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21-704: The Gila Expedition or Morehead War was an 1850 California militia attack on the Quechan , in retaliation for the Glanton Massacre , which had taken place near the confluence of the Gila River and Colorado River in Arizona . It was the beginning of the 1850 to 1853 Yuma War . Downriver from a ferry owned by A.L. Lincoln, the Quechan set up a ferry business to transport people, beasts and goods across

42-532: A trade route amongst the tribes of the areas. At first, the Spanish used minor portions of the trail. It was not until San Diego and Monterey were established that they needed a more reliable and faster path. The path was first walked by Sebastian Taraval, a Cochimi indigenous who fled from San Gabriel. Sebastian was then followed by Captain Juan Bautista de Anza. Anza was only able to follow Sebastian to

63-720: A wagon and team of horses between the California and Arizona shores. Jaeger later built a store and hotel on the north bank, in California, calling it Jaeger City . Across the river he purchased a lot in Colorado City for the price of ferrying its surveying party across the river. In 1858 the ferry became the crossing point of the Butterfield Overland Mail and Jaeger City became the location of its stage station and its local district office. In

84-405: Is a part of the Quechan's traditional lands. Established in 1884, the reservation, at 32°47′N 114°39′W  /  32.783°N 114.650°W  / 32.783; -114.650 , has a land area of 178.197 km (68.802 sq mi) in southeastern Imperial County, California , and western Yuma County, Arizona , near the city of Yuma, Arizona . Both the county and city are named for

105-465: The California state government recruited men for $ 6 a day to attack the Quechan. It was California's first military operation against indigenous Americans. On April 16, 1850, 142 men commenced the expedition against the Quechan. However, the military operation went badly, and the expedition members were besieged until September 16. Because of the inflated costs of goods and wages during the Gold Rush,

126-536: The Colorado River on their way to the California Gold Rush . John Joel Glanton and his scalp-hunting gang destroyed the Quechan boat and beat the local Quechan chief. For a while they took over Lincoln's ferry operation, killing Mexican and American passengers for their goods and money. In revenge, the Quechan attacked, killed and scalped Glanton and most of the gang in 1850. Later that year,

147-527: The Imperial Valley Kamia village, where he lost Sebastian and was forced to reach the Quechan people on his own. Estimates for the pre-contact populations of most native groups in California have varied substantially (see population of Native California ). Alfred L. Kroeber (1925:883) put the 1770 population of the Quechan at 2,500. Jack D. Forbes (1965:341–343) compiled historical estimates and suggested that before they were first contacted,

168-481: The Quechan and Jaeger's Ferry and the Glanton Gang , after the Quechan had established a rival ferry service on the Colorado River. During which, the historic Fort Yuma was built across the Colorado River from the present day Yuma, Arizona . The Sierra de las Pintas was a mountain range that most Spanish expeditions would actively avoid. Spanish explorers were able to see the range, but avoided exploring due to

189-509: The Quechan had numbered 4,000 or a few more. Kroeber estimated the population of the Quechan in 1910 as 750. By 1950, there were reported to be just under 1,000 Quechan living on the reservation and more than 1,100 off it (Forbes 1965:343). The 2000 census reported a resident population of 2,376 persons on the Fort Yuma Indian Reservation. As of 2023, there are about 4,000 active members of the tribe living on or near

210-535: The Quechan informing them that it was uninhabitable and had no drinkable water sources. When the Spanish had the Yumans guide them through the Sierra de las Pintas, they would take the Spanish to an area with little to no water in order to discourage further exploration. The Spanish later on attempted to explore the mountain range, searching for water in creative ways. Explorers would follow herds of Bighorn Sheep up

231-581: The Spanish retaliated with military action against the tribe. After 1840, the Quechan people near La Frontera returned to their original ways of religious practice as soon as the mission priests left and no one replaced them. After the United States annexed the territories after winning the Mexican–American War , it engaged in the Yuma War from 1850 to 1853 in response to a conflict between

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252-560: The construction of the missions. When the Spanish’s first gifts arrived in 1780, they would be more of a bad omen than a sign of friendship as the livestock being herded to them would go and trample most of if not all the Quechan’s crops. That year there was severe lack of rain thus forcing the Quechan to raid another nearby tribe known as the Maricopa . The following year, two high members of

273-602: The cost of the operation reached $ 113,000 and nearly bankrupted the state. Quechan The historic Yuman-speaking people in this region were skilled warriors and active traders, maintaining exchange networks with the Pima in southern Arizona, New Mexico, and with peoples of the Pacific coast. The first significant contact of the Quechan with Europeans was with the Spanish explorer Juan Bautista de Anza and his party in

294-528: The ferry, building a stockade to protect their camp from the Quechan. The hapless California Militia of the Gila Expedition took shelter from the Quechan in the stockade for a time before straggling back to the west coast. After the Army arrived and built Fort Yuma , the ferry was purchased by L. J. F. Jaeger and his partner from Johnson and his partners. Jaeger developed the ferry that could carry

315-488: The initial contact had been made, The Quechan people seemed inviting toward Juan Bautista de Anza . He promised them to set up a mission where all people would live together instead of in a hierarchy. Alongside the promise, de Anza gave Palma’s people horses, steel weapons, clothes, and iron as a token of allegiance. This allegiance would soon sour as the bureaucracy of the Spanish Empire would cause major delays to

336-473: The mountain or by chance would find small patches of vegetation pointing toward a hidden water source. The Yuma route was a trail that ran from Southern New Mexico and reached Chihuahua and Sonora . The trail branched out even further to reach the Los Angeles Basin , San Diego , Colorado River and the Gila River . This route was well established before the arrival of the Spanish, and used as

357-508: The reservation. The Quechan language is part of the Yuman language family . The Quechan tribe, in partnership with linguists, have created a fully detailed language guide. This guide includes sections about their alphabet along with the different words for actions, animals, the body, colors, directions, family and friends, house, money, nature and the environment, numbers, place names, plants, time, and shapes. The Fort Yuma Indian Reservation

378-526: The tribe were arrested for allegedly plotting to assassinate a high-ranking officer. One of the natives was placed in stocks to humiliate them and this caused Palma to finally turn his back on the Spanish. Spanish settlement among the Quechan did not go smoothly; the tribe rebelled from July 17–19, 1781 and killed four priests and thirty soldiers. They also attacked and damaged the Spanish mission settlements of San Pedro y San Pablo de Bicuñer and Puerto de Purísima Concepción , killing many. The following year,

399-552: The tribe. Jaeger%27s Ferry Jaeger's Ferry was a major river ferry at the Yuma Crossing of the Colorado River in the 1850s until 1862, 1 mile below Fort Yuma . Long a crossing point on the river, from the time of Juan Bautista de Anza it was used by Spaniards and later Mexicans, traveling from Sonora to Alta California and still later by American fur traders. During the California Gold Rush it

420-549: The winter of 1774. Relations were friendly. On Anza's return from his second trip to Alta California in 1776, the chief of the tribe and three of his men journeyed to Mexico City to petition the Viceroy of New Spain for the establishment of a mission . The chief Palma and his three companions were baptized in Mexico City on February 13, 1777. Palma was given the Spanish baptismal name Salvador Carlos Antonio . Once

441-642: Was a major crossing on the Southern Emigrant Trail , with a ferry being established by A. L. Lincoln who later partnered with the Glanton Gang . After the Glanton Gang started hostilities with the local Quechan by destroying their rival ferry and killing some of them, they were in turn killed. Upon hearing the news of the Glanton Massacre, George Alonzo Johnson with some of his fellow sailors came from San Francisco to rebuild

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