USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. I > Part 24
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MARIANO G. SAMANIEGO
J. S. MANSFELD
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CAPTAIN JOHN DE WITT BURGESS
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Guerra and José Antonio Sanchez, the last named succeeded by Edward Bale and later by Thos. A. Young, who died at Fort Mason. This last troop was recruited from around Santa Barbara. As soon as the battalion was recruited to strength, it was dispatched to southern Arizona, with headquarters at Mason, near Calabazas, from about August, 1865, to January, 1866, a sub-post being maintained at Tubac. The command was mustered out at Drum Barracks in March, 1866.
CREMONY'S ARIZONA EXPERIENCES
In 1868, Captain Cremony issued a book concerning his Southwestern experi- ences, entitled "Life Among the Apaches," mainly devoted to that interesting tribe. The work is full of personal comment and is an extremely interesting publication. Cremony. had served during the Mexican War and had acquired a fluent command of Spanish. He had not been a frontiersman, by any means, but was a Boston newspaper man. He had been interpreter for the Bartlett Boundary Commission in 1850 and had had some rare experiences around the Santa Rita copper mines and thence westward to California. Lieutenant Whipple and party had been met on this western journey at the Pima villages, where Cremony ac- quired fame as a great medicine man through the fact that he caused an eclipse of the moon to appear, a phenomenon repeated at a visit years thereafter, when the almanac again favored him. On the Gila his party reinterred the remains of the murdered Oatman family. At the crossing of the Colorado there was an encounter with the Yuma Indians, who had just massacred the Gallantin band. Cremony and his band managed to escape from the Indians by means of holding several chiefs as hostages and on the California desert met Major Heintzleman, with 300 soldiers, on his way to chastise the Indians for their various crimes. Cremony went back into Arizona within a couple of months as guide for a party of ten prospectors, which was broken up by an Apache assault on the Gila near Antelope Peak, he barely escaping with his life after being seized by a huge knife-armed savage.
CARLETON TURNS ON THE APACHES
General Carleton's troubles were far from ended when he had been seated as administrador of New Mexican affairs. From his letters, it is evident that he was a man of keen relish for detail, constantly commending or reproving his subor- dinates and writing a myriad of orders in which every circumstance possible in an impending trip seemed to have been thought out in advance. His work cov- ered much of civic administration and it is evident he became deeply attached to the land, which he repeatedly declared one of marvelous natural wealth, that would be developed in time. His principal worry concerned the Navajo and Apache Indians. The former he finally subdued, as elsewhere told, but the latter constantly were troublesome. He finally made up his mind that the only way to settle the Apache question was by annihilation of the tribe and gave orders: "There is to be no council held with the Indians, nor any talks; the men are to be slain whenever and wherever they can be found." He had had early contact with the tribesmen at Apache Pass. There, according to A. J. Doran, for four- teen miles on either side, the bones of slain oxen, horses and mules and the wreck- age of wagons were so thick that one could almost travel the distance without Vol. I-12
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setting foot upon the ground by walking upon these remains. Also, there was a long succession of graves, where succeeding and more fortunate emigrants had buried the mutilated bodies of their predecessors.
So, from chasing out the Confederates, the California column turned to the far more difficult task of running down the Apache. The forts of Arizona and many new posts were garrisoned by the volunteers till after the Civil War, when the regular army again became available. There was good fighting all along the line, for the Apaches had to be driven back after their virtual occupation of all Arizona, save the land of the Pimas. There were Indian fights without number and hardship and danger were the daily portion of the citizen soldiery for about four years. Though some of these encounters were of keenest interest, only the briefest of mention can be made of a few that are considered typical.
The Apache campaign of 1863 began auspicuously in March with the cap- ture of a large rancheria by Major MeCleave, who was pursuing a band of horse- thieves from Fort West and who in the attack on the village killed twenty-five redskins. In May, 1864, came a report from Chas. T. Hayden, merchant, that his wagon train had been attacked near the Chihuahua line and that the Indians had been defeated with a loss of eleven killed, including the noted Copinggan. In the same month Captain Tidball, with twenty-five of his men and some citizens killed fifty Indians in Aravaipa canon and with the loss of only one man. The party had marched five days without lighting a fire, maintaining silence, hiding by day and traveling by night over a country thitherto untrodden by white man. Tidball, who was in command at Bowie, was commended in orders by General Carleton, who added: "Mr. C. T. Hayden seems to have done well in helping punish these savages, who delight in roasting their victims."
