The Apache: It Takes a Strong Man to Kill a Friend

Mangas Coloradas, doubtless the worst Indian within our boundaries and one who has been the cause of more murder and torturing and burning at the stake in this country than all together- has been killed.

Brigadier General James Carleton to Union Army Superiors in Washington DC. January 1863.

Only an hour after the execution of Mangas Coloradas by Brig. General West’s men, two patrols were sent out by West with one heading towards Pinos Altos and the other heading south. They both were to engage and kill any Apache they met before the Mimbres Apache could find out their chief was dead.

Later that day Mangas Coloradas’s people approached the mining town of Pinos Altos peacefully, ignorant that their chief had died, and were fired upon by West’s men. 11 Apache were killed and one was wounded. Included in those sent to the Happy Place were Mangas’ wife and one of his sons.

The other troop of soldiers sent by West were led by a Captain Shirland who found a group of Chihenne Apache at a place Shirland described as being quote, the most rugged, high, and difficult mountains to ascend and pass I ever saw. End quote. His 50 cavalrymen would kill 9 and wound many of these Apaches who were of Victorio’s band. More on Victorio in the next episode.

Both of these Union forces brought back plenty of scalps.

The war since the cutting of the tent had now taken off and for the next few decades, death, fire, fear, and destruction would rain down upon the Indian and Non-Indian resident populations of the American Southwest alike.

Noted Apache Historian Dan Thrapp would tell author Edwin Sweeney who wrote Mangas Coloradas, that quote, the greatest tragedy of the affair, he means the cowardly killing of Mangas, the greatest tragedy of the affair was less the death of the aging chieftain than the lasting distrust generated on the part of the Apaches toward white Americans and soldiers. End quote.

Shortly after the murder of Mangas and the raids on his people by the Americans, Cochise, Victorio, and a Bedonkohe chief named Luis, who was probably one of Mangas’ many sons, they formed a large war party and retaliated at quite a few places.
One of these places was on the Rio Grande a place known as San Diego Crossing. On June 17th they would fight a short battle and kill two Americans. One of those killed was the commanding officer, a Lt. Bargie. After his death, he was found scalped, his head was cut off, his chest had been cut open, and his heart had been removed. Some say it was eaten.

In this episode we will go over yet another disappointing and horrific incident that will sow even more distrust among the Apache towards the White Eyes and even further inflame the violence between the two groups in the American Southwest.

Even before the cutting of the tent and the death of Mangas, the Apache from the east, the Mescalero to the Chiricahua to the western Apache, they all had their moments of violence and raiding. Whenever food got scarce or they needed to seek vengeance, there was a raid.

In Edwin Sweeney’s Mangas Coloradas, he had a great quote about the situation in Arizona in 1861. He wrote:

In 1861, Arizona entrepreneur Sylvester Mowry would declare that he would accept help from any source- including the devil himself, if it meant an ally against the apaches, who he compared to rattlesnakes. End quote.

Things weren’t about to get easier for the settlers of the region though.

The whole cutting of the tent with Cochise, Mangas, and the White Eyes was on account of the kidnapping of the one eyed, red haired boy named Felix from southern Arizona. Felix does eventually take the name Mickey Free, not to confuse you.

We know, from the last episode that Cochise and the Chiricahua Apache did not in fact have the boy but instead, the western Apache’s, particularly a once Mexican also one-eyed Western Apache named Beto had taken him. After the kidnapping, Beto took the boy and the stolen cattle that was causing quite the squabble at Apache Pass, he took the boy and the loot to an Apache man, his chief named Eskiminzin in Aravaipa Canyon. Which is a place subscribers know well because it is where The Apache Kid was from. It’s in Arizona, near Globe, northeast of Phoenix.

Once in Eskiminzin’s valley, Beto traded or sold or just gave away the boy to the Western Apache chief who for some reason, did not kill him. It was probably his one eye and his red hair. It could also have been that the once Mexican Beto said look at me, he could one day be a good raider like me. No one knows.

Eskiminzin, long before this, he had married the daughter of a Chief named Santos but eventually, Eskiminzin or Hashkibanzin, which means, “Angry, Men stand in line for him”, well he became chief of 150 Apaches in this beautiful Aravaipa Canyon and he was known as a fierce warrior. And now, he owned the boy Felix. The people of the small group called Felix a Nakaiye, which meant a Captured Mexican.

Although he was never accepted among these Western Apaches, Felix aka Mickey Free, he was also never despised either. And over time, he learned the Apache ways and he became valuable enough to stay alive. 

Among the Chiricahuas, though? He was hated for decades. He was the quote, coyote whose kidnapping had brought war to the Chiricahua. End quote.

For subscribers who are familiar with the man I’m about to mention, only about a month after Felix aka Mickey Free was kidnapped and brought to Eskiminzin, only about a month later, The Apache Kid was born to Toga de chuz in this very important valley. Toga de Chuz was one of these many western Apache that were led by Eskiminzin. And these Apache would soon be at a place known as Camp Grant near Fort Grant where over 150 of their brothers and sisters would be massacred in their sleep…

The entire end of the last episode was dedicated to the beginning of the war of Cochise and Mangas against the White Eyes but it is worth mentioning that because of their righteous reign of terror, Johnny Ward, stepfather of Mickey Free moved his family to Tucson. The other large town in southern Arizona, Tubac, was completely abandoned. And according to Hutton, quote, most of the Mexican Mine and ranch workers fled south to Sonora. The remaining settlers at Canoa were slaughtered by the Apaches in late July. To make matters worse, a large party of mexican bandits came north to loot the abandoned mines and ranches. End quote.

And Canoa is on I-19 between Tucson and the Mexican border. Also, it is north of Tubac.

Les than 60 Americans were still in Tucson in August of 1861. And every farm and all but one mine were abandoned.

Both Cochise and Mangas believed this abandonment was their doing and part of it certainly was, but later Cochise would tell an American official, quote, We were successful, and your soldiers were driven away and your people killed and we again possessed our land. End quote. It was to be a brief victory though.

Meanwhile, in 1862, the Mescalero Apaches, to the east, they were being hunted by the Union California forces under Carleton with their orders to kill every Mescalero quote whenever and wherever you can find them. End quote.

One of these companies on the hunt was led by podcast alumni, kit Carson. He was at the head of 150 or so mostly Hispanic mostly illiterate men against first the Rebs, and then the Apaches. But specifically the Mescaleros at this time.

Another company was led by an Irishman named James paddy Graydon who was known by his own men as a swashbuckling reckless daredevil. But his outfit had the least desertions in the territory and some of the lowest desertions in the war. His men loved him. He and his men of Company H were also pursuing the Mescaleros in the Sierra Blanca region of the Sacramento Mountains. In particular, he was after the chief known as Manuelito.

And he’d find the chief at a place known as Gallina springs which is east of the Salinas missions and north of the Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico.

After he and his men ran into the chief, Manuelito asked the union officer for some tobacco. Hutton describes what happened next. Quote:

Graydon intercepted Manuelito's band and made peace signs, and as the Mescaleros approached, he ordered his men to be ready to fire. Manuelito walked up to Graydon, saying he was on his way to Santa Fe to meet with Carleton, and asked for some tobacco. Graydon responded by sending a shotgun blast into his head at point-blank range. All the soldiers opened fire. Eleven warriors and an old woman were killed. End quote.

This became known by Graydon’s superiors as the Gallinas Massacre.

Although I did read a different account from a man that was there at the massacre and he said that Manuelito asked for Whiskey and grabbed his pistol, to which Graydon apparently shouted, Fight Be it! And then he emptied the shotgun barrel in Manuelito’s head.

Either way, it was a slaughter and after the bloodbath, Graydon distributed 17 horses to his men as loot. Although these were later confiscated by the fedrals. Carson was actually ordered by Carlton to return these horses to the Mescaleros themselves. As a sign of peace.

Graydon and another man would not long after die in an old fashioned Wild West duel at the famed fort Stanton.

A little about that story though. This is a little tangent but it’s a… story.

Dr. John Marmaduke Whitlock was a Kentucky surgeon at the time of the civil war who also supplied the army with a bunch of stuff like lumber and beef. He owned one of the largest ranches in New Mexico and a bunch of saw mills. He was a well known and well to do man about New Mexico. But Graydon, he didn’t like him and he called him a quote, pimp who follows the army, end quote. Whitlock though, he wasn’t really enjoying his time in the Army as he was being subordinated by junior and less competent surgeons. Eventually he was put out in the field and his first taste was at the battle of Valverde, which the Confederates won. Whitlock was out there on the field tending to the wounded.

Eventually, Carleton came in and Whitlock was placed under Graydon’s command. Graydon, like I said was Irish, he was catholic, and he was a hard drinker who used to own a saloon in Arizona. Whitlock was a protestant from the States who did not drink. Whitlock’s great great great granddaughter actually wrote about this incident in 2003 for the Southeastern New Mexico Historical Society which I used for this retelling. 

Well Whitlock got placed at Fort Stanton with Carson and Graydon where Whitlock heard of Graydon’s massacre of Manuelito and the other Mescaleros. Apparently Whitlock didn’t like what Graydon did to these Apaches and began bad mouthing Graydon. Graydon found out and the two exchanged some words and some notes. They literally traded notes back and forth at the fort. But one morning Graydon approached Whitlock and told him to leave the fort and never come back and if he ever talked bad about him, Graydon again, Graydon would horsewhip the doctor.

