The Lieutenant’s Diary
September 30, 1851
I am assigned to find the best navigation route from the Gulf of California up through the Delta of the Lower Colorado River. The purpose is to support settlements all along the Colorado with supplies. The Army plans to freight supplies by steamboat if a navigable route can be found. Navigating through the delta region will require expert knowledge. The river branches and splits and turns back on itself. My commander tells of vessels mired in shallows or lost in the tangle of waterways. If a safe passage can be found, fortunes are to be made. The freighting boats will also bring supplies to Ft. Yuma and Ft. Mojave. With the anticipated rush of gold seekers through Yuma to California, reinforcements and artillery will be required.
My plan is to find a reliable member of the local tribes who knows routes up and back on the delta. I will need a reliable guide, whom I can trust to make an accurate map.
P.S. It is unbearably hot here. I do not know how any people could have lived and thrived in this god-forsaken country.
October 3, 1851
All the officers have recommended the same man: Chief Joe. Private Hansford related that Joe had once taken him to fish and demonstrated how to pull trout out of the water using a spear:
“Damned if he didn’t pull ‘em out like forking beans from a can.”
I asked if Chief Joe was really the chief of his tribe. The answer bothered me. “Everyone just calls him Chief because he seems to know everyone and everything that’s going on.”
One thing I know about the U.S. Army is that we don’t know a damn thing about protocol. I asked the men to get word to Chief Joe about our mission to find a navigable route.
October 10, 1851
The man they call Chief Joe came by my office today. I must say he is not to be forgotten. For one thing, his formidable size and seeming ageless face made quite an impression on me. He removed his sweat-stained hat in a show of respect, which I appreciated. I invited him to look at our maps. He showed great curiosity about the diagrams. After some time, he indicated where our map needed adjustment. When he pointed out the error I saw it immediately.
I showed Joe the map of the delta that our cartographers had been able to construct. He studied it for several minutes. When I asked him if he could assist me in making an accurate map, he did not answer right away. I wondered what he might be thinking. White men had literally invaded his people’s lands and disrupted an old way of life. But that was progress. I hoped he would agree to help.
Chief Joe said he knew a lot about the delta waters, where they were the deepest, which estuary to launch from, and so on. But he never agreed to help. He simply excused himself and left. Rather than press the matter, I’ve decided to wait. There is something very fine in his manner that invokes my respect. I just have a feeling that he may help me.
Today, General Hopkins and I led a small party out to survey the available sources of wood that would be needed for the steamboat business if it should ever materialize. The forests along the river are thick with mesquite trees that will make excellent fuel for the engines. The only thing holding back the whole enterprise is a navigable route up the delta.
On the way back to camp, I noticed several native women carrying woven baskets. They wore calico dresses with numerous strings of multi-colored, beaded necklaces. I gestured to inquire what they were harvesting, pointing to the basket. A younger woman lifted the basket top and handed me a mesquite pod bursting at its seams. Another woman motioned how they would grind the pod. It is a special kind of flour they make. I said goodbye. They smiled, and continued on their way.
I must say I am very curious about these people. Hopefully, Joe will agree to help me with mapping. Perhaps he can also tell me more about his people.
The Catholic priest had given him his name, Joseph, though his family and people still used his tribal name, Navigator. In the nearby town, explorers, armies, trappers, and seekers of fortune called him Chief Joe. He explained to me that any Indian was called Chief “in the white way,” he nodded as if I should understand that.
“All along the river, strange people came and settled,” Joe recalled, recounting the oral history of first contact with Europeans.
When Camp Yuma was established to find a navigable route from the Sea of Cortez, I had been assigned that task. After a space of time, during which I believe Joe was thinking about whether he should assist me, he agreed to assist me. It was later, on this expedition that I learned much more about the River people.
Joe described his people as peace-loving and independent. They’d managed to continue their way of life—even as whites arrived for temporary gain but then stayed along the wild river and thick dark forests that lined it. The River People held counsel, watched and worried, Joe explained. The first explorers and their priests had not convinced the River People to believe in their god, but they kept trying. Many in his village attended meetings in the Whites worship place, believing there were similarities between the white religion and their own. But none intended to give up their way of knowing or their origin stories.
