USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. I > Part 25
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42
While we had a good camp for our sixty mules, Captain Walker conceived the idea of capturing Mangas to hold as a hostage, thus enabling us to take a short route across the mountains in Central Arizona. It happened that the day before the date fixed for the attempt, in February, 1863, Capt. E. D. Shirland, with about a half-company of California volunteers, came trailing into camp, stating that he was the advance guard for a larger force of several companies not far behind, under command of Gen. J. R. West. Captain Walker immediately broached the programme for the next day and Captain Shirland promptly accepted an invi- tation to take part.
Accordingly the next morning before daylight, to avoid detection and the report of our movements by means of signal smokes, half of each force was on the road toward the Indian camp, arriving quite early in the gap. At Pinos Altos, just before the summit was reached, John W. Swilling was put in command by Captain Walker, who remained in the camp and who had the soldiers conceal themselves in the chaparral and in the old shacks, hiding every uniform. Swilling and his party of citizens stalked across the treeless gap at the summit. All was silent; not a human being was seen. Suddenly Swilling issued a war whoop that might have made an Apache ashamed of himself. There was only a short delay when Mangas, a tremendously big man, with over a dozen Indians for bodyguard following, was seen in the distance walking on an old mountain trail toward us, evidently observing us intently. A precipice broke down the mountain between the two parties and the trail bent up to eross
177
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
it at a shallow place, probably 150 yards from us. Jack left us and walked to meet Mangas, who with his bodyguard slowly but decisively crossed the ravine. Swilling, though six feet tall, looked like a boy beside Mangas.
They both could speak broken Spanish. We could not hear what was said, but Swilling looked back at us. We interpreted the look to mean that he wanted to be covered. When our squad suddenly levelled our guns upon the party, for the first time Mangas showed appre. ciation of his serious position. Swilling went up to him and laid his hand on the chief's shoulder and finally convinced him that resistance meant the destruction of the whole party. They came walking toward us, bodyguard and all. When Swilling told Mangas that his bodyguard wasn't wanted, he stopped with some gutturals and finally instructed them in Spanish, "Tell my people to look for me when they see me." When we passed back over the summit the soldiers came out of their concealment, disgusting Mangas beyond measure.
Knowing that he had numerous warriors nearby and that we had fifteen miles to go, we hastened down the mountain to the Walker camp, where we arrived at 3 o'clock without firing a shot. In onr absence General West had arrived with two companies of soldiers. He demanded that Mangas be sent to his personal quarters, which was done. Of course I don't know what took place there, but Mangas came away in the custody of two soldiers.
The prisoner stood about the camp the rest of the evening. He had prominent blood- shot eyes and disdained to notice anyone and was a head and shoulders above any paleface present. He wore a cheap checked shirt with ordinary blue overalls cut off at the knees and a white straight-brim sombrero with a square crown like a quart cup and much too small for him. The hat was tied to his tremendous head by a string under his chin. He had a head of hair that reached his waist. His nose was aquiline and was his one delicate feature, both in size and form. His receding forehead was in keeping with his receding jaws and chin. His wide mouth resembled a slit cut in a melon, expressionless and brutal. This, as I remember, is a correct description of Mangas.
Night came and I was on guard for Walker, to be relieved at midnight. At the end of our established beat we had a fire, to which the two soldiers brought Mangas, for the night was cold. The Indian lay upon the ground by the fire with one blanket. My beat led me out 150 yards into the darkness. About 9 o'clock I noticed the soldiers were doing something to Mangas, but quit when I returned to the fire and stopped to get warm. Watching them from my beat in the outer darkness, I discovered that they were heating their bayonets and burning Mangas' feet and legs. This they continued to do until I warned George Lount to take my place on guard till midnight. I took another turn on my beat, while George was wrapping up and upon returning this last time, Mangas arose upon his left elbow, angrily protesting that he was no child to be played with. Thereupon the two soldiers, without removing their bayonets from their Minie muskets, each quickly fired upon the chief, following with two shots each from their navy six-shooters. Mangas fell back into the same position on his left side that he had occupied and never moved.