I’m actually going to quote a newspaper article now from the St. Louis Globe-Democrat which wrote about the incident a few weeks later. The article reads, quote:

During this time Dr. W. was smiling and said Capt. you are in the wrong.”] The Doctor smiled as he perused it, when Graydon cried, “Doctor, if you insult me again in that way, I will horse-whip you.” On hearing this the Doctor placed his hand on his pistol also, and both drew them at the same instant, but Graydon commenced retreating, crying out as he did so, “he is going to murder me, he is going to murder me.” The Doctor remained motionless, holding his fire, and contenting himself by saying loudly, “Look at the coward, see how he runs.” When this taunt reached his ears, Graydon sprang behind a carriage he was passing, and commenced firing at the Doctor with a heavy dragoon revolver, to which the Doctor replied with a light five-shooter.

Graydon emptied one revolver and then drew another, firing it as fast as possible. One of Graydon’s shots had taken effect in the Doctor’s wrist, (without breaking the bone) and had also inflicted a flesh wound in his side. Another of his shots had glanced on a standard of the carriage and wounded a mule. The Doctor had only been able to fire three shots, as Graydon’s person was only partially exposed, and two charged had failed fire; his last shot, however, had struck Graydon in the breast, causing him to cry out, “Oh, he has murdered me, he has murdered me.” The Doctor, on finding himself defenceless, while his antagonist still held a loaded pistol in his hand, walked rapidly towards the sutler’s store, which was about one hundred yards distant; while Graydon, after standing a few moments by the carriage, began to sink, and was conveyed to his tent. End quote.

That is one heck of a wild west story…

After the shootout, Graydon was carried to his tent and Whitlock bandaged his hand and grabbed a shot gun. He intended on finishing the job.

I’ll quote again from the great detailed article:

On Graydon’s crying out that he was murdered, his First Lieutenant, Morris, said to his company, “Your Captain has been murdered, let us avenge his death;” and away they went like a pack of bloodhounds for the sutler’s store, which they reached just as the Doctor came out, with the gun in his hand. As soon as Lieut. Morris saw him, he cried out, “That’s the scoundrel – kill him, kill him!” At the word they commenced firing. One ball shattered the Doctor’s wrist completely, causing the gun to drop from his hand and he retreated back into the store, which he had hardly effected when a volley was poured in through the door and window of the counting room, into which they soon effected an entrance; but the Doctor had escaped by another outlet, and was evidently endeavoring to reach the Colonel’s quarters, where he knew he would find protection; but it was not so to be – for scarcely had he left the store, when the hue and cry was raised on every side by the yelling hounds, “There he goes, kill him, kill him,” while the crack of their rifles came from every quarter, in quick succession, and the bullets fell like hail around him, until he fell exhausted and lifeless in a ditch which he could not leap. Nor did it end there, for volley after volley was poured into his body the infuriated mob, after life was extinct; even the gallant Lieut. Morris, completing the work he had commenced, by discharging a double-barreled shot-gun into the lifeless body, and ending the noble deed without he boast, that he had finished the d---d scoundrel. End all quotes.

The coroner would later note that Whitlock had no less than twenty-eight rifle balls and ninety- eight buckshot that had filled his body.

Graydon would die of his wounds and then a few of the 100 men who shot at Whitlock would be arrested and court martialed, although I think they escaped custody, I’m not sure.

It’s just another incredible story in the American Southwest that goes to show how violent the place really was. Even amongst allies.

Two weeks after Manuelito’s death by Graydon, another detachment of California federals surprised a group of Mescaleros at a place known as dog canyon in the Sacramento Mountains. They killed a lot of Apache warriors and took the camp from the Mescaleros.

This defeat combined with manuelito’s death, convinced these white mountain Apaches that resistance to the white eyes was futile. Colonel Carson, disobeying orders to not kill them all, accepted the surrender of hundreds of Mescalero Apaches at fort Stanton. And then he distributed rations to them before having their leaders march with the newly arrived Indian agent up to Santa Fe to meet with Carlton.

During the meeting, one of the Apache leaders is noted as saying, quote, You have driven us from our last and best stronghold, and we have no more heart. Do with us as may seem good to you, but do not forget we are men and braves. End quote.

It was a valiant request that fell on deaf Union ears. Unfortunately for these Apache, Carleton did not honor their request to remember that they are men and braves. Instead, these Mescalero were the first to be relocated to the forty square mile infamous reservation known as the bosque redondo.

The bosque redondo was located on the Pecos River in eastern New Mexico and it was to be guarded by fort sumner which was a bastion of defense against the Comanche. The mescaleros, other Apaches, and the Navajo were all to be relocated there where they were to learn to farm and be productive capitalist Americans. That was the plan anyway. In reality. It was hell.

The Apache though, were not alien to this spot of land, the Bosque Redondo. Before the White Mountain Mescalero Apache were up in the Sacramentos, their ancestors had been on the plains hunting the buffalo… hunting the buffalo and destroying a group of people known as the Jumanos.

I just did a huge Roadrunner episode over the entire Jumanos history which went back to the Aztec-Tanoan language theory of 6,000 years ago.

The Jumanos though, were the Mogollon peoples of southern Arizona and New Mexico. They made beautiful pottery and built monumental architecture. But eventually, after the great migration of the 1300s and the fall of the Chacoan Anasazi Empire, the Jumanos territory spread from southern Colorado to central Texas to northern Mexico to southern Arizona. They even had rancherias or camps near the San Francisco Mountains near Flagstaff. They had camps along the Texas coast in later years. It was an enormous amount of territory. Territory that we have been calling Apacheria.

And that’s because the Apache took all of this land and the people’s buffalo hunting grounds and their trading rights away from the Jumanos. The Jumanos and the Apaches were bitter 300 year rivals by my estimate. And by the early 1800s, the Spanish were calling the Jumanos… the Jumano Apache because what few Jumanos remained had indulged in the mantra, if you can’t beat em, join em.

So the Apache had a history with the plains the buffalo kingdom but that had been a long time ago. The Mescaleros were now firmly Mountain People. The Bosque Redondo, would be hell.

By March of 1862, some 400 Mescalero Apaches were at the bosque, soon to be joined by their Navajo cousins. Meanwhile, Carson scoured the Sacramento and other mountains for any Apache holdouts.

By January of 1863, Carson reported to Carleton that the mountains had been cleared and the Indians at the reservation were safe to begin their planting.

In reality though, over 100 Mescaleros were either still hiding in the mountains or they had fled west. The ones hiding in the mountains mirror the Navajo Hoskinini story that I cover in the subscriber only episode over Hite in Utah! Sign up on the Substack to hear that awesome story of his silver and gold on the Colorado River.

The others that fled west went and joined the Chiricahua and Gila Apaches. At this time.. but not for much longer, remember, the Gila were still being led by Mangas Coloradas. Although… he will soon be butchered. Which is where I left off last time.

Carson attempted to resign after he had rounded up most of the Apache cause he didn’t want to fight Indians. He wanted to fight Rebels. Carleton apparently tore up his resignation though and sent him west to round up the Navajos.

The Mexicans who had been living in the United States since the Mexican American war, a group of people known as Vecinos, they weren’t really interested in the American Civil War. They were more interested in the French and Austrian invasion of old Mexico… well, they were worried about that, and the Apaches who were taking advantage of a lack of American troops in the area. Troops that were recalled to the east to fight their brothers down south.

One Tucson rancher, who’d only been an American for around 8 years after the Gadsden Purchase, he commented, quote, The Indians were robbing and stealing everything they could. It was just a sort of civil war between us and the Indians. End quote.

The Confederate leader of Arizona, the previously mentioned Lieutenant Colonel John Baylor, he spoke quite highly of the Mexicans who fought with the South against the Apache during the time that the Confederacy held Arizona.

When the Union later occupied Arizona, the leader of the north’s forces pretty much said the same thing as Baylor had about the Mexican Vecinos fighting against the Apache.

Later in 1862, the Union would organize several civilian companies who were promised that, quote, they would be ordered against no enemy except the Apache. End quote. One of those was ran by Carson himself as I mentioned.

Much like the Confederates had urged the Mexicans to fight with them against the Apache, the South also asked the O’odham to help them rid the territory of Apaches. I talked about the O’odham in the last few episodes. They shared a boundary with the Apaches and they shared a hatred of them with the Mexicans and Americans as well. They were ancient enemies. Much like the Jumanos had been.

Lt. Colonel Baylor urged quote, the chiefs of the Papagos and Pima Indians to help me clean out the Apache Indians. End quote.

Once the Yankees took over, they urged the same thing except they used a couple hundred muskets and thousands of balls of ammunition to bribe the O’odham to help the Americans fight the Apaches.

During this whole affair, the O’odham confused the heck out of the white eyes though. It seemed and it was recorded that although the O’odham knew very well how to use and load and fire the weapons, they much preferred to use the rifles as clubs to bash the brains out the Apaches instead. And then, the offenders, needing to cleanse themselves, would leave the forts and disappear. Not just cleanse though, but also take the power of the dead Apache. Which is also why they didn’t kill them from afar. They wouldn’t be able to harness the power of the dead Apache during the cleansing ceremony if they did shot them from a distance. Close personal combat was preferred for the O’odham.

