USA > Arizona > Arizona, prehistoric, aboriginal, pioneer, modern; the nation's youngest commonwealth within a land of ancient culture, Vol. I > Part 30
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
214
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
the reservation on raiding parties, as alleged by the citizens. One of the wit- nesses in his investigation was none other than Miles L. Wood, whose opinions concerning the Indians appear to have been suppressed in the transcript of his testimony.
DEFENSE OF THE GENTLE APACHE
Colyer wrote that his impression that his peace policy toward the Indian was unpopular, gained from reading the newspapers in Tueson and Preseott, was in error, as he later was told that "these papers only reflect the opinions of the traders, army contractors, barroom and gambling saloon proprietors of these two towns, who prospered during the war; that the hardy frontiersman, the miner and poor laboring man of the border pray for peace, and I believe it."
The Commissioner was at Fort McDowell September 23, there welcomed by Maj. N. A. M. Dudley, who sent out runners to make smokes and to bring in the Tontos.
Leaving word that a peace talk should be held with the Tontos, Colyer pro- ceeded to Camp Verde, where he met the Mojave Apaches, and made arrange- ments for the distribution of additional Indian supplies. At Verde, as usual, he found the white men all in the wrong, in that they were occupying land that the Indians claimed. The Indians there also were eager for food and raiment and later came in to the number of 580. At Whipple, through General Crook, arrangements were made for a temporary reservation for the Hualpais around Beal Springs, and for a temporary reservation for the Date Creek Indians and their feeding at Camp Date Creek until the spring. He was invited to address a public meeting at Preseott, where he was assured by several gentlemen that he would be protected with rifles and revolvers. This offer was declined with thanks, after he had read to one of the committee of invitation, Editor Merriam (undoubtedly John Marion), extracts from his editorials wherein Colyer was called "a cold-blooded scoundrel and red-handed assassin" and advice was given to the populace, "in justice to our murdered dead to dump the old devil into the shaft of some mine and pile rocks upon him until he is dead." On the way out of the Territory, he found an instance in Kirkland Valley of the killing of a peaceful Indian by a white man who wanted the Indian's rifle and of the shooting of a number of peaceful Apache-Mojave Indians of a band of twenty by three white settlers. He found a settlement of starving Indians at Cullings' Well, on the desert west of Wickenburg, but on the Colorado River noted that the Indians of that agency were prospering.
On the whole, it is possible that Colyer's work, however prejudieed his opin- ions and however erroneous his statement of facts, was for the betterment of the Indian situation, as speeding the day when the Apaches could be taken from the hills and placed in at least nominal confinement on reservations.
· The reservations selected by Colyer were, at Camp Apache for the Coyoteros, at Camp Grant for the Aravaipas and Pinals, at MeDowell for the Tontos, at Camp Verde and Date Creek for the Mojave Apaches, and at Beal Springs for the Hualpais.
Capt. Wm. Nelson's aetion in warning all armed bodies of citizens from approaching within ten miles of Fort Grant was revoked by General Crook as unwarrantable, and the Captain was warned thereafter to govern himself by
1
215
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
the customs of the military service and not to unnecessarily provoke hostility of the citizens toward the military and the Indians under their protection.
General Sherman, commanding the army, November 9, 1871, published an order in which the ranking officer at the post nearest each of the newly-estab- lished reservations was made Indian agent. The citizens of Arizona in the same order were warned not to invade the reservations except under regular military authority. General Schofield, commanding the Pacific Division, thereafter ordered the enrollment of all adult male Indians and prohibited trade with them for arms, ammunition or whiskey. The cost was defrayed by an appropriation of $70,000 that had been made by Congress the previous winter.
