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Phoenix’s Latino roots:
social and political beginnings
If Jack Swilling was the “father of Phoenix,” as historians call him, then his beloved wife Trinidad Swilling was truly the “mother of Phoenix.”
They were the First Couple of a dusty village that would one day grow into a sprawling metropolis, the fifth largest in the United States.
A look back at Phoenix’s early history shows that Mexicans and Anglo citizens joined together to create and build the town of Phoenix, but injustice and segregation in ensuing years ripped the fabric of that co-existence.
One woman — Trinidad Escalante Swilling — was a true Phoenix pioneer. She was born in Hermosillo, Sonora, in 1847. Trinidad moved to Tucson with her mother when she was 13. It was an era when White men were just beginning to settle the long established Mexican towns in southern Arizona. Jack Swilling, a Missouri native and ex-Confederate soldier, met the lovely Trinidad in Tucson. Historians describe Swilling as a “man of questionable integrity and high ambitions.”
Trinidad was 17 when they married in Tucson’s St. Augustine Cathedral in 1864. The couple’s mixed-culture marriage mirrored the custom of the time. There were few White women on the southwestern frontier, so White men often married Mexican women for companionship and a certain status.
Trinidad was a prominent citizen of the budding town. She raised seven children, two of whom died early, and cared for two Apache children as well.
Swilling organized the Swilling Irrigating and Canal Company, which established the town site of Phoenix and with Mexican laborers dug a modern canal system, enabling a dependable delivery of water. This earned Swilling the title “the father of Phoenix.”
The Swilling’s original home was an adobe house near 36th and Washington streets. When Trinidad died in 1925, The Arizona Republic called her “one of the best-known pioneer figures of the Salt River Valley.”
“She was raised by a single woman,” says Christine Marin, an archivist at Arizona State University. “She maintained her own identity, despite her husband. I think she always respected her own self. She was able to forge relationships between the Mexicans and the Anglos and was very much respected by both communities.”
One society on different paths
Phoenix was founded in 1868. By 1877, there were 500 people living here; one half were Latino.
The relations between the two cultures were civil at first. Phoenix was home to both English- and Spanish-speaking communities. Many residents were bilingual, with merchants speaking both languages to serve their customers.
Early on, the two cultures celebrated traditional Mexican holidays. In Phoenix, residents held celebrations for Fiestas Patrias (Mexican Independence Day) on Sept. 15th and 16th. The whole community also observed the Dia de San Juan (St. John’s Day) festival, held on June 24. One historian describes the celebration as a “…veritable carnival that lasted a week and was joined by both American and Mexican people. The little church (St. Mary’s) was packed.”
Unfortunately, community festivals suffered when Phoenix became the Territorial capital. In 1891, the Territorial Legislature abolished public Dia de San Juan festivities, calling them a public nuisance.
Besides Trinidad Swilling, Enrique “Henry” Garfias was another early Phoenix Latino leader. The first Hispanic to hold an elected office in the city, Garfias had come to Phoenix in 1874, and was elected to town constable. In 1881 he was elected as Phoenix’s first city marshal. In addition to upholding the law, his duties included assessor, tax collector, and road commissioner. After leaving office, he was the editor of the El Progreso del Valle newspaper. Garfias died in 1896.
Latino residents joined both Republican and Democratic parties. In 1876, Mexican Americans comprised more than 20 percent of registered voters in Phoenix. They participated in U.S. patriotic parades and rallies. Prominent couples such as Jack and Trinidad Swilling were active in getting Mexican Americans to vote, Marin notes.
Social groups kept alive cultural ties to Mexico for early settlers, and provided mutual aid. These organizations included the Mexican Literary Society and the Phoenix lodge of Sociedad Zaragoza, which staged an annual ball to celebrate Cinco de Mayo.
A third group was called the Junta Patriotica Mexicana, which organized Mexican Independence Day celebrations.