And the O’odham, because of their past and their willingness to bring in scalps and ears for money, they were clearly a good ally for the Americans to have when Apache raids threatened the Arizona territory. Again, especially during the Civil War. I talked about those calendar sticks in the last episode and I will talk about them again here. They’re a great record. One of them had recorded:

1864-65: In a raid in this year two Apaches were killed and their ears cut off and nailed on a stick. End quote.

Another Calendar Stick recorded that in 1871, a group of about 100 O’odham, American, and Mexican warriors surrounded an encampment in Aravaipa Canyon and killed everyone that was sleeping. I wonder where the Apache Kid was at this time… he would have been 11, he was from Aravaipa Canyon… That raid saw over 60 Apache slaughtered and many women and children brought in as slaves. A lot of cattle was also recovered in that raid.

One last story, and it is quite graphic and intimate but it’s worth telling.

Quote: The men all separated and each one waited outside one Apache wickiup, till the signal to attack. My father was outside a wickiup where there were several women roasting something and he listened to their strange voices and wondered if they were saying, "The Desert People are here." Finally the signal came: the call of a roadrunner. Our men attacked, whooping.

The women ran out of the houses and the men stood at the doors waiting to club them. My father took hold of an old woman but she was strong and wrestled with him. He called to the others, "Help! The old enemy woman is killing me!" So others came and they broke in the old woman's skull. A few other men killed but the rest of the women got away. Our men burned the houses and the booty and went home. End quote.

That rather intense story was told in Ruth Underhills: Autobiography of a Papago Woman from 1936, although the story took place in the late 19th century.

The O’odham play a critical role in something I will discuss coming up at Camp Grant.

In 1866, after the Civil War, one of those companies I mentioned earlier, that the Union had set up with all Mexican volunteers, Company E, to be specific. It was led by a man named Manuel Gallegos. Well in February of 1866, Manuel Gallegos and E Company located a bunch of Apache who were holed up in a cave.

Jacoby describes what happened next:

Gallegos and his men surrounded the site during the night in an approach so silent that not even the Apaches dogs detected their presence. As soon as daybreak offered enough light to see, the volunteers attacked.

Within minutes, quote, all of the caves that were accessible were filled with dead and wounded [Apaches]. End quote. As evidence of their success, Gallegos's unit brought back to their camp thirteen Apache scalps, along with two women and ten children. End all quotes.

And then only a month later, Company A surrounded yet another Apache camp where a similar scene unfolded. Once the light appeared on the horizon, the Mexican Americans killed twenty two Apaches and took 2 captive.

The Governor of Arizona, Richard McCormick, on account of Company E and Gallego’s bravery, he offered them extra rations of tobacco and a nice letter thanking them. He wrote thank you, quote, for the severe blow you have dealt to our common and barbarous foe. End quote. He then went on to write about Gallego’s men and how, quote, these native volunteers, who are at home in the country are the men to hunt the Apache. End quote.

That’s because these men knew a little about hunting Apache.

During the 1850s and 60s the Apache had constantly raided Tucson stealing hundreds if not thousands of cattle and horses and killing quite a few Mexican Vecinos. A story I read had one man from a prominent Spanish family that had been fighting the Apaches for over a century, the story had him kidnapped and killed and when his brothers found him, his hands had been smashed with rocks which was interpreted as suggesting the captured man was a brave warrior who put up a fight.

The prominent family was named Elias, I mentioned how many Eliases there were in the last episode. Well, they’re still here and now they’re north of the border as well. Two of these Elias brothers were quite the Indian fighters. Those brothers being Juan and Jesus Elias.

During the American civil war, after losing a number of their other brothers to the Apache, Jesus and Juan, but especially Jesus, but the two would lead several of their men from Tucson, with some O’odham and American volunteers, and they would raid in Araivapa Canyon. They would be quite successful as well. That’s the raid that was mentioned on the O’odham Calendar Stick.

These two brothers would actually go on to have political careers in Tucson and Arizona under the Americans and Jesus would be a guide for the US military in the region after the Civil War.

Jesus would actually be of great value to the Americans who had inherited the area and its history of violence. He could tell by a footprint what kind of Indian left it and if that Indian was barefoot or not. He had intimate knowledge of Indian footwear. It sounds silly but it was a valuable skill to have. He could read the land and the sand.

Jesus could also speak and understand a little bit of Apache. He got so good at understanding their difficult language, that he could tell what BAND the Apache speaking was from! And that’s probably because he grew up with a captured Apache who took the name Jose Maria Elias.

Jose Elias’ story is interesting. The Elias brothers said he died suddenly of a disease and they had bury him in the forest where they chopping wood but in reality, he probably fled from the Elias’ brothers and went back to the Apaches where he became the leader of a band that terrorized the Mexicans on both sides of the international border well into the 1880s.

The Eliases and the Apaches had quite the conflict though, and both sides fought a feud during the 1860s and 70s that makes the Graham-Tewksbury feud look like child’s play! Constant tit for tat murders, raids, back and forth killings and surprise attacks at night. Shooting Elias brothers while sleeping outside. Hunting Apache thieves at night and gunning them down. For over a decade! But the Elias had been in the area since 1720, fighting and killing Apaches. And being killed by them as well.

And get this, Jesus Elias, the main target of the Apaches, caught sight of some of the Apaches one night and realized that the leaders of these attempted murderers was none other than Eskimizen and captain Chiquito! Eskiminzin briefly owned the kidnapped Felix and Captain Chiquito was the leader of the band of Apache that The Apache kid belonged to! As Roadrunners would know! For the Apache kid’s story, subscribe and become a Roadrunner! I actually opened the entire Apache Kid series with a great quote from Capitan Chiquito who said, quote:

It seems to me that God gave everything to the White man and nothing to the Indian and so you must expect the Indian to help himself to what he needs. End quote.

Because of these raids and many like it, the army set up Fort Grant near Tucson which was to protect farmers and ranchers along the San Pedro River and in Aravaipa canyon, that very significant place for the Apache. And O’odham before them. But again, Fort Grant will become very important to our story soon.

Over in the east, at the Bosque Redondo, that horrid reservation of Navajo and Apache, things were not going well. While it was a lush environment… it was mostly lush with grass. There weren’t a lot of trees. Definitely not enough to build all of the buildings the fort would need. Not to mention homes for the Indians. One soldier commented on Fort Sumner’s hospital and called it only suitable for to keep pigs in.

The locals were none too thrilled with the reservation either. First of all they didn’t want that many Indians next to them but also the Government took the lush grassland from ranchers to house the Indians. Sure, they paid the Ranchers but no one likes imminent domain…

Not to mention the Pecos would often flood which would wipe out any crops the Apaches were attempting to plant. And that water would often spread dysentery to both the Apaches and amongst the troops guarding them. It was not an easy place to live despite Carleton’s insistence that the Indians not only live but make a living at the spot.

The very capable Indian agent, agent Steck that I talked a lot about in the last episode, he would complain to Carleton of the horrible conditions at the Bosque but Carelton told him essentially, look, New Mexico is under my martial law so you can do what I say or you can resign. Other Indian agents, especially one named Labadie, also complained and even the leader of the fort, Cremony, would complain. All the complaints fell on Carleton’s deaf ears.

After one raid on the Apaches at the Bosque by the Navajos though, Cremony and Labadie, the Indian agent they actually rode into battle with the Mescalero AGAINST the Navajo in retaliation. This would infuriate Carleton who would banish Labadie from New Mexico and it would get Cremony in trouble.

Then, to make matters worse, Carson was just too effective at rounding up the Navajos… too effective and very brutal… Eventually, 8,000 Navajos would ride into the Bosque Redondo which made the whole reservation unlivable.

First of all, that was too many people. Second, the Mescalero and Navajo cousins were bitter enemies with scores to settle. And lastly, the military, in its infinite wisdom, as soon as the navajos arrived, they gave them the already planted and tilled land the Apaches had been working on since their arrival. Clearly, this was not going to work.

Carson and Cremony told Carelton as much and… much to my own surprise… Carleton agreed! Something had to be done… This definitely does not sound like the man who ordered every Apache and Navajo man to be killed without warning while enslaving, I mean imprisoning all the women and children but, Carleton would write to Lincoln’s Republican Congress and say, hey, if we don’t get this problem solved in this reservation I established, the Indians over here under my command will die by the thousands. What he wrote is… almost laughable since the US was killing its southern brothers by the hundreds of thousands but he wrote, quote, With other tribes whose lands we have acquired ever since the Pilgrims stepped on shore at Plymouth, this has been done too often. For Pity’s sake, if not moved by any other consideration, let us as a great nation, for once treat the Indian as he deserves to be treated. End quote.

I have no idea where this change of heart came from and I don’t know why the Republican Congress felt more pity for the Apaches and Navajos than their southern brothers but… the nation at war decided Carleton was right and approved $100,000 in food, clothing, and farming tools for the Bosque Redondo.

