The Great Arizona Orphan Abduction

433 Pages·1999·2.03 MB·English

by  Linda Gordon

The Great Arizona
Orphan Abduction

The Great Arizona
Orphan Abduction
R
LINDA GORDON
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge,Massachusetts
Copyright©1999byLindaGordon
Allrightsreserved
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
Fifthprinting,2001
FirstHarvardUniversityPresspaperbackedition,2001
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Gordon,Linda.
ThegreatArizonaorphanabduction/LindaGordon.
p. cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN0-674-36041-9(cloth:alk.paper)
ISBN0-674-00535-X(pbk.)
1. Clifton(Ariz.)—Racerelations. 2. Orphans—Arizona—
Clifton—History—20thcentury. 3. Kidnapping—Arizona—
Clifton—History—20thcentury. 4. CatholicChurch—
Arizona—Clifton—History—20thcentury. 5. Mexican
Americans—Arizona—Clifton—History—20thcentury.
6. Whites—Arizona—Clifton—History—20thcentury.
7. Vigilantes—Arizona—Clifton—History—20thcentury.
I. Title.
F819.C55G67 1999
305.89009791951–dc21 99-30984
To see a World in a grain of sand . . .
—William Blake,
“Auguries ofInnocence”

Contents
Contents
Preface ix
Cast of Principal Characters xi
October 2, 1904, Night: North Clifton, Arizona 1
September 25, 1904: Grand Central Station, New York City 3
Chapter 1. King Copper 20
October 1, 1904, 6:30 P.M.:Clifton Railroad Station 34
Chapter 2. Mexicans Come to the Mines 44
October 1, 1904, around 7:30 P.M.: Sacred Heart Church, Clifton 65
Chapter 3. The Priest in the Mexican Camp 80
October 2, 1904, Afternoon: Morenci Square and Clifton
Library Hall 109
viii Contents
Chapter 4. The Mexican Mothers and the Mexican Town 118
October 2, 1904, Evening: The Hills of Clifton 149
Chapter 5. The Anglo Mothers and the Company Town 159
October 2, 1904, Night: Clifton Hotel 201
Chapter 6. The Strike 209
October 3–4, 1904: Clifton Drugstore and Library Hall,
Morenci Hotel 246
Chapter 7. Vigilantism 254
January 1905: Courtroom of the Arizona Territorial
Supreme Court, Phoenix 275
Chapter 8. Family and Race 307
Epilogue 314
Notes 321
Acknowledgments 405
Index 409
Maps:
Sonoran Highlands Mining Region in 1903 xiv
Old Clifton/Morenci xv
Illustrations follow page 200.
Preface
Preface
The stories that stay with us, often the simplest in their narrative line,
can also be the most complex in their multiple meanings. I think of
children’s tales like Hansel and Gretel or Where the Wild Things Are,
which tell us about persecution and triumph, order and disorder,
cowardice and bravery, and the strongest of passions, including par-
ticularly those between parents and children.
In the story that follows, the protagonists are not renowned or
heroic. The small town they lived in is rarely mentioned in history
books. But the issues about which these people fought remain with us
today,unresolved.Andalthoughtheirstoryisvirtuallyunremembered
outside the town itself, yet it is packed with timeless and placeless
meaning. It offers simultaneously universal and local knowledge. Just
as all politics is ultimately local, so all rich narratives take on their
meanings from the way in which universal motives interact with local
contexts. This century-old con_ict, small by most measures of histori-
cal importance, possesses great powers of revelation.
The dramatic events occurring in an Arizona mining boomtown in
the year 1904 focusedmy imagination like acrystalwhosefacetseach
re_ect light differently. It sent me on research paths I could not have
previously imagined. As this narrative is rigorously a work of non-
~ction, I could not make it fuller or embellish it beyond the evidence
I had. I interpreted the evidence to explore its many meanings, but
invented nothing.
I used this tale of the wild west to illuminate many aspects of the