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!
When the five hundred and twelve hostile
Chiricahuas were all back on the
reservation, it was a problem how and what
to do with them. They were feared and hated
by the other Indians on the reservation--
Geronimo in particular was dreaded and
cordially disliked. It became a matter of
controversy between the Interior and the War
Departments what disposition should be made
of them. Crook was called to Washington for
consultation with the Secretary of War and
the Secretary of the Interior. Careful
consideration was given to the problem, and,
July 7, 1883, the result was made public
over the signatures of Robert E. Lincoln,
Secretary of War, and H. M. Teller,
Secretary of the Interior. The Chiricahuas
captured by General Crook, and all others
who later should surrender to him, were to
"be kept under the control of the War
Department at such points on the San Carlos
Reservation as may be determined by the War
Department (but not at the agency without
the consent of the Indian agent), to be fed
and cared for by the War Department until
further orders." Entire police control of
all Indians on the reservation was to be in
the hands of Crook and the duties of the
Indian agent were to be limited, as before,
to the ordinary routine of a civilian agent.
July 24, 1883, Crook issued an order placing
entire police control of the reservation
under charge of Captain Emmet Crawford. His
duties were: to keep the peace, administer
justice, punish refractory Indians, and
prevent them from leaving the reservation
except when properly authorized to do so. He
was placed in control of all the Apache
prisoners recently captured by General
Crook, and all others who might later
surrender, and he was to care for them and
feed them. Further, he was to "protect the
Indian agent in the discharge of his
legitimate duties on the reservation."
Geronimo did not reach the reservation until
April, 1884. In May the five hundred and
twelve Chiricahuas were allowed to select a
location on the reservation wherever they
might desire. They chose to settle on Turkey
Creek, about seventeen miles southwest of
Fort Apache. They were turned over to the
immediate care and control of Lieutenant
Britton Davis. For eleven months he
supervised these turbulent Indians with rare
courage and discretion. He was the only
white man in their midst. Mickey Free and
Sam Bowman, both half-breed Indians, served
respectively as interpreter and cook. None
too eagerly, the Chiricahuas went to work
cultivating their small crops. Chatto was
now a sergeant of scouts--and ever
afterwards he proved a most efficient and
trustworthy one. He and Geronimo were the
best farmers, though that is not saying
much. Only one serious situation arose
during Davis' long and lonely months of
vigil with these Indians. For a dramatic
account of this thrilling incident the
reader is referred to Lieutenant Davis' own
report. (Davis Britton. The Truth about
Geronimo, ch. 8. New Haven, Yale University
Press, 1929.) I quote here from Captain
Crawford's condensed annual report made to
General Crook in 1884: "These Indians have
been extremely tractable, with one
exception, that of Ke-e-te-na, chief of the
Chiricahua and Warm Spring Indians, who on
the night of the twenty-first of June,
undertook at a dance to recall to his tribe
their success in the fights in which he had
led them, and at the same time hinted of
future engagements in which they might hope
to be equally fortunate. For such
expressions Ke-e-te-na was, by the order of
Lieutenant Davis, promptly arrested by the
Indian scouts of his own tribe, and sent
here under guard, where he was tried by an
Indian jury, and sentenced by me to three
years' confinement (in irons) at Alcatras
Island, to which place he has been sent."
Ka-e-te-na was released after eighteen
months. He became a changed man--learned to
read, and write, and to desire peace. He
became the warm friend of Crook, and was
later of great service to him.
But the storm clouds were again gathering
over the San Carlos Reservation. Discord had
again arisen between the Indian Agent and
the Army officers; between the Department of
the Interior and the Department of War.
