THE ORIGIN OF ARIZONA'S NAME

BY ROSCOE G. WILLSON PHOTOGRAPHS BY THE AUTHOR For many years the origin and meaning of our state's name, Arizona, has been more or less disputed. Recent research, however, shows quite conclusively that it derives from a little Papago Indian rancheria, which in the days of Spanish rule was first called by the Papago descriptive name of Arizonac, meaning "the place of the little waters (or springs)." Arizonac, referred to in Spanish history as "Ari-zona" and now known as El Rancho la Arizona, lies in a beautiful little valley, tucked away in the folds of the Sonoran hills some 23 miles southwesterly from the border towns of Nogales.

For centuries this charming vale of bubbling waters, shaded by giant cottonwoods, has been the home of Papago Indians, a people of Piman stock, who lived contentedly amongst their small irrigated plots of corn and beans.

It was probably more than a hundred years after the conquest of Mexico by Cortez, in 1519, that the simple people of this hidden valley were visited by the first white man.

In 1540 they heard of a group of strange white men with hairy faces, bestriding large four-footed animals, who passed through tribes of their kinsmen to the east. This was the Coronado expedition on its search for the seven cities of Cibola.

Then came rumors of other white men infiltrating the lands to the south, bringing with them strange horned animals, some larger than a bear and others small and covered with long thick hair. Strangely, these mysterious white-skinned men were also said to be digging into the streambeds and the mountains and extracting white and yellow metals by which they set great store.

There was talk that among these peculiar people were a few who wore long black robes and went fearlessly about the land carrying small crosses and telling the inhabitants of a strange worship in which water was sprinkled on babies and other mysterious rites performed.

Isolated in their hidden valley these people of Arizonac for years knew little of this white invasion that was steadily taking place about them. But after Padre Francisco Kino had established missions at nearby Caborca, Tubutama, and at Saric in the late 1680's and early 1690's, an occasional black robed priest came among them and baptized their babies and taught them something of Christianity.

In the year 1734, or '35, there occurred an event that disrupted the quiet life of Arizonac, and soon caused the entire region to be named after it, thus laying the basis for the naming of our state.

In one of these years, a Spanish prospector, prowling the hills a short distance upstream from the valley of Arizonac, made an astonishing silver strike.

He found an area where great slabs and balls of pure silver lay scattered over the ground. One of these slabs ("planchas" in Spanish) was said to weigh over a ton and some of the balls ("bolas") weighed over 500 pounds.

Word of this discovery quickly carried to the outside world and soon the entire area was being scouted by prospectors, many of whom made headquarters in the little Papago settlement.

The mine was called the "Planchas de Plata" or sometimes the "Bolas de Plata." As soon as the Spanish officials heard of the strike a representative of the King of Spain was sent there to collect the "royal fifth" to which the King was entitled by law.

A small garrison of soldiers was established at or near the mine, and it soon became officially recognized as the "Real de Arizona," meaning a Royal headquarters.

From that time on, the region, which included the southern Arizona of today, was called by that name and is so found in many records of the period.

Prior to that period, all of northern Sonora and southern Arizona had been called Pimeria, since practically all the Indian tribes of the area were of Piman stock. It was divided into Pimeria Alta (upper) and Pimeria Baja (lower). After the creation of the Real de Arizona, churchmen and some historians continued to use the old names, but to the laymen and the miners the northern section was thereafter commonly called the Arizona region.

Stockmen followed the priests and the miners into what is now Arizona. After ranches and mines were operated as far north as Tucson, a Spanish garrison was placed at Tubac, in 1752, following an uprising of the Piman tribes in which several priests and other whites were killed.

As early as 1696 Padre Kino made a surprisingly Accurate map of the Sonora region in which, in its proper location, he shows Arizonac under the name of "Son"undoubtedly a shortening of the soft Papago pronunciation of Ari-son-ac.

Rufus K. Wyllys in his history of Kino, "The Pioneer Padre," quotes from a letter of Captain Juan de Anza to Bishop Crispo in 1736 concerning the great silver strike. In it De Anza places the location "between the mission of Guebavi (just north of Nogales) and the rancheria of Arissona." For some time, then, the name was spelled variously as "Arissona," or "Arizona," but by the late 18th century the present day spelling was adopted generally.

Historian Bancroft quotes from a letter written by De Anza thirty-eight years later, in 1774, which reads: "From the mission of Saric, la Arizona lies eight leagues to the north. They have not yet discovered the mother vein." According to Knight Wise, present owner of El Rancho la Arizona, De Anza's eight leagues are approximately the distance from Saric to old Real de Arizona.

From this letter of De Anza's we learn the name by which Arizonac has been called for two hundred years or more, and by which it is known today-"la Arizona."

Again, in 1835, Colonel Zuniga of the Mexican army wrote in "Rapido Ojeada" that he obtained from Arizona a silver brick. He recommended moving the Altar presidio to the "Arroyo de Arizona."

Thus far it has been the writer's object to clearly establish the location of our state's name, together with enough of its history to point the reason for our adopting the name Arizona. We now step forward to the period of American settlement in the Arizona region which culminated in the creation of a new Territory for which Congress had to find a name.