In Tucson, the fraternal organization known as the Alianza Hispano Americana was founded in 1894. A Phoenix chapter was established in 1898. The Alianza, modeled after Masonic lodges, was created in reaction to growing hostility from Anglos. Its members worked to defend the civil rights of Latinos, stop injustice and segregation, and to organize social events. The group also promoted civic duty, assimilation and provided sickness/death benefits and burial insurance for its members, according to ASU’s Chicano Archives.
By the 1890s, social changes in Phoenix were beginning to diminish the status of Mexican-descent citizens. The arrival of the railroads brought more Anglos and businesses, tipping the population balance.
Mixed marriages and inter-cultural business partnerships began to fall off. By 1900, Latinos comprised only 14 percent of Phoenix’s growing population. This was a drastic change from 20 years earlier, when the Mexican community made up half the residents.
Yet the Hispanic community would continue to thrive, wanting only what their White fellow citizens had: To stake their future to Phoenix, to participate in its development, and to share in the city’s great potential for growth.
Latino faith: the religious foundation of Phoenix
Everywhere Latinos live, they imbue that society with their religious faith and traditions. In the early history of Phoenix Hispanic residents, it is evident that religion was a large part of their everyday lives.
Trinidad Escalante demonstrated this pattern. Her father, a Spanish soldier, had died when she was very young, leaving her mother to bring up Trinidad. When granting her daughter’s suitor, Jack Swilling, the right to wed the young girl in 1864, Señora Escalante placed two conditions on their union: that Jack convert to Catholicism and learn to speak Spanish. The Señora would also accompany the newlyweds north to the Wickenburg/Phoenix area.
Catholic traditions, coming mainly from Mexico, were the strongest religious influences in the new Phoenix settlement. These traditions gave birth to city’s first Catholic parish.
In 1870, the Rev. Andre Eschallier celebrated the first Mass in Phoenix at the home of Jack and Trinidad Swilling on east Washington Street.
“They were very much a part of the (religious) community” because they were practicing Catholics, says ASU Chicano Archives curator Christine Marin. Trinidad’s prayer shrine, rosary beads and shawl are part of the Phoenix Museum of History’s collection, and can be seen in the new exhibition, “El Espejo (The Mirror).”
Another Catholic priest from Florence, Edward Gerald, would travel 63 miles in a buckboard wagon over rocky, dusty roads to hold occasional services in the home of local Phoenix businessman Jesus Otero. The year was 1877.
Soon, Mexican residents formed the city’s first Roman Catholic parish. In 1881, under the leadership of the Rev. Edouard Gerard, Latino residents built La Inmaculada Concepcion de Maria, or St. Mary’s Church, on east Monroe Street.
Businessmen Jesus Otero, Miguel Peralta, and Paolo Perrazzo donated the land for the church. (The construction of St. Mary’s by Mexicans would prove ironic when Latinos were required to attend segregated services by Catholic priests in later years.)
This first church displayed statues of religious icons and used furniture donated by the Otero family. The building held 500 worshippers, and became
the center of the religious world in early Phoenix.
Latinos took advantage of the new church to celebrate their cultural holidays. For example, El Dia de San Juan (St. John’s Day) packed the church with “….Mexican communicants who knelt on the bare floor,” wrote historian James McClintock. The Latino community also marked the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Every Dec. 12, McClintock wrote, women created altars, “adorning them according to their means, and [they] worshipped as they were taught by their mothers.”
The indigenous Mexican tradition of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in early November was another holiday Latinos celebrated. In this tradition, family relatives take part in ceremonies to honor the dead through annual visits to cemeteries on Dia de los Muertos, or through creating personal altars in their homes.
These traditions are still celebrated in the Phoenix area. Day of the Dead rituals imbue cemeteries with strong cultural significance for the Mexican American community. Today even non-Hispanics engage in the cultural celebration as well, showing a crossover of cultural values.
