprises, Ortega rented his arrastras to miners from Mexico and the US to crush their ore and separate their gold and silver. Between 1880 and 1899, Ortega mined $80 - $120K in gold and silver from La Americana. He was a savvy businessman so, intuiting that the US government was not going to continue to allow ore to be extracted on its territory and walked over to Mexico for much longer, in 1899 he sold the mine to another international Sonoran Desert entrepreneur, Manuel Levy.

Manuel Levy (1859 to 1942) was born on the US side of the border, like Ortega his business interests crossed the international line. Unlike Ortega, his talents did not lie in the areas of ranching and mining. Levy was a salesman. Like Walmart, Levy’s stores were everywhere, at Ajo, Quitobaquito and Dowling Well in the US, and at Santo Domingo, San Antonio and Sonoyta in Mexico. On purchasing La Americana from Ortega, he renamed the mine Victoria, after the wife of his store clerk at Quitobaquito, Victoria Leon. His goal was to drop the mine shaft an additional 500 feet. Sadly, for Levy, he hit water at 312 feet, where he aimed to hit gold. Today, that water would be almost more valuable than gold, but back then it represented a failed business venture for Levy. Thankfully, his retail ventures fared better, in part due to the courage, determination and business acumen of Dona Liberata Rodrigues.

Dona Liberata Rodrigues (1873 to 1925) was the daughter of a rich, highly respected Mexican family. Her life was all planned out for her; a suitable marriage arranged, and a healthy inheritance put by. She went through with the marriage, but only for a short time. Dona Liberata fled from her, presumably horrible and possibly abusive husband to the Gulf of Mexico, taking her inheritance with her. She purchased 8 wagons and horse teams to pull them and set herself up as long-distance freight service, buying, shipping and selling merchandise between Hermosillo and Ajo, with stops at Caborca, Santa Anna, Nogales and Sonoyta along the way. Dona Liberata bought in supplies for Levy’s stores, she also bought in Mexican home brew during prohibition to be enjoyed by miners, cowboys and, most likely, Jefferson Milton, the lone US Mounted Customs Inspector for the Tucson sector.

Jefferson (Jeff) Milton (1861 to 1947) began his law enforcement career as a Texas Ranger. He moved to Arizona around 1886 as a Deputy US Marshall under Sheriff John Slaughter in Cochise County. In 1897, Milton joined the US Customs Service, riding the line between Nogales and Yuma. After seven years, he moved from Customs to the Bureau of Immigration, becoming a Mounted Chinese Inspector, tasked with enforcing the Chinese Exclusion Act. Milton was a lifelong moonlighter. Early in his career, as a train guard for Wells Fargo, where he was badly wounded in the arm during a gunfight. Then as a miner, partnering with Manuel Levy to open the Monte Cristo mine, and prospecting his own, Milton mine. And as a guide for local expeditions, including that of zoologist William T. Hornaday in 1908. Milton did find time to open a small immigration station at Quitobaquito, where he almost certainly interacted with the then patriarch of its longest resident family, Jose Juan Orosco.

Jose Juan Orozco's Pozo Nuevo Well

Jose Juan Orozco (1890 to 1946) was Hia’Ced O’odham. The Orozco family came to Quitobaquito in 1887, Jose Juan’s father in-law, Juan Jose Garcia was a medicine man and was rumored to have lived to 115 years old. The Orozcos were not the first Hia’Ced O’odham family at Quitobaquito. The Spring was home to a Hia’Ced O’odham community, who had been supplying and assisting travelers along The Devil’s Highway long before Kino arrived in 1687. The Orozco’s 5-acre ranch extended on both sides of the US/Mexico border, where they grew corn, figs, dates, melons and pomegranates and grazed cattle. In addition to owning water access to half an acre of the Quitobaquito pond, Orozco dug Pozo Nuevo Well, the oldest hand-dug well in the area, in 1910.

Like his ranch, Jose Juan straddled the border, not a citizen of the US nor a citizen of Mexico, until in 1924 he was granted citizenship by the US government. His citizenship rights were short lived, almost immediately the government began harassing Jose Juan about his property rights, threatening to build a border fence right through his land. After Jose Juan died in 1946, the pressure continued on his son, Jim Orozco. In 1955, the government condemned the Orozco property, and in 1957, Jim conceded the fight, selling his family ranch to the National Park Service for $13,000.

Where are they now?

Possible site of Ortega's hacienda at Santo Domingo

Cipriano Ortega’s hacienda at Santo Domingo has returned to the desert. We attempt to locate the site in February 2019, but apart from a few areas of raised ground that could have been foundations not so much as an adobe wall was to be found. Cipriano Well remains, but all trace of the corral and buildings is gone. Ortega’s La Americana mine is preserved in Organ Pipe National Monument (OPNM) under the name Levy gave it, Victoria Mine. And there are the Cipriano Hills, from the high plateau at the top you can see all the way across the border from Mexico to Ajo.

