Editor’s Note: The Yuma Sun is reprinting articles from past newspapers honoring Yuma’s unique history. This column is one in a series written by local historian Frank Love that appeared periodically in the newspaper.
The age of Quechan Chief Pascual when he died on May 9, 1887, is anyone’s guess. Reporting the tribal leader’s death on May 20th, Yuma’s Sentinel newspaper speculated that Pascual was “at least 100 years old.” That may have been a wild guess. An earlier report claimed that Pascual was “some sixty years of age” in 1864. It was in a story claiming its information came from a San Francisco newspaper.
Pascual became a chief of the local tribe after a war between his people and troops at Fort Yuma in the summer of 1852. The diary of Fort Yuma’s commander, Major Samuel Heintzelman, which is on microfilm in the AWC Library, contains this entry on October 23 of 1852: “I … had a talk with all the Indians. I told them their old papers were null and void since the war and commissioned six new chiefs …”
While Major Heintzelman didn’t list the names of the six new chiefs in his diary, Pascual was one of them. Several other sources claim that Heintzelman appointed him a chief in 1852.
It appears his selection of Pascual was a wise one. When other warriors planned an 1857 attack on Maricopas who were traditional Quechan enemies, Pascual warned against it. He may have recalled an earlier battle with Maricopas in 1851 when his tribe left 138 dead warriors near a Maricopa village.
His advice was ignored, and Pascual didn’t join the Quechan war party which met a humiliating defeat. An American employed by a mail company passed the site of their battle a month later. He counted the bodies of 55 Quechan warriors.
What became of the other five Quechans Major Heintzelman appointed as chiefs is unknown. When a San Francisco newspaper described the visit of Indian Agent Charles Poston to the tribe in 1864, it called Pascual “head chief” of the Quechans, so the others may have become subordinate to him.
The newspaper noted that “Pascual … is a very tall, gaunt Indian, apparently some sixty years of age, a shrewd old fellow, with ‘no nonsense about him.’ ‘
When General Oliver Howard visited Arizona in 1872 in an attempt to make peace with the Apaches and pacify them, he stopped first in the Yuma area to meet with Chief Pascual. The tribe was suffering from crop failure at the time, and the officer brought them some food supplies.
Yuma’s Sentinel newspaper reported on April 13th that the general complemented Chief Pascual with these words: “I thank you, Pascual. You have kept your treaty now for twenty years, and the president thanks you.”
When renegade Apaches left the Date Creek Reservation and began causing trouble near Yuma in 1873, Pascual acted to keep peace between them and the settlers. The Yuma newspaper reported on May 10th, “We have information that Pascual, the Yuma chief, and his tribe have dispersed the Date Creek Indians that were prowling this vicinity of late.”
Keeping peace between his tribe and the local settlers wasn’t easy. When someone on the California side of the river began shooting cattle belonging to Louis Jaeger and Dr. Rose, the Fort Yuma medical officer in 1873, the Quechans got the blame. After a meeting between the stock owners and the Quechans, Pascual said his people would accept the responsibility.
While some tribal members may have been at fault, Yuma’s Sentinel newspaper suspected that they were not totally responsible. It commented on October 25th, “The Indians are not the only parties who have been guilty in this respect.”
Yuma’s newspaper reported in July of 1877 that Pascual visited Los Angeles. The reason for the trip wasn’t explained in the paper, but Pascual told a reporter afterward that Los Angeles wasn’t much of a place when he had earlier been there as a small child.
Smallpox hadn’t been a problem for the tribe before the settlers arrived. It seems likely that not having been exposed to the disease imported from Europe, they had no natural resistance to the malady. When the disease struck the Colorado River region in the late spring of 1878, tribal members quickly became victims.
When Chief Pascual learned that hundreds of Mohaves were already stricken by the pox, he crossed the river to Yuma to ask the local sheriff to stop Quechans from coming into town where they might be exposed to the white man’s disease. Some Quechans died from the pox, but Pascual’s action saved a few lives.
Chief Pascual’s long life ended in 1887. Reporting on the leader’s death on May 20th, Yuma’s Sentinel blamed it partly on “anxiety for the welfare of his people during the recent measles epidemic which swept away over 100 of his relatives and subjects.” The newspaper praised the man as being “a just fair-minded Indian himself, and (he) often enforced discipline and obedience upon members of the tribe …”
Chief Pascual was cremated in the traditional Quechan fashion.
