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Yavapai Apache
Indians
 The Yavapai are one of the 13 bands of
Pai or Pa’ a (The People) which all spoke a Yuman language. In the distant
past the Yavapai quarreled with the People and left, going south and east. They
became the “Almost-People to the East.” Historically, the Yavapai
were loosely divided into four groups. The Tolkapaya (Western Yavapai) lived in
the northern mountains of the Sonoran Desert from the Colorado River almost to
Prescott. The Kewevkapaya (Southeastern Yavapai) controlled the Bradshaw
Mountains, the lower Verde Valley, the Tonto Basin, as well as the Superstition
and Pinal Mountains. The Yavepe (Central Yavapai) held the Prescott-Jerome
area. The Wipukpaya (Northeastern Yavapai) lived in the middle Verde Valley and
red rock country around Sedona.
Although the Spanish explorers came
through the Southwest, their trips were infrequent and they did not penetrate
far into this area. Their
 European diseases, however,
reached beyond the Spanish paths of exploration. Devastating diseases affected
the population before the American incursion in mid 1800’s. The
Yavapai’s hunting and gathering lifestyle continued without major
disruption until the 1850s with the American infiltration into northern
Arizona. A conflict of cultures developed over the incompatible lifestyles,
incompatible subsistence patterns and differing concepts of land ownership.
Raiding was a way of survival for Yavapai while the whites viewed the raids as
hostile aggression. American hunters using rifles drastically reduced game
populations. Cattle grazing diminished the seed-producing plants. Conflict over
land use created hostilities between the American and Indian
cultures.
In 1863 gold was discovered near
Prescott and thousands of miners arrived, signaling the permanent arrival of
Americans in the Yavapai’s territory. In 1865 the frontier reached the
Verde Valley when the first farmers arrived. The incoming Americans found the
Yavapais directly on the lands they wanted. With the arrival of Americans, the
Yavapai’s hunting and foodways were disrupted forever. Starving Yavapai
raided the settlers, the settlers had retaliatory raids. In 1864 a massacre of
Yavapais at Elbe's ranch in a valley west of Prescott occurred. The name Skull
Valley was adopted after the soldiers under Lt. Monteith left the dead Indians
without burying them. The Americans complained to the government about hostile
Indians and the U.S. Army was sent in.
The government treated the four Pai
groups as one single group in military campaigns. The Americans also confused
the Yavapai with the Apache during the Indian Wars. The Yavapai were often
called “Apache” and this confusion persists to this day.
Yavapai faced terrible odds of
holding any territory wanted by the Americans. In 1871, General George Crook
was sent to Arizona to command the fighting troops to stop the Indians. Pursued
to starvation by the U.S. Army, the Yavapai abandoned their vast homeland. Both
Yavapai and Tonto Apache were defeated in General Crook’s 1872-73
campaign. Under Chalipun many Yavapai surrendered to Crook in April 1873.
Resistance did not cease completely after Crook’s offensive, but life
outside the reservation was extremely dangerous. On December 23,1873 a massacre
of a Yavapai band occurred in a canyon above the Salt River Canyon. After this
massacre at Skeleton Cave the Yavapai resistance was completely broken. Most
Yavapai surrendered and removed to the Rio Verde Reservation.
The Rio Verde Reservation
encompassed 800 square miles of the Verde River valley and mountains on both
sides of the valley. Americans settling in the valley and prospecting in the
mountains were not happy with the treaty for they wanted the land for their own
use. Despite the claim that the treaty was for “as long as the river runs,
the grass grows and the mountains endure” the reservation was closed in
1875 and the Yavapai were relocated to the San Carlos Reserve. The Rio Verde
reservation land was opened for American settlement.
Another factor which contributed to
the closing of the Rio Verde Reservation was the fact that the Yavapai were
becoming self sufficient. They succeeded in digging irrigation ditches and
planted 50 acres in crops to provide food. Despite the stated policy of wanting
Indians to become self sufficient, the reservation was closed after government
contractors (afraid of losing their profits from selling low-quality goods)
protested vehemently. They convinced the government to relocate the Yavapai on
less fertile land.
