The German Vanguard in Southern Arizona
April 1, 2008
Sometimes it is good to take a different perspective on history, so as to see things in a new light. It may not be well known that the largest ethnic group (17%) in the United States claims German ancestry. So it is not surprising that persons with German origins were in the vanguard of exploration and development in the Pimería Alta or what we now call Southern Arizona and Northern Sonora.
Spanish Era
In the name of God, Gold and Glory, the Spanish had claimed a part of North America that they called New Spain. A Papal Bull had given the Spanish Crown the right to direct missionaries to locations that it wished to colonize. The Jesuit Order was directly responsible to the Pope, and their missionaries were chosen to come to the Pimería. Missionaries were used (to try to) pacify the natives, convert them and corral them in settlements. In our part of the world, in the early 1690s, the first missionary to enter the area was the Jesuit Father Eusebio Francisco Kino, who was not Spanish but an Italian from the Tyrolean Alps, educated in Austria and Germany. Ultimately a conflict between allegiances would bring about the expulsion of the Jesuits from New Spain in 1767, but for years they were the vanguard.
There were few Jesuits from Kino’s death in 1711 until 1731, when a contingent of European Jesuits arrived. Jesuits were expected to be intelligent, hardy, educated and devoted to God and their order. Many of these priests were Germans. Others were Swiss, Moravian, Austrian or others of Germanic origin, besides a few Italians and Spanish. What is extraordinary about these men are their writings– the record of what they found here in the Pimería Alta. Several book length essays remain from this period, besides maps, many letters and shorter essays that describe the people, geology, and natural history of this area. The first-person, primary history of our area is from their perspective.
Felipe Segesser, who was Swiss, was one of the first and long lasting missionaries in this area, arriving in 1731. He wrote The relation of Philipp Segesser: the Pimas and other Indians. (1737) The Moravian, Ignacio Xavier Keller, was another in the early group.
Jacob Sedelmayr, a Bavarian, who arrived in the Pimería in 1731, did some of the earliest exploration in that period, composed maps and wrote a number of “relations” or essays directed to his superiors that describe the area. He provided the most extensive and valuable information for this early period before the Pima Revolt of 1751. He also wrote a Pima lexicon or dictionary which was destroyed in the Pima Revolt.
In 1751 the Pimas revolted against Spanish rule and Jesuit expectations. The Indians may have welcomed Father Kino and the Black Robes in the beginning, but when they experienced the actual effects of European rule, things were different. A few Europeans were killed, including Father Enrique Ruhen who died in the attack at Sonoyta (Lukeville). The Governor of Sonora blamed the revolt on the Jesuits. A large part of the problem is that the Indians were expected to work hard for the Europeans and if they did not, they might be beaten, probably by overseers who were of different tribes than their own. This did not sit well with the natives.
The resident Jesuits were removed to points south, and another wave of Jesuits arrived in the early 1750s. These included more Germans:
Antonia Maria Benz, Bavaria, Franz Bauer (Pauer), Moravia, Joseph Och, Wurtzberg, Gottfried Middendorf, Westphalia, and Ignaz Pfefferkorn, Mannheim
Joseph Och, of Wurtzberg, had traveled to the New World with Pfefferkorn and Michael Gerstner of Wurtzberg. Och described their trip from Germany: first to Spain, where they were trained in the Spanish language and what to expect as missionaries, then to Mexico and overland to the Pimería. His fascinating published report is called: Missionary in Sonora, the travel reports of Joseph Och, S.J. 1755-1767
Ignaz Pfefferkorn, who was from Mannheim, arrived with the group in 1751. He eventually wrote: Sonora: A description of the Province is the result of a keen observer and active mind. He was a violinist and this greatly impressed the Pimas. (One might note that German polka music greatly influenced Mexican music in the 1800s in Texas where there were German immigrants.)
Juan or Johann Nentvig arrived in 1751 and was stationed in Saric, a few miles below the border south of Arivaca. He was able to survive the Pima Revolt at Tubutama with Fr. Sedelmayr. In the 1760s, he wrote a long essay, which became known as the Rudo Ensayo, because it was not finished to his liking, but it is considered a very accurate account of the Sonoran world. It is in the form of a flight over the province of Sonora. He also produced a wonderful map of the area.
