Labor Exploitation
Mining became fertile ground for ethnic and racial strife since Mexicans and Indians constituted the majority of laborers and Anglo-Americans composed the bulk of the supervisors and mine owners. Even in cases where Americans worked side by side with Mexicans, a dual wage-labor system prevailed. Anglos uniformly received higher wages than did Mexicans for performing the same tasks. An adversarial relationship, originating from the exploitation of labor, permeated race relations between both groups. Beyond discrepancies in pay, the method used to acquire Mexican labor further exacerbated racial and ethnic relations. Despite some early migration by Sonorans, labor continued to be extremely scarce, and newspapers in southern Arizona regularly featured advertisements for miners, carpenters, and general laborers.[42] Unable to sustain operations at Cerro Colorado, Heintzelman, at his wits' end, wrote in his journal: "All we want is more workers."[43] Lacking hired hands, American mine owners turned to Mexican hacendados in northern Sonora for help. To initiate operation in the Santa Cruz Valley, Poston and other mine operators purchased indebted laborers from their Sonoran owners in Tubutama and Magdalena.[44] The use of indentured peones, a practice with established roots in Sonora, became an important feature of the labor system in southern Arizona between 1856 and 1861. With little specie available, even those Sonorans who voluntarily migrated to southern Arizona, eventually became enganchados (indebted peons). Hacendados in northern Sonora willingly sold their laborers to the American mine operators. As the circumspect John
Hall pointed out, Mexican hacendados sold to the Americans "their peons-debts-and do not even take the trouble to notify the peons of the change which has taken place in their condition, much less take into consideration their will and consent."[45] In Sonora, the long history of exploitation of indigenous labor and land had worsened racial antagonisms between Mexicans and the native population. The exploitation of indentured Mexican and Indian labor by Anglo-Americans further heightened the racial friction that held sway in southern Arizona.
Many Anglo-Americans resented the fact that large-mine owners, such as Poston and Mowry, preferred to employ Mexicans. They complained that "the managers of Tubac employed foreigners and greasers, and would nor give a white man a chance."[46] The preference for hiring Mexicans as laborers did not reflect a benevolent disposition on the part of mine operators. As Joseph Parks points out most Anglo-American miners on the frontier "tended to work only long enough to grubstake themselves, then struck off to prospect on their own."[47] They migrated to the border in order to improve their social and economic status, not to become laborers.
Mining remained a dangerous, labor-intensive operation, and most Mexicans and Tohono O'odhams worked under deplorable conditions. To acquire a substantial quantity of silver required refining larger amounts of bulk ores. As shafts penetrated deeper into the unstable earth, accidents became more frequent. While working above ground, laborers confronted spoiled food, inadequate shelter, toxic chemicals used to leach minerals. and their worst fear, attacks by the dreaded Apaches. Mexicans and Tohono O'odhams bore the brunt of these occupational hazards. Distrust between Anglo-Americans and Mexicans in mining gave rise to peculiar arrangements. As smelting produced large quantities of pure silver, many American mine operators feared that the Mexican workers might rebel and steal their precious metals. Several incidents of theft had already taken place, and some Americans had been killed. Anglo mine operators found themselves in an awkward predicament. To defend against the feared Apache, the Anglos had to arm the Mexican workers. A strange dynamic developed wherein Mexicans kept watch and defended against Apaches, while a small number of armed Americans kept watch over the Mexicans laborers. In 1861, as most mines prepared to shut down, Mexicans, "under penalty of death," could not enter camp areas where the Americans resided and stored the processed silver.
