While we know our northern friends may not feel it, in the South, Spring is
here. So we thought we'd share a few of our gardening sites appropriate
for this time of the year. Along with gardening, there's grilling, and getting
ready to diet so that you can fit back into that bathing suit this summer!
The first Americans who encountered the
Apaches were soldiers and trappers. These
first contacts were casual or accidental and
happened in Mexican territory. The earliest
report concerning this tribe from an
American pen is that of Zebulon M. Pike,
written in 1807, during his extended
explorations in the unknown Southwest.
Either purposely or "through an
unintentional aberration from his prescribed
route" he found himself (and was found by
the Government of New Mexico) in Spanish
territory. From Santa Fe he was sent under
military escort to Chihuahua, Mexico, there
to give an account of himself to the
Commandant-General. It was during his long
march from Santa Fe to Chihuahua that Pike
got his first glimpse of the Apaches and
made comments on the condition and habits of
the Apaches as he saw them at that time.
What Pike writes pertains to the
relationship between these Indians and the
Spanish; for as yet they knew nothing of the
Americans, nor the Americans of them.
The earliest account we have of a clash
between Apaches and citizens of the United
States is to be found in The Personal
Narrative of James O. Pattie of Kentucky,
published in 1831. Late in February, 1825, a
party of American trappers led by Pattie's
father suddenly came upon a band of Apaches
on the Gila River not far from the modern
site of Fort Thomas. Surprised and alarmed,
the Indians fled into the mountains. The
trappers took pains to show themselves
friendly, so no evil consequences resulted
at that time. The party proceeded down the
river, trapping along the way. The natives
were occasionally seen skulking about, but
not until several weeks later did they show
an ugly temper. The Americans exerted
themselves to get on good terms with a large
band who made their appearance in the
mountains above the river; but the Indians
either could not, or would not, understand
the friendly overtures of the intruders.
Later it became evident that they mistook
this party of white men for Spaniards.
A few days later this same band attacked the
trappers on the San Pedro about six miles
above its junction with the Gila. The
Americans lost their horses and barely
escaped with their lives; but the enemy
suffered still more severely, ten of their
braves being killed. The Indians found to
their surprise that they were dealing with a
type of white men they had never come in
contact with before. When, months
afterwards, young Pattie returned to the
scene of the battle to recover the beaver
skins that he had cached on the San Pedro,
the band of Indians were again encountered.
They had unearthed the beaver skins and made
robes of them which they were then wearing.
One of them was riding on the horse that
Pattie's father had ridden. Pattie compelled
the Indian to dismount and surrender the
animal. The leader of the band then came
forward and asked:
"Do you know this horse?'
"I do,' Pattie replied; 'it is mine.'
"Was it your party we took the horse and
furs from a year ago?' the chief inquired.
"Yes, I was one of them; and if you do not
give me back my horse and furs, we will kill
your whole party here and now.' "
"He immediately brought me one hundred and
fifty skins, and the horses," Pattie writes,
"observing that they had been famished and
had eaten the rest, and that he hoped this
would satisfy me, for that in the battle
they had suffered more than we, he having
lost ten men, and we having taken from them
four horses with their saddles and bridles.
I observed to him that he must remember that
they were the aggressors and had provoked
the quarrel, in having robbed us of our
horses and attempting to kill us. He
admitted that they were the aggressors in
beginning the quarrel, but added, by way of
apology, that they had thought us Spaniards,
not knowing that we were Americans; but that
now, when he knew us, he was willing to make
peace and be in perpetual friendship. On
this we lit the pipe of peace, and smoked
friends. I gave him some red cloth, with
which he was delighted."
In 1828 a band of trappers in the employ of
Ewing Young, a famous pioneer trapper, while
on their way from Taos to the Colorado River
for the purpose of hunting and trapping,
were attacked by Apache Indians somewhere
near the headwaters of the Salt River in
Arizona. After a long, fierce fight the
trappers were beaten and were compelled to
return to Taos. Young was not an easy foe to
deal with. His ire was aroused and his
determination to carry out his enterprise
stiffened. Enlisting a company of forty of
the most daring and experienced mountain
men, he led them in person. He set out with
the purpose, first, of visiting vengeance
upon the Apaches who had broken up the
previous undertaking, and second, of
carrying on a profitable trapping
expedition. Kit Carson, though not yet
twenty years of age, was accepted as a
member of this veteran band; and it was
during the next few months that he received
his real baptism of fire.
