Page:History of Public School Education in Arizona.djvu/11



The territory of the present State of Arizona is embraced within 31° 20′ and 37° north latitude and between 109° 02′ and 114° 45′ west longitude. It covers an area of 113,956 square miles, of which 146 miles are water surface. The part north of the Gila River came into the possession of the United States under the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, and that south of the Gila as a part of the Gadsden Purchase of 1854. Arizona was at first included in the Territory of New Mexico, and the census of 1860 gives to Arizona County, N. Mex., a total of 1,681 families, representing 6,482 free individuals.

Efforts made to draw the southern section of New Mexico within the boundaries of the Southern Confederacy were defeated, but perhaps hastened the, under which that part of New Mexico west of 109° was organized as a separate Territory. In December of that year the officers that had been sent out to complete the Territorial organization entered the Territory and established the government with Prescott as its first capital.

For the purpose of this study it is hardly necessary to review the more than 300 years of exploration, including the “exploring entradas from the south and east,” that preceded the American occupation. That period can not be characterized as one of settlement or growth. There were a few mission stations in the southern part of the Territory, founded mainly by missionaries who came up from old Mexico and organized religious centers (1687–1828) like San Xavier del Bac, gathered into their fold some of the less savage Indians, and taught them a little of the elements of Christianity and something of secular learning of the more practical kind—farming in particular. Under the influence of the padres the Indians brought large bodies of land into cultivation, sheep and cattle were introduced, comfortable houses were erected, and order and industry to some extent took the place of savagery and sloth.