In 1897, the Rev. Novatus Benzing of St. Mary’s helped to create the first Catholic cemetery, St. Francis, at Oak and 48th streets. Many Phoenix pioneers are buried at St. Francis, including Trinidad Swilling, Paolo Perazzo, and the Silva and Espinoza families.
Other churches and religious beliefs spread through Phoenix as the city grew, and Latino residents became members of these new congregations as well. For Latinos, churches historically are sacred places where the spiritual, social and worldly welfare of the family are nurtured. This religious foundation was firmly established in Phoenix by Latino pioneers.
Meeting the needs of farmers, ranchers and families
The lure of open range and fertile lands drew many Mexicans northward into territory known as Arizona during the second half of the 19th century. Their pioneering spirit sparked a growth cycle that persists today in Phoenix.
These determined farmers, ranchers and their families carved an existence on a harsh, unforgiving frontier long before the arrival of Yanquis (Anglo-Americans). The settlers attracted trade to their communities and fellow Latinos stepped in to supply goods and services for their homes.
Farming was at the heart of Phoenix’s birth in 1868, creating an economic foundation of agriculture and related industries that would extend over the next century.
One family, the Silvas, established a farm north of the Salt River before the 1900s. Alejandro Silva, of Portuguese descent, homesteaded 160 acres near 16th and Grand avenues. He raised horses and fruit, hiring many Japanese to perform the work. His wife Maria, who managed the Beehive store, would also manage her husband’s Orange Ranch business.
Alejandro and Maria, a native of Hermosillo, Mexico, adopted two little girls. The family bought a bungalow home in 1905 at 7th and Adams streets. Their home, now part of Heritage Square, would stay in the Silva family until 1977, when the daughters sold it to Salt River Project.
By 1870, the U.S. Census recorded 240 residents living in the Phoenix town site; 124 were Mexican Americans.
As Phoenix grew, Latino farm owners and workers helped dig acequias, or canals, along the Salt River to supply water to Valley farmers. This water distribution system constructed by the Mexicans was also the early beginning of the Salt River Project.
Latinos also homesteaded south of the Salt River, where they skillfully developed thriving farms and ranches. Living between present-day 24th and 40th streets, they built the San Francisco Canal to bring Salt River water to irrigate their farmlands.
Unfortunately, these farmers fell on hard times. By the 1890s, Prescott merchant Michael Wormser seized an opportunity to take advantage of their misfortunes. Wormser bought 9,000 acres in south Phoenix and obtained rights to the canal, telling Latino farmers he would provide them with water.
When the farmers had problems proving homestead claims or repaying seed and supplies, he bought them out. Wormser also cut off their water, forcing them to sell their properties to him.
Many of these former farm owners turned to other types of jobs, such as mining, flour mills, and livery and feed stables, or became farm workers on
land owned by others.
Because of their experience Latino agricultural workers often were more skilled than the landowners who hired them. They remained the primary force behind the thriving Phoenix farming scene.
The railroad and local economy
By 1879 the need for farm workers and laborers for the growing railroad system attracted Mexican settlers of all social levels to Phoenix.
ASU history professor Arturo Rosales writes that these Latino pioneers eventually became “property owners, teachers, dressmakers, grocers, laundresses, blacksmiths, harness-makers, bakers, butchers, saloon-keepers, jewelers…and as such, provided essential services to Anglo and Mexican members of the community.”
One early Latino businessman was Miguel Peralta, who owned a large general store at Washington and Center streets. The adobe structure, according to an 1879 news article in the Salt River Herald, cost $6,000 to build and was “one of the handsomest buildings in our midst.” Peralta offered more than 30,000 pounds of merchandise, mostly dry goods. His store likely stocked products such as baking powder, cornmeal, oats and milled white flour, which allowed housewives to make tortillas in less time than it took to make corn tortillas from scratch.