It was April when Young and his men set out.
In order to deceive the Mexican Government
with respect to his destination he first
marched a considerable distance northward;
but when sufficiently remote from the
settlements, he directed his course
southwestward through the Navajo country and
in due time, in the White Mountain region,
came upon the Indians whom he desired to
chastise.
The savages were no less eager for the fray
than were the Americans; but they were not a
match for these cool, hardened mountain men,
either in strategy or desperate courage. To
the jubilant Indians, Young, when he had
shown himself in the open with what they
judged to be a mere handful of followers,
seemed to halt in fear. In reality, this
experienced fighter was making use of his
time to place the main body of the trappers
in ambush. Seeing such a small company of
Americans and mistaking the brief pauses of
the leader for cowardice, as Young
anticipated, the Indians swarmed over the
hills and moved en masse against the few
white men in sight. They paid dearly for
their haste and indiscretion. When they had
advanced to a position where the ambushed
riflemen could subject them to a cross fire,
the command was given to shoot.
Bullets were too scarce to waste; so the
result of the accurate cross fire was
withering. Fifteen Apaches were killed at
the first volley, and many were sorely
wounded. The Apache was never ashamed to run
when he was getting the worst of it; and so
it was in this case. When the trappers
advanced into the open, the enemy scattered
like autumn leaves in a gale.
Young and his party now busied themselves
with their trapping along the Arizona
mountain streams. The skulking Indians
continued to harass them, stealing their
traps and occasionally killing a horse or a
mule. But never again did they dare to
attack in the open.
About 1835, as the result of a most
despicable act of treachery on the part of
James Johnson, an American trader, and one
Gleason, his accomplice, the friendly
understanding that had hitherto existed
between the Apaches and the Americans came
to a sudden end. The leading Apache chief
south of the Gila at that time, was Juan
José, between whom and the Mexicans there
was the most deadly enmity. Juan José was
fairly well educated; had, indeed, been
partly prepared for the priesthood in the
Catholic Church, and was a very able
chieftain--for strategic gifts and wisdom in
council, however, more than for prowess in
arms. His small but very aggressive force of
staunch young warriors were more willing to
risk death in executing his orders than they
were to permit their leader to expose
himself unduly to extreme danger.
So successfully had Juan waged warfare upon
the Mexicans in Sonora that the Government
was seeking at any cost some means of
destroying him. Though it was against the
law for American traders and trappers to
operate in Mexico, Johnson, because he had
married a Mexican wife, was allowed to come
and go freely between the United States and
Sonora. Juan José never lost an opportunity
to do a good turn for American hunters,
trappers, and traders; and, as Johnson often
passed through his territory, a warm
friendship existed between the two men;
several times the chief had visited Johnson
in camp near the frontier. Aware of the fact
that Johnson enjoyed Juan José's confidence,
the Government of Sonora offered the trader
a large bribe if he would kill José.
Johnson soon found a chance to carry out his
evil design. A party of ten or twelve
Missourians, headed by a man named Eames,
went into Sonora to purchase mules; but, as
the Apaches had recently stripped the
country, he was unable to secure the desired
stock. Eames and his men when on the point
of leaving Mexico fell in with Johnson and
Gleason, and these villains, seeing, as they
believed, just the opportunity they were
seeking to betray the Apache chief and claim
their reward, joined the Missourians on
their return journey. As Johnson was very
familiar with the region to be traversed, he
assured Eames that the shortest and best
route back to the United States was through
the territory controlled by Juan José.
Accordingly the whole party set out under
Johnson's guidance. Through his alert
intelligence service Juan had heard of the
approach of the Americans and also of the
plot between the Mexican Government and the
trader; so he met them on or near the Gila
River several days after they left Oposura.
Be it said to his credit that he refused to
give credence to the report that Johnson was
in complicity with the Sonoran Government.