The soldiery had no hesitation over invading Mexico, where the French authority had not reached the line in its support of Maximilian. Capt. R. H. Orton of the First California Cavalry made a number of expeditions across the line, in pursuit of Indians and outlaws and breaking up Confederate recruiting stations. On one occasion he saved from massacre the people of the Mexican town of Janos, which was under siege by the Apaches. In June, 1863, Captain Tuttle from Tucson, with twenty soldiers and a spy party of Mexicans and Indi- ans, chased a company of Secessionists through a portion of Sonora and western Arizona and along the borders of Sonora, running the party down at Altar, Sonora, effectually breaking it up, arresting a number of the members and preventing the balance from proceeding to join the rebel army in Texas, as had been planned.
April 7 of the same year Captain Whitlock of the Fifth California Infantry, with fifty-six men, attacked 250 Indians "near Mount Gray or Sierra Bonita, in south-central Arizona," and routed the redskins, of whom twenty-one were left dead on the ground. The next month Lieut. H. H. Stevens, with fifty-four men, was ambushed in Doubtful Cañon, near Steen's Peak, by 100 Indians, who were driven away with loss of two killed and twenty wounded. One soldier was killed. About the same time, the command of Lieut. Col. N. H. Davis, U. S. A., mainly comprising Tidball's company, destroyed several rancherias and killed forty In- dians. The same senior officer the following year, in the Mescal Mountains, killed forty-nine Indians and received a brevet as Colonel. In May, 1864, Captain Har- rover defeated 200 Apaches, who disputed his passage through Apache Pass.
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Apaches attacked a sub-post near Buchanan, where were stationed a corporal and five soldiers. The Indians finally set fire to the building and the soldiers, as the roof fell, fought their way out and to the main post. A column of Cali- fornia volunteers under Major Blakely had a fight with Apaches at the wheat fields on Pinal Creek, north of the present site of Globe, drove the Indians away and destroyed their crops of corn and wheat. July 22, 1865, Captain Messenger of the Fifth California Infantry, with thirty men, left Tubac and nine days later fought off more than 100 Indians in the Huachuca Mountains.
These engagements are listed as merely illustrative of the work that was done. The California commands within Arizona seemed to remain in garrison only long enough to refit and recoup and then would take to the hills again, hunt- ing down the Indians, a pursuit taken up with zest by almost every soldier, how- ever hard the experience.
CHAPTER XIII EARLY INDIAN TROUBLES
The Apache Character-Mangas Coloradas and His End-How Cochise started on the War Path-Border Desolation-Oatman Massacre-Captivity and Rescue of Olive Oatman.
When the Spaniards came, they found in Northern Sonora a gentle and peaceable Indian population that, save in the extreme north, accepted Christianity to some degree. Most of these Indians were Pimas and so the country is divided, for purposes of proper location, into Pimeria Baja and Pimeria Alta. Almost between the two divisions was Papagueria, the country of the Papago. Pimeria Alta ceased rather abruptly at the Gila River, save for a narrow fringe near the villages of the Pimas Gileños. North of this the region, mountainous and rough. was set aside on the early maps as Apacheria. In reality Apacheria came south- ward into the Santa Catalina and Rincon mountains, almost on the outskirts of Tucson and swung still farther southward, including the western spurs of the Sierra Madre, east of the Santa Cruz river, into northern Sonora and Chihua- hua. This region the traveler penetrated at his peril and from these mountains the settlements could expect almost continual forays directed against the cattle and other meager possessions of the early settlers, or of the valley-dwelling Indians. Every such raid was marked by bloodshed and usually by cruel torture, if time permitted.