An officer came, glanced at the dead body and returned to his blankets. I went to my blankets, leaving Lount on guard, and in twenty minutes all was still again. The next morn- ing I took some trinkets from the body, including a little oak block about 4 inches in length by 21/2 inches wide and three-fourths of an inch thick, with a hole burned through one end for a sinew loop large enough to admit the hand. Deeply burned in one side only were hiero- glyphics. A little soldier giving his name as John T. Wright, came to the dead body and scalped it with an Arkansaw toothpick (bowie knife), borrowed from Bill Lallier. Then Cook and four other soldiers came and lifted Mangas, blanket and all, into an old ditch and covered the body about one and one-half feet with earth. A few nights thereafter, Capt. D. B. Sturgeon, the military surgeon, exhumed the body and secured Mangas' tremendous skull. That ended the first chapter. (The skull eventually was secured by Prof. O. S. Fowler, the phrenologist.)
Some years thereafter one Governor Arney brought charges of brutality against Gen- eral West concerning this Mangas affair. I have the general's defense in a clipping from the Washington Republican. In his letter of defense, General West states that he had placed seven soldiers, including a non-commissioned officer, over Mangas, to be sure he could not escape; that Mangas was captured by his command red-handed in a fight with the soldiers and was killed at midnight while he was rushing upon his guard to escape.
178
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
STOCKING'S ACCOUNT OF THE MANGAS KILLING
The memory of two old-timers rarely seems to run in a common path. This is well exemplified in the story of the killing of Mangas Coloradas told by Clark B. Stocking, who was a member of a company of California volunteers. The location was given by Stocking as Apache Tejo, where there was an adobe house, into which the chief was put under two guards. Stocking tells that, the night before, Mangas had been told by Colonel West that he had murdered his last white victim. The old chief replied that for the last five years he had kept his young men from killing the whites. The Colonel replied that the Indian had best look down the canon, where there were the white bones of over 500 men, women and children. The officer then, according to Stocking, addressed the guards, James Collyer and George Mead, in this wise: "Men, that old mur- derer has got away from every soldier command and has left a trail of blood for 500 miles on the old stage line. I want him dead or alive tomorrow morning, do you understand? I want him dead." About 10 o'clock one of the guards went around in the rear of the adobe and threw a large rock against the wall. This caused the old chief to make a sudden start, when he was shot dead by the guard, who promptly reported that the Indian had been killed while trying to escape. To assure the death of the chieftain, a sergeant rushed in, pistol in hand and shot him through the head. According to Stocking, his company, in the month of January, 1863, was ordered up to Pinos Altos to subdue Mangas, with whom was supposed to be a force of more than 3,000 Apaches. At Apache Tejo they found Walker, who with a few prospectors was looking up the coun- try, "but they were citizens and were waiting for the soldiers to clear the way." According to this tale, Mangas was induced to come into camp by Captain Sheldon, who went out to Pinos Altos with a force of twenty men. Stocking believes the killing was justified, though there was no honor in it, "for Mangas had killed many a woman and child besides torturing men by throwing them into a bunch of chollas. He got what he deserved and no one in our command pitied him or cried about it."
According to Captain Cremony, Mangas Coloradas had been lurking around the Santa Rita mines for some time, trying to pick up stragglers from about 200 well-armed and wary miners, who finally, knowing the falseness of his profes- sions of friendship, had tied him to a tree and lashed him soundly. About that time he sent for reinforcements to Cochise of the Chiricahuas, but in turn was summoned to come and help exterminate the advancing soldiery at Apache Pass, this accounting for the large force of Indians that gathered to dispute the passage of the Americans. On the way fourteen miners from Santa Rita were ambushed and massacred. Mangas came back from the fight with a bullet wound in his chest, shot by John Teal, and sought Mexican surgical help in the Chihuahua town of Janos. When he returned to the Santa Rita country his lease of life was short. It is claimed that a few days before Mangas Coloradas was taken, his band had captured a soldier of the California Column, had tied him to a cactus and burned him to death with slow fire. Possibly this may be the reason why the soldier guard was so unsympathetic. It is also told that in any event General West would have hanged the old chieftain on the morrow. The true date of the chief's death was January 18.