The first Phoenix post office opened in his store. He also constructed a pathway of bricks in front that earned recognition as “the first sidewalk of its kind in Phoenix.”
Another prominent businessman was Jesus Otero, a butcher and cattleman who lived at 1st Avenue and Washington. His father was a U.S. Civil War veteran and his brother Miguel served as Territorial Governor in New Mexico.
Grocer Ignacio Espinoza also opened Espinoza’s Grocery at 2nd and Jackson streets in 1879.
Latinos established newspapers to disseminate information and create community ties. From 1880-’90, there were eight Spanish-language publications, including La Guardia, Phoenix Tecolote, El Mensajero, La Verdad, and El Progreso de Valle.
Latina women in the community worked in what was considered the “informal” economy, laboring as seamstresses, selling food and baked goods, and taking in laundry.
In the following decades, migration swelled the city’s Anglo population, tipping the population numbers in their favor. These newcomers established businesses that competed with those of Latinos. As railroad lines opened to the East Coast, goods for their stores began to be shipped by rail. Soon Latino merchants experienced business losses; many gave up.
While some Latinos became managers or clerks in Anglo-owned businesses, others formed partnerships with Whites to remain successful. Early city residents shopped at Otero & Blake meat market or patronized Haefner & Garcia’s local saloon.
If not for the success of Latino businesses during the city’s early years, Phoenix may not have seen the rapid growth that marked it as a future southwestern metropolis.
Education in Phoenix: The tough lessons of history
Education has always been an important part of Latino family values. How to educate the youngsters of the new town’s residents became a central – and controversial – issue in Phoenix.
In the early days of the Phoenix community, Mexican American students attended the same public schools as White students. Bilingualism was socially acceptable. Early settlers like Jack and Trinidad Swilling spoke both Spanish and English. Trinidad, in particular, was noted for forging relationships between the Hispanic and White populations.
In 1871, Latino students attended the first Phoenix public school classroom. The class was held in the Territorial Courthouse on south 1st Avenue (then named Cortez Street).
The city’s first stand-alone school building was called Central School. It was made of adobe and located on Central Avenue, two blocks north of Washington Street.
In 1875, the first high school in Phoenix was founded at the Clark Churchhill residence at 5th and Van Buren streets.
Mexican parents sent their children to school with White children during this era. However, things changed in 1892, when St. Mary’s Church, under the direction of the Rev. Francis Jouvenceau, established a parochial school.
Ironically, it was the parochial schools that were first to segregate Anglo and Mexican American students. Church officials said the separation was to enable Spanish-speaking children to learn English fluently at San Antonio (the school for Latino kids), before transferring to St. Mary’s Grammar School. However, this was not always the practice.
White children attended St. Mary’s classes in a brick building at 4th and Monroe streets. A few blocks away, Latino children went to separate classes in a frame house St. Mary’s bought at 4th and Van Buren streets.
Five years later, the Rev. Novatus Benzing erected a brick school building and named it San Antonio. Benzing directed that only Mexican American students would attend San Antonio, thus instituting a policy of segregation.
San Antonio provided free education, while St. Mary’s School charged tuition. Some wealthy Mexican families such as the Pedro Garcia de la Lama family paid tuition to enroll their children at St. Mary’s, but this was uncommon.
The division of students mirrored a division in school staff. Although enrollment at San Antonio was higher, it had fewer teachers. In addition, San Antonio teachers were not paid; the nuns who taught at St. Mary’s were salaried.
Clearly, issues of language use by students have had a long history in Phoenix.
In the 1890s, Mexican American parents in Phoenix tried to make the public schools “more bilingual,” to reflect the use of both languages in the general community. Phoenix business owners – many of Mexican descent – conducted their trade in both languages.
One Arizona Legislator called on teachers “to pass an examination in Spanish and teach Spanish to their pupils” in 1893. Non-Spanish-speaking residents balked at the idea, and introduced legislation where “all schools must be taught in the English language.”
