Bisbee daily review., 1909-01-20
ONE EYED MAN RULED
 THE BLIND
Thus It Was In Old Santa Cruz, Once the Metropolis of the Southwest Old Indian Tales That Thrill.

| Tho Star correspondent writing from Cananea. of the coming greatness of | the Santa Cruz country. Is reminder of the checkered career of the little
 town of that name or the so-called Santa Cruz river. Once it was agri- culturally great. IL was the only town
 in the country and was almost as well known as was Tucson. It was a case of the one-eyed man being king 1 where all the rest were blind. At the time in question mere wheat was 1 grown in it's immediate vicinity than | in all the rest of northern Sonora and ! Arizona combined. The people of the | town belonged to a wheat raising. cat tie breeding. Indian fighting race. The ' big wheat and caItIe raising hacien- das were never without their organ ized forces of Indian scrappers. If hard pressed by %the Indians they would scurry to q place of safety. set their breathing apparatuses a good shape and then go at them again. Go , the battle as it may they never allow ed their breechclouted brethren to get the better of them fer long. They lost many people at the hands Of the i Apaches. In fact, the writer was told that there was not a family of prom hence in that section of country who did not have one or more members of it's household to mourn because of Apache deviltry. In naming their babies, when priest visited the town, mothers would have lnem baptized Jesus Christ. Joseph Mary, or any otn- CT of the many powerful saints in the Roman calendar to whom protection against the savage knife could be looked for. But it wss all the same to an Apache. In ninety nine cases ouL of 8 hundred the dTaught of deatn was oH the men folks. the women be mg always confined to the towns. nn- less caught on the outskirts or when travelling. Some seasons when the In- dians were particularly troublesome the grain could not he gathered. or but a light crop was put in. The sup ply. however. generally exceeded theI demand, and the community was al- ways prosperous.
 Up to the middle seventies dangers never lessened. Occasionally a month or two would go by as peaceful as a Hague conference, only to be broken by the sudden eruption of the dread cd reds, and the loss of Q band of cat tie, or wrose yet, the killing or capture Of some members of the community IL must be borne in Llind that peace in Arizona did not brIDg peace to our neighbOrs on the south. 4 report was current in Arizona of a peace treaty made with the Apaches by Gen. O. O. Howard,the o1e-armed Christian soldier, by which the Indians were 10 be permitted to depredate at will in Sonora, conditioned upon sheathing the bloody knife Tn Arizona. Be that as il may. it is wei known that So nora had peace only when tie Chirica- l huas were packed of to Florida. On leaving the reservation safety from the American troops was sought al. ways across the border, and once over | the line robbery and murder was their 1 trade. Farming under such conditions l was about as healthful and safe as a l sparkling torch in n powder house. To 1 add to it's difficulties the crudest kind | of implements were used. The plough 1 share was always c bent stick, some time shod with a piece of iron, put l more frequently not. The forward l beam end was lashsd to the yoke with | rawhide and the yoke in turn was lashed to the horns of a pair of half l broken cattle. One man held the sln. | gle handle of the socalled plough. an. l other drove the cattle, and others l went along as guards. the number Of | protectors being conditioned on the | danger Of the time. As a rule these | guards were very poUTly armed. often. ] times not more than one or perhaps l two guns to the entire lot. Under | these depressing conditions the peo- pie of Santa Cruz managed to exist | and prosper. With tLe opening up O. the country less anU less attention | was given to agriculture. ditches were | not kept up. wheat Ids dwindled in. :. to patches. the young men scattered | to the mines or migrated to Arizona, and the town of Santa Cruz got set 1 back from which it mas never recov- cred Probably it never will.