“These things are the very roots of any people,” Joe asserted. He never attended the White church.
Many generations had passed since Joe’s ancestor plumbed the maze of routes through the meandering delta where it flowed into the Sea of Cortez. The river’s spring floods came in spring and receded by early summer. The River People planted and raised their crops in the flooded plains, he explained as we pontooned up river with long poles. These rhythmic ways of the land and its people provided the stability Joe sought to maintain against the disturbing patterns of behavior he observed in the whites. He described wave upon wave of emigrants, over ten generations from far distant lands, and how their way of being defied all he understood about living in harmony with the earth and her creatures.
“You see, the river and its thick forests held life in abundance. Beavers were so numerous that we found it hard to navigate along its shores. White trappers, however, took many beavers only for the pelts, leaving behind bloody carcasses, taking more than they needed. When my ancestors learned that the pelts were being sold to whites who lived on the other side of the great waters, they began to understand that the coming ‘white flood’ would never stop.
“It was a time of great dread,” Joe recounted. “Trade no longer worked.”
I thought about this story afterward. It was clear that the expansion of commerce along the river would be an enigma to the River People. Yet, it became essential to obtain goods as the settlements became more permanent. He said that many of his people wanted blankets, beads and other things they had never really needed before. Money creates want, he observed. Whites were obsessed with it.
I did not comment but had to agree with him on that point. It was apparent to me that all these changes disturbed him. His tribe’s elders discussed these matters often as Joe was growing up. Eventually, they realized they lived in a different place. The whites transformed their land. Several treaties had been negotiated already, each time requiring the River People to give up more land in hopes it would staunch the bleeding. “But,” Joe said in his matter of fact tone, “they all knew the taking would never stop.” As their current-day Navigator, he could see ahead to troubled waters.
And so, Chief Joe decided to help me find that route, if only to assure himself that our activities would not harm the river or the tribe’s traditional harvesting grounds. Perhaps good relations would help preserve his people’s traditional way of life.
I told him I hoped that, too, and would do all I could to make that a reality as far as the Army was concerned. But, I think we both understood forces were greater than either of us could influence. Still, we made a good trade between us. That was something.
~~~
Chief Joe’s Memories
That same night, Joseph the Navigator had a dream. The conversation with Lt. Boatright had dislodged old memories from their bed to dance again for one star-spangled night. He recalled how he felt when he was growing up.
I am learning the bird songs of my people. My grandfather gave them to my father and he to me. Among my brothers, I was chosen. They carry the memories of long ago, of the stories and the ways. The songs connect our generations through time.
The women collect gourds. My mother dries them and my father shows me how to scrape the flesh and seeds from inside, how to find a good handle among the willows, and how to place small stones or dried seeds inside to get a good sharp sound when the rattle is held and moved in circles to accompany the songs. The handle is Father Sky and the orb of the gourd is Mother Earth. Together they are the living universe.
Joseph awakened with a song on his lips. To learn the songs, to remember and to sing them well had taken from his youth into manhood. So, it was for me, he thought, as he sat up in bed. And now I am teaching one of my sons to carry the tradition forward.
But now Joseph saw that his sons would need more than the River People’s traditions to navigate this new world of the Europeans that engulfed them like a sea, threatening to drown their ways. He thought, I spoke with my family and wise men and women among our people about my idea to get an education for my sons and any of the youth whose families recognize the need to prepare their youth for a White Man’s World.
Joseph realized it was controversial; many members of the community believed he had “gone to the other side.” But Joseph thought long and hard about this. The Lieutenant is trustworthy and listens well. Learning to read and to make numbers will help our youth in interacting with whites. We cannot be fooled as we have been in the past.
Joseph envisioned that his tribe might someday write their history to achieve understanding among the whites. We’ll need to make our own maps, maps of our lands, to hold fast during the white’s stampede across this region.