But of course, it didn’t turn out as great as Carleton, Carson, Cremony, and the Indians would have liked it to. Hutton writes of this money laundering, quote:

It was far too little and much too late. The supplies that eventually reached the reservation were barely ser-viceable. Broken and surplus goods had been unloaded from the eastern warehouses of war profiteers so that the Indians received moth-eaten clothing, flimsy bolts of cloth, and rusted or defective farming tools. Blankets, billed at $22 to the government, weighed a pound less than the standard-issue military blanket that cost $4.50. And so it went—as the Indians were defrauded, venal contractors made huge profits, and the Republican politicos in Washington looked the other way. End quote.

It’s almost as if governments spending huge sums of money on wars has always been about benefiting those already making a profit on death and destruction.

Cremony, although disheartened, continued to fight for the Mescaleros he had under his charge. All the while, he would spend a lot of time talking with them, learning from them, hunting with them, he’d even participate in their ceremonies. He came to understand the Apaches. He came to look up to them and their refusal to assimilate and become slaves to the American way. A Mescalero Chief named Cadete even tried to convince him in the errors of the American way. He told Cremony in 1865 in a lengthy argument against modernity, quote,

You say that because you learned from books, you can build all these big houses and talk with each other any distance, and do many wonderful things. Now, let me tell you what we think. You begin when you are little to work hard, and work until you are men in order to begin fresh work. You say that you work hard in order to learn to work well. After you get to be men, then you say, the labor of life commences; then you build the houses, and ships, and towns and everything.

Then, after you have got them all, you die and leave them behind. Now, we call that slavery. You are slaves from the time you begin to talk until you die; but we are free as air.

We never work, but the Mexicans and others work for us.

Our wants are few and easily supplied. The river, the wood and plain yield all that we require, and we will not be slaves. End quote.

Now as host I get to editorialize this incredible quote that sure, sounds great, I mean, why be a slave to the system, man… capitalism is evil… but there was one sentence that gave the game away. He said, We never work, but the Mexicans and others work for us.

Well, isn’t that nice. We are not slaves but we have slaves! We have slaves that we not only steal from but regularly kill. Entire Mexican towns, we kill. We also kidnap their children. Before the Mexicans, the Apache stole from the Jumanos. They completely wiped out the Jumanos. The once great Mogollon people are no more because the Apache stole everything from bison to crops to pottery from the Jumanos people. They also stole from the Puebloans before they stole from the Mexicans and Spanish. Before that, well, there had to be a reason they were kicked out of the Great white North as the Canadian Chipewyan Chief Tijon told Ingsted. Sure, it’s nice to have every one else do the work for you as you profit off their quote unquote slave labor. No wonder the Apache didn’t want to assimilate.

Now of course, the Apache had more than their share of depredations and raids and murders and massacres and kidnappings perpetrated against them. I’ve gone over both sides pretty equally, I hope. But this quote just gets me going… the audacity. He sounds like, never mind.

You know, meanwhile, to the east, the South was in talks with European nations to offload their entire slave population on European ships to either the Caribbean or back to Africa. The south’s minority slave holding population was willing to give up their slaves and their means of making a living, albeit on the backs of others, but the south was willing to emancipate their slaves if it meant an end to the war. Not the Apache though. They would never settle down, Christianize, and farm. And Union commander Cremony was sympathetic to this…

We should have mercy on the Apache because this is their way of life… the South? Oh we should burn every one of their cities, set them back for half a century, and kill their men because their way of life is not worth a lick.

Hopefully I didn’t lose too many of my listeners there…

A few months after that conversation, in November of 1865, this chief Cadete would sneak his people away from Bosque Redondo and back into their mountains near Sierra Blanca. The other Apache at the reservation either joined the Comanche on the plains, joined the Chiricahua Apaches in the Mogollon Mountains, or went south to join the Lipan Apache. When Cremony arrived on the morning of November 4th, only 8 sick Apaches remained. Hutton writes, quote, no soldiers were sent in pursuit, but from that day forward the Mescaleros were again at war with the Americans. End quote.

So not only were the Chiricahua of Cochise at war with the White Eyes, but the Mescalero were now as well.

Before that though, in 1863, Lincoln, after having been persuaded by the Charles Poston I talked about in the last episode, well Lincoln finally split New Mexico into New Mexico and Arizona. The line chosen to separate the two territories was today’s border, the 109th meridian.

All during the civil war, Carleton had set up multiple forts all across Apacheria and Dinetah. From Apache Pass, the site of the cutting of the tent, to just north of modern day Prescott. Which would become the territorial capital.

If y’all recall the man who tricked Mangas, Jack Swilling, well two months after Mangas’ death, he and a bunch of other miners set out from Pinos Altos towards Prescott where gold was soon discovered. A mountain of the stuff, really. A mountain of gold that the Apaches had kept from the White Eyes for centuries. The cat was now out of the bag.

Jack Swilling would strike it rich with a find of $500,000… he would sell that claim, get in on the irrigation digging business, and turn the scorching desert around the Salt River into Phoenix, Arizona. And that town would eventually replace Prescott as the territorial capital.

Swilling would send two of these nuggets to Carleton over in Santa Fe and the Union General would say of the ex confederate who captured Mangas Coloradas, quote, I sincerely congratulate you on your fortune and believe no one better deserves it than yourself. End quote.

Swilling is a fascinating character I may have to do a deep dive into one of these days. For Roadrunners, no doubt.

Carleton would ship one of these nuggets that the confederate Jack Swilling gave him to Lincoln in DC and with it, he’d plead for more soldiers to guard the miners against Apache attacks. He wrote, quote:

If I can but have troops to whip away the Apaches, so that prospecting parties can explore the country and not be in fear all the time of being murdered, you will, without the shadow of a doubt, find that our country has mines of the precious metals unsurpassed in richness, number and extent, by any in the world. End quote.

Lincoln could spare no troops though.

By 1865 as the stupid war in the east drew to a close, Carleton was stripped of his command and reduced to a Lieutenant colonel. Partly on how he treated the Indians and partly on his enactment of Martial law Carleton had become an embarrassment. Arizona was given to the department of the Pacific, the California troops were sent home, and the Bosque Redondo with its awful conditions was investigated by none other than… General Sherman. Who, in a kinda funny way, remarked that with how much they were spending on the Navajo in this failed reservation, quote, I think we could better send them to the Fifth Avenue Hotel to board, end quote.

By 1868, the Navajo were sent back to Dinetah where they would make peace with the White Eyes and even be used as scouts against the Apache! More on that soon.

Even though hundreds of Navajo had died at the Bosque, it could be said that was a better fate than the 20 years of war that was barreling towards the Apache.

In 1865, with the close of the war, the US army moved back into the newly created territory of Arizona. There were at that time, 5,526 non-Indian Americans living there and that number included Johnny Ward, the step-father of the kidnapped boy, along with his wife Maria and their 5 other children. They would end up moving near the reoccupied Tubac where they’d farm. All the while, assuming their son was dead.

In response to the Apache threat, the newly re-arrived US Army built a string of forts all over the territory that had over 2,000 troops in them by 1869. Places like Camp Breckinridge, Camp McDowell, and Camp Grant. The forts contained both infantry and cavalry alike and all combing the land for Apaches. The whole endeavor was extremely expensive for the United States Government. The man in charge of it all was Sherman himself and this cost would be why he remarked that quote, we had one war with Mexico to take Arizona, and we should have another to make her take it back. End quote.

Arizona is indeed one heckuva place. Scorching temps that soar well over 100, sometimes reaching 120. There are vast stretches of seemingly impenetrable desert where everything has thorns or venom. Prickly pear, saguaro, cholla trees, spiders, snakes, heck even the Gila monster is venomous! It doesn’t rain but when it does it pours. It’s sandy and dusty. The rocks are sharp. The mountains seem impassable. If I didn’t love the American Southwest enough to explore it intimately and live in it… I’d tend to agree with the vile general. So this was the land the troops found themselves in. And when they weren’t fighting to the death with Apaches they were fighting the deadliness of boredom.

Arizona’s Anglo and Mexican residents, Arizona’s US Army cavalry and infantry troops, and Arizona’s Indian population, none of them had it easy in the territory. The Non Indian Civilians were constantly complaining that they needed more troops to protect them while the the Army troops complained that the citizens were ungrateful and antagonistic. And of course, the Indians wanted everyone out.

Everyone had a valid claim too. The citizens were constantly being attacked in their fields and their mines while the number of soldiers in the army were constantly being cut to prewar numbers. It didn’t help that the territory was being filled with ex-Confederates who were escaping the draconian and unconstitutional martial law of reconstruction only to be protected by the Buffalo Soldiers of whom some of them had a distaste for. For obvious reasons.

I won’t go into the Buffalo Soldiers too much in this or these episodes because I did a whole series on them! So check that out if you haven’t already.

Also at this time, desertions were at 30% or above for these far flung posts and often times the deserters would take off with a horse or two and their rifle. Many officers even suggested that the local residents would buy these stolen goods from the deserters and then resell them. Sometimes even to the army! A lot of these citizens made a living selling goods to the army, hence why they wanted a bigger presence.

