Arizona weekly enterprise., 1890-02-22
To be Abandoned.

It Is stated on the best of authority | that orders have been issued for the | abandonment of It. Mcdowell and | that the various companies or parts of companies and officers have already been assigned to other posts. The abandonment of this post leaves more than a hundred miles square of un protected country now studded with scattering settlers, miners and stock men, and this vast region of country IS the favorite hunting ground of the San Carlos Indians, off of their reser- vatlon, and some of them with or with out leave are roaming over it most of the time. Ft. Mcdowell has been the only restraint that these fellows have had from stealing cattle and getting into trouble with the settlers generally, and the danger of this trouble lies principally in their drunken sprees which occur whenever they can get hquor and they seem to get it pretty often from some source, much more frequently than the officers of the law ever take cognizance of. Ft. Mcdowell Is immediately on the border of this Indian hunting ground, favorably situated to reach any part of it within a day or two and there is not the least doubt is the one restraining influence upon the lawless fellows that the Government arms with the most ap- proved weapons and loads down with ammunition knowing them to be hos tile to the white settler whenever they dare be. It is not mere guess that there will be trouble between the h. dians and white settlers of the Tonto Basin country within year after the abandonment of the post; to those who know the situation intimately, who know that even now peace is maintained by sort of armed truce and that little piques and quarrels exist likely to result in bloody out breaks in that region at almost any moment, the thing is certainty. The settlers of this valley and, in fact, all the region of the country from Casa l Grande north to Prescott, which would include all the exposed country to the westward of San Carlos, should at once excert themselves to have Ft
 Mcdowell continued. The time has not yet come that this great region should be robbed of all protection. The prevention of any trouble in this direction is better than an army of a million after the trouble has occurred and will cost far less both in life and treasure. One single little conflict be
 tween the whites and Indians of this region in which merely few cattle ol horses should be stolen or man
 killed would cost the enterprise anC development of Arizona more than the
 maintenance of Ft Mcdowell would
 cost the country for the next fifty
 years. The Navajos of northwestern
 New Mexico and southwestern Colo
 rado, far more civilized and enlightened
 than the San Carlos Apaches' manage
 to keep the region of country all abou
 their reservation wilderness by thei
 continued little outbreaks, and so i
 would be with the Apaches if they con
 sider themselves in any measure ire
 from the restraint of the military
 Arizona has suffered long enough il
 this way and should the parsimony c the Government again precipitate
 conflict between the Indians of Sal 1 Carlos and the settlers the general sen timent of the Territory is to take tn
 matter in our own hands and wipe tn Indians from the face of the eartf Arizona has already paid enough fo peace and the measure of prosperit she has enjoyed since the peac , came, and she proposes that it shal | be continued if not by the Feders protection due her then by the power :; that are within herself. - Pheni Herald.