9781422286227

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The West: Arizona, California, Nevada

descendants of the Hohokam. The ancestral Pueblo people lived in the northeast near the Colorado Plateau. By about 500 CE , they farmed corn, beans, and squash. Between 750 and 1300 CE , the group built multi- roomed pueblos, resembling modern day apartments. The Pueblo were some of the first Native Americans the Spanish encountered in the area. The modern-day Pueblo and Hopi trace their origins to this group. The early groups scattered in the 1400s. In the 1600s the ancestors of the Apache and Navajo people moved into Arizona from the Great Plains. The lure of gold brought the first Europeans from Mexico to modern- day Arizona. In 1539, Father Marco de Niza explored the region with his servant. He claimed to have found one of the seven cities of gold, which had been reported to exist in Spanish leg- ends. The next year, he guided Spanish explorer Francisco Vázquez de Coronado to the region. However, Coronado found only an Indian pueblo. He kept searching, a trip that led him as far as Kansas.

Several ancient Native American cultures developed in different parts of the state in the years before the Spanish arrived. The Hohokam settled near modern-day Phoenix as early as 2000 BCE . They built villages and dug sophisticated irrigation canals with sticks to grow corn, beans, squash, and cotton. Today, the Tohono O’odham are believed to be the

One of the first Spanish missions in Arizona was San Xavier del Bac, founded in 1692 by Father Eusebio Kino. It is located about 10 miles (16 km) south of downtown Tucson, on the Tohono O’odham reservation.