Revisiting the Boundary Survey, 1894-96
March 1, 2008
Naturally, it was something that happened just south of Arivaca that caused the redrawing of the U.S.-Mexican boundary in the1890s. Last month we talked about how the border was surveyed in 1855 and the markers placed erratically along the diagonal azimuth line between Nogales and Yuma. In the late 1850s, U.S. miners began working the mineralized areas around Arivaca and south into California Gulch and Holden Canyon (not named yet). Also in the area were a large number of Mexican miners. No one really knew where the border was, and there was an 18-mile span between Tres Bellotas Road and a point south of (what is now) Peña Blanca Lake where there were no markers at all. This wasn’t the greatest unmarked span along the whole border—in one case there was over a hundred miles between markers. No wonder there was trouble.This country had been vacant and undeveloped in the 1850s, but by the 1870s, the Apache being on the reservations, U.S. citizens were beginning to move into the area, mostly for mining. In 1873 the Oro Blanco Mine was “discovered” by American citizens. By early 1874 there were reportedly some 400 Mexican miners working the area also. (It is likely that this area had been mined since Spanish times.) The new owners were from Tucson, so they soon had the Sheriff out to run off the Mexicans. The Mexicans begged to clarify, saying they were in Mexico. This incident led to an agreement between the two states to appoint engineers to determine the location of the border in relation to the mine. Carlos Federico Seelé of Sonora and John W. Hopkins of Arizona conducted a survey and found the Oro Blanco Mine to be about 2.5 miles inside the U.S. line. The governor of Sonora, Ignacio Pesqueira, did not question the survey. However, the subsequent governor, Vicente Mariscal, disputed the survey. Hopkins had actually been a stockholder in the company that owned the Oro Blanco and some others in the vicinity, and so his opinion could be called into question. The Mexican governor even had some questions about Seelé.
In addition, there was a dispute about the location of the border near Sasabe ranch, where a local person, perhaps in the interest of smuggling, had reportedly moved the markers. Since they were piles of rocks, this was easy. This was one reason that a Customs house was built at Sasabe on the Mexican side of the line. The activity in this area became an international incident, so the federal governments had to do something.
In 1882 a convention was held that provided for an investigation of the current condition of the markers on the line, and then an International Boundary Commission was instituted that would resurvey it from the Rio Grande to the Pacific. Reconnaissance parties were sent out and they found no evidence that markers had been moved, however some had been added where none had ever existed. It was obvious that a resurvey was necessary, but no resurvey happened during this convention so another was held in 1889. Eventually, in 1891, an extension of this convention allowed for surveys to take place if done before Oct 11, 1894. The Commission officers were chosen on each side. The Mexican side was headed up by Jacobo Blanco and the U.S. by Col. John W. Barlow of the Corps of Engineers. This time the Americans were well funded, although the Mexicans had less to work with. The equipment was certainly much improved over what was available in the 1850s. The Commission began proceedings in November of 1891 but the survey was not completed until 1893. The Mexican party and the American party worked separately and compared notes, which they found mostly in agreement. Surveying, mapping and placing of markers were the three activities of this Commission. Comments on the weather, topography and natural history are interesting reading in the reports, but not a major part of the survey as they had been in the 1850s.
The surveyors found errors that would potentially mark a loss of many square miles of territory for Mexico, but they had no authority to correct the errors. One of these was the marking of the 111th meridian west of Nogales. It had been placed 4.5 miles too far west of its real location. Another error near El Paso was evident. Eventually, the line as drawn in the 1850s was allowed to stand, despite the fact that the new survey showed that it did not adhere exactly to the treaty. This was because of political events, primarily the advent of the Spanish-American War. Mexico was under the control of President Porfirio Díaz, who was on good terms with the U.S., and no one wanted to change that by insisting on moving the border again. This could have been a can of worms and so matters were just dropped. Had it been moved to the treaty line, the Oro Blanco Mine would have indeed been in Mexico.
With half the costs being paid by Mexico, the U.S. took over the job of actually bringing in the materials necessary to construct concrete markers along the border, which in the case of our local area, during the summer and fall of 1893, required mule teams to haul cement, etc. from Tucson to a supply camp established near Warsaw mining mill. This was south of Arivaca, where nothing was easy. The Pajarito Mountains are “so broken and cut up by deep, precipitous canyons that the work of erecting monuments was attended with more difficulties than were met in the same distance upon any other part of the boundary.” (1898 Report of the Boundary Commission, page 190.) The new monument that defined the eastern point of the azimuth line required the hauling of materials by “pack mules 22 miles over very difficult mountain trails. The water for concrete was carried 9 miles and the sand 2 miles.” That point (Micheler’s XIX) had disappeared but for a questionable pile of rocks. The report details all the difficulties for each subsequent monument until they reached “the thriving ranch known as La Osa,” near Sasabe. Continuing west, the land was flatter but the weather harsher. Sandstorms blasted the crew between Sasabe and Yuma. However, this time a sufficient number of permanent monuments were erected, within sight of each other, so that there would be no question as to where the border is. The International Commission completed its work of surveying the border from El Paso to San Diego on August 14, 1896.
Perhaps the most important thing to notice about the U.S. border with Mexico is that the politics of both countries has governed its survey, not just its location, from the beginning. Funding to mark the line definitively was limited, for the most part. For 40 years after the Gadsden Purchase the line was not visibly marked along much of the Arizona-Sonora border. Even after markers were placed in 1893, no fence, other than a barbed wire one to contain cattle, was ever considered necessary. Even that one was maintained by necessity by the ranchers adjoining the border. Local border disputes, not national issues, spurred the re-survey in the 1890s. During the Mexican Revolution (1910-20) there was some patrolling of the border by U.S. Cavalry. There were line riders in the late 1940s during the hoof and mouth disease epidemic. Other than that, I am hard pressed to find, in the historical record, much effort on the part of the federal government to maintain the border firmly. Until now…and to build a fence across the Pajaritos they may have to resort to pack mules again.
References:
Report of the Boundary Commission upon the survey and remarking of the boundary between the United States and Mexico west of the Rio Grande, 1891 to 1896, Parts I and II, 1898, Senate Document No. 247.55th Congress, 2nd Session. Copy courtesy of the late George M. Bradt.
Much gratitude to Joseph Richard Werne whose article in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly, “Redrawing the Southwestern Boundary,” July 2000, provided excellent information on this topic. The article is available at the Caviglia-Arivaca Branch Library. His book, The Imaginary line: a history of the United States and Mexican boundary survey, 1848-1857 can be checked out from any Pima County Public Library branch.
Copyright 2008 Mary Kasulaitis
Comments
Got something to say?