Scarcely had Crook started westward from his
conference in Washington, July, 1883, before
letters were exchanged between the Secretary
of the Interior and Agent Willcox which
showed that neither of these officials was
in accord with Crook's views regarding the
management of the Apaches; that they
considered the present agreement a
makeshift; and that the Secretary of the
Interior was open to the presentation of
other views from the Bureau of Indian
Affairs. By September 12 the agent at San
Carlos was complaining to the Department of
the Interior that his authority and
influence were being interfered with and
requesting that the plan of control be
changed. By December the Secretary of the
Interior was arguing that the police
authority on the reservation was to be
exercised only "under the direction and with
the approval" of the Indian Agent. December,
1884, Willcox resigned, and Mr. Ford was
appointed in his place. Ford was ignorant of
the Apache and his ways, but was strong for
exercising all the authority of an Indian
agent. He revived the Agency chief of police
and appointed a head farmer who opposed
Crawford and his assistants. Men whom
Crawford wanted to arrest were shielded by
the chief of police, and the farmer and the
Agent stopped work on an irrigation ditch
that was being constructed by the military
officers. When on January 17, 1885, Ford
took away the picks and shovels from the
Indians, Crook wrote to his Division
Commander, General John Pope, requesting
that he either be supported in his
administration or relieved from the
responsibilities involved. General Pope
forwarded this letter to the Adjutant
General, forcefully pointing out the dangers
of divided control on the reservation and
recommending that Crook's powers be enlarged
rather than abridged. The result was a reply
from the War Department, February 14, 1885,
instructing Crook, pending an attempt to
remove the discord between the Departments
of the Interior and of War, "not to
interfere with farming operations of Indians
who are not considered as prisoners of war,"
and also informing him that his request to
be relieved must remain undecided
temporarily in the public interest. In reply
to the Adjutant-General Crook wrote the
following, February 19:
"General: . . . I have the honor to say that
the agreement of July 7, 1883, by which 'the
War Department was intrusted with the entire
police control of all the Indians on the San
Carlos Reservation,' was entered into upon
my own expressed willingness to be
personally responsible for the good conduct
of all the Indians there congregated. My
understanding then was, and still is, that I
should put them to work and set them to
raising corn instead of scalps.
"This right I have exercised for two years
without a word of complaint from any source.
During all this time, not a single
depredation of any kind has been committed.
The whole country has looked to me
individually for the preservation of order
among the Apaches, and the prevention of
outrages from which the southwest frontier
has suffered for so many years.
"In pursuance of this understanding, the
Chiricahuas, although nominally prisoners,
have been to a great extent scattered over
the reservation and placed upon farms, the
object being to quietly and gradually effect
a tribal disintegration and lead them out
from a life of vagabondage to one of peace
and self-maintenance. . . .
"As this right of control has now been
withdrawn from me, I must respectfully
decline to be any longer held responsible
for the behavior of any of the Indians on
that reservation. . . .
"Further, I regret being compelled to say
that in refusing to relieve me from this
responsibility (as requested in my letter of
January 20) and at the same time taking from
me the power by which these dangerous
Indians have been controlled and managed,
and compelled to engage in industrial
pursuits, the War Department destroys my
influence and does an injustice to me and to
the service which I represent."
In forwarding Crook's protest to the
Adjutant-General, February 24, 1885, Major
General John Pope, commanding the Division
of the Pacific, commented in the following
language: "If General Crook's authority over
the Indians at San Carlos be curtailed or
modified in any way, there are certain to
follow very serious results, if not a
renewal of Indian wars and depredations in
Arizona. It is impossible to understand why
anyone having the interests of the
Government and the people at heart should
object to measures which have secured peace
to Arizona for the past two years, and have
in addition, done so much to improve the
condition of the Indians; or to the control
of the officer who has inaugurated these
measures and brought them to so satisfactory
an issue."
As sensitive as he was brave and humane,
Crawford felt that his honor had been
impugned, and requested that his actions be
looked into by a court of inquiry made up of
his military superiors. His desire was
granted; and in the decision rendered he was
sustained in every particular. Nevertheless,
realizing how hopeless the situation was, he
asked to be relieved and assigned to his
troop then in Texas. With unqualified praise
for the rare ability and tact that he had
displayed in his thankless and dangerous
task, Crook consented to Crawford's release;
and, on April 11, 1885, in his letter
endorsing Captain Crawford's report, he
reiterated the dangers of divided control
and again asked "that, if divided authority
is to obtain on the Apache Reservation, the
entire control and management be relegated
to the Interior Department," and that he be
freed from future responsibility. By this
time the Government at Washington was
beginning to realize the folly of its
actions. The Secretary of War in a
communication to the Secretary of the
Interior, April 18, raised the question
"whether the public interests would not be
best safe-guarded if the entire control of
these Indians be placed under the charge of
General Crook, with full authority to
prescribe and enforce such regulations for
their management as in his judgment may be
proper." This proposal was at last acted
upon; Ford, the civil agent, was removed;
control of the Agency was placed in the
hands of Captain F. E. Pierce, First
Infantry, and he was formally appointed
Indian Agent by the President.