Mexican resistance to the abusive conditions of employment oc-
curred frequently and included strikes and repeated cases of flight. Heintzelman narrates one incident in 1858 in which Mexican workers struck over the inadequate amount of food they received. Despite recognizing the legitimacy of their claim, he resented submitting to their demands under pressure. Insurgency also took other forms. One sympathetic mining speculator described that after a Mexican asked "for his money in a respectful manner he has been ill-treated as a greaser and unpaid driven out of the country." By refusing to pay the workers, mine owners tried to coerce Mexicans to stay on in hopes of eventually recouping their pay. Disgruntled and seeking revenge, the abused Mexican on occasion paid "himself by carrying off a horse or two" from his previous employer.[48] Many indentured servants, forcibly brought north from Tubutama and elsewhere, regularly escaped, leaving their angry bosses holding their debts. Announcements of runaway servants appeared in the local English-language press. In one case, the firm of Hoppin and Appel of Tubac, sought the return of Juan José Arenas, who fled while still owing $82.63. Hoppin and Appel offered "a suitable reward" for the return of Arenas.[49]
Beside announcements in the local press, some Anglo-American bosses took direct action in seeking the return of their indebted laborers, provoking a cycle of violence which proved difficult to break. In one incident, in protest over the lack of pay, several Sonoran peones fled from the Reventon ranch in southern Arizona. Americans ranchers, as their hacendado counterparts would have done in Sonora, hunted them down as "runaway peons." A posse of Anglo-American men headed by George Mercer, a local miner, and including customs officer Donalson, set out in pursuit of the Mexican laborers. They captured the fleeing men at Agua Fria and bound them "hand and foot," whipping them "to within an inch of their lives." Not content with this punishment, Mercer, "half drunk, acted as a barber and dressed their hair in a barbarous fashion, and not being over particular, or his razor, bowie knife slipping, I don't know which, in cutting the hair he brought away a portion of their scalp and a fraction of the ear. . . . Still their wages had not been paid."[50] Despite the brutality, the Mexicans survived the attack and sought revenge on an Anglo squatter who had witnessed their beating. They robbed him of his stock and then "chopped [him] to pieces with an axe." In retribution, a group of Anglo-Americans attacked a band of Mexicans producing mescal at a vinateria at Sonoita, on the eastern edge of the Santa Cruz mountains. They descended on the camp, yelling "Death to the Greasers" and killing several Mexicans
and Yaquis.[51] As tempers continued to flare, the Anglo "regulators," as they called themselves, raided ranches throughout the Sonoita Valley and promoted a campaign to expel all Mexicans from southern Arizona. Confronting an escalation of violence, many Mexicans returned to Sonora. The massacre, according to the Arizonian, proved disastrous for those who depended on Mexican labor since "every ranch on the Sonoita is deserted by its laborers."[52] Mexicans returning to Sonora spread news of the atrocities in southern Arizona, and authorities throughout the state, according to Hall, had to "restrain the people from retaliating against Americans living there."[53]
In the long run, the independent actions of these self-professed regulators ran counter to the economic interest of American mine owners who depended on Sonoran labor. Without laborers, mines such as those at Cerro Colorada and the Patagonia closed, and others curtailed their operations.[54] To allay Mexican fears, leading Anglo-American politicians from Tucson and mine owners from the Santa Cruz Valley-including Aldrich, Poston, Donalson, Caruthers, Ehrenberg, and Ewell-signed a public declaration denouncing the incident at Sonoita as "cowardly, cruel and unwarranted." Moreover, the proclamation asserted that no "steps should be taken to effect the Mexican population of this Territory or our relations with Sonora . . . without the intervention of respectable men of the territory."[55] The resolutions adopted by the gathering called for the arrest of the regulators, a promise of protection for Mexicans and assurances to "those Sonorians (sic) who have been furnishing us with supplies."[56] Finally, the assembly resolved to send a delegation to northern Sonora to meet with leading Mexican citizens in order to resume normal relations. In a move aimed at appeasing Sonoran elites, more so than laborers, the declaration published by the Arizonian newspaper appeared in Spanish and English. In the final analysis, the signers decried physical violence against the Mexicans, not because of any great concern for the Sonorans, but rather because they continued to desperately need their labor.
Not all Mexicans confronted the same circumstances. Obvious distinctions existed between the treatment afforded Mexican laborers and notables. Many mine operators, such as Poston and others, maintained cordial relations with hacendados in Santa Cruz, Magdalena, and Tubutama with whom they traded for laborers, stock, and supplies. Likewise, since a dependence existed on Mexican goods, Sonoran elites and merchants continued to be welcomed in the area and received fair treatment from the Anglo-Americans. Heintzelman, to cite one case,
made specific mention of the cordial treatment afforded to the children of the Sonoran caudillo Manuel Gándara, who visited their property in the area regularly.[57]
Northern Sonoran elites and American mine owners developed a common set of interests, and along with it, a growing interrelationship between both groups. In 1857, when American bandits raided several Mexican mules trains and killed their owners, American mine operators at Tubac "formed a company and took the property away from them and returned it to their owners in Magdalena."[58] Efforts of this sort underscored the growing relationship that evolved between American mine operators and the hacendados and merchants of Magdalena upon whom they relied for the bulk of their products and for the export of silver. This dependence compelled some farsighted Anglos to defend the interests of Mexicans. Lamentably, these individuals remained in a decided minority throughout southern Arizona.