The German Jesuits brought with them a devotion to Saint Gertrude or Santa Gertrudis, a German nun whose name was once attached to the mission at Arivaca but also became connected to a breed of red cattle in Texas.
So the German Jesuits were the first missionaries in this area. They were the first to map and describe the Pimería and to make sustained contact with the Indians. The most detailed information that historians have about this period is theirs, from their perspective. This is because their work was preserved in various archives and because some historians with a German background, such as Theodore Treutlein, saw fit to translate their work. Many of these works were published by the University of Arizona Press.
American Era
Jumping ahead to the American era: After the Gadsden Purchase in 1853, in which Southern Arizona was purchased from Mexico, Americans arriving in the area found a fort or presidio at Tucson, with a small population, and ruins of the presidio at Tubac that had been abandoned because of the Apaches. The first developers in what is now Southern Arizona were miners or mining companies.
The Sonora Exploring and Mining Company, headed up by Charles Poston and Col. Samuel P. Heintzelman, was located at Arivaca with headquarters at Tubac. Their mine was in or near the Cerro Colorado Mountains about 8 miles northeast of Arivaca. They brought in a number of Germans to perform the technical details of mining engineering and mapping. These included Herman Ehrenberg, Charles Schuchard, Frederick Brunckow and Guido Küstel. At this time the main university in the world to offer studies in mining engineering was the Royal Saxon School of Mining at Freiberg, Germany. Americans interested in a technical education also attended this school.
Herman Ehrenberg, a German engineer, who was born near Leipzig, came to Arizona with Poston in 1854 to explore for minerals. He collected specimens and made a map of the silver regions, which included the Arivaca and Tubac areas. He was an adventuresome person, having come to Texas in the 1830s, survived the Battle of Goliad, returned to Germany where he wrote a book about his experiences, which attracted many Germans to emigrate to Texas. He was fluent in several languages. He studied mining engineering, then returned to the United States where he met up with Poston and provided the expertise for his exploratory trip. He made a lovely map of the silver regions of Arizona and reports for their company. There is a town called Ehrenberg, on the Colorado River, that is named for him.
Col Heintzelman himself was a German-American from Pennsylvania. He read and spoke German, and coincidentally, Heintzelman is the guardian spirit in German mining lore who presided over mines. He was serving as the Commandant of the military post at Yuma where he met Poston and Ehrenberg and eventually joined them in forming the Sonora Exploring and Mining Company. He left Arizona to fight in the Civil War, and eventually became a General.
Frederick Brunckow was a Prussian mining engineer who became the administrator of the mine at the Cerro Colorado, and found the vein of silver that became what he named the Heintzelman Mine. Charles Schuchard was an artist and engineer who came west with a railroad survey team. He joined the Sonoran Exploring and Mining Company and illustrated their Reports. He made the first known illustration of Arivaca valley, a copy of which is hanging in the Arivaca Branch Library. Guido Küstel was an Austrian metallurgist, trained in Germany, who was hired to perfect the techniques of smelting of ore at the Heintzelman Mine. Afterwards he wrote a book on the subject of silver and gold extraction processes. Küstel brought his sister and her daughter to stay with him in Arivaca.
One event important in Arivaca history is the murder at the Cerro Colorado of Charles Poston’s brother, John Poston and two German employees, George Fischer and Peter Wedker, by Mexican bandits in 1861. Their bodies were taken to Arivaca for burial, so the latter two are probably there still. Raphael Pumpelly wrote about this event in his book, an excerpt of which is “Pumpelly’s Arizona,” published by the University of Arizona Press. To learn mining engineering, Pumpelly, who was from Rhode Island and was not a German, had attended the Royal Saxon School in Freiburg.
These are just a few of the Germans who came to Arizona in the early years. Many of their works are available at the Pima County Public Library or by inter-library loan.
Copyright 2008 Mary Kasulaitis
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