The action came too late to save the
situation. The disintegrating forces had
already done their work; and the bad men
among the Chiricahuas did the rest.
Throughout the reservation, the spirit of
dissension between the Indian Bureau and the
War Department had been working like poison.
Its effects had become apparent at Turkey
Creek and Fort Apache. On the night of May
17, 1885, a hundred and forty-four
Chiricahuas--forty-three fighting men and
one hundred and one women and
children--broke away from the reservation
once more. The revolt was led by Chihuahua,
Mangus, Geronimo, Nachez, and old Nana. It
was difficult for the Army officers to
explain exactly what caused the outbreak. It
had its roots, of course, in the attempts of
the Indian Bureau, the grafting politicians,
and the newspapers to discredit Crawford and
Crook. Crook wrote: "In the management of
such Indians as the Apaches, a power once
exercised can never be withdrawn from the
person in charge without loss of respect and
influence. These Indians are politicians of
the first class, and rival their white
brothers in worshipping the rising sun and
excel them in contempt for those from whom
authority has been withdrawn."
The immediate cause of the irruption was a
tixwin drunk led by Chihuahua, Geronimo, and
Mangus. Indeed, in order to shield the
movers in the spree and make it as difficult
as possible for Lieutenant Davis to deal
with, all the prominent chiefs drank this
liquor and went to Davis and defiantly
admitted it. Davis told them that the issue
was one of such importance that he would
have to report it to Crook and act according
to his instructions. On May 15 Davis did
report the situation to the General by
telegram, through Captain Pierce at San
Carlos, his superior officer. Pierce did not
see fit to relay the telegram; so Crook did
not know until months afterwards that it had
been sent. Crook states in his annual report
that he was sure he could have settled the
trouble and prevented the outbreak if he had
received the telegram. "Lieutenant Davis
wrote the telegram in the presence of the
Indians, and told them what he had written,
and said that he should act in accordance
with my personal instructions, and that he
would notify them when my orders were
received. . . . The Indians waited until
dark, and again assembled the next day, but
receiving no reply became alarmed, and
doubtless concluded that I was making
preparations to seize the whole of them and
punish them as I had Ka-e-te-na." (Crook
George. Report of War Departments Vol. I.
1886- 1887, p. 147.)
The making and drinking of tizwin was not
the only offense of which these Chiricahuas
had been guilty of late. They had shown an
ugly and defiant spirit in various ways.
Crook had not only sternly prohibited the
making of tizwin; he had insisted, also,
that the brutal custom of cutting off the
noses of unfaithful wives must positively
cease. Not only had the bad men under Davis'
charge begun to make and drink tizwin again;
they belligerently asserted that they had
never signed away their right to make tizwin,
to cut off the nose of an unfaithful wife,
or to beat and punish their women at any
time and in any way they pleased. For some
time before the outbreak, Davis had found
Chihuahua, Mangus, Nana, and others in open
and scornful rebellion against these
prohibitions. Indeed, such hostile
demonstrations had been made on May 15, the
day that Davis wired to Crook through
Captain Pierce. At the council held that
morning, Chihuahua was drunk and in a very
ugly humor, and old Nana got up and left the
meeting, saying to the interpreter: "Tell
the stout chief [ Davis] that he can't
advise me how to treat my women. He is only
a boy. I killed men before he was born."
(Ibid., pp. 145 - 147.)