179
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
MEXICAN CAPTIVES
Until a comparatively late date, the harvest ground of the Apaches had been Mexico and most of the depredations within Arizona were simply along the route of marauding bands headed from central Arizona into the Sierra Madres, bound for Mexico, there to pillage and destroy to their hearts' content. Long before the coming of the white man, there was an aboriginal high road that led from the Gila through Aravaipa Canon up the San Pedro, used by the Indians in their raids to the southward. Return was made loaded down with loot, with horses, mules and cattle, and sometimes with captive women and children. There can be no doubt that a large strain of Mexican blood became incorporated in several of the Apache tribes, for even hundreds of Mexican women were brought northward, after their relatives had been slain and left buried in the ruins of their haciendas. The favorite wife of Mangas Coloradas was a Mexican, who bore him several stal- wart sons.
One of these captives was Inez Gonzales of Santa Cruz on the upper San Pedro river, who was captured by Pinaleño Apaches in September, 1850, after her uncle and the larger part of a military escort had been killed. In the following June the girl was found by Boundary Commissioner John R. Bartlett with a party of New Mexicans, who had purchased her from the Indians. The girl had been held in slavery, but, according to her own story, had not been harshly treated. A short time later the Americans had deep pleasure in returning her directly into the arms of her family. She told that with the Pinaleños were at least twelve Mexican female captives besides a number of males, who were assumed to have been taken while children.
Cuchillo Negro is said to have captured Lieutenant Porfirio Diaz and ten Mexican soldiers during the first Boundary Survey. The Mexicans were disarmed and released, this leniency understood to have been due to the befriending of Indians by Diaz at some time before. If this story be true, large influence upon the fate of the Mexican republic was exercised by a single unknowing Coyotero Apache.
One of the historic characters within the Apache campaigns was Mickey Free, the noted scout who died on the Fort Apache reservation in 1913, aged 77. According to Connell, Mickey was about as worthless a biped as could be imag- ined, ugly, dirty, unreliable and dishonest, although for a while he served as first sergeant of a company of Indian scouts. But his history was assuredly one of romance. His father was a Pinal Apache. His mother was Jesus Salvador, a Mexican servant of Inez Gonzales. The servant was retained by the tribe when Inez was sold to the traders. In 1855 with her child, the woman escaped to the Pimas, who helped her to regain the Mexican settlements. In 1860, while on the ranch of John Ward, near Fort Buchanan, the mother lost her son to another party of Apache raiders, a band of Coyoteros who had penetrated the Chiricahua country looking for Mexican plunder. The boy was reared on the Gila River in the band of Chief Pedro and seemed to have few of the slender virtues of even his Indian foster parents.
THE COCHISE OUTBREAK
Really insignificant as was Mickey Free, he was the unwitting cause of the awful twelve-year warfare of Chief Cochise. About the time of the establishment
180
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
of the stage route across Arizona, the Chiricahuas, probably content with the facilities of plunder across the line, were living in a state of relative amity with the Americans. The raid upon the Ward ranch rather naturally was charged to the Chiricahnas, they being the nearest Indians. Cochise and his band were known to be in camp near the Apache Pass stage station, so to them Colonel Morrison, in October, 1860, from Fort Buchanan dispatched a platoon of the Seventh Infantry, under command of Second Lieut. Geo. N. Bascom, who had graduated less than two years before from West Point and who very evidently was entirely unacquainted with the methods of doing business with Indians. Camps of three separate tribes of Apaches were found near the pass. Six of the chiefs were brought before Bascom, who demanded of Cochise return of the child and also of cattle that had been taken. Cochise truthfully denied com- plicity in the affair, but said he would do what he could to find the boy. Bascom charged him with lying and put him under guard in a tent, with two of his relatives. The chief escaped at night by cutting through the back of the tent, though wounded in the knee by a bayonet thrust.
In the meantime Cochise had captured two Americans named Jordan and Lyons, whom he offered to exchange for his relatives. This exchange Bascom refused. A little later Wallace, the station keeper, feeling secure in the friendly feeling of the Indians toward himself, went over to the Chiricahna camp to mediate, but himself was seized and held as an additional hostage. The three white prisoners were brought by the Indians to a point where they could hail the soldiers in the camp and thence pleaded pitifully for the exchange, stating that they had already been put under torture by the Indians, who had assumed war paint, and who were preparing for a campaign of slaughter. Bascom still refused, despite the entreaties of his sergeant, Reuben F. Bernard, who later was court-martialed for disobedience of orders, but was exonerated. Lyons broke away from the Indians and dashed for the station. He leaped for the top of the adobe wall, only to be killed as he climbed by the soldiers within, who mistook him for an Apache. Then followed horrible things, Wallace in the sight of the troops being tortured and dragged behind a horse over the stony ground. Two other Americans, who were later captured, the next day were found hanging, dead after torture, by the side of the trail which was taken by the lieutenant on his retreat to Fort Buchanan. Then the foolish officer left what he considered salutary evidence of his prowess, hanging his prisoners upon a single tree. Bas- com seems to have escaped more than immediate censure for his recklessness, for he became a first lieutenant in the following year, and a captain in October, 1861. He was killed February 21, 1862, at the battle of Val Verde, N. M.