Apacheria, in the language of Chas. T. Connell, was a "rock-bound, desert- skirted land of natural resources, the home of wandering clans of brutal war- riors, the retreat of marauding plunderers and murderous brigands, a country shunned and feared by the adventurous explorer, a blank on the map of the civ- ilized country." Connell, now chief of the southwestern division of the Immi- gration Service, for many years lived among the Apaches in Governmental em- ploy, at one time as chief of sconts at San Carlos. Thus he gained a rare insight into the Indian character, as well as a thorough knowledge of the land they had infested. He endorses the estimate of Captain Cremony, "that to be a prominent Apache is to be a prominent scoundrel. They are far from cowardly, but they are exceedingly prudent. In no case will they incur the risk of losing life, unless the plunder be most enticing and their numbers overpowering, and even then they will track a small party for days, waiting an opportunity to establish a secure ambush or effect a surprise."
It is simply impossible within the limits of a publication such as this to men- tion by name the Americans who are known to have been murdered by the Indian wolves of the hills. Before the Civil War the greatest loss was along the over- land road, where emigrants were slaughtered as they slowly toiled westward,
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filled with hope in promised wealth and comfort in the land of gold. Even hun- dreds of such murders were committed, for all the way from the Rio Grande to the Colorado there was real safety only at Tucson and in the brief passage through the Pima country. Then came the Civil War and a somewhat bettered condition, after about 3,000 California volunteers were sent into the Indian country. Yet it is told that in the ten years up to 1873 no less than 600 people were murdered by Indians in the country north of the Gila. One list of 400 such victims was for- warded from Prescott to the government at Washington with a prayer for pro- tection and for vengeance.
There was a sickening uniformity about every crime. Never was one of the deeds done in manly fashion. Nearly every shot was from ambush. Almost uni- formly there was torture of unspeakable sort and if women captured were not killed with indignity, they were carried away as slaves. Through it all there was resentment on the frontier over the attitude of the general government. Only on two occasions were enough troops sent to Arizona and generally instructions to the soldiers were strong that battle and bloodshed must be avoided and that gentle means must be used to bring back the poor Indian into the fold, where Christianity might have a chance to work for his betterment as he filled his belly with Government rations. There was the same old story told in Sunday-school books of a noble red man, deprived by the grasping whites of the land that was bis by heritage, and keen sympathy was expressed elsewhere than in Arizona over the woes of the poor Apache who was being driven from the hills he so dearly loved. The crimes of the Indians were excused and palliated, as only natural in an undisciplined nature that needed kindness for its reformation. It is probable that the stories of the Indian atrocities were treated as inventions that could not possibly be true and there was even suggestion that if the white man didn't like what he got in the Indian country, he had better leave the country to the Indians who owned it.
Oft-repeated statements that the Apaches were the friends of the Americans when first the latter came cau be answered very easily : The Indians knowing that the United States had been at war with Mexico, welcomed the first American expeditions, seeing in them helpers in raids into Mexico, where much rich plunder could be had in the towns the Apaches had been unable to take. There was a change in sentiment when it was found that the Americans were not robbers, like themselves.
THE GREAT WAR CHIEF, MANGAS COLORADAS
It should be understood that the Apaches never in their history had any one recognized ruler or principal chief. Possibly the greatest degree of consolidation of their interests was brought about under the notorious Mangas Coloradas, who for nearly fifty years, till his death in February, 1863, undoubtedly was con- sidered by tribesmen and whites as the undisputed Apache leader throughout eastern Apacheria. He had married daughters by his Mexican wife to chiefs of the Navajos, Mescaleros and Coyoteros and thus had acquired influence and sup- port among these neighboring tribes. According to Cremony :
He exercised influence never equalled by any savage of our time, when we take into consideration the fact that the Apaches acknowledge no chief and obey no orders from any source. The life of Mangas Coloradas, if it could be ascertained, would be a tissue of
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the most extensive and inflicting revelations, the most atrocious cruelties, the most vin- dictive vengeance and widespread injuries ever perpetrated by an American Indian. The northern portions of Chihuahua and Sonora, large tracts of Durango, the whole of Arizona, and a very considerable part of New Mexico, were laid waste, ravished and destroyed by this man and his followers. He made the Apache nation the most powerful in the Southwest. A strip of country twice as large as all California was rendered almost houseless, unpro- ductive, uninhabitable, by his active and uncompromising hostility. Large and flourishing towns were depopulated and ruined. Vast ranchos, such as that of Babacómari and San Bernardino, once teeming with wealth and immense herds of cattle, horses and mules, were turned into waste places, and restored to their pristine solitudes. The name of Mangas Coloradas was the tocsin of terror and dismay throughout a vast region of country, whose inhabitants existed by his sufferance under penalty of supplying him with the requisite arms and ammunition for his many and terrible raids. He combined many attributes of real greatness with the ferocity and brutality of the bloodiest savage. The names of his victims, by actual slaughter or captivity, would amount to thousands, and the relation of his deeds, throughout a long and merciless life, would put to shame the records of any other villain. The most immediate advisers and counselors of Mangas Coloradas were El Chico, Ponce, Delgadito, Pedro Azul, Cuchillo Negro, and Collitto Amarillo, and all were prominent Apaches. They were one by one sent to their long accounts by the rifles of California soldiers and Arizona citizens, but not without great loss of life by these Indians, the recital of which would make the blood curdle.