It was impossible for him to believe that
Johnson, with whom he had long been on terms
of intimate friendship, could consent to
harm him. He met the Americans one evening
as they were about to make camp and made
known to Johnson the report that had been
brought to him by his scouts. Johnson, of
course, at once denied any connection with
Juan's Mexican foes. The Apache chief then
said:
"Don Santiago, you have never deceived me;
and if you give me your word of honor that
the report is false, I invite you to come to
my camp with your men and pass the night
with us."
Nothing could fit in better with Johnson's
purpose, so the whole company went with the
chieftain to his encampment. Upon their
arrival the trader told Juan José that he
had brought along a sack of pinole as a
present for the women and children. The sack
was taken from the back of the pack animal
and a man was designated by the chief to
take charge of the distribution. At once all
the Indians--men, women, and
children--gathered about the sack. That was
what Johnson desired and expected. Concealed
under an aparejo on the back of one of the
trader's mules was a blunderbuss that had
been brought for just this opportunity. It
was loaded with balls, slugs, and bits of
chain, not quite so serviceable as the
machine gun of the modern American
racketeer, but well adapted to its fiendish
purpose. Meantime Gleason, under the pretext
that he wanted to buy a fine saddle mule of
Juan José's, had drawn the chief a little
distance aside where the mule was standing.
The plan was for Gleason to shoot the
unsuspecting chief with his pistol at the
same time that Johnson fired the blunderbuss
into the crowd assembled about the bag of
pinole. The scheme was instantly executed.
The blunderbuss wrought cruel havoc among
the crowd and Gleason shot Juan at the same
moment. Wounded, but not unto death, the
chief cried out:
"Don Santiago, come to my rescue!"
At the same time he clinched with Gleason
and threw him to the ground, and now with
drawn knife he was poised ready to stab him.
Johnson came over, and Juan José said:
"For God's sake, save my life! I can kill
your friend, but I don't want to do it."
In reply, Johnson shot him. He sank down
dead on top of his prostrate foe.
"Thus perished that fine specimen of a man.
I knew the man well, and I can vouch for the
fact that he was a perfect gentleman, as
well as a kind-hearted one." This quotation,
and the whole account of the tragedy as
related above, I have drawn from Benjamin D.
Wilson unpublished diary, Observations on
Early Days in California and New Mexico.
Wilson was a trapper in New Mexico at the
time of the betrayal and murder of Juan
José. He was near the scene of the tragedy
at the time and met members of the Eames
party who escaped. Wilson later moved to
California, became the first American mayor
of Los Angeles, was elected to the State
Senate, and became so prominent in
California that Mount Wilson was named for
him, as were, also, civic objects in
Pasadena. We must, therefore, accept his
account of this terrible early outrage upon
Apaches by Americans as authentic and
trustworthy.
On August 14, 1846, with as little
forethought as the dissolute father gives to
his chance-begotten offspring, the United
States Government assumed the wardship of
the Apache. On that day, from the flat roof
of a one-story house in the village of Las
Vegas, New Mexico, General Stephen W. Kearny
made the following proclamation:
"Mr. Alcalde and people of New Mexico: I
have come amongst you by the orders of my
Government to take possession of your
country and extend over it the laws of the
United States. We come among you for your
benefit--not for your injury.
"Henceforth I absolve you from all
allegiance to the Mexican Government. . . .
I am your Governor. I shall not expect you
to take up arms and follow me, to fight your
own people who may oppose me; but I now tell
you that those who remain peaceably at home,
attending to their crops and their herds,
shall be protected by me in their property,
their persons, and their religion; and not a
pepper, nor an onion, shall be disturbed or
taken by my troops without pay or by the
consent of their owner. . . .
"From the Mexican Government you have never
received protection. The Apaches and Navajos
come down from the mountains and carry off
your sheep, and even your women, whenever
they please. My Government will correct all
this. It will keep off the Indians, protect
you in your persons and property; and, I
repeat again, will protect you in your
religion." (Emory W. H. Notes of a Military
Reconnaissance. Executive Document No. 41.
Washington, 1848.)
