| US Military Dictionary: Apache Wars |
A protracted campaign in the American Southwest, beginning in the 1870s under U.S. Gen. George Crook and Brig. Gen. Nelson A. Miles. The United States fought against bands of Chiricahua Apache Indians led by such fierce and elusive fighters as Geronimo and the chief Cochise. Cavalry pursuits and Indian skirmishes continued till the end of the 19th century.
See the Introduction, Abbreviations and Pronunciation for further details.
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| US History Encyclopedia: Apache Wars |
When Spaniards entered New Mexico in 1598 they unwittingly claimed a region in flux. The mysterious disappearance of the Anasazi culture in the twelfth century (see Ancestral Pueblo) had left communities of pueblo-dwellers scattered across the Rio Grande Valley and northern Arizona. The vanished Hohokams had disbanded by 1500 A.D., survived only by the agricultural Piman-speaking peoples in scattered rancherias. The Athapascan-speaking Apaches had only recently emerged from the Rocky Mountains, pushed from behind by the numerous Comanches.
Forced by the Comanches into present-day Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, the Apaches alternately attacked and traded with the Pueblos. By the mid-seventeenth century Apaches had successfully raided the Spaniards' jealously guarded horse herds. When the Pueblos revolted from the Spaniards in 1680, Apaches aided them from horseback. When Spain reconquered New Mexico in 1692, Apache warriors controlled the region from the Gulf of California to west Texas, where they battled the powerful Comanches.
Faced with the fierce Comanches in Coahuilla and Texas, the Spaniards attempted to make peace with the Jicarilla Apaches, founding a short-lived mission for them near the Taos pueblo in 1733. The Spanish built a line of presidios to protect colonists from Apache and Comanche raiders, but as late as 1786 Apaches still raided deep into Mexico.
When Mexicans began their war for independence from Spain in 1811, they signed a peace treaty with the marauding Lipans, whose numbers had been devastated by smallpox in 1764. But even as Mexico negotiated with the Indians who prevented their northward expansion, American hunters and trappers invaded the southwest out of Santa Fe, crowding the Jicarillas' land. The invasion of Apacheria had begun.
In 1833 Charles Bent was issued a license to trade with several tribes on the Arkansas River. When these tribes, including the Kiowa Apaches, made peace among themselves in 1840, American troops were dispatched to the west to protect the Santa Fe wagon trail, which cut through Jicarilla territory. In Texas, now in the hands of Americans, peaceful relations with Apaches fell apart. In 1842 bands of Lipans and Mescaleros immigrated to Mexico, free to raid on Texas settlements. Although the Comanches and remaining Mescaleros and Lipans signed a treaty with Texas in 1851, by 1855 Americans had erected a line of forts across the southern frontier for protection from Lipan raiders.
After the Mexican-American War, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo forfeited much of the southwest to the Americans. In 1854–1855 General George Carlton, led by Kit Carson, waged war on the Jicarillas. Overwhelmed by the American presence, the Mescaleros signed a treaty in 1855, but the Jicarillas refused to surrender. The acquisition of the southwest territory in 1848 had placed the Chiricahuas and Western Apaches within the domain of the United States. By 1858 stage lines traversed Chiricahua territory in southern Arizona. Chokonen headman Cochise maintained peaceful relations with Americans until falsely accused of taking a young boy into captivity in 1861.
In the notorious Bascom Affair at Apache Pass in the Chiricahua mountains, an inexperienced lieutenant hanged several of Cochise's family members, leading the head-man no choice but to seek revenge, as dictated by Apache custom. The merciless Chiricahuas attacked southern Arizona, emptying the region of American settlers.
Meanwhile, in 1864 the peaceful Mescaleros had been forced to move to the barren Bosque Redondo with the defeated Navajos. Unable to survive on meager rations, the Mescaleros slipped back to their mountain homes, hiding from American soldiers until finally they were issued a reservation on their own land in southern New Mexico in 1872. The starving Jicarillas refused to relocate to Mescalero, and continued raiding American settlements.
While war raged with the Chiricahuas in southern Arizona, the U.S. cavalry penetrated Western Apache territory further north where they found the White Mountain headmen eager to establish friendly relations. After the construction of Fort Apache, General George Crook used it in 1872 to stage a retaliatory expedition on the Tonto Apaches, who had been raiding the mineral-rich settlements around Prescott, Arizona. Accompanied by White Mountain and Cibecue scouts, Crook carried out the bloody defeat of the Tontos, the westernmost branch of the Western Apaches.
By 1872 Cochise had come to terms with the Americans, who granted the Chokonens a reservation on their homeland in southeastern Arizona. Following Cochise's death in 1874, the Chiricahuas were removed to the newly established San Carlos reservation east of Fort Apache. There they were joined by the White Mountain Apaches, who had been forced off their lands near Fort Apache following the Tonto campaign.