THE ONE-ARMED CHRISTIAN SOLDIER
President Grant had a most commendable idea that the grace of God might have some influence upon the savage breast. Accordingly he distributed the management of the several Indian reservations among the several Christian denominations and took pious counsel in regard to the disposition and treatment of the aborigines. Naturally, under such changed conditions, there was con- sideration of Maj .- Gen. O. O. Howard, the Christian soldier of the army, valiant in faith, his valor in the field of war proven by his empty right sleeve. So Howard was called in to be placed at the head of a new Bureau of Indian and Freedmen Management. One of the tasks placed upon him was settlement of the southwestern Indian troubles. In March, 1872, he arrived in Yuma, having come by the water route from San Francisco, and proceeded thence into central Arizona, assisted by Rev. C. H. Cook, the noted Pima missionary, holding peace talks with all the Indian tribes he could. He traveled over most of the Terri- tory's area and gathered seven Indians of high tribal standing, from bands of the Pima, Papago, and Apache, and took them back to Washington, with the idea that a sight of the white man's civilization would paralyze all subsequent opposition to the white man's will. No such result seems to have been reached. Upon this trip, in May, the General held an important conference at Old Camp Grant, whereat were gathered the Indians of the Eskiminzin band, as well as a number of Tucson Mexicans, brought with Apache children they had adopted, after the killing of the parents at Camp Grant massacre. These children he restored to their tribal relatives and his action was sustained by the President. Throughout, General Howard mixed his sympathy with common sense.
Commissioner Colyer in August, 1871, tried to get into communication with Cochise, who had expressed willingness to make a treaty, but Colyer's ambassa- dor, a New Mexican named Trujillo, returned to Cañada Alamosa telling that he had met General Crook upon the trail and had been ordered back, Crook disdainfully saying that no Indian agents had anthority to send parties to Arizona and that the messenger and his party, which embraced Chief Loco, would be lucky to get back with their lives.
HOWARD'S PEACE TREATY WITH COCHISE
When General Howard returned to the Southwest in the summer of 1872, bringing back his seven Indian chieftains, each with a bible, a bronze medal and a uniform, he determined to have an interview with Cochise, the guiding force of the murderous bands of Chiricahuas. In his quest good fortune finally
216
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
came in an incidental meeting with Capt. Thos. J. Jeffords, known as "Red Beard" by the Apaches and by them considered a friend. It was told that Jeffords had on one occasion been spared, while his companion passengers in a stage coach were slain by ambushing Chiricahuas. There were charges made that he had gained his influence with the Indians by trading them arms and ammunition. But he was found even eager to promote the cause of peace and so, on September 20, 1872, accompanied by Chief Ponce and by a son of Mangas, he led the General and his aide, Capt. J. A. Sladen, westward from the Rio Grande, on a hunt for "Shi-ca-she," as the chieftain was said to have been known among his people. The trail, across the Chiricahua mountains and the San Simon desert valley, ended in the Dragoon mountains, at Cochise Strong- hold, a rocky fortress, where a dozen might defy an army. A dozen sub-chiefs were brought in, from the warpath, by smoke signs and runners, and in the meanwhile the soldiers slept calmly in the camp of the most murderous redskins ever known on a blood-stained frontier. There was a grand peace talk, whereat again was aired the unfortunate Slocum episode, but finally there was agree- ment that the Indians should be rationed and be given a reservation in their own Chiricahua region. Cochise rejected the suggestion of a reserve on the Rio Grande and stated his preference for a home near Apache Pass, where he could "protect the road" he himself had made a shambles. So headquarters were established at Sulphur Springs, with Jeffords as agent, and Howard placed a stone on the mesa, telling the redskins the peace would last as long as the stone endured. Some one later must have removed the rock.
THE CHIRICAHUA RESERVATION
The Chiricahua reservation officially was established October 13, 1872, and soon was tenanted by a thousand Indians, who, in scattered bands, had been devastating a district that stretched at least 100 miles parallel to the international boundary.
An entertaining bit of history is that after General Howard had departed, Chief Cochise sent runners to the Janos Indians of Chihuahua to the effect that peace had been established with the Americans, who had agreed henceforth to provide food for the Apache people. The Janos needed no urging, but forthwith came in strength to dip into the flesh pots of the Philistines. They were received and were put on the ration roll, though it is appreciated that they should be considered interlopers. Their advent particularly was important in the fact that though the band was led by Juh, a sub-chief was none other than Geronimo, who then made his advent in the land that thereafter was to hear so much of him. The band thenceforth seemed to have been accepted as a part of the Chiricahuas.
Hunter told a story of the Butterfield Route in 1867, how the keeper of the Apache Pass station, a young man only remembered as "John," fought a duel with an Apache warrior whom he had kicked out of his cabin for stealing grain. The encounter was arranged by none other than Cochise, John being placed in his own doorway. The Indian missed the top of the white man's head by half an inch, but John's bullet passed through the redskin's heart. Cochise ran forward, to shake John by the hand and to tell him he was a brave man. Thereafter the incident was a closed one, with no resentment on either side.
