Arizona'a Secession...

5fish

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You know Arizona secede from the union too... but it was not about slavery directly... maybe states rights? well, future state?

Are some snippets...

Since 1856, settlers in southern New Mexico Territory had sought to split off and organize their own territorial government. Their aspiration got caught up in the growing sectional tensions of the late 1850s and the belief in the U.S. Congress that the impetus to divide New Mexico Territory into two separate northern and southern territories was that the settlers hoped to expand slavery into the southern portion.

The Ordinance of Secession, creating the Arizona Territory and announcing its intention to join the Confederacy, passed in a convention in Mesilla on March 16, 1861, and a second convention at Tucson on March 28, 1861.

Unique among the secession justifications, slavery was not an explicit issue in this document. Despite a statement complaining of the rise of the Republican party in the North and how it “has disregarded the Constitution of the United States, violated the rights of the Southern States, and heaped wrongs and indignities upon their people,” the Arizona Ordinance of Secession never once mentioned the word “slave” or its variations and its specific reasons for secession instead reflect the problems of settlers in a region in which the American imprint was growing but still limited.

Yet except for language expressing solidarity with the slave states, the specific grievances of the Arizona Ordinance of Secession instead reflected the complaints of frontier settlers–not slaveholders. Congress recently had halted mail service along the stage line linking southern New Mexico territory with the rest of the country. The Arizona Ordinance stated, “That the recent enactment of the Federal Congress, removing the mail service from the Atlantic to the Pacific States from the Southern to the Central or Northern route, is another powerful reason for us to ask the Southern Confederate States of America for a continuation of the postal service over the Butterfield or El Paso route, at the earliest period.” The settlers also were angry at the failure of federal troops to halt Apache Indian raids directed at them. The Ordinance exclaimed, “the Government of the United States has heretofore failed to give us adequate protection against the savages within our midst and has denied us an administration of the laws, and that security for life, liberty, and property which is due from all governments to the people

https://cwemancipation.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/sometimes-the-civilwar-wasnt-about-slavery/
 

5fish

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Here is an interesting take on Arizona 's secession... If you think about it Arizona, in the end, achieved their goals... a thought?

Capture of Tucson (1862) - Wikipedia

When Captain Hunter arrived in Mesilla on May 27, his company, along with the Arizona Rangers and the Arizona Guards, were formed into Lieutenant Colonel Philemon Herbert's battalion of Arizona Cavalry. The Arizonans ceased being militia and officially became Confederate soldiers under General Henry Sibley. After the Battle of Glorieta Pass and the retreat of General Sibley's army, the Arizona Cavalry battalion was ordered to remain behind to hold on to Mesilla and the surrounding valley. Men under Sherod Hunter fought with New Mexican militia near Mesilla on June 1, 1862. The skirmish ended with no known casualties on either side and reports indicate a Union victory due to the loss of Confederate horses and equipment at the battle, the rebels retreated from Mesilla a few days later.

When the Arizona Cavalry withdrew into Texas they were some of the last Confederate soldiers to leave Confederate Arizona. Though the Confederates, due to lack of man power, failed to hold Arizona, the Arizonans themselves achieved their main goal: the creation of a territory separate from that of New Mexico Territory. As mentioned previously, the United States established Arizona Territory with Tucson as the capital in 1863, using a north-south boundary. The towns of Mesilla, Pinos Altos and others were not included in the new Arizona Territory, instead they remained part of New Mexico Territory and are now within the present day state of New Mexico. The Confederate occupation of Arizona prompted a return of Union forces to the region in order to reassert Federal government control, thus providing Arizona the military support necessary for protection against Apaches. Indeed, the California Volunteers remained on guard in Arizona until relieved by the Regular Army of the United States in the spring of 1866, making them the last volunteer forces to be mustered out of Federal service in the American Civil War.

Some engagements in Arizona I doubt few know... should be able to click on them as links...

Like most of the Civil War era engagements in Arizona (Dragoon Springs, Stanwix Station and Apache Pass) Picacho Pass occurred near remount stations along the former Butterfield Overland Stagecoach route, which opened in 1859 and ceased operations when the war began. This skirmish occurred about a mile northwest of Picacho Pass Station. The Battle of Picacho Pass,...
 

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This link talks about slavery in the Southwest...

https://www.encyclopedia.com/humani...gazines/slavery-far-west-ca-co-nm-nv-or-ut-wa

I found this article about slavery in the Southwest by Native Americans...

https://www.newsweek.com/native-americans-were-kept-slaves-too-454023


Snippet...

Consider the debate at the conclusion of the U.S.-Mexican War of 1846–1848. The United States had just acquired Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah, more than half of Colorado and parts of Wyoming and Kansas. The question facing the country was whether slavery should be allowed in this vast territorial haul.

Snippet...

Therefore it came as a revelation to many easterners making their way across the continent that there were also Indian slaves, entrapped in a distinct brand of bondage that was even older in the New World, perpetrated by colonial Spain and inherited by Mexico. With the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo at the end of the war, this other slavery became a part of Americans’ existence.

Snippet...

As early as 1846, the first American commander of San Francisco acknowledged that “certain persons have been and still are imprisoning and holding to service Indians against their will” and warned the general public that “the Indian population must not be regarded in the light of slaves.” His pleas went unheeded.

The first California legislature passed the Indian Act of 1850, which authorized the arrest of “vagrant” Natives who could then be “hired out” to the highest bidder. This act also enabled white persons to go before a justice of the peace to obtain Indian children “for indenture.”


Snippet...

Brigham Young and his followers, after establishing themselves in the area, became the most obvious outlet for these captives. Hesitant at first, the Mormons required some encouragement from slavers, who tortured children with knives or hot irons to call attention to their trade and elicit sympathy from potential buyers or threatened to kill any child who went unpurchased.

Brigham Young’s son-in-law Charles Decker witnessed the execution of an Indian girl before he agreed to exchange his gun for another captive. In the end, the Mormons became buyers and even found a way to rationalize their participation in this human market.

“Buy up the Lamanite [Indian] children,” Brigham Young counseled his brethren in the town of Parowan, “and educate them and teach them the gospel, so that many generations would not pass ere they should become a white and delight- some people.” This was the same logic Spanish conquistadors had used in the sixteenth century to justify the acquisition of Indian slaves.


Snippet...

Americans learned about this other slavery one state at a time. In New Mexico, James S. Calhoun, the first Indian agent of the territory, could not hide his amazement at the sophistication of the Indian slave market.

It a good read... https://www.newsweek.com/native-americans-were-kept-slaves-too-454023
 

5fish

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Here is an act a Law that shows Lincoln was no anti-slavery President the Arizona Organic Act of 1863... it was passed and signed by Lincoln after the Emancipation Proclamation had been signed by Lincoln... Did you see why slavery was not abolished completely because of silver... So where is the Emancipator?

From wiki...

The Arizona Organic Act was an organic act passed in the United States federal law introduced as H.R. 357 in the second session of the 37th U.S. Congress on March 12, 1862, by Rep. James M. Ashley of Ohio. The Act provided for the creation of the Arizona Territory by the division of the New Mexico Territory into two territories, along the current boundary between New Mexico and Arizona. On February 24, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the bill once it had been approved by Congress. The bill established a provisional government for the new territory. It abolished slavery in the new Arizona Territory, but did not abolish it in the portion that remained the New Mexico Territory. During the 1850s, Congress had resisted a demand for Arizona statehood because of a well-grounded fear that it would become a slave state.

According to Marshall Trimble, the official historian of Arizona, the Arizona Organic Act can be traced to the Northwest Ordinance. Business people from Ohio had silver mining interests in the Arizona Territory, and they took their request for Arizona territorial status to Congress. The U.S. Civil War was occurring at the time, and the Union needed silver, which Trimble explains as being one of the main reasons for passage of the Act.[1]

The New Mexico Territory had a long history of enslavement of Native American people, first by each other and later by Hispanic settlers (cf. Genízaros). Although in 1860 there were relatively few African American slaves in New Mexico, the legislature formally approved of slavery shortly before the Civil War.

During the war, the Confederate States of America established an entity called the Arizona Territory, which had different boundaries from modern Arizona. According to historian Martin Hardwick Hall, invading Confederate troops brought an unknown number of enslaved African Americans into the territory. Historian Donald S. Frazier estimates there were as many as fifty black slaves brought by Confederate officials and troops, in his book Blood & Treasure: Confederate Empire in the Southwest.


It points out Lincoln was not anti-slavery at his core...
 
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