The reward to locals was only $20 for arresting a deserter too. Not to mention, desertion may have been the goal for many of these men who were fresh off the boat from Europe and were looking for an easy way west to the California and Arizona gold mines. As Hutton puts it, there were more European immigrants getting off the eastern boats every month than there were all of the Apaches combined…

Another problem the Arizonans had was that the southwest would, in 1870 be carved up into two distinct regions. Arizona would be in the department of the Pacific and would be ran out of Los Angeles by an ineffective leader and New Mexico with Texas would be ran by Lt. General Sheridan of the Dept of the Missouri. That made combined efforts difficult and sometimes impossible. Especially when it came to the Chiricahuas who right there on that border and would fly between the Chiricahua Mountains and the Mogollon Mountains.

The leader of the department of the Pacific, a man named Colonel Stoneman, the ineffective leader, he hated Arizona. He was, like so many future Californians, unable to tolerate anything but California’s quasi Mediterranean climate, Stoneman would quite literally rather be dead in California than alive in Arizona. He called Tucson a quote unquote hot, sickly town and decided he’d rather run the violent, harsh, incredibly complicated situation and territory that was Arizona, from Los Angeles.

And from his nice Los Angeles lair, he wrote to DC and said of Arizona, quote, the apache nation is nearly harmless. End quote. He also wrote that the Indian Affairs were, quote, in as satisfactory a condition as can reasonably be expected. End quote.

Good to know they’ve never been competent in that state. I would know. I lived there a year and a half.

This was the satisfactory condition that Stoneman was talking about: Between 1866 and 1870 in Arizona, 26 American soldiers were killed and 58 were wounded in some 137 skirmishes with the Apaches. In New Mexico that number of skirmishes was only 33 but the fighting there was just as fraught.

Traveling through the area was an incredibly dangerous adventure. Poston the old stage man compiled a list of 425 Americans killed in the territory between 1856 and 1862 and another 170 Americans killed between 1865 and 1874.

In Pima County, Arizona alone, between July of 1868 and July 1869, more than fifty Americans were killed by the Apache and over the next year, another 47 would lose their lives in raids. The Apache were inflicting significant fear and death upon the Americans. And the problems only seemed to be mounting.

Photographer and writer William Bell, wrote in his War of the Rebellion that the entire area of the American southwest had been under attack for a thousand years by the Apache. He wrote, quote, The Indians really have possession of this territory, it is feared that the Hualapais, the Yavapais, and the different tribes of Apaches, with some straggling Navajos, have combined for the purpose of exterminating the whites. End quote. Bell then goes on to mention the Hohokam ruins of Casa Grande, the canals, and other monumental architectural ruins of the Phoenix Basin. He correctly surmised that they had once been farmers and sedentary. He then incorrectly states that eventually, they were wiped out by the Apache! He actually wrote that the Hohokam had been wiped out by the Apaches who quote, have been waging for ages unceasing war against the cultivator of the soil. End quote.

While he’s wrong about the Hohokam, the Apache, I believe, did wipe out the Mogollon to the north and the east of Phoenix. They probably burned Montezuma’s Castle, and they definitely contributed to the destruction of the Mogollon’s descendants, the Jumanos. Now, the Anglo and Mexican settlers of the area believed they were next.

To combat this impending doom, the Arizonans began their own policy of extermination, essentially. One Kentuckian sent by Lincoln to Arizona, named Daniel Ellis Conner, he remarked that, quote, it was the rigid rule all over the country to shoot these savages upon sight. End quote.

Another man sent by Lincoln to be a judge in Arizona, a man named Joseph Allyn he said, quote, a war of extermination has in fact already begun. Indians are shot wherever seen. End quote.

Not only shot when seen, but also invited to feasts with food and drink and then shot in the back the head, Mexican style… This very thing happened in 1864 and 30 Apaches were massacred in what became known as the Massacre at Bloody Tanks. I also read that only 19 Apaches were killed and I also read that it was during a pitched battle, not in this cowardly style so… I don’t know which is true, but it was true that war had overtaken both sides and it was getting brutal.

One American wrote at the time that the Apache were like ghosts… he said, quote we have a horror of them… that you feel for a ghost. We never see them, but when on the road are always looking over our shoulders in anticipation. When they strike, all we see is the flash of the rifle resting with secure aim over a pile of stones. End quote.

This ghost sickness, different from the Apache form, but this American ghost sickness is what infected them and caused them to shoot any Apache they saw on the street or in the wilderness. After all, he could have been the one that shot my friend, or wife, or stole my cattle or child, and if he aint, well he may be one day.

One historian, Philip Deloria termed this: Defensive conquest. It’s what captured the west for the Americans. A cycle of violence that both sides could not have stopped even if they had wanted to.

Another factor that made matters worse for the military and civilians of the American Southwest was the Indian Bureau. Or as the army officers called it, the Indian ring. This Indian ring was accused of being ran by according to Hutton, quote crooked politicians, thieving bureaucrats, profiteering capitalists, and misguided humanitarians, end quote. These men would then swindle both the government and the Indians out of, well, everything they were owed. Essentially, NGOs would lobby the government to do something which they would by spending money which would then go back into the hands of the politicians, the unelected officials, and the people who ran the NGOs or Non Governmental Organizations. Organizations like a humanitarian one. Hm. Sounds curiously like our current defense department, NGOs, unelected officials and politicians, doesn’t it?

In 1868, general of the union army, general grant was elected president and in his inaugural speech in 1869 he said of the Indians, which certainly included the Apache, he said of them, quote, The proper treatment of the original occupants of this land—the Indians—is one deserving of careful study. I will favor any course toward them which tends to their civilization and ultimate citizenship. End quote.

So unlike the Mexicans, annihilation was not the stated policy of the United States. Although certain military leaders and civilians in the Southwest, would prosecute the war against the original occupants of this land… a little differently.

President Grant though, after this speech would immediately meet with liberal advocates in DC. The same liberal abolitionist advocates who pushed for a war in the south to free the slaves. This time the progressives wanted a new reservation system and to bring all the Indians in the nation unto Christ.

A month after the speech, congress established the board of Indian commissioners which was staffed with religious leaders and progressive reformers to do just that. Get the Indians onto reservations and to teach them the gospel. At the same time, the old treaties were deemed moot and the new Indian peace policy was lead by a Seneca Indian named Ely Parker who had been Grant’s aid during the civil war. The Seneca were quite a distance from the southwest as their homeland is in the state of New York. This though, would mark the first time that the leader of the Fedral Government’s Indian policy was actually ran by an Indian.

So under this peace policy, there was a uniform policy that everyone had to follow. There was no more making your own treaties or deals with independent Indian nations or tribes. Also, the military could not enter the reservation or conduct any affairs on a reservation unless specifically invited into the reservation by the Indian agent. Although, any Indians off the reservation were deemed hostile and were free to be fired upon. As Hutton points out though, the Apaches, they had no reservations. So how were they supposed to be treated?

To make matters even more complicated, the first Indian agents appointed by the fedrals were.. quakers… the completely nonviolent sect of Christians that settled Pennsylvania and the northeast. They were the ones to turn the Indians peaceful. Or good.

General Sheridan in response to all of this sarcastically and infamously said, quote, the only good Indian is a dead Indian. End quote.

It seems the people of the American Southwest agreed. One Texas newspaper at the time wrote quote, give us Phil Sheridan and send philanthropy to the devil. End quote.

The people of the southwest not only believed they were under attack by the Apache, but with these policies, they felt they were also under attack by the federal government. That makes sense on account of some of these southwesterners being ex Rebs, but the policies the government were laying out did seem like they were going to do more harm to the Americans than to the Indians. The Weekly Arizona in 1869 printed, quote, the Indian and the government maintain the present harmony in the project of crushing out the settler. End quote.

Of course, if you’re an Indian, not necessarily an Apache, but if you were an Indian in the nation, this was welcome news. Although, instead of physical annihilation this policy would ultimately lead to cultural annihilation. In theory. But then again, that was the point. Assimilation meant Christianize and Capitalize.

In 1870, the Indian Commission did in fact create a reservation in Apacheria. It was called Fort Apache… and the Apache, steered quite clear of it. One officer was quoted as saying something to the effect that the few Apache who came in, were impossible to guard once they’d arrived anyways.

In reality, many Arizonans felt like THEY were the ones in reservations. THEY were confined to settlements where they could protect themselves while the INDIANS were free to roam around. The Mexicans and Spaniards had once felt the same way.

Now in reality, while the Apache were free to roam around, they were also constantly surprised in their hiding places and in their rancherias and regularly slaughtered including their women and children. Jacoby’s book goes a little too hard with the brutality that the Americans perpetrated upon the Apaches. There were two horrendous stories told that paints the Americans as straight up evil, only for the author at the end of both cruel anecdotes to remark that the men were clearly insane with one even being acquitted by the court martial on account of him being literally insane.

I hope I am presenting a less biased account than some of the books I read which went a little too hard for either camp.

I can clearly and obviously relate to both sides of the story but… being an Anglo American who lives in Apacheria in peace, I am definitely biased.

Since the cutting of the tent in Apache Pass, Cochise and Mangas had been the boogeymen of the era and area. They were indeed free to run around as they pleased. Of course, after Mangas’ murder, the sole owner of the boogeyman mantra became Cochise, and every depredation, death, and desecration in both northern Mexico and the American Southwest was blamed on he and his band, the Chiricahua.