Although related culturally and linguistically, the Chiricahuas and White Mountain Apaches had never been friendly. Close confinement on the reservation aggravated their differences. In 1875 tensions grew more intense when the Chihenne band of Chiricahuas, led by Victorio, was forcibly removed from New Mexico to San Carlos. Finally, in 1880 the Chiricahuas fled the reservation to join the Nednai deep in Mexico. However, Mexicans annihilated Victorio and most of his band at Tres Castillos.
While Crook and the Apache scouts waged war in Arizona, American troops invaded Mexico in 1873 to punish the Lipan raiders. The survivors were deported to the Mescalero reservation. In 1875 the Kiowa Apaches agreed to a reservation in Oklahoma, ending the Apache menace on the southern Plains. In 1881 the U.S. government finally agreed to settle the Jicarillas on their homeland, but Anglo protests prevented them from settling there until 1888.
In 1883 Crook convinced the Chiricahuas, now led by Geronimo, to return to San Carlos, but in 1885 the disgruntled warriors fled the reservation again. Crook failed to remove them from Mexico, and in early 1886, frustrated by his failure, he resigned his command. His replacement, General Nelson Miles, fortified the region with 4,000 troops and in September 1886 finally convinced Geronimo to surrender.
The Chiricahua prisoners of war were exiled to Florida and Alabama, where they languished until the Comanches invited them to live at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 1894. Following the death of Geronimo in 1909, many Chiricahuas elected to move to the Mescalero reservation, while the remainder stayed at Fort Sill, where they still lived in the early 2000s. Some scholars believe descendants of the undefeated Nednai survive in Mexico today.
Bibliography
Davis, Britton. The Truth about Geronimo. Foreword by Robert M. Utley. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1929; Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1976.
Debo, Angie. Geronimo: The Man, His Time, His Place. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1976.
Sweeney, Edwin. Cochise: Chiricahua Apache Chief. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1991.
Thrapp, Dan L. The Conquest of Apacheria. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1967.
—Victoria A. O. Smith
| Wikipedia: Apache Wars |
| Apache Wars | |||||||
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| Part of the American Indian Wars | |||||||
 The Battle of Apache Pass |
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 United States(1851-1900)  Confederate States (1861-1865) |
Apache | ||||||
| Commanders | |||||||
| various commanders throughout the era | Flechas Rayada, Mangas Coloradas, Cochise, Francisco, Juh, Delshay, Victorio, Geronimo, various other tribal leaders |
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The Apache Wars were fought during the nineteenth century between American settlers, the U.S. and or C.S. Army and many Apache tribes in what is now the southwestern United States.
Contents |
The first conflicts between Apaches (known by themselves as T`Inde, Inde, N`de, N`ne = "people") and Americans began in 1847 during the Taos Revolt of the Mexican-American War. The Apaches were fighting in defense of Mexico with their New Mexican allies. The first campaigns specifically against the Apache came in 1851 and would end with the surrender of Geronimo in 1886. However, Apache attacks on white and Mexican settlers would continue as late as 1900. Apaches were not new to warfare, they had fought the Spanish and Mexicans for decades before conflict with Americans. The major campaigns of the period occurred all around the present day Tucson, Arizona. The Apaches failed to drive the Spanish and Mexicans off their homeland and other lands conquered by Apaches from other native American tribes. The various Apache groups ruled a vast area of land stretching from southern California to western Texas, northern Arizona to Mexico and a region in Oklahoma.
In the early years of the wars, the Apache war battles were often the result of stolen property and massacres of whites and Mexicans. This period; roughly from 1851 to 1875. The latter period from 1875 to 1886, the United States engaged Apaches in order to settle them on reservations or to keep them from escaping the reservations. With the capture of Geronimo in 1886, the period then on to 1900 was a time of small skirmishes between white settlers and little packs of Apaches who evaded the U.S. Army's reservations. A lot of the time, individual Apache warriors were reported to have made attacks.
Sometimes the Native Americans were provoked by white and Mexican settlers, speculators of the federal Indian Reservation policy. Apache leaders like Mangas Coloradas of the Bedonkohe; Cochise of the Chokonen; Victorio of the Chihenne band; Juh of the Nednhi band; Delshay of the Tonto; and Geronimo of the Bedonkohe led war or raiding parties against non-Apaches and resisted the military's attempts, by force and persuasion, to relocate their people to various reservations.