Manuel Levy;s store at the La Americana/Victoria Mine

All but one of Manuel Levy’s stores are gone, some destroyed by fire and others by bulldozers. As noted above, the Victoria Mine still bears the name he gave it and is a popular site for visitors to OPNM. Levy also has a mountain named after him. It is part of the Twin Peaks, one peak is Gadsden Peak, the other Levy Peak. I cannot help but think that Levy would not be thrilled about sharing his legacy with Gadsden.

Dona Liberata has almost vanished into history. If it wasn’t for the wonderful books of Ajo History by Charles J. Gaetjens, I would have had no idea she existed. I would love to find out more about her as she was clearly a remarkable and interesting woman. It would be nice, perhaps to name Highway 85, between Sonoyta and Ajo, Liberata Way, in honor of her success in keeping “agua de vida” flowing in Ajo during prohibition.

Jeff Milton has been the subject of a few books, and likely the inspiration for a few characters in Westerns. His way of life and immersion into the communities of the desert is a thing of the past for Border Patrol. For certain no environmentalist is going to ask any of today’s agents to guide them along The Devil’s Highway. His Milton mine is preserved on OPNM.

All trace of the Orozco ranch was obliterated by OPNM when they took control of Quitobaquito. The buildings were razed, and the threatened fence was built through the property. The fruit trees are gone too. Only the spring and the pond remain. Further north, possibly because, when OPNM got it, it was part of the Gray family holdings, Jose Juan’s Pozo Nuevo Well is still there, like all the other wells in the Monument it is dry now, but parts of the corral still stand and the windmill still creaks eerily with the desert wind.

____________________________________________________________________________

Thank you for reading. I want to take a few additional lines to acknowledge my sources, firstly for reasons of copyright, and secondly so the reader knows I have not just made it all up.

The Ajo History Books by Charles J. Gaetjens were especially informative on the history of the people of Ajo. They are filled with personal anecdotes and witty asides. I am extremely grateful to Gail Weyers of the Ajo Samaritans for entrusting me with them for a couple of weeks.

All photos, illustrations and anything that seems like an opinion are my own.

Source List

Ajo History Books 1 to 10 - Charles J. Gaetjens, Ajo Historical Society (1997 to 2007)

Desert Heart: Chronicles of the Sonoran Desert - William K. Hartman

Historic Resource Study: Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona - Jerome A. Green, Historic Preservation Division, National Park Service, US Department of the Interior, Denver, CO (September 1977)

The History of Ranching in Organ Pipe National Monument: Thematic and Context Study - Preservation Studies Program, College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, University of Arizona (September 2009)

Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument website

Pinacate Campmates - Bill Hoy and Bill Broyles, Journal of the Southwest, Vol 49. No. 3 (Autumn 2007) pp 323 – 355

Sonoyta and Santo Domingo: A story of two Sonoran towns and the river that ran by - Bill Hoy, The Journal of Arizona History, Vol 31. No. 2 (Summer 1990) pp 117 – 140

Ode to the Sonoran Desert: Part 2 – Culture and People

People have been crossing the Sonoran Desert for centuries in search of greater opportunities for a better life for themselves and their families. The Spanish Conquistadors came looking gold at the famed Seven Cities of Cibola; the Anglo-American Forty-Niners traveled The Devil’s Highway, through what was still Mexico in 1848, looking to strike it rich in California; and in the early 1900s prospectors and ranchers descended on the area looking for “unclaimed” mine sites, lands and water access.

Like migrants today, these groups encountered many difficulties and dangers on their journeys. Unlike today’s migrants, they were not driven into the most remote regions of the ridges and basins; harassed and scattered from their companions by helicopters, ATVs and pick-up trucks; detained in cold cells, criminalized and separated from their families; and for the local population, assisting their travel with food, water, rest, care and companionship was not a crime.

For everyone not intimately familiar with the geography of the
Sonoran Desert, I whipped up this little map. It is clearly not to
scale. For reference the distance from Sonoyta to Gila Bend is
about 83 miles and Cabeza Prieta and BGBR combined cover an
area slightly larger than Connecticut.

Stolen land! Many of you are thinking, the Sonoran Desert is stolen land! And it is, it has been many times over. First from the Tohono O’odham and Hia’Ced O’odham people by the Spanish conquistador and missionary expeditions of Francisco de Coronado and Fray Eusebio Kino. Then by the Mexicans after the first Mexican revolution. Next by the Anglo-Americans during the westward expansion of the United States. And finally, by the US Government with the creation of Organ Pipe National Monument in 1937, Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge in 1939, and the Barry M Goldwater Bombing Range in 1941.