The guilty chiefs by persuasion and threats
induced as many as they could to leave the
reservation; but three-fourths of the band
refused to go--among them Chatto, Loco,
Benito, and Zele. A little later Nachez and
Chihuahua threatened to kill Geronimo and
Mangus on the ground that they had lied to
them, asserting that Chatto had been killed
and that the troops were coming to arrest
all the Chiricahua and Warm Spring Indians
and send them away. There followed, as
usual, a gallant, grilling, unsuccessful
pursuit. It was led by Captain Allen Smith
with two troops of the Fourth Cavalry, and
Lieutenants Gatewood and Davis with their
Indian scouts. Crook set all other available
troops in motion; the commanding officer in
New Mexico was notified of the irruption of
the Indians and the movement of Arizona
troops; and settlers in the danger belt were
warned. But the runaways traveled one
hundred and twenty miles without making camp
or stopping for food, and made their escape
into Mexico, so far as could be discovered,
without the loss of an individual. Owing to
the quarrel among the chiefs caused by
Geronimo's lying to them at the start, the
band broke up into several parties. Mangus
with a small following made straight for
Mexico, and never again united with the main
body of the renegades; Chihuahua, unable at
once to make up his mind whether to return
to the reservation or to flee to his old
haunts in the Sierra Madre, halted northeast
of Morenci some days, and later barely
escaped capture and the annihilation of his
party.
June 11 Captain Crawford, with a troop of
cavalry and additional Indian scouts under
Sieber, joined Britton Davis; and Crawford
was placed in command of the combined force
of ninety-two scouts and Troop A, Sixth
Cavalry, that continued the pursuit of the
hostiles into the Sierra Madre. Crook took
up his headquarters at Fort Bowie and
proceeded to enlist two hundred new scouts
at San Carlos and Fort Apache. With one
hundred of these recruits Lieutenant
Gatewood made an extended scout through the
Mogollon and Black Range Mountains, but
found none of the renegades lingering on
American soil. June 23 Crawford's scouts,
led by Chatto, found and attacked
Chihuahua's party, northeast of Oputo in the
Bavispe Mountains, but it was impossible to
surround the camp, so the renegades got
away; though fifteen women and children were
captured, a good many horses, and not a
little plunder. Captain Wirt Davis, who,
with a troop of the Fourth Cavalry and one
hundred Indian scouts and their supporting
pack trains, had been ordered into Mexico,
July 13, surprised a camp of Geronimo's near
Nacori, killed three noncombatants and
captured fifteen.
Though Crawford and Wirt Davis continued
their indescribably difficult scouts through
the Sierra Madre until late in September
they were unable to find and fight the
enemy. On September 22 Captain Davis did
bring twenty of them to bay in the Torres
Mountains, and suffered the loss of one
scout as a result. The hostiles were driven
out of Mexico into the United States through
Guadalupe Cañon, on September 28. Davis and
Crawford were in close pursuit. Taking the
roughest trails over the Chiricahua
Mountains, followed steadily by Crawford's
scouts, the hostiles crossed the Sulphur
Spring Valley at night, passed into the
Dragoon Mountains, then back again south
ward across the Valley toward the Mule
Mountains, sharp to the east again into the
Chiricahuas, with Crawford's scouts
constantly at their heels. Though they had
repeatedly stolen fresh horses along the
route, their mounts were by this time
completely played out. By a circumstance
maddening to the soldiers, they succeeded at
this last gasp in capturing thirty of the
best horses in Arizona, and galloped back
into Mexico. It was no credit to the
ranchmen of southwestern Arizona that the
Indians got away with these mounts. At White
Tail Cañon the cattlemen of the San Simon
Valley had met for their fall round-up. Only
the night before, they had been warned that
these dismounted Indians were in the
vicinity; yet they went to sleep at a ranch
house around which was lariated their thirty
crack cow ponies. The next morning the
horses were gone; and, better mounted than
ever, the Apaches were beyond pursuit.
There was now a short breathing spell while
new scouts were enlisted and the worn-out
pack trains refitted. But the renegades
struck again like lightning. Early in
November a band of eleven made a raid across
the border; and in a period of less than
four weeks, in the course of which they
traveled fully twelve hundred miles and wore
out two hundred and fifty head of stock,
they murdered thirty-eight people; and
though twice dismounted during this time,
were able to recross the border with the
loss of only one man during the entire raid.
