Written accounts of the agricultural skill, settled nature, and moral fortitude of the Pima abound, extending back to 1694 when Jesuit priest Francisco Eusebio Kino made the first recorded observations of the Indians. These accounts concluded that the industriousness of the Pima was made possible by the river and was responsible for their hospitality, enabling them to provide for their own needs and trade with their neighbors. The river in essence enhanced a cultural value of sharing with others. Cultivating food and fiber crops, the Pima developed and sustained a stable economic and moral environment that would endear them to Spaniards, Mexicans, and Americans alike. Beginning in the late seventeenth century and continuing into the nineteenth century, the Pima exhibited a pattern of continual ecologic and economic adaptation to their environment. Combined with an affinity for improving their standard of living, the Pima demonstrated propitious agricultural production. The written record--with all of its biases and despite lacking an adequate Pima voice--from Kino's first visit until the beginning of the U.S. era presents a unified theme of a hardworking, ethical agricultural people living from the fruits of their own labor. The Pima utilized the resources of the desert--particularly the Gila River--to create and sustain a way of life that reflected their values and beliefs. (Contains 61 endnotes.)