The native people of the Sonoran Desert are the Tohono O’odham and Hia’Ced O’odham. Before the arrival of Mexicans and Anglo-Americans, their lands stretched from Southern Sonora, MX to north of present-day Phoenix and from the Sea of Cortez in the west to the San Pedro River in the east. Today, the US Government designated Tohono O’odham Reservation covers a fraction of that area, bounded by the US/Mexico border in the South, Highway 8 to the north, the Baboquivari Mountain Range in the East and the Ajo Mountain Range to the west.

The geography, plants and animals of the Sonoran Desert all play important roles in O’odham culture, food, religion and stories. Is it ok for me to share these stories? I will share a well-known, and often told, one that illustrates the importance of cohabiting and caring for desert animals with the acknowledgement that this is not my story:

On the Organ Pipe National Monument map, there is a mountain in the Ajo Range designated as Montezuma’s Head. This name is, of course, a colonial name from the Spanish. The O’odham name for the mountain is I’itoi Mo’o and ‘Oks Daha, meaning I’itoi (Elder Brother of the O’odham people) and Old Woman Sitting. Legend states that one day close to sunset an old woman sat down to rest with her basket at the top of a small hill. As the sun set she and her basket were turned to stone. Every day since she continues to weave her basket, and when she finishes the world will come to an end. Every night the coyotes come and unweave her work from the previous day, ensuring that she will never finish, and the world will continue.

The Tohono O’odham people have many legends of hidden or lost gold in the mountains of the Sonoran Desert. These stories may have inspired the first Spaniards who traveled in the Desert, a motley band of survivors from a shipwreck off the Florida coast in 1527. Cabeza de Vaca, Castillo de Maldonado, Andres Durantes and Esteban, an enslaved African, crossed the Desert heading from north to south looking for a “road” going back to Mexico City. They eventually arrived at the court of Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza, where they regaled everyone with stories of the fabulous gold of the Seven Cities of Cibola.

Topography of Diaz Spire and Diaz Peak in Organ Pipe
National Monument. Somewhere in here could be the historical
find of a lifetime!

The fabled wealth of Cibola precipitated the launch of a massive expedition led by Francisco de Coronado in 1540. In advance of the main, slow moving, caravan Coronado sent an advance party led by Captain Melchior Diaz. Diaz’ name has passed into Sonoran Desert legend. He and his group crossed the Desert following the approximate route of The Devil’s Highway to Yuma and California. Diaz returned by the same route, bringing with him the news that, “California is not an island!” During the journey, he caught sight of a coyote worrying some sheep. Diaz launched his spear at the coyote and misfired, jamming the point of the spear into the ground and impaling himself in the groin on the back end. His group made a valiant attempt to get him back to Mexico City, but he died en route in January 1541. The location of Diaz’ grave is the source of endless speculation, it is thought to be somewhere in the Ajo Mountain range between Mt. Ajo and Sonoyta, possibly near Lukeville.

The Diaz/Coronado expedition found neither the Seven Cities of Cibola nor the reported gold. The most lasting impact of the early Spanish conquistador expeditions in the Sonoran Desert are the wild burros. All the burros who still roam the Desert today can trace their ancestors back to those bought over by Coronado and Diaz.

It would be another 150 years before the next Spanish expedition arrived in the Sonoran Desert.

Fray Eusebio Kino arrived in the Desert in 1687, establishing his first mission, Nuestra Sonora de los Dolores, near what is now the town of Nogales. A year later, Kino reached the pueblo at the site of present day Sonoyta. Here he built the San Marcelo de Sonoytag mission, introduced cattle ranching in the desert and oyster farming at the Sea of Cortez, visited Quitobaquito Springs, which he named San Segurio, mapped the Gila River and proved the existence of the land bridge to California. Kino was a busy guy, all told, between 1687 and his death in 1711, he established 24 missions and left copious memoirs and maps of his time in the Sonoran Desert.

Within 50 years of Kino’s death the Spanish mission project was in shambles, in-fighting between Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries, and the second Pima Rebellion in 1757, razed the missions to the ground. All that is left of the San Marcelo de Sonoytag mission at Sonoyta today is the grave of Kino’s successor, Enrique Reuben, who was killed at the mission during the Rebellion.

So much for the Spanish. The Sonoran Desert returned to its rightful “owners”, the O’odham people until… coming up next in Part 3, the arrival of Mexican and Anglo-American prospectors and ranchers, in the early to mid-19th century, searching for the ever-elusive gold, directly through mining prospects and indirectly through cattle ranching.

Ode to the Sonoran Desert: Part 1 - Nature

Between May 6 and May 11, 2019, I was part of Search and Recovery teams that found the skeletalized remains of 7 people in the Sonoran Desert. Some of them took their last breath on high, lava rock strewn ridgelines and some in deep, gravelly washes. For all it is safe to assume that the cause of death was some combination of exposure, exhaustion and dehydration.