On the night of January 10, 1886, Captain
Crawford attacked the Indians sixty miles
below Nacori near the Aros River. All the
stock and supplies of the outlaws were
captured. Convinced now that Crook would
pursue them relentlessly to the end, the
renegades sent word to Crawford asking for a
talk the next morning concerning terms of
surrender. No doubt they would have yielded
at the proposed conference had it not been
for a most untoward and tragic incident, for
no one except Crook knew them so thoroughly
as Crawford and possessed so completely
their confidence and respect. Just at
daylight, January 11, while the scouts were
still asleep, they were attacked at close
range by a Mexican force of about one
hundred and fifty. At the first volley three
scouts were wounded. At the time of the
attack, Captain Crawford and Lieutenants
Marion P. Maus and W. E. Shipp were lying by
their campfire. Maus and Shipp were already
awake, but Crawford was still asleep. Maus
and Tom Horn, chief of scouts and Spanish
interpreter, at once ran forward and tried
to stop the firing, explaining to the
Mexican officers in Spanish that they were
all United States soldiers and scouts in
pursuit of the hostile Apaches. The scouts
at once took shelter among the rocks. Some
of them ran forward, unarmed, to see what
was the matter. Only a few of them fired
back at the Mexicans, and they in
self-defense. Captain Crawford at once
ordered all firing stopped; and within about
fifteen minutes, with the aid of Horn, Maus,
and Shipp, succeeded in halting the battle.
Some Mexican officers now came forward and
in American Army uniforms Crawford and Maus
went toward them. When they were not more
than ten yards apart Crawford and Maus told
the Mexicans in Spanish that they were
officers in the United States Army and
called attention to their uniforms as
evidence of this. The Mexicans began backing
away, saying, "Do not fire! Do not fire!"
and Maus replied that they would not.
Crawford now directed Maus to go back and
make sure there should be no more firing.
Crawford himself mounted a rock where he
stood in full view of the Mexicans and
continued his efforts to quiet both sides.
But at this instant, without warning, the
Mexicans fired at the officers. Crawford
fell, mortally wounded, and Horn was shot
through the arm. As the Mexicans were not a
hundred feet away, it is hardly possible
that they could have mistaken Horn and the
three officers for Apaches. At the time the
Mexicans thus renewed the attack, Horn was
explaining to them in Spanish that this was
an expedition from the United States in
pursuit of hostile Apaches. He was dressed
in civilian clothes, and standing near him
was Lieutenant Shipp, unarmed, in blue
trousers, brown canvas coat, and brown hat.
Nor, at the time that Crawford was calling
out from his exposed position on the
boulder, and Maus, Horn, and Shipp were
talking to the Mexicans, was there any
demonstration on the part of the scouts. All
the Americans present looked upon Crawford's
death as an assassination, and it was
reported as such by General Crook.
The battle now opened again on both sides
and continued for about an hour. Crawford
never regained consciousness after he was
shot; but all the time Horn and the other
two officers were doing their best to stop
the fighting, shouting repeatedly to the
Mexicans that they were friends, and at the
same time doing their best to restrain the
scouts. Realizing, finally, that they could
not drive the scouts out of the rocks, the
Mexicans retired to a hill about five
hundred yards distant. Though wounded, Horn
went unarmed into their camp, followed soon
by Maus, and they both explained the
situation in Spanish. The Mexicans were told
about the fight with the hostile Apaches the
day before, the capture of their stock, and
their desire to talk about terms of
surrender. The treachery and dishonesty of
these Mexicans was revealed the next day
when both Maus and Concepcion, his
interpreter, were detained in their camp by
force until the Apache scouts began to strip
for action. Maus was then released so that
he might control them.
Crawford all this time had remained
unconscious; so the command devolved upon
Maus. While the fight was in progress on the
morning of January 11, the renegade Apaches
had gathered on the opposite bank of the
river about a mile distant and had sent
messengers again asking for a talk regarding
terms of surrender. Maus could do nothing
more than promise to secure for them a
conference with Crook at some point near the
border. The renegades agreed to meet Crook
at Cañon de los Embudos, twenty-five miles
south of San Bernardino, in about "two
moons," but with the proviso that the
General was to come unaccompanied by regular
soldiers.