In February 1875 the Yavapai were
removed from the Rio Verde Reservation to the Apache reserve on the San Carlos
and Gila rivers. The forced march to the San Carlos Reservation was grueling
with many hardships. It took over two weeks to walk the 150 miles. Requests
were made to allow the children and the elders to take a longer route by wagon.
Edwin Dudley denied this request saying, “They are Indians, let the
beggars walk.” Over one hundred died from malnutrition and cold on the
trail.
The story of Native American
history is intimately intertwined with American government history. With each
administration change came drastic changes in policy. Originally the Dutch
Reform Church was given jurisdiction over Indian policies, then the government
developed the Bureau of lndian Affairs. The BIA has constantly changed their
policies in dealing with various tribes depending on societal opinions,
government mandates and their own need to perpetuate the program. At the time
of the formation of the Rio Verde Reservation, the government wrote treaties
allotting each tribe their own land in their own territory. A few years later,
the government policy changed to incorporate all of the smaller reserves into
one large reserve for “better management purposes.” This policy also
played into the government goal of extermination. By placing warring tribes
onto the same reserve, the Indians could kill each other off and end the
government’s problem of what to do with the Indians living on land wanted
by the Americans.
Life on the reservation (any
reservation) was hard. Living in unwanted land (until gold, silver or copper
was discovered) their traditional ways of life were no longer possible. Corrupt
Indian agents were common. Cheating the tribes of their meager food rations was
widely practiced. Those meager rations consisted mainly of 30 pounds of flour,
a handful of salt each month and beef, on the hoof. If available, sugar and
tobacco were issued.
Reservation quarters were cramped
and crudely built without adequate water. Unhealthy living conditions
contributed to the spread of diseases and epidemics. During the first year on
the reservation in 1874, the Yavapai population was reduced by one third.
Deaths were so frequent that the living were not able to keep up with the
crematory ceremonies necessary to honor their dead. Heat, epidemic disease,
spoiled rations and starvation killed many people.In 1860 the Yavapai’s
population was over 2,000. By 1903 they numbered approximately 500.
Life on the San Carlos Reservation
was harsh. The Yavapai again made attempts at self sufficiency by once again
turning to farming. In the 1880s floods washed out their ditch system. During
the 1890s dam builders wanted the Yavapai-held land at San Carlos. The Yavapai
themselves wanted to return to their homeland around the Verde River. By 1901,
most had left the reservation. It was at this same time the government realized
that the Yavapai were not Apache and set up new reservations for the Yavapai.
Fort McDowell was established in 1903.
In 1906 the Yavapais became
entangled in a water rights struggle when Phoenix proposed building a dam on
the Verde River, in the middle of the Fort McDowell reservation. The government
proposed to remove the Yavapais to the Piman Salt River Reservation but the
Yavapais refused. They had had enough of relocation. Under the leadership of
Carlos Montezuma, the Yavapai successfully fought for (in the courts of law)
their rig hts of ownership
of land and water. Montezuma was a Yavapai born around 1865 . His name was
Wassaja. He was captured by the Pimans in a raid in 1871 and later sold to
Carlos Gentile, a white man who adopted Wassaja and named him Carlos Montezuma.
Montezuma graduated from Chicago Medical College in 1889 and worked as an
Indian Service doctor on various reservations. He was an outspoken advocate for
Indian rights and earned the reputation with the BIA as an agitator. In 1901
Montezuma returned to Arizona and found surviving family, just in time to help
with the fight to keep their lands. Although the Yavapais won that round, they
have continued to live under the threat of other dams throughout the Twentieth
Century. Montezuma died at Fort McDowell in 1923 of tuberculosis.
The Yavapai, like other tribes,
were being forced into government dependency. However, they resisted such
dependency and have struggled to maintain their identity despite the reduction
in their population. In the broader American culture the Pai formed the
underclass, and became a source of cheap labor for mines and ranches. Yavapai
men contracted for their labor with mine operators or worked on the railroad.