It might be tempting to blame their deaths on the Desert, but it is not the Desert’s fault. It is we who are to blame, we have sucked the Desert dry of its water and weaponized it in the name of the nation state.

During the past 6 months I have grown to know and love the Sonoran Desert. It is a magical place with majestic mountains, magnificent plains and an amazing diversity of plants and animals. It has water sources to support plants, animals and people alike, both natural and man-made.

The physical geography of the Desert is known as “Basin and Range.” Long, narrow parallel mountain ranges, such as the Ajo Mountains, Growler Ridge and Granite Mountains, run approximately SSE to NNW.  The ranges are dominated by iconic peaks whose distinctive shapes can be seen for miles, helping to guide desert travelers by day and night. Between the ranges, wide basins, veined by washes, discernible from the high peaks by the deep green vegetation growing along their banks, stretch for 20 miles or more.  

From the tiny Hedgehog Cactus to the giant Saguaros, the plants of the Sonoran Desert are an endless source of fascination and wonder. Despite their ferocious spikes almost all of them offer something useful to people traveling in the desert.

The giant Saguaros have giant personalities.
 They grow their first "arm" at a minimum
of 80 years old. After that their arms grow
anytime, anywhere and everywhere.

The trees, Mesquite, Ironwood and Chaparral, provide fragrant wood for fires to provide warmth and cook food. The Sonoran Desert cacti are edible in whole or in part; Prickly Pear Cactus pads, flowers and fruit can all be eaten raw or grilled; Barrel Cactus, Chain-Fruit Cholla, Saguaro and Organ Pipe Cactus all bear tasty fruit and flowers. Cacti fruit in succession, beginning with the Barrel Cactus in winter and closing with the Saguaro and Organ Pipe in high summer, meaning there are nourishing fruits available almost year-round. Finally, the sap of the Agave plant can be used to treat external wounds or taken internally to settle an upset stomach.

The animals of the Sonoran Desert are equally varied – in some cases more dangerous, and in most cases less edible. During the heat of the day most animals prefer to stay underground where it is cooler, but occasionally a jack rabbit will dash across the plain and disappear into the safety of a growth of Chaparral. 

For the Coyote the Sonoran Desert is a giant banquet hall. It
eats everything from  kangaroo rats to jack rabbits to rattlesnakes,
and even, occasionally, unsupervised small dogs.

On sunny Spring days, rattlesnakes bask in the Brittle Brush, warning the unwary who step too close of their presence with a shake of the tail. As the sun sets, gangs of Javelina leave the daytime shade of the washes in search of food, and Coyote packs howl at the moon before beginning their night time hunt. Pack Rats are also active at night, gathering items to build their middens. They are the archivists of the Desert, their midden homes are carefully constructed, sometimes over thousands of years, from items all collected from within 150 feet of their front doors. These industrious collectors are also collected, as a tasty snack for Coyotes, Rattlesnakes and Bobcats.

To support such an abundance of life there must be water. And there is water in the Sonoran Desert, much less than there used to be before big cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas sucked it all up to water their lawns and golf courses, fill their swimming pools and provide showers millions of people daily; but if you know where to look some water is still there.

Back in the late 1800s there were many different water sources in the Desert. Firstly, two rivers, the Gila River and the Sonoyta River flowed year-round. The Sonoyta River supported communities at the towns of Sonoyta and Santo Domingo providing water for drinking, crops, cattle and to power mills and arrastras that ground grain and ore respectively.

Quitobaquito Springs. The pools in the spring
provide a safe(ish) home for shoals of tiny
pupfish.

In addition, natural springs, such as QuitoBaquito, popped out of the ground and created small ponds. In its heyday up to ten springs sprang from the ground at QuitoBaquito, supporting a vibrant community centered around the Orosco ranch, where melon, fig, date and pomegranate trees grew. Today, just one spring remains, feeding a pond that is home to a few ducks, turtles and pupfish; the community and the fruit trees are gone.

The Desert also catches and holds its rainfall, not only in the gorged trunks of giant saguaros, but also in rock tanks (tinajas) formed by dormant volcanic craters or giant boulders. These tinajas hold water long after the rainy season is over. The Tinajas Atlas, roughly half way between Quitobaquito and Yuma on The Devil’s Highway, consists of a series of giant water tanks, and has been a life-saver for the unlucky or the unprepared for thousands of years. 

Finally, the people of the Sonoran Desert tapped into water just below the ground by digging wells to provide water for their cattle, their crops, their mines and themselves. Almost all of the wells are dry now, those few that still provide water are not potable; they may kill you faster than the desert sun.

The Sonoran Desert is a place of natural wonder to all who travel in it, it is also rich in cultural history and stories….but, since I have written, and you have read 940 words, that is for another blog post…