Whatever social harmony parent pioneers like Trinidad Swilling had created was disintegrating. Some early Phoenix settlers questioned the loyalties and patriotism of Hispanics. Then, as today, there was heated debate about bilingual education in public schools.
Jose Burruel, a retired educator and former assistant dean of students at ASU, says that prejudice and segregation has always played a part in the history of United States education.
“The lesson we learn from the early Phoenix educational history is that the people who run the system impose their own cultural values on teaching,” he says.
It wasn’t until 1953 that the policy of segregation ended in Arizona schools, including Phoenix.
The rise of Latino barrios
The rising waters of a raging Salt River shaped the Latino residential patterns of early Phoenix, and for generations to follow.
Near the end of the 1800s, Phoenix was growing fast, and Hispanic culture was flourishing. Mother Nature’s whims, however, would have a big impact on where Latino families would live in the developing city.
The population of Phoenix had more than doubled, from about 1,700 residents in 1880 to more than 3,100 in 1890. At least 20 neighborhoods were scattered throughout Phoenix by 1890.
Early Latino residents established their own barrios, or neighborhoods. Sometimes Latinos congregated in barrios because they felt more at ease among those who shared the same language. Some liked to be close to relatives and friends; sometimes they just felt unwelcome in areas of town where Anglos had chosen to settle.
One of the first Latino neighborhoods was settled along east Monroe Street, from Central to 4th Street, near St. Mary’s Church. This area was described as containing “a number of Mexican and Chinese tenements, saloons, a brewery, several Chinese laundries, a few billiards establishments, an assortment of stores, feed and stable businesses, one doctor’s office, and a Mexican firehouse directly behind St. Mary’s.”
The residents organized Mexican Independence Day celebrations in the area, with family picnics and bands playing favorite Mexican songs to mark the mid-September holiday. The English-language press called this neighborhood in the northeast part of town “The Sonora Corner of Phoenix.”
In 1887, the Maricopa and Phoenix Railroad began operating just north of present-day Grant Park neighborhood.
South of the railroad tracks, neighborhoods were formed in the 1880-’90s that would become a Latino quarter called La Palestina. The core of this area would eventually become the Grant Park barrio, bounded by Central to 7th Avenue, and Harrison Street to Buckeye Road.
The Gomez family was one of the area’s earliest settlers. Manuel Gomez was born in 1888 near 6th Avenue and Tonto Street. Gomez’s parents, whose family roots could be traced back to Spain, lived in Yuma until they came to Phoenix sometime before 1888. When Gomez’s parents died, his aunt Lupe Romo raised him and his siblings.
In the 1890s, the development of neighborhoods south of the railroad shifted from its integrated mix of Latino, Anglo and Chinese residents when heavy rains sent flood waters rushing from the swollen Salt River as far as Washington Street.
One historian, Marsha Weisiger (Boosters, Streetcars, and Bungalows), describes the flight of Anglos from these flood-prone areas: “The city’s more affluent residents left the southern area of the city and its suburbs and moved to new residential districts on higher ground north of the city long Central Avenue, westward along Washington Street, and adjacent to the Grand Avenue diagonal. This northward movement marked a permanent change in the direction of the city’s development.”
White flight left predominantly working class and minority families in the area south of the railroad. Municipal services to these areas deteriorated, making things worse for the populace. Poor services and a bad sewage system quickly transformed the more desirable south city neighborhoods into blighted areas. Property values fell, and real estate developers turned their attention to other parts of town.
Despite poverty, Latino barrios, or neighborhoods, became their own self-sustaining villages within the larger city. Everyone knew each other,
there were block parties with delicious food and lively Mexican music, and wandering children were taken care of by friendly neighbors. These barrios
were home to many hard-working men and women, who desired their families to prosper in the fledgling city of Phoenix. However, looking ahead, the push and pull of migration would test their mettle as American Latinos.