And there were plenty of that going around. Newspapers at the time reported on all of them real or imagined. The Apaches, despite what Daklugie said to Eve Ball, did in fact mutilate the corpses of the dead with great frequency in these days.

Really though, since 1862, since the big battle at Apache Pass, Cochise had taken his people to Mexico where they were hiding out. I mean, of course they would return and raid New Mexico and Arizona in the summers but they felt safe down in Mexico, away from the White Eyes… that is, until 1868, when the Mexican Government, freshly liberated from Emperor Maximilian the 1st and the French… which… is a fascinating story I implore everyone to look into, but, ever since ridding themselves of the Emperor of Mexico in 1867, the Mexican government was able to focus again on the Apache problem in their north. So in 1868, they manned the Presidio at Janos with a new garrison. This effectively shut off the Apache’s trade with the Mexicans. That, oh, and the renewed scalp bounty! Cause Mexico never learned from that, apparently, but the new garrison at Janos and the scalp bounty combined would force Cochise and his Chiricahua band back north into the Dragoon Mountains near Tombstone, Arizona. Obviously, this caused even more, year round problems for the Americans in southern Arizona over the next couple years.

In 1869, Cochise and his warriors would capture mail carriages, kill Texas cowboys moving cattle, and slaughter prominent mine owners. In response the army sent out patrols to chase them down but they too would be ambushed and a few of them killed. In those days, as one cavalry sergeant noted, it was the right rule to always leave one bullet in reserve… no one wanted to be captured by Cochise.

The leader of this cavalry unit, First Cavalry was named Captain Bernard and he and his Mexican, once kidnapped by Apache, scout named Grijalva, they constantly pursued Cochise into the various mountains which forbade he and his band of Chiricahua from ever settling down and having a quiet life. Grijalva said of this time, quote, when you go hunting for Apaches, you have in your mind’s eye what you are going to do, but you can never know what you may be led into or what you are going to find. It is a very uncertain business. End quote.

Felix, aka Mickey Free, the kidnapped boy, he is the focal point of Paul Andrew Hutton’s incredible and broad book The Apache Wars and so there is a lot on the important boy. I mean, his kidnapping did cause the cutting of the tent with Cochise which would lead to Mangas’ death and the longest war in American history as Hutton’s title suggests. This American Apache War lasted nearly 25 years which is indeed longer than our 19.9 year long war in Afghanistan.

So eventually, Mickey Free, after being kidnapped and given to the Chief Eskiminzin, he was traded by the man to a shaman for some special medicine. This shaman then traded the boy to an Apache named Nayundiie. Nayundiie and his family would eventually come to treat the prisoner slave as their own child with love and compassion.

The boy would grow up with his adopted brother and the two would become hunters going after pack rats and other small game. They’d race up mountains with their mouths full of water only to race back down again and spit all the water out. They were taught to harvest the mezcal and the pine nuts. He participated in the Apaches gambling, which was their favorite past time. That’s according to Daklugie in Eve Ball’s Indeh. The Apaches would wager on everything from horse races to foot races to the hoop and pole game. Everything that could be, would be wagered on.

Mickey Free would later tell Americans about the ceremonies he witnessed like the all important girl’s puberty ceremony. There was another ceremony where he witnessed a dancer jump through the fire without getting hurt… he also witnessed another shaman dancer who stabbed himself in the chest with a knife. I’ll let Hutton tell y’all about that. Quote:

Among his most vivid memories was the fire dance, in which medicine men holding wands of eagle feathers jumped through fire untouched. "They would stagger about as if drunk," he recalled years later, "and scatter fire all over themselves without hurting themselves." On another occasion, a medicine man won over the people by stabbing himself.

"Give me a knife," Felix remembered the shaman declaring. “See! I plunge it in my breast! Make me a cigarette." He smoked the cigarette and the smoke from it emerged out of his chest. "I saw it with my own eyes," Felix declared. "I saw the blood and the smoke come together.” End all quotes.

That is a wild story and I… almost wish I could see it.. almost.

So by now, the young kidnapped boy had become a White Mountain Apache. So much so that when they saw a group of American soldiers camped near the Gila River in their mountains, the kidnapped boy did not mention to the White Eyes that he was not an Apache.

Little did Felix know, and maybe he no longer cared, but in May of 1867, the Apaches once again stole from his step father Johnny Ward. The Apaches yet again raided the man’s ranch and took all of his livestock in broad daylight. Johnny Ward was injured in this attack though and eventually, in October, he would die from his wounds. His wife, Felix’ mother would end up selling the ranch for barely anything and moving herself and her children back to Sonora. She wouldn’t even survive the trip though and with a broken heart, she got sick and passed away in Magdalena. Her kids, Felix’ siblings would be given to family members.

Such was life in the harsh frontier… We will hear more on Felix aka Mickey Free in the next episode.

In the same year that Grant was elected, 1868 a once disgraced Wisconsin war hero named Howard Cushing, came back from a one year suspension to prove himself in the west against the Apache. He had quite the name to defend and he’d uphold its status during his time in command of F troop in the third cavalry. One of his brothers had died at Gettysburg and another had been a quote unquote daring naval commander. Podcast Alumni Author, David Roberts in his Apache book titled Once They Moved Like the Wind, he called Cushing, quote, the best Indian fighter the army in Arizona had. End quote.

In New Mexico and Texas he fought the Lipan and Mescalero Apaches before being transferred to Arizona. Specifically to a place called Camp Grant in March 1870.

At the same time that Cushing arrived, a second lieutenant John  G Bourke would also arrive to camp grant. A place he called quote the most forlorn parody upon a military garrison in that most woe-begone of military departments, Arizona, end quote. I have mentioned Bourke before but we will hear a lot about him in this episode.

Camp Grant was actually established in 1860 as Fort Aravaypa. It sits at the intersection of the San Pedro River and the all important Aravaipa Canyon. Today the marker for the fort is south of Globe on 77, far southwest of Phoenix. At the time, it was a very good defensive spot on a hill that overlooked roads and rivers. It was eventually renamed to Fort Breckinridge but Union soldiers burned it when the war began. Later, the Californians under Carleton reoccupied it and by 1865, it became known as Camp Grant after Civil War Union leader and future president.

This is where Cushing and Bourke would serve and this is where what would become known as the Camp Grant Massacre would occur.

Bourke would serve under Cushing and he would remember Cushing’s quote, determination, coolness, and energy. End quote. But Bourke had his own strengths and he would be an avid studier of the southwest and its people while also being an invaluable chronicler of all that he saw and participated in.

One of the first things he saw, unfortunately, was, well, I’ll let Hutton tell it.

Bourke had hardly settled into his new quarters before he was shocked by a local custom. Among the first Apaches he met at Camp Grant was a woman whose nose had been cut off by a jealous husband. "The woman was not at all bad looking," Bourke noted, "and there was not a man at the post who did not feel sorry for the unfortunate who, for some dereliction, real or imagined, had been so savagely disfigured. End all quotes.

This… despite the Apache’s adverseness towards mutilation, was actually a common practice among some in the tribe. Especially when it came to wives who committed adultry.

According to Apache custom, husbands were in the right to kill their wives and their wives lovers if they were caught in the act. And affairs weren’t all too uncommon. I mean, some of these warriors were gone for months at a time, after all. But as Hutton points out, it was up to the tribal leaders to insist on a cool head for the slighted husband. If not the cutting off of the nose, banishment would often ensue.

The Apache even thought that twins were a sign of infidelity so twins were a bad omen. According to an Apache elder though, more often than not, if an Apache man, quote, finds out she is unfaithful, he whips her, cuts her nose, or else kills her. End quote.

For the men? Well that’s a different story. Unfaithful men were often called night crawlers and they could easily get away with such frivolities.

This practice of cutting or killing women was actually used as an excuse for why the Apache should be dominated and reformed by radical republican liberals in DC. Bourke would even brag about making new laws for the Apache in regards to these depredations. He would write that one of the first laws he quote laid down for their guidance was that the women of the tribe must be treated just as kindly as the men. End quote.

Hmm. So I guess Afghanistan wasn’t the first time we forced liberal educations and western values onto a foreign enemy we were also killing. Come to think of it, the entire Second World War… never mind.

By 1870 Cochise had moved back up into the United States to his beloved Dragoon Mountains of southern Arizona and he was pursuing his reign of vengeful terror. One southern Arizona pioneer, a man named, John Spring said that in these years, quote, Cochise’s band killed no less than thirty four of my friends and acquaintances within a radius of 50 miles of Calabasas. End quoe.

Well, Cushing, he had to put a stop to it, or at least he had to try. So beginning in August of 1870, Cushing began dealing crushing defeats to the Apache from Camp Grant. His men were constantly in the field, no longer fighting boredom. He destroyed and burned to the ground a total 5 Apache rancherias over the next six months. He killed numerous Apache, over thirty in one raid alone. And he destroyed their crops everywhere he went. As Hutton in Apache Wars puts it, quote, the Apaches came to recognize his face as the enemy. End quote.

During one punitive raid, Cushing pushed deep into Mexico, but all the while, it was he who was being pursued. Cushing had about 20 soldiers with him as they crossed back into Arizona but the entire time, everywhere he went the grass had been burned or was then currently burning. The apaches also burned signal fires all night all around Cushing and his men which kept them up at night. The Apaches, led by Joh and Geronimo were toying with the hardened commander. After a few days the horses were hungry, the men were on edge, the Apache were following.