On the American side of the line the destruction was in nowise comparable. Most of the sacrifices had been the result of foolhardiness and too great self- reliance, yet on the northern side the traveler would encounter many fine farms abandoned, their buildings in ruins, and the products of industry gone. Com- munication between any two places more than a mile apart was dangerous, and horses and cattle could not be trusted to graze 300 yards from Tucson's town walls. Mexican women and children would be carried off during the day, in plain sight of their townspeople. Part of this was due, according to Cremony, to the official stupidity which invariably disconcerted and paralyzed the efficiency of any concerted action within the power of the limited military force within Arizona.
COPPER MINING AND SCALP HUNTING
The first copper mining known in the Southwest undoubtedly was done by Indians of the Mimbres Valley. These Santa Rita mines, nine miles from the modern Silver City, later were worked by the Mexicans and now are part of the holdings of an American company, yielding enormous profit from low-grade workings. The best history of the Mexican operations, though carrying a rather legendary flavor, is given by Captain Cremony, who went to Santa Rita in 1850. His tale follows :
The copper mines of Santa Rita are located immediately at the foot of a huge and prominent mountain, named Ben Moore. These extensive mines had been abandoned for the space of eighty years, but were uncommonly rich and remunerative. They were formerly owned by a wealthy Mexican company, who sent the ore to Chihuahua where a government mint existed, and had the ore refined and struck into the copper coinage of the country. Although the distance was over 300 miles, and every pound of ore had to be transported on pack mules, yet it proved a paying business, and mining was vigorously prosecuted for a space of some twenty years. Huge masses of ore yielding from 60 to 90 per cent of pure copper are still visible about the mine and frequently considerable pieces of pure copper are met with by the visitor. The reason for its sudden and long abandonment was asked and the following story related :
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During the period that the Mexicans carried on operations at the mines, the Apaches appeared very friendly, receiving frequent visits and visiting the houses of the miners without question. But every now and then the Mexicans lost a few mules, or had a man or two killed, and their suspicions were aroused against the Apaches, who stoutly denied all knowledge of these acts and put on an air of offended pride. This state of affairs continued to grow worse and worse until an Englishman named Johnson undertook to "settle matters," and to that end received cart blanche from his Mexican employers. Johnson ordered a fiesta, or feast, prepared and invited all the copper mine Apaches to partake. The invitation was joyfully accepted and between 900 and 1,000, including men, women and children, assembled to do justice to the hospitality of their entertainers. They were caused to sit grouped together as much as possible while their host had prepared a six-pounder gun, loaded to the muzzle with slugs, musket balls, nails and pieces of glass, within one hundred yards of their main body. This cannon was concealed under a pile of pack saddles and other rubbish but trained in the spot to be occupied by the Apaches. The time arrived. The feast was ready. The gun was loaded and primed. Johnson stood ready with a lighted cigar to give the parting salute and, while all were eating as Apaches only can eat, the ter- rible storm of death was sped into their ranks, killing, wounding and maiming several hundred. This fearful volley was followed up by a charge on the part of the Mexicans who showed no pity to the wounded until nearly 400 victims had been sacrificed at this feast of death. The survivors fled in dismay and for several months the miners fancied that they had forever got rid of the much-hated Apaches. It was an ill-grounded hope, as the sequel proved.