At the start of the Mexican-American War in 1846, many Apache bands promised U.S. soldiers safe passage through their land. When the U.S. claimed the former frontier territories of Mexico in 1848, Mangas Coloradas signed a peace treaty, respecting them as conquerors of the Mexicans' land. An uneasy peace between the Apache and the now citizens of the United States held until an influx of gold miners into the Santa Rita Mountains of present day Arizona, led to conflict. In 1851, near the Piños Altos mining camp Mangas was attacked by a group of miners who tied him to a tree and severely beat him. Similar incidents continued in violation of the treaty, leading to Apache reprisals. Another significant incident was the Battle of Cieneguilla in 1854. The battle of Cieneguilla resulted in the Battle of Ojo Caliente Canyon during the same Apache campaign. Later in 1854, a small U.S. Cavalry force defeated an overwhelming force of Lipan Apaches at the Battle of the Diablo Mountains in southern Texas.
In December 1860, thirty miners launched a surprise attack on an encampment of Bedonkohes Apaches on the west bank of the Mimbres River. According to historian Edwin R. Sweeney, the miners "...killed four Indians, wounded others, and captured thirteen women and children." Retaliation by the Apache again followed, with raids against U.S. citizens and property.
In early February 1861 a band of unidentified natives stole cattle and kidnapped the stepson of rancher John Ward near Sonoita, Arizona and Ward immediately sought redress from the nearby U.S. Army. Lieutenant George N. Bascom was dispatched and John Ward accompanied the detail. Bascom set out for a meeting with Cochise near Apache Pass and the Butterfield Overland Stagecoach station to secure the cattle and Ward's son. Cochise was unaware of the theft and kidnapping, but offered to seek those responsible.
Bascom was unsatisfied and accused Cochise of personal involvement. Bascom then falsely imprisoned Cochise and a group of family members that accompanied him to the negotiations inside his tent.[1] Cochise was angered by the accusations and his imprisonment and slashed his way from the tent and escaped. Cochise decided upon an equivocal response and took a member of the stage coach station hostage after an exchange of gunfire during further failed negotiations.
Bascom remained unwilling to conduct an exchange and Cochise and his party opted to kill the members of a passing Mexican wagon train. An unsuccessful ambush was then made on a Butterfield Overland stagecoach. Negotiations between Bascom and Cochise remained at an impasse, while Bascom sent for reinforcements. Cochise, realizing the situation was becoming untenable, decided to kill his remaining captive from the Butterfield Station and abandon negotiations. Upon the advise of military surgeon Dr. Bernard Irwin, Bascom replied by killing the Apache hostages in his custody. The short incident became known as the "Bascom Affair" and while a small affair, initiated another eleven years of open warfare between American settlers, the U.S. and C.S. Armies and Apaches.
After the American Civil War began in mid 1861, Mangas Coloradas and Cochise, his son-in-law, struck an alliance, agreeing to drive all Americans out of Apache territory. The battles of Tubac, Cooke's Canyon, Florida Mountains, Pinos Altos and Dragoon Springs were some results of the Apache campaigns against the Confederates. Many other skirmishes and massacres occurred as well. Magnas Coloradas and Cochise were joined in their effort by the chief Juh and the famous warrior Geronimo. Their goal was never realized, however many tribal members fell under the impression that they had forced the Americans from the area due to the closure of the Butterfield Overland Stagecoach and departure of U.S. troops due to the outset of the American Civil War.
U.S. military leadership decided to form a military response to Confederate pressure against the New Mexico Territory by dispatching a column of Californian volunteers under Colonel James Henry Carleton. The California Column as it became known, proceeded to follow the old Butterfield Overland Trail east and made contact with Mangas Coloradas and Cochise's followers near the site of the spring in Apache Pass in 1862. In the Battle of Apache Pass, Mangas Coloradas was shot in the chest and wounded. While recuperating, Mangas Coloradas met with an intermediary to call for peace with the Americans. In January 1863, he decided to personally meet with U.S. military leaders at Fort McLane, near present-day Hurley in southwestern New Mexico. Mangas arrived under a white flag of truce to meet with Brigadier General Joseph Rodman West, an officer of the California militia and a future senator from Louisiana. Armed soldiers took him into custody, and West is reported to have given an execution order to the sentries. That night Mangas was tortured, shot and killed, as he was "trying to escape." The following day, U.S. soldiers cut off his head, boiled it and sent the skull to the Smithsonian Institution. The mutilation of Mangas' body only increased the hostility between the Apaches and the United States.
General James Henry Carleton decided to remove the Navajos and Apaches to reservations. Initially the purpose was to make the Rio Grande valley safer for settlement and to stop raids on whites traveling through the area. Carleton began by forcing the various bands of Mescalero Apaches onto the reservation at Fort Sumner. Carleton enlisted the one-time friend of the Navajos, Kit Carson, to round them up by destroying crops and livestock and sending them on The Long Walk to Fort Sumner.
In 1871, a group of six whites, forty-eight Mexicans and almost 100 Papago men attacked Camp Grant. This resulted in the massacre of about 150 Apache men women and children. The incident came to be known as the Camp Grant Massacre.
