Unsung Pioneers of the Southwest

VERY Arizonian knows that to the daring and enterprise of the pioneers, he owes the splendid state he enjoys today. But for Jack Swilling, Darrell Duppa, Bill Williams, Pauline Weaver and, better known today, Charlie Clark, William Flake, Charles T. Hayden, W. W. Pace and a seemingly endless roster of their splendid kind, even today the Apache might control Arizona, and it might still be the wasteland of yesterday.

This is well known, as are the names of those men. Because it is the men who are remembered, the men whose deeds "live after them", the men whose well-placed shots and indomitable courage write history as it is reads in books. But were these the only true pioneers?

What of the women?

What of the truly timid souls who, caring nothing for adventure as it was understood by men who made of it a second life-stream-who found no zest in the unexpected, who knew only terror in the wilderness, who dared all the phantasma of unknown dangers to be with "their men"

Were these less the pioneers?

Just where this pioneering began in Arizona history is a little difficult to say. It would seem, though, that it began in the long dead past when women of a long dead race trudged, on foot, over valley, hill, and stream, to settle this country, coming as immigrants from a thriving civilization in the heart of Mexico. How long before the white man's civilization this migration and similar migrations took place is a problem yet unsettled by the archaeologist -yet these women were no less pioneers.

There were no horses, no beasts of burden. Broad backs and strong arms offered the only means of transporting those possessions, however meagre, which could not be left behind. What portion of the burden fell to the women is unknown, but since it is assumed that theirs was a communal sort of civilization, a goodly portion may, in fancy at least, be allotted to them.

Then came the long interval between eras. No new peoples came pioneering. There was across the land only the ebb and flow of peoples already here. Women were called upon to experience little which was unknown to them. They were, in a sense, no longer pioneers. Their culture had reached its zenith.

Then the Spaniards came to "New Spain" and from "New Spain" they spread to the north, and finally Coronado and his men went seeking eldoradoes.

One of the first Spanish ladies with whom Arizona history is associated was Dona Beatrice de Estrada-who never set foot on Arizona soil. But hers was a task requiring real courage, real bravery, a real pioneering soul withal. For she was sending her husband, to whom she was only three years wed, into un-known dangers-dangers more terrifying because they were unknown.

Hardships Scarcely Understandable Today Were Endured by Women in the Land “Beyond the Frontier”

On February 23, 1540, Francesco Vazquez de Coronado, husband of Dona Beatrice de Estrada, and she blood cousin to the king of Spain, began the two year journey into Arizona, New Mexico, and adjacent lands in search of gold. Dona Beatrice sped him on his way with a smile, no doubt, masking a heavy heart, and unshed tears. And she was ready to suffer oblivion with him when he returned to New Spain, two years later, completely discredited at court, a failure.

Dona Beatrice, of course, was not alone in her suffering, for in the gorgeous company which was Coronado's there were many married men with families. And each woman in her own little world suffered in the extreme. For some there were still more suffering when the band returned-grief for those who were left in the savage country, never to return.

Now the pages of history turn faster until the place is reached where one reads of real pioneering women-women who actually followed their men into the great unknown-the desert surrounding the modern Fort Yuma. This was a band of colonists sent out by the Mexican government in 1780 under General Croix to establish the pueblomission at Concepcion, and at a place called San Pedro y San Pablo de Dibuner,now Pilot Knob. Don Juan de Onate, in 1598 had established colonies in New Mexico, but these are not directly a part of Arizona pioneering.The hardships endured by these wom-en are hardly understandable, today. They left behind them all except the most urgent necessities. They had to travel "light" because their only means of transportation was the ox cart-over virgin soil, as yet unscarred by trail or path.

On this journey, several lusty citi-