During the eighteenth century most of what now constitutes Arizona was unknown land to Americans. As far as is known none of our countrymen came into the area up to 1846, except a few trappers. In 1846 came the war with Mexico, and Kearny's small army and the Mormon Battalion crossed the southern section on their way to conquer California.

In 1848 the treaty of peace with Mexico gave all of Arizona north of the Gila river to the U. S. In the same year gold was discovered in California, and beginning in 1849 thousands of emigrants crossed southern Arizona, establishing a permanent route and bringing the area to the attention of the American nation for the first time. It is estimated that at least 50,000 emigrants passed through Arizona at that time.

The route of travel lay south of the Gila river in the Mexican state of Sonora and our government soon became interested in that region as a feasible railroad route to California. This resulted in bringing about the Gadsden Purchase in 1853, which extended our border south to its present location.

All of Arizona was then attached to New Mexico for administrative purposes, and the Gadsden area became a part of Dona Ana County, with Mesilla, N.M., north of El Paso, its seat of government.

The citizens of the Arizona area wanted their own government, and in early 1856 Charles D. Poston, who had mining interests south of Tucson, originated a petition in Mesilla asking Congress to create "the Territory of Arizona." Poston, who is called "the father of Arizona," later stated it was the first time the name, Arizona, was ever used in an official document.

In August of the same year a convention in Tucson also petitioned Congress to create Arizona Territory and sent a delegate to plead for it.

These, and the subsequent petitions and delegations, got nowhere, but they did implant the name, Arizona, firmly in the minds of congressmen. Consequently, when Congress finally got around to creating a Territory between New Mexico and California it easily won over such suggested names as Arizuma, Agumo, Pimeria, and Gadsonia.

The bill creating Arizona Territory was passed and became a law on February 24, 1863, during the Civil War. One of its provisions was that Tucson, because of its strong Southern sympathy, should not become the capital of the new Territory. Thus, since Tucson, nearby Tubac and the placer camp of La Paz, in the hot lowlands of the Colorado River, were the only settlements existing in Arizona, the first governor of the Territory, Goodwin, was forced to start from scratch and create a new town as the seat of govern-ment. For this reason the new town of Prescott, amongst the cool, pine-clad hills, was created in the spring of 1864.

As the years passed, the origin of the name, Arizona, became lost to the general public and its meaning was obscure, except to a few historians and interested per-sons.

That the name was taken from the valley of Ari-zonac there is complete proof in the historical records. That the meaning is either "little springs," "the place of little springs" or at least designating a place with water, there can no longer be any doubt. Most certainly it is not derived from the Spanish for "arid zone," since proper Spanish would be "zona arida."

Bancroft, the great historian, in his 1889 History of Arizona states: "Arizona, probably Arizonac in its original form, was the name of the place just south of the boundary on the headwaters of a stream (Altar River) flowing past Saric, where the famous Planchas de Plata mine was discovered."

As to the meaning of Arizonac, Bancroft suggests that research by a competent student should easily reveal it.

We now do have the findings of several competent students as to its meaning. They are: Professor Robert H. Forbes and Dr. Merrill P. Freeman, of the University of Arizona, Professor Rufus K. Wyllys of the State College at Tempe, and Dr. Frederick W. Hodge, for many years with the Bureau of Ethnology of the Smithsonian Institution and now Director of the Southwest Museum at Los Angeles, and several others.

Professor Forbes made one of the first studies of the name about 1909, going directly to the Papagos for his information. Dr. Freeman also went extensively into the matter in 1913. Wyllys' study was in more recent years. Hodge had been conversant with the matter since the 1880's.

Forbes, Freeman and Wyllys agree that Arizonac means, in its shortest form, "little spring." Dr. Hodge wrote me that he "fully agrees" with Forbes, Freeman and Wyllys.

Director Fernando Pesquiera of the Sonora State Museum at Hermosillo states that his department has not run down the meaning of the name Arizona, but that it is of Papago or Piman origin.

Our State Historian, Mulford Winsor, informs me the origin and meaning of our state's name, as given herein, has for some time been accepted by his office. Therefore, it would seem, there can no longer be any question as to the place of origin of Arizona's name, or as to its meaning.

Like most Arizonans I knew nothing about the origin or derivation of our state's name until a few years ago, when I began writing a column on the early days of Arizona for the Arizona Republic of Phoenix.

In researching on the other matters, my attention was called to the Rancho la Arizona, of which I had known while living in Nogales in the first decade of this century.

I found that this 53,000 acre cattle ranch lying some twenty-three miles southwest of Nogales was undoubtedly the birthplace of Arizona's name.

I visited the place in 1947.

To my surprise, when arriving at this hidden valley in the Sonora Mountains, I found that I had passed through it some fifteen years previously. At the time I had not realized its significance.

It was also a surprise to the Wise family to learn that the state of Arizona derived its name from their ranch.

We spent three wonderful days at El Rancho la Arizona, which in a literal sense is "out of this world," since it can only be reached by a specially built truck, by team, or on horseback.

It is a beautiful little valley amongst oak and mes-quite clad hills, where the "little springs" feed irriga-tion ditches lined with towering cottonwoods. With the domicilios of the native vaqueros scattered about the valley under the domination of the Spanish style home of the patron it has all the attributes of a feudal barony. There all is peace and tranquility, since it is but little affected by the hurdy-gurdy of modern civilization.