Page:The Pima Indians.pdf/37

32 Maricopa Wells, near the lower villages, became an important stage station when the overland mails began to pass late in the fifties.

With the advent of the stage, the emigrant and the military trains began the breaking down of the best that was old and the building up of the worst that was new. For a period of thirty years, or from 1850 to 1880, the Pimas were visited by some of the vilest specimens of humanity that the white race has produced. Until 1871 the tribe was without a teacher, missionary, or, to judge from their own story and the records of the Government, a competent agent. Bancroft has thus summarized the conditions prevailing during that period:

As early as 1859 Lieut. Sylvester Mowry, special agent, Indian Bureau, foresaw danger threatening the interests of the Pimas and wrote:

Again in 1862 Poston gave additional warning: