Royal Emerson Whitman, a thirty-seven year old…

Royal Emerson Whitman, a thirty-seven year old first lieutenant, has assumed command of Camp Grant, Arizona Territory, about fifty miles (eighty kilometers) northeast of Tucson.

In February 1871, five old Apache women had straggled into Camp Grant to look for a son who had been taken prisoner.

Whitman had fed them and treated them kindly, so other Apaches from Aravaipa and Pinal bands had soon come to the post to receive rations of beef and flour.

In the spring, Whitman creates a refuge along Aravaipa Creek, about five miles (eight kilometers) east of Camp Grant, for nearly five hundred Aravaipa and Pinal Apaches, including Chief Eskiminzin.

The Apaches have begun cutting hay for the post's horse and harvesting barley in nearby ranchers' fields.

Some historians feel the reduction of native hostilities in the region had triggered fears of economic crisis in Tucson, since the Federal government was reducing funds for pacifying and controlling hostile tribes, mostly Apaches.

Merchants who survive on the "blankets for peace" economy are afraid that their source of income will soon be lost.

In early 1871, in order to bolster public support for increased hostilities and increased federal funding of "gifts" to the Apaches, several Arizonans, including prominent Tucson merchant Sam Hughes, had allegedly staged mock raids on isolated settlements.

One of these settlements is in Aravaipa Canyon.

Native American affairs in early 1870s Arizona lurch back and forth between peace and war.

Each new round of hostilities brings increasing conflict between the settlers and the soldiers.

The report of the Indian Peace Commission, in 1867, had led to the creation of the Board of Indian Commissioners two years later.

Investigating abuses within the Office of Indian Affairs, the commissioners have spearheaded a growing movement for native American rights that has culminated in the Quaker Policy of President Ulysses S. Grant's administration.

A major problem faced by Arizona's military is that they have too few soldiers for too vast an area of land.

Most chronicles of the time regard Apaches as the biggest menace, but Yuman-speaking Yavapais, who are often identified as Apache Mohaves or Apache Yumas, kill and mutilate settlers just as often.

Divided into four subtribes, the Tolkapaya, or Western Yavapais, the Yavepe and the Wipukpaya or Northeastern Yavapais and the Kewevkapaya or Southeastern Yavapais, the Yavapais range from the Colorado River to the Tonto Basin.

Like the Apaches, they are mobile and extremely independent, their only political authorities being war chiefs and advisory chiefs selected by local groups.

This makes it extremely difficult for the United States Army to run down or negotiate with more than one Yavapai group at a time.

Troops have to pursue the Yavapais across rough desert terrain.

Many of the soldiers desert, fleeing places like Camp Grant, a sun-scorched collection of adobe buildings.