Never before nor since did Uncle Sam take
into his strong awkward arms such a
turbulent infant as this Apache nation. It
was one thing for Kearny to declare himself
military governor and that, if the people
would go quietly on with their affairs and
not oppose the new Government, they would be
secure in all their civic rights and would
be protected from the nomadic Indians; but
it was a very different thing for the United
States to make good these promises. Here,
too, it should be stated that, in the
Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty, signed by the
representative of the United States,
February 2, 1848, and ratified by the Senate
March 10, our Government formally and
solemnly agreed to prevent Indians living in
the United States from making raids into
Mexico and from carrying Mexicans away into
captivity.
These obligations were hard, indeed, to
fulfill, were often impossible of
fulfillment. For forty years the Apache
problem was a festering thorn in the flesh
of the American Republic and a source of
desolation and death to thousands of
individual citizens, both Mexican and
American.
The following affecting account written by
John T. Hughes, a soldier in the Doniphan
Expedition, gives a good idea of the
responsibilities and difficulties inherited
by the Americans from the moment that Kearny
raised the Stars and Stripes in Santa Fe. It
is dated September 23, 1846.
"The chief of one branch of the Apaches,
with about thirty of his tribe, came to hold
a grand council with the Governor General.
The general made a long speech to him
through an interpreter encouraging them to
industry and peaceful pursuits, and
particularly to the cultivation of the soil,
as the surest and best mode of procuring an
honorable subsistence; that they must desist
from all robberies and the committing of all
crimes against the laws of the territory;
that if they did not, he would send his
soldiers amongst them and destroy them from
the earth; but if they would be peaceable
towards their white brethren, he would
protect and defend them as he would the New
Mexicans and make them all brothers to the
white people and citizens of the same
republic and children of the same father,
the President, at Washington City.
"To all these things the venerable Sachem
replied in a spirit worthy of his tribe. He
said, 'Father, you give good advice for me
and my people; but I am now old and unable
to work, and my tribe are unaccustomed to
cultivating the soil for subsistence. The
Apaches are poor; they have no clothes to
protect them from the cold, and the game is
fast disappearing from their hunting
grounds. You must, therefore, if you wish us
to be peaceable, speak a good word to the
Comanches, the Yutes, the Navajos, and the
Arapahoes, our enemies, that they will allow
us to kill buffalo on the great plains. You
are rich-you have a great nation to feed and
clothe you--I am poor, and have to crawl on
my belly, like a cat, to shoot deer and
buffalo for my people. I am not a bad man; I
do not rob and steal; I speak truth. The
Great Spirit gave me an honest heart and a
straight tongue. I have not two tongues that
I should speak forked.
"'My skin is red, my head sun-burnt, my eyes
are dim with age, and I am a poor Indian, a
dog; yet I am not guilty. There is no guilt
there (putting his hand on his breast), no!
I can look you in the face like a man. In
the morning of my days, my muscles were
strong; my arm was stout; my eyes were
bright; my mind was clear; but now I am
weak, shrivelled up with age; yet my heart
is big, my tongue is straight. I will take
your counsel because I am weak and you are
strong.'" (The Hughes Reprint of Doniphan's
Expedition. Topeka, Kansas, William E.
Connelley, 1907.)
During the autumn of 1846, Lieutenant W. H.
Emory, with the advance guard of the "Army
of the West," passed through the Apache
country from the Rio Grande westward along
the Gila River. In his Notes of a Military
Reconnaissance and in the Journal of Captain
A. R. Johnston, First Dragoons, incidents
are related that deal with the earliest
contacts of soldiers of the American Army
with the wild Apaches. Emory got his first
view of the Apaches October 6 on the Rio
Grande near Valverde. As he sighted some of
them in the hills a considerable distance to
the west, he thought they were trees or
shrubs, but the trained eyes of Chaboneau,
one of the guides, instantly made them out
for what they were. He cried, "Indians!
There are the Apaches." They came down to
the American camp in a very friendly spirit,
and after a council with the officers,
"swore eternal friendship, as usual, no
doubt, with the mental reservation to rob
the first American or Mexican they should
meet unprotected." They supplied the
expedition with four young warriors as
guides. Emory describes them as "smirking
and deceitful looking." Even at this early
period, some of them had firearms.