It may come to pass that my people will disappear from this land. But I will not be the one to give up, to let that happen. We are the River People, strong, loving, and successful in our own ways. We know this land better than any white ever will, though they do not seem to care to know. They are a strange people to me. Some, like the Lieutenant, are human beings, but most seem like hungry dogs looking for their next stolen meal.
The sun had risen while Chief Joe was thinking about all these things. Pulling on his shirt and donning his hat, he walked outside, where he turned toward the golden orb rising above the horizon and gave thanks for another day.
November 1 – 10, 1851
Chief Joe and I met at dawn to travel down the delta area and hopefully meet Uncle Sam in the estuary he’d indicated would be best for launching upriver. We gave ourselves five days to get there and traveled in canoes. The cartographer was set up to make compass readings and sketch a route on a temporary map. Private Barnes, an expert canoer, paddled his craft. Chief Joe and I navigated in front. Two supply canoes followed behind. I felt excited to be away from the fort and to be on the water. My brothers and I often hunted with our father in a similar manner in Virginia on the Chesapeake. This delta proved as beautiful and full of wildlife as that treasured bay. As we paddled closer to where the waters spread out, I noticed large beaver dams, a wide variety of ducks, and overwintering geese and cranes that must have just arrived. White herons lifted from shallows as we approached and alighted soundlessly in tall trees lining the water’s edge.
Joe demonstrated how he measures the depth of the river, by watching currents, observing what swam below the canoes, and using cane poles he’d marked at varying lengths. He said that was the way his people had navigated for over 300 years—the living memory passed generation to generation to the current tribal members. The information was encoded in their songs and stories. I gained even more respect for Chief Joe on that day. Here was a man who knew this river like his own hands.
We camped that night in a secluded lagoon whose waters were a deep emerald green. In the woods, we found tracks of deer, bobcat and what Joe said was cougar. My troops built an especially bright fire from mesquite and kept it well-lit until dawn. We dined on roast duck that dripped and sputtered in the fire. Joe served it with a pan of bread, sweet and fine. If I had not been charged with an Army directive to find a route, I would have preferred to fish and hunt with Chief Joe and listen to his stories under the stars. We did do a good deal of that our first night.
The next few days were very slow going to allow the cartographer to draw as best he could the natural mileposts and compass markings that would be clear to a boat captain. We learned that there could be trouble if a boat passed through the lower delta region in a spring equinox tide, which caused tidal surges that could upend a craft. That would never be something we would have guessed or known. Chief Joe’s experience was astronomical.
The third night we dined on abalone, so sweet and soft it melted in our mouths. We baked clams in the fire. My men and I had not dined on a better meal anywhere.
Yesterday we made better progress (day 4), and we paddled into the estuary at dusk, a day early. It was as Joe said it would be—a broad bowl with enough depth for the keel and paddle wheels of a steamboat. Chief Joe had never seen a steamboat, but he knew the depth of the estuary was more than his longest pole, which we estimated to be about eight feet. Joe also described how he sometimes observed groups of large air-breathing fish, which he drew for the cartographer and me. When he sketched the broad fluted tail, we knew he had seen dolphins.
Tonight, we are camping on a sandy knoll on the estuary, grilling fish and drinking the last of our provision of whiskey. Chief Joe did not join us in that, nor did he say why. I cannot emphasize enough how utterly reliable he has been, amiable and genuinely interested in helping us find the best route possible. We could never have found this route without him and may have gone on for years trying unsuccessfully to navigate this maze of tributaries.
It was during the night that I had a prophetic dream. I saw Chief Joe piloting Uncle Sam up the river. When I awoke, I remembered and felt the stupidity one feels when the obvious has been revealed to them. The River People would be the perfect pilots and it could be a source of income for them. I will speak with General Hopkins about this matter after we return to Camp Yuma.
1852 Chief Joe
I’ll never forget that day when I first saw the billowing black smoke rising over the treetops beyond the horizon. I thought it must be a fire. As its bow came into view, the drone of the engines came with it and then the sight of the wheels churning through the waters. A bell rang out, followed by a horn blast. Birds on the water and in the trees flew in crazed patterns and left the area altogether. I was transfixed at the sight before me. This was the way of the whites: shocking, magnetic and confusing. Part of me was thrilled, even intrigued, but in my heart, I felt foreboding. Perhaps I had been misguided in assisting the Lieutenant.
