Arizona

Arizona indicates the importance of strategic motivation in settling the borderlands. The area now known as Arizona never faced a foreign threat, and, therefore, little settlement occurred. In fact, the use of the term Arizona imposes a contemporary view. Arizona never formed an administrative division of either colonial New Spain or independent Mexico. The U. S. government carved Arizona Territory out of New Mexico territory in 1863.33

During the colonial period, territory now included in Arizona formed part of Sonora. In the seventeenth century, Spaniards who moved up the east coast of the Gulf of California from river valley to river valley laid the groundwork for settling Sonora. The advance into Sonora proceeded slowly, as there were few resources to aid settlement. During the colonial period, Sonora remained an arid, sparsely populated area dotted with missions, farms, and mines.34

Spaniards only settled the extreme southern part of Arizona, which formed the northern part of an area known as the Pimeria Alta, home to the Pima, Papago, and Yuma people. The Papago were typical of the indigenous peoples of the area. They planted corn, beans, and squash along flood plains and channeled water to their fields with crude brush dams. They became semi-nomadic during the dry season, subsisting on hunting and gathering. The lack of permanent water sources prevented them from becoming sedentary.35

Only in 1775 did the Spanish empire put down permanent roots in what is today Arizona. In that year, a military garrison was transferred to a newly constructed presidio on the Santa Cruz River, across from the long-established Pima village known as San Agustin. The presidio attracted other Pima, Papago, pacified Apache, and Spanish, who together numbered 1,104 in 1804. Initially, Indian raids and aridity inhibited expansion of the community, which became known as Tucson. Aridity remained as a constraint, while after a 1786 peace with the Apache, Indian raids ceased, permitting an expansion of ranching, mining, and trade with Sonora.36