In later years Cochise told Miles Wood that before this he had killed only Mexicans. Thereafter he made war upon Americans as well.
THE BATTLE OF APACHE PASS
Of one thing there is certainty, that Cochise had ability to gather together more fighting men than any other Arizona chieftain who lived in historic times. At the fight of Apache Pass, in June, 1862, he had about 500 warriors. He had arranged an offensive treaty with Mangas Coloradas. The latter had called for help, wishing to dislodge the Americans from the Pinos Altos country. Receiv- ing no answer, he took 200 of his own warriors westward to join Cochise and thus
-
MICKEY FREE Halfbreed cause of Cochise outbreak
181
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
came in time to participate in the attack upon the California volunteers with what was the most formidable body of Indians ever gathered together in the Southwest.
The fight at Apache Pass was really quite a serious affair and would have been deadly indeed to the white men had the Apaches closed in upon them. It would appear that Captain Roberts of the advance guard of the California volunteers had entered Apache Pass without properly scouting the country in advance and the first fire upon him was from a range of less than eighty yards, from warriors well armed with rifle and pistol, and almost invisible behind boulders. Roberts' command was thrown back to the mouth of the pass and there was reformed The advance again was taken up, scouts and skirmishers were thrown out in orderly fashion and any spots that looked like an ambush were shelled with the two little howitzers of the command. It was absolutely necessary to reach the springs in the pass, for the men had marched about forty miles across arid hills and plains and already were suffering from thirst. Thus was reached the stone station house, 600 yards from the springs, but on nearby hills the Apaches had built rock forts that overlooked the springs. The howitzers again were brought into action and the Indians driven away from the hilltops long enough for water to be secured. Then it was the Apaches told all was going well with them until the Americans began "firing wagons." A couple of Roberts' men were killed and a few wounded. At the time there was an estimate of only ten Apaches dead, but Captain Cremony, whose cavalry command soon afterward came to the rescue, later learned that no less than sixty-three warriors were killed by the shells and only three by musketry fire. There was a second fight the next day in which artillery again proved most effective. Then Cremony charged the fleeing Apaches and the battle was over.
INDIANS, UNCHECKED, POSSESS THE BORDER
According to Connell, Eskiminizin, the San Pedro chieftain, came into the public eye as far back as 1850, in connection with the capture of Inez Gonzales on the upper San Pedro. He was also leader of a party which, October 6, 1858, raided the Paige ranch near Fort Buchanan and there captured Mrs. Charles Paige and a 7-year-old girl, Mercedes Sias. Mrs. Paige, lagging behind, was speared through the body and thrust over a precipice. She still lived, however, and, her dress catching on a shrub on the hillside, regained consciousness a few hours later and dragged herself a day and a night and again a day through the hills and cactus, to the Canoa ranch on the Santa Cruz. A pathetic feature is that her husband and a party of avengers had followed the trail to the very cliff over which she had been thrown. She heard them, but was unable to cry out, and there they left her, though at one time only a few feet away. Paige later was killed by Indians. Mrs. Paige afterward married W. F. Scott of Tucson and lived long and happily in that city. The young girl who had been captured with her was retaken by Capt. R. S. Ewell of Fort Buchanan, though only by diplo- macy and by a gift to the Indians of cloth. She also later became a resident of Tucson, the wife of Chas. A. Shibell, one of the city's most distinguished residents.