Crook met the renegades at the appointed
spot, March 25, 1886. A Mr. Thomas Moore had
been sent ahead with a pack train. With him
went the very friendly and intelligent
Apache intermediaries, Alchise and Ka-ya-ten-na,
and also two Chiricahua women from among the
prisoners at Fort Bowie, supplied with the
latest news items from the reservation
front. These four were sent forward as
agents of peaceful penetration. Those
present at the historic and picturesque
conference were, in addition to Crook,
Geronimo, Nachez, Chihuahua, Nana (and about
a score of Chiricahua warriors, who came and
went, or hung about suspiciously, heavily
armed), Bourke, Dr. Davis, Mr. Moore, Mayor
Strauss of Tucson; Lieutenants Maus, Shipp,
and Faison; Captain Roberts and his handsome
ten-yearold boy, Charlie; Fly, the Tombstone
photographer and his assistant, Chase; a
small boy named Howell who had tagged along
from San Bernardino Ranch; packers Daily,
Carlisle, Shaw, and Foster; Alchise and Ka-ya-ten-na;
Antonio Bessias, Montoya, Concepcion, José
Maria, and other interpreters. The scene was
photographed by the intrepid Fly; and Bourke
has preserved a picture of it in the
following words: "The whole ravine was
romantically beautiful; shading the rippling
water were smooth, white-trunked, long, and
slender sycamores, dark gnarly ash,
rough-barked cottonwoods, pliant willows,
briery buckthorn, and much of the more
tropical vegetation already enumerated."
(Op. cit., p. 474.)
The Apaches had chosen their camp on a rocky
hill completely surrounded by gulches and
canyons, through which they could quickly
make their escape to higher ridges and peaks
in case they were attacked. They were in
prime physical condition, heavily armed, and
loaded down with ammunition. "The youngsters
had on brand-new shirts, such as are made
and sold in Mexico, of German cotton, and
nearly all--young or old--wore new
parti-colored blankets, of some manufacture,
showing that since the destruction of the
village by Crawford, in January, they had
refitted themselves either by plunder or
purchase." (Ibid., p. 476.) LieutenantMaus
and the scouts were camped on lower ground,
five or six hundred yards away, with a deep
canyon separating them from the hostiles,
who, both suspicious and self-reliant, would
allow no nearer approach than this.
Crook was well aware that in consenting to
meet them under these conditions he was
placing his own life and the lives of those
who accompanied him in great jeopardy, and
that he might be killed as General Canby had
been in the Modoc War. But he was not able
to persuade them to meet him on American
soil in the presence of United States
soldiers, so he had either to take the risk
or permit them to return to their
strongholds in Mexico. At the conference on
the first day they seemed determined to make
no agreement that would not permit them to
return to the reservation on the same status
as of old. Crook positively refused to
promise them such terms, and they returned
to their camp. Alchise and Ka-ya-ten-na were
sent into their stronghold that night for
the purpose of impressing them with the
hopelessness of the situation and the
desirability of complete surrender, but the
leaders excitedly refused even to hear any
talk about surrender. Geronimo directed his
people to keep their arms constantly in hand
ready for instant action. Crook said in his
report: "Even after they surrendered to me
they did not cease their vigilance. They
kept mounted men constantly on the watch;
there were never more than from five to
eight of their men in our camp at one time,
and even after the march northward began,
the hostiles did not keep together but
scattered over the country in parties of two
and three. At night they camped in the same
way, and, had I desired, it would have been
an absolute impossibility to have seized
more than half a dozen of them. The
remainder would have escaped, and one breach
of faith would have prevented forever any
possibility of any settlement with them."
Crook's third and last conference with the
hostiles took place March 27, in the
afternoon. Before daylight on the morning of
the twenty-eighth the General was awakened
by Alchise and Ka-ya-ten-na and informed
that several of the renegade chiefs were
drunk--Nachez so drunk he could not stand up
and was lying flat on the ground. Geronimo
and four other Chiricahua warriors--"all as
drunk as lords"--made their appearance, all
five mounted on two mules. However, before
the morning was far advanced, Chihuahua came
to Crook and told him that while many of
them had been drunk the night before, all
were ready now to move toward the border.