Kearny had made an appointment for a meeting
with some of the leading Apaches farther
west, near the Copper Mines; and there the
great chief Red Sleeves (Mangas Coloradas)
met him on October 20, with about a score of
his people, both men and women. They were
well mounted on small but active horses. Red
Sleeves showed an eager desire to be on
friendly terms with the Americans. One of
the chiefs, struck with admiration at the
soldierly bearing and peremptoriness of
General Kearny, as the order was sounded for
"boots and saddles" and the column moved out
with promptness and precision, said with
passionate vehemence: "You have taken New
Mexico and will soon take California; go,
then, and take Chihuahua, Durango, and
Sonora. We will help you. You fight for the
land; we fight for the laws of Montezuma and
for food. The Mexicans are rascals; we hate
and will kill them all." (Emory H. W.Op.
cit.) They assured the General that "one, or
two or three white men might now pass in
safety through their country; that if they
were hungry, they would feed them; or, if on
foot, they would mount them. The road was
open to the Americans, now and forever.
Carson, with a twinkle of his keen hazel
eye, observed, 'I would not trust one of
them.'" (Ibid.)
November 2, not far from the junction of the
San Pedro with the Gila, some Apaches made
signals from the hills indicating that they
wanted to talk with the strangers. However,
they were so very timid that it was almost
impossible to persuade them to come into
camp. Finally, one by one, and warily, they
risked it; and, finding that no harm was
intended them, they promised to bring mules
next day to a point six miles farther on,
where they told the officers water was to be
found. The high peaks above the river
afforded fine lookout posts, and one of
their number was "always seated, like a
sentinel crow on the highest limb of the
adjacent tree, watching over the safety of
his thieving fraternity." (Ibid.) The Army
was in desperate need of mules, for their
animals were constantly breaking down; and
they had high hopes that they could barter
with the Apaches for fresh ones. Very few,
though, were they able to get.
Major Swords had charge of the trading, and
his lot was a hard one, though his
discomfiture added greatly to the merriment
of his fellow officers and the soldiers. One
buxom Apache woman, somewhat advanced in
years, was very talkative and took an active
part in every bargain the major tried to
strike.
"She had on a gauze-like dress, trimmed with
the richest and most costly Brussels lace,
pillaged no doubt from some fandango-going
belle of Sonora; she straddled a fine grey
horse, and whenever her blanket dropped from
her shoulders, her tawny form could be seen
through the transparent gauze. After she had
sold her mule, she was anxious to sell her
horse, and careered about to show his
qualities. At one time she charged at full
speed up a steep hill. In this, the
fastenings of her dress broke, and her bare
back was exposed to the crowd, who
ungallantly raised a shout of laughter.
Nothing daunted, she wheeled short round
with surprising dexterity, and seeing the
mischief done, coolly slipped the dress from
her arms and tucked it between her seat and
the saddle. In this state of nudity she rode
through camp, from fire to fire, until, at
last, attaining the object of her ambition,
a soldier's red flannel shirt, she made her
adieu in that new costume." (Emory, ibid.)
The Apaches had with them a beautiful and
intelligent Mexican boy about twelve years
of age of whom they were very proud and to
whom they were altogether devoted. Before
closing a trade they would always consult
him. He was very cheerful and contented; and
when General Kearny offered to purchase him
from his captor he said that the attempt
would be useless. He was sure his master
would not part with him, and he added that
it had been so long since he had been taken
from his home that he really had no desire
to leave the Apaches. He was, nevertheless,
much pleased, both by Kearny's offer to
secure his freedom and the desire of his
captors to keep him.
Bibliography
Emory W. H. Notes of a Military
Reconnaissance. Executive Document No. 41.
Washington, 1848.
Hughes John T. Reprint of Doniphan's
Expedition. Topeka, William E. Connelly,
1907.
Pattie James O. The Personal Narrative of.
Cincinnati, Timothy Flint, 1831.
Wilson Benjamin D. Observations on Early
Days in California and New Mexico.
Unpublished Manuscript. Berkeley, Bancroft
Library.
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