Captain Ewell ("Baldy") was an energetic and able officer who did his duty as he saw it. He was called sharply to account in 1857 for an action in Dragoon Pass in which he happened to kill a large number of women and children, as well
182
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
as a not inconsiderable number of bucks. Ewell defended himself by demanding, "How the devil can a soldier stop in the midst of a battle to summon a jury of matrons to determine whether the Indian pouring bullets into the soldiers is a woman or not ?"
The operations of Cochise probably would have been checked in an early stage had not the Civil War intervened. In July, 1861, the military posts of southern Arizona were abandoned and without doubt the Indians saw only per- sonal victory in the departure of the troops, not understanding the greater causes. All the outlying settlements were plundered and destroyed and death was the portion of the few Americans and Mexicans who failed to flee at once to Tucson or to the settlements of Sonora. Little farms on the Sonoita, on the San Pedro and on the upper Santa Cruz especially suffered and a long list has been preserved of victims to the ferocity of the redskins.
In the month of the abandonment Tubac was besieged by the Chiricahuas, who were defied successfully by about a score of white men. On the way to Tubac the Indians had slain Superintendent Stark of the Santa Rita Mining Company, who was amhushed near a ranch, which was not attacked. A couple of months later H. C. Grosvenor, who had succeeded to Stark's position, reached the Santa Rita mines in safety, in company with Prof. Raphael Pumpelly. Grosvenor, anxious about a following wagon train, walked back up the road and was killed by Apaches who had just plundered the wagons after killing the teamsters. They had let the two white men ride by, that they might secure the greater plunder that followed.
An example given in 1861 of the hardihood and bravery that necessarily marked the early American settlers concerns Bill Rhodes, who had returned to his ranch in the Santa Cruz Valley to find the Apaches had murdered all his people. Pursued, he flung himself from his jaded horse into a willow thicket, which soon was surrounded by at least thirty blood-stained and yelling red demons. He kept them at bay for three hours, though armed with only a revolver, while into the thicket was poured almost a continuous stream of musket shots and arrows. One bullet struck him in the left arm and nearly disabled him through loss of blood. Finally the Indians made an organized rush, when the white man had left only two cartridges. He killed the first Indian that ap- proached and menaced the others with his almost empty weapon. They called to him in Spanish, telling him that he was a brave man and that they would spare his life if he would come out. With full knowledge of the Apache char- acter, he refused, declaring he would kill the last Indian before he would allow himself to be taken out. The "bluff" proved effective, for the Indians left him master of the field. It is more than likely he would have used the last bullet to save himself from torture.
The Wrightson brothers, who are best known through the establishment of the first paper of Tubac, now have their name perpetuated in Mount Wrightson, one of the high peaks of southern Arizona. The brothers were civil engineers and men of large ability. The younger, with John Wire, was killed a few miles from Tubac at a religious fiesta in a row with Mexicans. The elder was killed by Apaches years afterward in the Sonoita Valley, in company with a man named Hopkins, as they were surveying the boundary lines of the newly established Baca Float grant.
-----
183
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
MASSACRE OF THE OATMAN FAMILY
One of the most notorious features of the Indian warfare was the murder of the Oatman family, at what ever since has been known as Oatman Flat, on the Gila River, not far from Agua Caliente. Royse Oatman and family were a part of an expedition organized in Independence, Mo., in August, 1850, with an expectation of settling about the junction of the Colorado and Gila rivers, from which reports had come of a fertile soil and of good prospects for the amassing of wealth. The journey into the Southwest was made without particular-incident, through Tucson, to the Pima villages, which were reached February 16, 1851. The food supply was getting low and the Indians themselves had little. Much against the protests of the rest of the party, the elder Oatman concluded to push on to Fort Yuma. He had heard from travelers that no Apaches had been seen along the road for months. About half the distance to Fort Yuma had been passed in slow travel, for the two wagons were hauled by oxen and cows, when danger closed in. A dozen Tonto-Apaches, masquerading as Pimas, came to the wagons and demanded food. This they were given from a slender stock, but within a very few minutes the generosity of the white hosts was rewarded with death. The father and mother were clubbed. An infant child was transfixed with a spear. The son, Lorenzo, then about 15 years old, was clubbed and thrown over a rocky point, with the assumption that he had been killed, and the two daughters, Olive Oatman, aged about 16, and Mary Ann, aged 7, were taken captive. Lorenzo regained consciousness and managed to reach the Pima villages, from which a party set out, only to bury the dead.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.