217
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
Jeffords' assistant was Fred G. Hughes, one of the most notable of Arizona pioneers. The reserve, selected by the Indians themselves, was far from satis- factory. A major objection was that it offered too easy access to Mexico, into which marauding bands continued slipping.
Also there was much internal trouble. April 6, 1876, one of the leaders, Pionsenay, killed two Americans, Rodgers and Spence, who had a wayside grog- gery at Sulphur Spring and who had sold the Indians liquor. Pionsenay later was surrendered by Agent Clum to the civil authorities at Tucson, but escaped. Taza, son of Cochise and his successor in office, later wounded Pionsenay and a younger son of Cochise killed Skinya, who was the chief trouble breeder on the reservation. Then it was that the Indians, against their protests, were moved to the White Mountain reservation.
Geronimo, with a small number of the Janos, refused to be transferred to San Carlos and fled to take refuge with the Ojos Calientes, in New Mexico, with Victorio. He and Victorio's band were herded to San Carlos in June, 1877.
Cochise was succeeded by Taza, who died of pneumonia in 1878 while east, taken by Agent Clum to Washington with twenty-three others, that there might be exhibited the multitude of white men. He in turn was succeeded by Nachis, the second son of Cochise, though the tribe for a while seemed to accept the leadership of the newcomer, Juh. Taza is said to have been of decent sort, with good command over his tribe.
DEATH OF COCHISE
It is probable that affairs on the reservation would have gone more smoothly had Cochise lived longer. His death, of malarial fever, occurred June 8, 1874. His remains lie in a cave in the rocky hill, still known as "Cochise Stronghold." It is told that no Indian will venture into the locality, for they have a story that the spirit of the famous chieftain guards his bones against possible profanation. Cochise himself had a strong share of the superstition so common to his tribe. As he lay dying, knowing that his end was near, an American in the camp casually walked between the chief and the camp fire, something of grave and disastrous omen. So, almost with his last breath, the chief sent a request that the American pass back by the same route. This was done in all good nature, and it is assumed that the curse thereby was taken off. The name given him by the whites was only a perversion of his Apache name, which was Chies, an Indian word meaning "wood." The same derivation can be seen in the name of his son, Nachis or Nachies.
The only white man who possessed the secret of the burial place of Cochise was his "blood-brother," Jeffords, and it passed with him when he died at his home at Owl's Head, near Tucson, in February, 1914. Jeffords had been one of the most noted of Arizona pioneers. After experience as pilot on the Missis sippi, he came to the Southwest in 1859 as a military scout, serving with General Canby's command in New Mexico during a large part of the Civil War. There- after he became an Indian trader and gained a deep insight into Indian customs. Throughout he was able to retain the confidence of the Apaches.
Vol. 1-15
CHAPTER XVII
CLOSING IN ON THE APACHE
The Great Crook Campaign of 1872-Loring Massacre-Date Creek Conspiracy- Fight of the Caves-Del Shay-King's Fight at Sunset Pass-Victorio's Death.
Gen. George Crook, fresh from successes against the Sioux, came to Arizona in June, 1871, to succeed Stoneman, who may have been blamed for not keeping the white population better in hand. The month after Crook's arrival he was in the saddle, with five troops of cavalry and an odd assortment of Indian scouts, on a trip of about 600 miles, that led through Bowie, Apache and Verde, and that ended at Whipple Barracks, to which point, from Los Angeles, had been trans- ferred departmental headquarters. On this trip he was reached by orders that. for the time, prevented him from striking the hostiles, whose country he cut for the greater part of the distance. He talked with every Apache he could find or capture and spread the word that he had come to do equal and exact justice. On one occasion, after his escort had dwindled, as added garrisoning of the posts passed, there was a sharp encounter with Apaches in which the General himself shot an Indian of an ambushing band. It was admitted that the General was the most active member of the party.