December 10, 1851
Chief Joe was invited aboard the Uncle Sam, and I introduced him to the captain. Joe asked how the wheels moved, so the captain took him into the engine room. I watched Joe’s face as he discovered the fires that made steam and examined the way the pipes connected with the wheels how the structure brought hundreds of paddles into the water as they turned forward.
Chief Joe looked up at me and placed his finger on his temple indicating ingeniuity. Then he gestured to the captain with an index finger that he understood how one boat had the power of a hundred men! It was obvious to both the captain and me that Chief Joe was thrilled by it, even sucked in by its magic, as was I.
But then I watched as a dark cloud passed over that same beaming face just a minute later. Joe was staring at the mesquite logs piled high in the engine room. He understood that the fuel for the boats would be the forest that harbored his people.
January 1, 1852
We are refining the maps as I write this note. Our trip back up the river went without a hitch; the water route Chief Joe helped us map is perfect. This is a huge advance for the U.S. Army and the republic. I am sure that I will receive an accommodation for this work. The next phase of the project is to construct landings along the way and to chart waters farther up the river.
There has been a mysterious development with Chief Joe, whom we now need more than ever. He appeared to be overwhelmed on the Uncle Sam and remained completely quiet and withdrawn on the return trip to Ft. Yuma. We honored this. I thought it might be the shock of encountering technology, even new kinds of materials never seen in his lifetime. I tried to imagine what that would be like. To this very day his people have lived well, without any modern amenities, with natural materials and appropriate technology. Then we came along with the major forces of science and technology, pulling us ever forward in progressive development. No one in the U.S. would be content to just remain the same, to not try to invent something better, solve a problem, or accomplish goals never dreamed possible. I felt as though something profound had been done to Chief Joe. Yet, I knew that whether the River People of his tribe became riverboat captains or not, the march of progress would go forward.
As out trip upriver ends, I hope that he will choose to be a part of it because he is such an intelligent man, and I have genuinely learned to like him as a friend.
February 5, 1852
Late in the day, Chief Joe showed up unannounced. He said he’d been thinking about being a steamboat captain, and that he would meet with elders soon to discuss others among their men who might be interested in joining him. I felt hope at the same time I wondered what process Joe had gone through to arrive at his decision. He sat before me in his simple dress—long cotton pants, a muslin shirt, and sandals on his dark thick feet. Joe wore his long hair pulled back; it reached to his hips. He probably had never cut it. Other men in the tribe wore their hair long, but I had noticed a few who frequented the posts who had gone to our barber. Something about his manner this morning, and my own hunch that he’d stepped over an emotional divide—that his visit was ceremonial in its feel—caused me to give him a field hat, adorned with gold braids along the brim and the Army’s insignia on the front. He received it gratefully and put it on. I stepped from behind my desk and asked if it was okay to adjust it. He nodded yes. I set it a little more squarely and dipped toward his face to maximize shade. He grunted his approval. I stepped back and saluted him with a smile. He did not salute me back but simply turned and walked out the door.
February 7, 1852
Today Joe came to meet with the Captain of the Uncle Sam to learn more about the steamboat, how it ran, what he would need to tell his elders about the training, and the job that would be offered to the young men of his people. He had adorned his field hat with three white heron feathers held in place with a bright red bandana. I said it looked good, though my superiors probably would be aghast. I thought it was the least I could do to allow him to wend his way along the cultural divide.
I did not attend the training. I did, however, accompany Joe to the boat and introduce him to the captain before leaving him on board.
Today I must solve another problem: the lawless hordes of gold seekers have caused more disruption in the settlement. There was a shooting in a bar last night and the General wants me to help mediate a hearing. One thing for sure: I will allow no one to travel across the river to California who has caused such clamor. That should stop much of the crime among these gold-crazed Americans.
The murderer will surely be hanged. That alone should sober them up.
Susan Feathers 