For several hundred years the Yuma Indians had resided along the Lower Colorado River. They were of Hokan stock, primarily farmers who benefitted from the Colorado River’s annual floods. The Yuma were also related to the upriver Mohave Indians, and at times, allied themselves with them in wars against the Pima and Maricopa of the Gila River Valley. The Yumas’ first prolonged contact with white men came in the early 1770s. The noted Spanish leader, Juan Bautista de Anza, hoping to keep the
True West September/October 2024