The reason why the brakes at first were put on Crook's activities in the field was that an attempt was to be made from Washington to soothe the savage breast with other music than that of the rifle. Vincent Colyer was to come and preach the gospel of peace. So there was a year of waiting on the part of the military, very much to the disgust of the citizenry, which threatened to "break out" and which had to be soothed by Governor Safford. While Colyer's assurance of rations may have held back some of the Indians by him visited, there are records for the year of at least two-score of Apache murders. Crook was not idle, how- ever, for he prepared for the coming struggle. He visited every post on inspec- tions that were not merely formal, for he saw that every soldier, horse and mule and every article necessary for hard campaigning in the mountains was in shape and ready.
. LORING MASSACRE, NEAR WICKENBURG
Crook soon had additional experiences very near home. Trouble had been brewing for some time with the rationed Date Creek Yuma-Apaches and they needed a salutary lesson. There had been a number of minor raids. Prospectors and freighters had been murdered in the lonely hills and even the outskirts of Wickenburg had suffered from the depredations of the desert Ishmaelites. The culmination of the atrocities was what has since been known as the Loring mas- sacre of November 4, 1871, on the Ehrenberg road, nine miles west of Wickenburg.
218
219
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
A full coach load of people had left Wickenburg for California and, in fancied security, the firearms had been stowed beneath the seats. Seated with the driver was Fred Loring, a young scientist, lately returned from participation in the Whipple survey. Within the coach were five men, Salmon, Shoholm, Hammel, Adams and Cruger, and a Miss Sheppard. The driver had hardly given the alarm as the savages broke from cover at the roadside, before a volley was fired. The driver, Loring, Shoholm and Hammel were instantly killed. Salmon, in agony, jumped from the stage with a shot through the lower part of his body. Adams dropped to the floor, paralyzed with a bullet through his body. Cruger was shot twice through the body and once in the right shoulder. Miss Sheppard was wounded in the right arm and had two superficial wounds in the shoulder. She was seized by Cruger and thrust under a seat, he himself dropping by her side. The Indians, assuming that the slaughter was complete, came trooping up to the doors of the stage, when Cruger and Miss Sheppard sprang to their feet with presented revolvers and yelled. The Indians promptly again retreated to cover, when the man and woman jumped out and fled into the desert. They had to leave Adams to his fate, after he had muttered that he could not move. The fugitives were favored by an apparent exhaustion of the Indians' ammunition. Regaining the road, they plodded on westward with four Apaches to the right of them and five to the left. Their wounds were bleeding freely and they were almost completely exhausted when, after about five miles travel, they encountered a mail buckboard. The driver, seeing death for himself ahead, left the couple behind an improvised barricade of mail sacks and baggage, while he mounted one of his horses and rode for help. About midnight, succor came from Wickenburg, a party of twenty men, with a wagon. The bodies of the driver, Loring, Shoholm, Hammel and Adams were taken to Wickenburg for burial. Salmon's body not found till the next day, where he had been hunted down and murdered in the brush, was buried by the roadside. Cruger and Miss Sheppard recovered, but had to be taken to Camp Date Creek to secure surgical assistance. The Indians found rich plunder. The two survivors each had lost money and jewelry valued at $8,000. It is told the cash loot amounted to $12,000. Possibly even more welcome to the Apaches were a couple of demijohns full of liquor, and it is not improbable that two lives were saved by the fact that most of the Indians left the chase to remain by the stage for an orgie. General Crook and his officers did their best to ferret down the individual Indians responsible for this outrage, but failed, and so a few months thereafter punishment had to be inflicted on practically the entire tribe. It may be noted that, despite the testimony of the survivors, Vincent Colyer later tried to fix responsibility for this outrage upon "Mexican bandits."
DATE CREEK PLOT AGAINST CROOK
Among all the Indians of the Southwest at that time, probably the most pernicious were the Apache-Yumas and Apache-Mojaves along Date Creek, a few miles north of the site of the mining camp of Congress. There had been established Camp Date Creek, a decidedly unpopular post among army officers. Their blood lust whetted by the Loring massacre, the Date Creek Indians next planned nothing short of the murder of the commanding general himself. But, adroit as the Indians were and skillful in the laying of plots, they still could not cope with the "Old Gray Fox," who soon learned through the Hualpais the pro-
220
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
gramme that had been laid out for his own assassination. The Indians were to wait till he came to the post and then would call upon him for a "talk." After small conversation of an agreeable nature had progressed for a while, the Indian chief was to light a cigarette, a signal for a designated Indian to shoot the General, while the others were to account for as many whites as possible, in the hope of annihilating the entire small garrison. Then the tribe joyously was to take to the hills of the Santa Maria and thence spread death and desolation on every hand.