Women found wage work as domestics and went into white homes to work as
servants and nannies or washerwomen. A permanent Yavapai community grew up at
Clarkdale to take advantage of mining and smelting work.
Other encroachments upon their way
of life occurred. In 1892 compulsory education became law after Indian
commissioner, Thomas Morgan, gave a speech in Phoenix explaining that it was
“cheaper to educate Indians than to kill them.” Indian children were
sent to boarding schools away from their families and tribes where only English
was spoken. Any parents refusing to relinquish their children were sent to
prison.
Education was only one step in the
process of “assimilating” Native Americans into white culture. In
1896 another law was passed ordering the hair cutting of all adult male
Indians. While living on reservations, Native Americans were not allowed US
citizenship until 1924. Indians were not allowed to vote in Arizona until 1948.
Indians were also denied the right to practice their own religion and in 1900 a
law was passed forcing compulsory attendance to Christian religious services.
Marriages between Anglos and Indians was illegal until 1948. Other threats had
to be faced during this century as well. Assimilation continued to be the goal
of governmental policies. That the Yavapai are forgetting their culture as they
“melt into American society" is a fear expressed by Camp Verde Yavapai
elder David Sine. While other Native American tribes were fighting against the
loss of tribal reservation lands under the government’s Allotment Act, the
Yavapai were returning to their lands with the formation of small reserves.
Fort McDowell had been formed in 1903 with Camp Verde and Middle Verde
organized in 1914 and 1916 respectively. In 1935 the Prescott Yavapai were
granted a small piece of old Fort Whipple. In 1969 the Phelps Dodge Corporation
deeded 60 acres to the Clarkdale Yavapai community.
Under the New Deal, the policy of
assimilation was reversed to one of self government and self sufficiency. The
Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 ended the dreaded allotment. Efforts to
revitalize tribal governments continued with varied success through the 1930's
Depression and World War events, such as the 1940’s. World II had a major
impact on American society but for Native Americans, the greatest changes came
after WWII. With the Eisenhower administration came a reversal of lndian
policies from self determination to mainstreaming into American society. A
program of “termination” reducing Indian reservations and encouraging
urbanization through relocation of Indians into cities was implemented. During
this relocation phase, many Yavapais moved to Phoenix or Los Angeles. The
BIA ended the relocation services in 1972.
The government plan was to remove
all federal protection and services and bring a dissolution of tribal
societies. The policy of getting government out of the Indian business was
merely an attempt to break up the reservations, abolish tribal governments,
disperse the people and reduce their identity as Indian.
The Yavapai-Prescott community
rejected the policies of the Indian Relocation and struggled to maintain tribal
solidarity. Under the leadership of Viola Jimulla and later her daughters Grace
Mitchell and Lucy Miller, they continued in their struggle against total
assimilation and to hold the tribe together to preserve Yavapai
identity.
The new migration of urbanization
did not bring economic well-being as hoped.
Many Yavapai found themselves
living in urban poor neighborhoods without family ties or the support of their
tribe. Failure of the relocation policy to create assimilation can be seen by
the number of Yavapai that are returning to their homes after working in the
cities.
Since the 1960’s, there has
been a resurgence in self determination for all Native Americans. Government
programs, such as Great Society welfare legislation, enabled tribal governments
to expand through federally funded programs. The Indian Civil Rights Act of
1968 expanded their rights. The Self Determination Act of 1975 created a legal
climate for the continued efforts of tribal governments.
With tribal self determination and
recognition of their legal rights have come new attempts at economic self
sufficiency. The Yavapais in the Verde Valley do not have a large enough land
base for self sufficiency from agriculture. Other approaches must be tried.
Attempts at cultivating tourism are being made. Bingo halls and gambling
casinos have been built on reservations to create economic opportunities.
Despite providing jobs, unemployment and underemployment remains high on
Yavapai reservations. Education is one of the keys for self sufficiency. The
Yavapai have one of the highest percentages of students attending college of
reservation Indians in Arizona.
Yavapai-Apache
website
Yaqui
Indians
Pre-1860 history
Tuzigoot
Photographs of petroglyphs
by Michael Pollard
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