The Apache Wars continued after the Civil War, the battles of Salt River Canyon and Turret Peak are prime examples of the said violence in the Arizona region. Soldiers and civilians, especially from Tucson, constantly pursued various Apache bands for a variety of reasons through the 1860s and 1880s.
In 1880, an Apache army under their commander, Victorio, launched a campaign against the white American settlers in and around Alma, New Mexico. Beginning with the Alma Massacre, the campaign was concluded with the Apache siege of Fort Tularosa and subsequent U.S. victory.
A year later in August 1881 at the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona. A U.S. army was sent to investigate recent reports of Apache unrest and to detain the ring leader medicine man, Nochaydelklinne. The arrest of Nochaydelklinne by three native scouts was peaceful until they made their way back to camp, upon arrival the camp had already been surrounded by Nochaydelklinne's followers. The Battle of Cibecue Creek began. The following day, the native army attacked Fort Apache in reprisal for the death of Nochaydelklinne who was killed during the fighting at Cibecue Creek.
In the spring of 1882, a party of about 60 White Mountain Apache warriors, coalesced under the leadership of a warrior called Na-tio-tish. In early July some of the warriors ambushed and killed four San Carlos policemen, including the police chief. After the ambush, Na-tio-tish led his band of warriors northwest through the Tonto Basin. Local Arizona settlers were greatly alarmed and demanded protection from the army which immediately sent out fourteen companies of cavalry from forts in the region.
In the middle of July, Na-tio-tish led his band up Cherry Creek to the Mogollon Rim, intending to reach General Springs, a well-known water hole on the Crook Trail. The Apaches noticed that they were trailed by a single troop of cavalry and decided to lay an ambush seven miles north of General Springs where a fork of East Clear Creek cuts a gorge into the Mogollon Rim. The Apaches hid on the far side and waited.
The cavalry company was led by Captain Adna R. Chaffee. However, Chaffee's chief scout, Al Sieber, discovered the Apaches' trap and warned the troops. During the night, Chaffee's lone company was reinforced by four more from Fort Apache under the command of Major A. W. Evans. The Battle of Big Dry Wash would soon begin.
Geronimo is probably the best known Apache warrior of that time period, but he certainly was not the only one. He belonged to a Chiricahua Apache band, and his story is typical of other bands and their leaders.
After two decades of guerrilla warfare, Cochise, one of the leaders of the Chiricahua band, chose to make peace and agreed to relocate to a reservation in the Chiricahua Mountains. Not long afterward, Cochise died in 1874. In a change of policy, the U.S. government decided to move the Chiricahuas to the San Carlos reservation in 1876. Half of them complied and the other half, led by Geronimo, escaped to Mexico.
In the spring of 1877, the U.S. captured Geronimo and brought him to the San Carlos reservation. He stayed there until September 1881, when a gathering of soldiers around the reservation caused him to fear that he would be imprisoned for his past deeds. He fled to Mexico again, taking 700 Apaches with him. In April of the following year, Geronimo returned to San Carlos with horses and guns and liberated the rest of the Apaches, leading many of them back to Mexico.
In the spring of 1883, General George Crook was put in charge of the Arizona and New Mexico reservations. With 200 Apaches, he journeyed to Mexico, found Geronimo’s camp, and persuaded him and his people to return to the San Carlos reservation. Crook instituted several reforms on the reservation, but local newspapers criticized him for being too lenient and demonized Geronimo. On 17 May 1885, Geronimo, drunk and intimidated by demands for his death printed in the papers, escaped once again to Mexico.
Crook went after Geronimo in the spring of 1886 and caught up with him just over the Mexico border in March. Some reports say that while setting up a meeting for negotiations, many of the Apaches were given strong drinks and fed rumors by a local rancher. Geronimo and his group fled and Crook could not catch up with them. The War Department reprimanded Crook for the failure, and he resigned. He was replaced by Brigadier General Nelson Miles in April 1886. Miles deployed over 2 dozen heliograph points, coordinating 5,000 soldiers, 500 Apache scouts, 100 Navajo Scouts, and thousands of civilian militia against Geronimo and his twenty-four warriors. Geronimo was found in September 1886 by Lt. Gatewood and persuaded to surrender to General Miles. Geronimo and many other Apaches, mostly men (including some of the Apache Scouts) were imprisoned in Fort Pickens in Florida while their families (women and children) were imprisoned in Fort Marion in Florida.[2] Many died there. Later, Apache children were taken to the Carlisle school in Pennsylvania, where fifty of them died. Eventually, after 26 years, the Apaches in Florida were allowed to return to the Southwest, but Geronimo was sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
Similar stories to Geronimo's could be told about many other Apache groups.
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