Page 72 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

Bartlett moved on to start the surveys, there was a temporary settlement of 140 miners at Pinos Altos. In later years, similar miners would commit an act of violence that outraged Chief Mangas Coloradas to the point of setting the Southwest ablaze with Indian fury.
The land at stake in the controversy over the
Bartlett-Conde agreement comprised about 6,000
square miles. The primary issues in the arguments
were the value and usefulness of the land and the
desire for a southern route to California for wagons
and possibly railroads. Bartlett defensively claimed
that the only thing of value in the entire area was the
relatively small Mesilla strip along the Rio Grande.
Gray sharply differed and noted the land’s value
especially as a right of way for the eventual construc-
tion of a railroad across the southern United 41
States.
Whether it was the manner in which Bartlett hand-
led relations with the Apaches, the influx of the miners, or both, in August of 1851 the Indians made off with most of the livestock belonging to the Com- mission, the miners, and the military. Fleeing south with the proceeds of their raids, the Apaches’ rear guard became involved in a lively firefight with troopsledbyLieutenantWhipple. Delgadito, leader of this particular party and witness to the insults between Ponce and Bartlett, began taunting the Americans from a “safe” distance of about 400 yards by exposing his posterior to them and slapping it with his hand, a favorite gesture of Apache ridicule.
Bartlett’s driver (identified only as Wells) took understandable offense, borrowed Cremony’s new Wesson rifle, and made a telling shot at the presentedtarget. Thisproducedanimatedresults
42
and an end to the Apache resistance for that day. The Apaches, however, continued to harass the cop- per mine headquarters and the surrounding settlers, and even the military relief column from Dona Ana, under First Lieutenant Abraham Buford, was divested of most of its mules.
While the government attempted to resolve the
problem of the east-west boundary line, Bartlett was
determined to initiate the Gila River and Rio
Grande surveys, and to make another expedition
into the interior of Mexico on his way to the west 43
death on December 19, 1851. However, Bartlett eventually recovered and completed his journey to the Pacific, which he had planned prior to departing Franklin on February 9, 1852.
At San Diego he learned of Gray’s and Graham’s official removal by Secretary of the Interior Stuart. Bartlett immediately paid Gray and Graham and their men and discharged them. At this point, heed- ing the advice of Alabama Senator Jere Clemens, Cremony resigned and was replaced by Antoine Leroux. Bartlett then used the excuse of the mules’ poor condition to take off on a “procurement” jour- ney to northern California that included Monterey, the redwood forests, San Jose, San Francisco, the Napa Valley, and Sutter’s Fort 45 He returned to San Diego in April, visiting the historic missions of San Luis Rey and San Diego before departing east
46
on May 31, 1852, still short of mules and supplies. Bartlett, the survey crew, and their military escort worked eastward to the Pima villages and arrived there about the middle of July. At this point Bartlett and a few companions separated from the main survey party and embarked on another extensive tour of northern Mexico before returning to Franklin on August 17, 1852. Whipple and the otherscontinuedeast,probablystoppingatCooke’s
His tour of Mexico extended to several
sioners only.
Bartlett-Conde line soon declared it illegal, cen- sured Bartlett for making such an agreement, and reproved Interior Secretary Stuart for siding with
49
Bartlett and against Gray and Graham
Congress soon passed an appropriation bill with restrictions that President Millard Fillmore inter- preted, in his usual cautious manner, as preventing him from legally spending the money to support further Boundary Commission activities. As a result, Secretary Stuart drafted a letter to Bartlett that forced him to disband the Boundary Commis- sionandretirefromthefield. Itwasestimatedthat of the more than $500,000 spent by the Commission, only $100,000 actually went for running and marking
the boundary in accordance with the Treaty of
50
coast
months when he contracted a fever, possibly a result of the same illness that caused General Conde’s
58
Guadalupe Hidalgo.
The Joint Boundary Commission
Spring before rejoining Bartlett in Franklin
47
When Captain Emory arrived in Franklin to take
up the combined responsibilities of Chief Surveyor
and Chief Astronomer from Gray and Graham, he
signed the Initial Point agreement papers as he had
been ordered but added a proviso that the document
represented the conclusions of the two Commis-
1
40
Congressional opponents of the