The whisky had been sold to the Indians by a
wretch named Tribollet, who had a ranch on
the Mexican side of the line, and had for a
long time been smuggling liquor to the
Apaches whenever he had opportunity. Crook
gave orders to guard the camp of the
hostiles so closely that it would be
impossible for Tribollet to sell them any
more. Maus and his officers had destroyed
fifteen gallons of the stuff--all that they
could find; but plenty more was forthcoming
in spite of their best efforts. A white man
told Bourke that he had seen Tribollet take
in thirty dollars from the Chiricahuas for
mescal within less than an hour, and heard
him boast that he could have sold ten
gallons more that day at ten dollars a
gallon.
As it was necessary for Crook to reach a
telegraph station as soon as possible, he
started for Fort Bowie at once, when
Chihuahua brought word that all the
Chiricahuas were ready to follow. He left
Alchise, Ka-ya-ten-na, and his interpreter
to assist Maus and his scouts in conducting
the renegades to Fort Bowie. The second day
after leaving Cañon de los Embudos, Maus
camped with his Indians at the Smugglers'
Springs near the border. As a result of
Tribollet's whisky and the alarming lies
that he and his ranchmen told the Indians,
that night Geronimo, Nachez, twenty
warriors, two young boys, and fourteen women
stampeded and fled again to the Sierra
Madre. Two of the men after they had had
time for sober reflection returned. Maus
reached Fort Bowie with the rest of the
renegades April 2. There were fifteen
warriors, thirty-three women, and
twenty-nine children in this company.
From Fort Bowie, March 30, Crook telegraphed
LieutenantGeneral P. H. Sheridan the news
that Geronimo and Nachez had fled taking
with them a small band of their followers.
Telegrams came back from Sheridan in reply,
on March 31 and April 1, in effect censuring
Crook, throwing doubt on the trustworthiness
of the Apache scouts, and asking Crook what
course of action he contemplated for the
future. Crook's reply was calm and
dignified, and was lucid with respect to the
situation and the course he thought it wise
to pursue. In concluding his telegram, April
1, 1886, he said: "I believe that the plan
upon which I have conducted operations is
the one most likely to prove successful in
the end. It may be, however, that I am too
much wedded to my own views in this matter,
and as I have spent nearly eight years of
the hardest work of my life in this
department, I respectfully request that I
may be now relieved from its command."
Crook had accepted the surrender of the
hostiles on the terms that their lives were
to be spared; that they were to be
imprisoned in the East for two years, and
were then to be allowed to return to the
reservation. President Cleveland and General
Sheridan repudiated these terms, demanding
that Crook should require their
unconditional surrender, with no promise
except that their lives would be spared.
Crook, as a man of honor, had no choice but
to resign. He "was unable to see how he
could allow Indians, or anybody else, to
enter his camp under assurances of personal
safety, and at the same time 'take every
precaution against escape.' Unless he
treacherously murdered them in cold blood,
he was unable to see a way out of the
dilemma; and Crook was not a man to lie to
any one or deal treacherously with him. If
there was one point in his character which
shone more resplendent than any other, it
was his absolute integrity in his dealings
with representatives of inferior races."
(Bourke. Ibid., p. 483.) Crook was relieved
from command of the Department of Arizona
April 2; and Brigadier General Nelson A.
Miles was that day appointed to succeed him.
By instructions of the Secretary of War the
Chiricahua prisoners at Fort Bowie,
numbering seventy-seven--fifteen men,
thirty-three women, and twenty-nine
children--were entrained on April 7 for Fort
Marion, Florida, in charge of First
Lieutenant J. R. Richards, Jr., under an
escort of the Eighth Infantry.
Bibliography
Bourke John G. On the Border with Crook.
New York, Scribner, 1896.
Crook George. Résumé of Operations against
Apache Indians from 1882 to 1886.
Davis Britton. The Truth about Geronimo. New
Haven, Yale University Press, 1929.
Reports of the Commissioner of Indian
Affairs, 1883-1886.
Reports of the War Department, 1883-1886.
Senate Executive Document No. 117, 49th
Congress, 2nd Session.
This site
includes some historical materials that may imply negative stereotypes
reflecting the culture or language of a particular period or place. These
items are presented as part of the historical record and should not be
interpreted to mean that the WebMasters in any way endorse the stereotypes
implied .