The copper mines were entirely dependent upon Chihuahua for all supplies and large conductas, or trains with guards, were employed in the business of bringing in such supplies and taking away the ore. So regular had been the arrival and departure of these trains that no efforts were made to retain provisions enough on hand in the event of a failure to arrive.' Besides, no molestation of any kind had been experienced since Johnson's experiment. At length three or four days passed beyond the proper time for the conducta's arrival; provision was becoming exceedingly scarce; ammunition had been expended freely; no thought for the morrow had taken possession of their minds, and everything went on in the haphazard way of the thoughtless Mexicans. No attempt was made to send a party in quest of the lost train, nor was any economy exercised. Two or three days more passed and they were on the verge of starvation. The surrounding forests of heavy pines still furnished bear and turkeys and other game in abundance but their ammunition was becoming exceedingly scarce. In this dilemma some of the miners climbed Ben Moore, which gave a distinct view of the extensive plain reaching to and beyond the Mimbres River, but no sign of the conducta was visible. It was then ordered that a well-armed party should set out and discover its fate, but those who were to be left behind resolved to go also as they would otherwise be forced to remain without means of defense or provisions. On a given day every man, woman and child residing in the copper mines took their departure; but they never reached their place of destination. The relentless Apaches had foreseen all these troubles and taken measures accordingly. The party left, but their bones, with the exception of only four or five, lie bleaching upon the wide expanse between the copper mines of Santa Rita and the Town of Chihuahua. Such is the narrative given me by an intelligent Mexican whom I afterwards met in Sonora. From that time for more than eighty years the Apache had remained the unmolested master of this, his great stronghold.
Harassed insufferably by Apache incursions, the Mexican governments of Sonora and Chihuahua and the wealthy haciendados, about 1845, offered a general reward of from $30 to $100 for every scalp brought in. This offer resulted in the formation of a number of bands of mercenaries, some of them led by Americans of the desperado stripe. One such leader was John Glanton, or Gallantin, who, finding that chasing the fleet-footed Apache in his native fastenesses was a job that brought little profit, turned to the slaughtering of friendly Indians, such as the Yaquis, Opatas, Papagos and Pimas, whose scalps for a while were re- ceived without question by the Mexican authorities and paid for at the current
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bounty rates. Finally there was suspicion, for the scalps were coming from dis- tricts other than those in which Apache raids were being made, and Glanton and his cutthroats were caught in the very act of killing and scalping a number of Mexicans. As this put an end to his nefarious business, he fled to New Mexico, where he stole or bought several thousand head of sheep, with which he started for California in 1849. He and his fellow bandits died a few months later at the hands of the Yuma Indians, whom they had abused.
CAPTURE AND DEATH OF MANGAS COLORADAS
Mangas Coloradas (Red Sleeves), usually known to the old Arizonan as "Mangus Colorow," was chief of the Mimbres, or Pinos Altos tribe of Apaches. He is understood to have had a Mexican mother. He was notable both for sta- ture and for ability, holding what appeared to have been more than nominal leadership over his tribe, by right of personal strength. In 1837 he was the leader in the massacre that avenged the Johnson killing. Mangas had another grievance against the whites in that he had been bound and whipped hy Pinos Altos gold miners in retaliation for thefts of horses by his tribe.
The capture of Mangas Coloradas has generally been credited without reservation to the California Volunteers and his death at the hands of the soldiery thereafter has been officially recorded to the effect that he was killed while trying to escape. This account is borne out only in non-essential features by the tale of an eye witness, D. E. Conner of the Walker party. In a letter lately received by the Editor, he asks that history be put straight on this inter- esting, and possibly material, point.
At Fort McLean (its site fifteen miles southwest of Silver City, N. M.) the Walker expedition picked up a stray Mexican, who claimed to have escaped from the Apaches. From him it was learned that Mangas was in camp with 500 Indians on the west side of the cordilleras, just below a gap in which was located Pinos Altos, later found to be a camp of renegade Mexicans in league with the Apaches. It would be as well to copy Mr. Conner's narrative of what happened thereafter :
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