The simple Indians had their chance much sooner than expected. The com- manding officer of the camp, Capt. Philip Dwyer, Fifth Cavalry, died suddenly and, temporarily, had been succeeded by Lieut. John G. Bourke. A few days later General Crook appeared on a special inspection of the camp, and, willing to force the issue, sent cordial word to the Indians that he wished to talk with them. The General strolled in careless manner to the meeting place, accompanied by Lieutenant Ross, an officer of his staff. No soldiers were present other than the two officers. Behind, as though mere casual spectators, were about a dozen packers, every one armed with a revolver and knife, every one a veteran of Indian warfare. The programme went along as planned by the Indians, who, however, were not present in full number owing to the suddenness with which the conference had been called. An Indian asked for tobacco and proceeded to roll a cigarette. Lieutenant Ross edged toward him. At the first puff of smoke the man nearest the chief pulled his rifle from beneath his blanket and fired point blank at Crook. But he was no quicker than Ross, who struck up the barrel of the weapon, thus saving his superior's life. The packers, no less ready than the Indians, jumped like tigers into the fray, each with his eye on some particular brave of the inner circle. The chief who had given the signal was seized by Hank Hewitt, a giant in strength, whose first idea was to make the Indian cap- tive, but his prisoner proved so troublesome that Hewitt, disdaining his weapons, cracked the fellow's skull upon a rock and left him, to die later in the guard- house.
Captain Bourke, the eloquent historian of the affair, gives few details of what must have been a Homeric struggle, undoubtedly participated in by himself and by all the soldiers of the post, hurried to the scene on the run. The Indians, though in far greater force, were defeated with heavy loss, and the survivors, many of them wounded, made their way back into the hills, headed for the rendezvous whereat many of the tribe were in waiting. Crook sent word for them to come back to Date Creek at once and surrender, but none came back for their rations. The Indians naturally expected that the offensive would be from Date Creek, led by Crook himself, but again he fooled them. The attack was made with all rapidity from an entirely unexpected quarter, Colonel Mason of the Fifth Cavalry descending upon them from the north, his advance led by crafty Hualpai scouts, who soon located the hostiles at a point known as Muchos Cañones, where five canons united near the head of the Santa Maria. The hard- riding cavalry officers of those days carried with them neither press agents nor fountain pens, but it is known that the fight that followed was one of the most sanguinary character, and that at least forty of the Indians were killed in a pitched battle in the craggy hills wherein the Apaches had been surprised on their own ground. The action very much helped Crook in his dealings with the disaf-
221
ARIZONA-THE YOUNGEST STATE
fected Indian bands in central Arizona. Pacifying the Date Creek Indians was the easier in that a number of the leading men had always been in favor of peace. A third faction, under Chimehuevi-sal, not content with their neighbors or with the whites, started away, 150 in number, headed for Mexico, where they proposed to find a new home with the Cocopahs on the lower Colorado. Just why Crook opposed the exodus is not clear, but he sent Captain Burns after them with a troop of cavalry and had them brought back to their beef and beans on Date Creek.
CLOSING IN ON THE APACHES
Though General Crook has his greatest renown as a pacificator by other than militant methods, he also had full comprehension of the fact that at times nothing but force could avail in the settlement of troublesome Indian questions. He did his best to show the Indians of Arizona the foolishness of trying to whip the United States, and then when peaceful measures had failed was pantherlike in showing the jackals of the hills that his demands could be enforced. The treach- erous attack at Date Creek was the final straw, and by the War Department the General was directed to drive the Indians back on the reservations assigned them, and to use the power of the army in securing peace within Arizona.
It would appear that the Indians were wholly unsuspicious of any impending general movement, for the troops were kept within the frontier posts until the time for striking had arrived. This was fixed as November 15, 1872, a date chosen for reasons of temperature, as the Indians would hardly take refuge during the winter months in the high mountains amidst the deep snows. Crook himself went into the field, starting on the day set from Fort Whipple and march- ing with an escort to Camp Apache, where at once was organized a force of Apaclic scouts. This work was under charge of Lieut. Alex O. Brodie, First Cavalry, then the Post Adjutant, later to win fame as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Rough Riders and as Governor of Arizona.
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.