Joh and Geronimo were relatives by way of marriage and the two were inseparable friends. They were seeking vengeance for Cushing’s raids and… well, Mexican raids, and every other depredation that had been done to their family and friends.

Joh was a Nednhi Apache who were characterized by even other Apaches as being outlaws. One Bedonkohe cousin called them quote, outlaws recruited from other bands, and included in their membership a few Navajos as well as Mexicans and Whites who had been captured while children. End quote. Geronimo, the infamous Bedonkohe warrior who had lost his family to a raid in Mexico, if you’ll remember, he didn’t care about such things when it came to his brother in arms, Joh.

And on this day in May of 1871, none of that mattered a bit as they laid a perfect trap for Cushing and his men to ride directly into.

The Apaches lured Cushing into a canyon with fresh tracks of an Apache woman. Taking the bait, Cushing sent three scouts into the steep canyon on ahead as the rest of the men followed. Eventually though, the leader of the scouts, Sgt. John Mott, knew the score and realized he was leading his men to death. So, the Sgt. and his men began ascending the walls of the canyon to escape the trap but it was too late. 15 Apaches sprang and began firing. The men were holed up, waiting for death. One of them got their hat stolen by a mounted Apache as the battle commenced! Those Apache had some nerves…

Cushing came to the rescue with his men firing at the hidden Apache. Sgt Mott begged Cushing to get everyone the heck out of there but Cushing decided to charge. These White Eyes only made it 20 yards before one of the men took a bullet to the face. No sooner had his corpse hit the ground then did the Apache charge. Mott wrote of the scene afterwards and said, quote, it seemed as if every rock and bush became an Indian. End quote.

  In the ensuing charge, Cushing was shot in the chest at which point he screamed at Mott, quote, Sergeant, Sergeant, I am killed, take me out, take me out! End quote. Mott and another man rushed to Cushing and began dragging him to safety but after about 10 steps, the man took another bullet but this one to the face. Mott and the man dropped Cushing’s Body and retreated to the nearby Babocomari River. Two more Americans would die that day. Or rather one American and one Englishman. The survivors rode all night to camp to warn the others.

By the time a retaliatory strike had been rallied, Geronimo and Joh, along with their surviving warriors were long gone, deep down in the Sierra Madre Mountains.

Lt. Bourke, who had to bury the bodies said of the Apache after the infamous attack, quote, The Apache, was in no sense, a coward. End quote.

Cushing, the most capable Indian fighter and the highest ranking American military officer the Apaches would kill for the remainder of the Apache wars, Cushing had made it his personal mission to find and kill Cochise. But in the end, he was killed by Geronimo and Joh.

Joh is the father of Daklugie, one of the narrators of Eve Ball’s Indeh, which I am reading for subscribers. Daklugie talks about how his father had made it his life mission to kill Cushing! From the time of Cushing’s death until about the 1960s, it was indeed believed that Cochise had been the one that killed Cushing but we now know it was Joh and his unending hatred for the Lt. who had caused so much death amongst the Apache.

Not all Apache were wanting to continue the fight though.

In 1871 at Fort Grant, a group of Apache women would approach the gates waving an improvised white flag and they’d ask to speak to the fort’s commander. That man was Lt. Royal Whitman. He obliged the ladies who were looking for a lost child that they thought the Americans had taken after a raid. I read both that no child could be found and that the child had been found but he didn’t want to go to the mountains with the older women. I’m not sure which one is true but either way, before the women left, they asked if their chief could come by and speak to Lt. Whitman as well. Whitman said that would be fine.

Days later, the Apache leader, Eskiminzin himself, who briefly owned the captured boy, he met with Whitman and said he and his people were tired. They wanted to be done with the war. They were tired, they were hungry, and they were scared of the Americans. Eskiminzin then asked if he could settle in Aravaipa Canyon near fort Grant.

Since this clashed with the new Peace Policy which forbade having localized treaties and deals… Whitman was unsure. So he told the chief, give me a couple days, and then he sent off a dispatch. 

Six weeks later, instead of getting an answer, Whitman got a rebuke from headquarters saying he didn’t follow proper procedure by attaching a summary of his report to the outside of the envelope so it didn’t get read. Gotta love bureaucracy.

Whitman said to heck with this and decided he’d house these 150 or so Apaches right next to the fort in a place that became known as Camp Grant. He decided he could do this because he called these Apaches Prisoners of War, although… Whitman did not disarm these Apache prisoners of war… He thought that their weapons were of poor quality so he didn’t bother. But the Apaches, they were smart, and they didn’t bring their best weapons, they hid those in the mountains. Whitman also allowed them to CARRY said weapons when hunting and guarding their women… so much for prisoners of war.

Camp Grant wasn’t like the other reservations in other ways either. Whitman, who seems to be quite intelligent and industrious, if not somewhat naive, he instituted a ration policy and a work program that gave Apache workers tickets which they could use to redeem for more food and goods. He even worked with local ranchers to have the Apache harvest some of their crops for pay. Eventually… this lead to the camp’s numbers increasing from 150 to five… hundred Apaches.

As the numbers grew so did the trust between Whitman and the Apaches. It had to! Whitman, after all, was acting outside of his orders. If anything went wrong, it would be his head. Therefore he spent a considerable amount of time within the camp. He also checked the camp every 3 to 5 days to make sure no one was escaping. He truly came to trust Eskiminzin. Even Whitman’s second in command  WW Robinson, said quote, I was strongly opposed to the peace policy with these Indians when they first came in and was not convinced of their sincerity until I evidenced by watching their actions carefully. End quote.

Watching them carefully became tougher though when Whitman allowed the camp to move five miles upstream towards the spring…

It was true that the Indians were planting corn and seemingly more peaceful… had Whitman stumbled upon the correct plan for the Apache?

In reality, how many times had this happened before? How many times have I already talked about how one particular band wanted to come in and be peaceful only for them to turn around as soon as a ration is withheld or a crime is committed against them or they just get bored and leave?

In 1859 the US Army began to make treaties with certain bands only for them to abandon the terms and commit to raiding once again. The Spanish had dealt with that for hundreds of years.

This is how the settlers felt. This is what they assumed would happen. The settlers saw through what they perceived as a ruse and they weren’t willing to become victims of a fake peace they knew would soon be broken. Not to mention as Hutton puts it, quote, nearly every citizen of Tucson had lost property, a friend, or a relative to the Apaches. End quote.

In March of 1871, while the number of Apaches were growing at Camp Grant, the number of concerned citizens grew as well. And in that month, the citizens sent a delegate to meet personally with the ineffective Colonel Stoneman who was visiting from Los Angeles. The chairman of the delegation known as the committee of public safety was a man named William Oury.

Oury was… well he had an incredible history. The man was born in Virginia in 1817 but he eventually made it out to Texas when Texas was still controlled by the Mexicans.

And then, I kid you not, he was AT the Alamo WHILE it was surrounded by Santa Ana’s forces. But he was sent in the middle of the night to escape with a message for Sam Houston to send reinforcements. He was one of the last Americans to escape that disaster alive.

He then participated in another Texas disaster in 1842 that became known as the Mier Expedition. Oury and three hundred other Texans rode deep into Mexico only to be caught! And each and every one of them was sentenced to death… until that got changed to decimation. The old Roman legionnaire punishment. That meant, only one out of every ten would die. To facilitate this choosing, the Mexicans filled a jar with white and black beans. White bean meant you live. Black bean meant you die.

Frederic Remington in 1896 painted this scene incredibly well with his The Drawing of the Black Bean. Everyone should check it out. Also, in the incredible novel by Cormac McCarthy, the greatest American novel written yet, Blood Meridian, one of the characters, a real life man named Bigfoot Wallace is mentioned. McCarthy writes, at night he’d tell them of his years in the west, an amiable warrior, a reticent man. He’d been at Mier where they fought until the gutters ran with blood by the gallon. End quote.

Oury would survive that decimation only to be marched down to Mexico City to prison. But eventually he’d be released, only to join the brand new Texas Rangers! And then, once the Mexican American war broke out, the man joined the fight and fought with future president General Zachary Taylor!

The man clearly had beef with the Mexicans… I mean.. he sure did like fighting against them. But, surprisingly, after the war, Oury… moved to Durango, Mexico! Once there, he married a nineteen year old Mexican woman named Inez Garcia and the two headed to California for the Gold Rush. And then, he and his wife moved from California to Tucson in 1856 where he got a job for the ill fated Overland Mail company.

Shortly after his move to Tucson, his brother joined him and they had an extremely profitable dairy farm. But when the Civil war broke out, the two Virginians obviously sided with their home state and became ardent Confederates… that is… until 1862 when the Union governor of Arizona appointed Oury as the first Mayor of Tucson…

After the war, the dude fought for free public schools in the town and even sat on the school board. He obviously, was fluent in Spanish so he was also an interpreter. By 1870, when his daughter was married in the town, the newspaper covered the occasion, and the band from Fort Grant came and played.

So him being leader of the committee of public safety in 1871 was a no brainer. But he was so disgusted by his meeting with Stoneman that he said, quote, we can expect nothing more from him… if anything further is expected we must depend upon our own efforts for its consummation. End quote.

The Committee of Public Safety just rubs me the wrong way… too Jacobin and Robespierre. What a horrible man. He earned that 15 minutes of applause after his beheading.

Oury though, he was a very different man in a very different place and time. Although his future actions would also be described by some as horrible.

At this time in 1871, despite the 500 or so quote unquote peaceful Apaches at Camp Grant, there were still atrocities and attacks being carried out on the people of Tucson and Tubac. One instance saw Perry Redmond at Fort Apache get a lance through his heart in March. And then four… other citizens were killed in the same week by different Apache attacks. And the evidence consistently pointed towards Camp Grant… the evidence was inescapable. Footprints in the sand inescapable.

Juan Elias, the prominent Vecino, he had recently been wounded by an Apache raid that stole his vast herd of cattle. He would track the thieves after the raid though, dang near to the gates of Camp Grant.

And then… the final straw came when 28 year old Leslie B Wooster and his woman were brutally murdered at their ranch just outside of Tubac on March 20th.

Oury wrote of the impending crashing wave, quote, the work of death and destruction was kept up with ever increasing force until the slaughter of Wooster and wife in the Santa Cruz above Tubac so enflamed the people that an indignation meeting was held in Tucson… and it was determined to raise a military company at once. End quote.

Unfortunately for the Apache at Camp Grant, the people of Tubac and Tucson decided they needed to punish someone for this murder despite it probably not being committed by these particular Apache’s led by Eskiminzin. That day at Camp Grant was ration day and there were more Indians at the fort than were normally nearby! The citizens of the committee did not know this though and justice, in their eyes, must be served.

84 Americans would sign up to be on the raid with Oury. Almost a hundred Mexican Vecinos would also sign up. But just as important as the Vecinos and the pledged Americans were another group who had been at war with the Apache for 200 years: The O’odham.

So Oury and the Elias brothers went down south and met with the O’odham’s leader, a man named Chief Francisco Galerita. This Indian warrior man who was also an agriculture Christian, he needed no convincing. He was in. So were the nearby O’odham of Coyote Sitting’s band. They promised the Committee one hundred warriors.

On April 28th, the date when this military company of civilians, that did not in fact have military backing, but on April 28th, Oury, the previously mentioned Elias brothers of Juan y Jesus, six other Americans, and quite a few Mexican Vecinos with O’odham warriors, they all met at the meeting spot in preparation for their assault on Camp Grant.

Yes, you heard that right… 6 of the over 80 Americans that pledged to be there… actually arrived.

Oury would tell the Elias brothers, quote, the valor of all these plumed knights seemed to have oozed out of their finger ends, end quote. Meaning they lost their strength the moment they signed the pledge.

One American who came through with his pledge was local merchant Sam Hughes who provided brand new Sharps Carbines and ammo.

Once at the meeting spot known as Tanque Verde, they held a quorum in Spanish which elected Jesus Elias as their leader. Then, the party of 92 O’odhams, 48 Vecinos, and 6 Americans, so 146 men in total, commenced a two day journey towards Camp Grant where righteous and horrendous violence was planned. And ultimately, executed.

The group travelled only at night so as not to alert the Apache or the Army.

Once at Eskimizin’s rancheria, 5 miles up the canyon, the Mexican Vecinos went in from the south while the O’odham and Americans surrounded the camp from the north. To the east and west were steep canyon walls.

The Apache’s only century were an older man and an older woman who were playing cards when the O’odham warriors, with their thick ironwood clubs beat them to death. No alarm was raised.

The massacre had begun. I’ll let Hutton describe the horrendous scene. Quote:

The slaughter commenced. The Papagos moved so quietly that most of the Apache victims died in their sleep from the blows of wooden war clubs. The barking of dogs and the cries of captive children awakened the village just as the sky began to brighten, but the canyon walls kept the village in darkness as the slaughter intensified. Soon the nightmarish scene was lit by the burning wickiups, casting bizarre shadows against the canyon walls. Some people scrambled up the rocks but were shot down by the Hispanics waiting in ambush. End quote.

It had to have been an awful, loud, horrifying scene…

Well, we know it was nightmarish because Whitman would later testify about what he came upon after the massacre. He said, quote, the work had been too thoroughly done… he later said, quote, I saw the dead bodies of several women that I recognized… Two were lying on their backs entirely naked and shot through the breast apparently with pistol balls. ... I saw the dead bodies of children—perhaps six. They had died apparently by gunshot wounds.... I recollect one child perhaps two years of age with the arm nearly cut off. Besides an old man… the only other dead body of a male was a boy perhaps sixteen years of age. End quote.

During the raid Eskiminzin was able to flee with his family. He ran across Aravaipa Creek with his two year old daughter in his arms but as he ran, he got separated from his two wives and their five other children. All of them would be killed by O’odham Papago war clubs. 125 Apaches were massacred that day and 29 children were taken captive as slaves for the O’odham. All of the 125 had been women and children except for 8… only 8 men were killed.

William Oury, the head of the committee who was known locally as uncle Billy, he would later state that quote, by eight o clock, our tired troops were resting and breakfasting on the San Pedro, a few miles above the post in full satisfaction of a work well done. End quote.

The Murder of those hostages in camp was an act of war against the United States.

Quote from the Ineffectual Military Commander Colonel Stoneman.

President Grant, probably none too pleased that this happened at a camp named after himself called the massacre quote unquote, pure murder. He then called for arrests and an investigation. He pretty much told the Arizona territorial governor, who was indeed on Uncle Baby Billy’s and the Elias’ side, Grant ordered the governor to arrest the perpetrators or risk martial law. Grant also fired Colonel Stoneman. The president meant business.

The trial that began after the massacre, the trial held in the same building where the massacre was planned, the trial was the first time in Arizona territorial history that a non-Apache was prosecuted for the killing of an Apache. Jacoby talks a little more about this trial and how it had some… odd parts to it. He wrote, quote:

Rather than determine the individual guilt or innocence of each suspect, it was agreed to try only Sidney DeLong (an alleged member of the attacking party and the mayor of Tucson) and let whatever judgment he received be applied to the rest of the defendants. (Why DeLong, who played only a marginal role in the Camp Grant Massacre, became the lead figure in the prosecution is not entirely clear, but it may have been because of his prominent position in Tucson's local government.) End quote.

The trial was held inside the old Spanish Presidio in Tucson and in attendance would be Anglos, Mexicans, and a lot of O’odham. The trial pretty much attempted to connect the Apache to the many recent murders and depredations done against the Mexican Vecinos and American Anglos. And also the O’odham. The Apache weren’t there to defend themselves since they were still hiding in the mountains in the hopes that they wouldn’t get yet another massacre perpetrated against them. 

The judge eventually dismissed any charges against the O’odham saying that they and the Apache have their own code of conduct in war and, quote, by the barbarous codes of both nations, the slaughter of their enemies, of all ages and sexes, is justifiable. End quote.

He then gave a lengthy speech before dismissing the jurors to reach a verdict. He said, quote:

The government of the United States owes its Papago, Mexican, and American residents in Arizona protection from Apache spoliation and assault. If such spoliation and assault are persistently carried on and not prevented, by the government, then the sufferers have a right to protect themselves and to employ force enough for the purpose. It is also to be added that if the Apache nation or any part of it persists in assailing the Papagos, or American, or Mexican residents of Arizona, then it forfeits the right of protection from the United States. End quote.

What are the odds this speech impacted the jurors? Probably pretty high.

It only took the jury 19 minutes to declare a verdict of Not Guilty.

Despite what happened to his people, Eskiminzin convinced the survivors, as well as another band of Pinal Apaches to come back to Camp Grant where Whitman promised more protection. But… on their way to the camp… a patrol of soldiers sent to help out with the protection of the camp from up north… they accidentally opened fire on Eskiminzin and his friends and in the confusion, they killed yet another of Eskiminzin’s warriors.

At the fort, Eskiminzin railed at Whitman for his utter and complete failure. He said with his trademark stutter, quote, I have tried and my people have tried but the peace you have promised to the Aravaipa has been broken, not once, but two times. Both times it was the Americans who broke the peace. The first one who breaks the peace is the one to blame. End quote.

After Eskiminzin stormed out of the Fort he rode his horse over to a nearby friend’s ranch. This friend was the thirty five year old Irishman named Charles McKinney. Since he lived so close to the camp, Charles had become friends with many Apache and had even hired them to work his fields. Charles, upon seeing his Apache chief friend, invited him in for dinner. Afterwards, the two buddies sat on the porch as all good friends do and they smoked tobacco while they worried about the current troubles involving the Apache and the White Eyes. Once the last of the tobacco had been smoked, Eskiminzin stood up, thanked Charles, shook his hand, and put his revolver against the Irishman’s face before pulling the trigger at point blank.

Eskiminzin said of the brutal murder, quote, I did it to teach my people that there must be no friendship between them and the white man. Anyone can kill an enemy, but it takes a strong man to kill a friend. End quote.

In the next episode I will continue to cover the long Saga of the Apache as I go into depth over Cochise, Geronimo, Victorio, Mickey Free, the Navajo Scouts that were used against the Apache, and so much more. Thank y’all, and I’ll see you again soon, in the American Southwest.

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