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!
General Thomas C. Devin Assumed Command in
Arizona
Early in 1868 General Thomas C. Devin
assumed command in Arizona. He was an able
and active officer and carried on vigorous
and most difficult scouts into the very
heart of the Apache territory south of the
Mogollons, north of the Gila, and throughout
the Salt River regions; but, in spite of his
best efforts, he rarely found any Indians,
though the troops came upon numerous
deserted rancherías. He also broke new
trails into hitherto almost inaccessible
Apache haunts and made maps for the guidance
of future expeditions. Sometime in 1868
General Devin broke up the temporary
reservation at Fort Goodwin, established in
1866, because the Indians would not give up
known murderers among them nor promise to
settle down permanently. Also a temporary
reservation at Camp Grant for Pinal Apaches
was abandoned for the reason that these
Indians would not agree to the required
terms. Between April and September, 1868,
the troops in Arizona made forty-six
scouting expeditions; almost every
Apache-infested part of the Territory was
covered, but with meager results. Only
thirty Indians were killed and seven
captured in the course of these costly and
difficult expeditions.
It was a very different story during the
year 1869. Early in 1868 General E. O. C.
Ord succeeded McDowell as Commander of the
Department of California. His attitude
toward the hostile Apaches was grim and
forceful. He instructed his "troops to
capture and root out the Apaches by every
means, and to hunt them as they would wild
animals." In his report of 1869 he states
that his orders were carried out "with
unrelenting vigor. . . . Over 200 have been
killed, generally by parties who have
trailed them for days and weeks into the
mountain recesses, over snows, among gorges
and precipices, lying in wait for them by
day and following them by night. Many
villages have been burned, large quantities
of arms and supplies of ammunition,
clothing, and provisions have been
destroyed, a large number of horses and
mules have been captured, and two men,
twenty-eight women, and their twenty-four
children taken prisoners; and though we have
lost quite a number of soldiers, I think the
Apaches have discovered they are getting the
worst of it."
Sad to relate, the whites were far from
getting the best of it. In Pima County
alone, according to lists published in the
newspapers during the year that ended July
17, 1869, more than fifty whites were slain
by Apaches, and nearly a score wounded; and
during the following year forty-seven were
killed and six wounded.
The Apache situation is revealed in the dear
light of day in the following moving story.
It is taken from the report of General Ord
to the Adjutant General of the Army, dated
September 27, 1869. This is the same General
Ord who had instructed his troops to
"capture and root out the Apaches by every
means and to hunt them as they would wild
animals." Here is the extract: " Colonel
John Green . . . in a recent scout into the
White Mountains, a country of which we know
but little, after destroying some villages,
killing a number of warriors, and destroying
a large quantity of corn, etc., having heard
of a village thirty miles north, where the
Indians were reported friendly, and anxious
to appease the troops, sent Captain John
Barry . . . to examine the matter, and if he
found them concerned in hostilities, to
destroy them." Thus he describes the result:
"On the night of August 1, Captain Barry
returned with his command, and reported that
when he reached Miguel's village [Miguel was
the Apache chief who voluntarily led the way
to his ranchería] there was a white flag
flying from every hut and every prominent
point; that the men, women, and children
came out to meet them, and went to work at
once to cut corn for their horses, and
showed such a spirit of delight at meeting
them, that the officers united in saying
that if they had fired on them they would
have been guilty of cold-blooded murder;
even my chief scout, Manuel, who has no
scruples in such matters, and whose mind was
filled with taking scalps when he left camp,
said he could not have fired on them after
what he saw. . . .
"Miguel reiterated that he wanted to go on a
reservation where he could be protected, and
Captain Barry repeated what I had previously
told him--that he must go to Camp McDowell
and see the district commander. He also gave
him a letter for that purpose. Miguel
promised to start on the following day and
commenced to make preparations at once. . .
. The Apaches have but few friends, and, I
believe, no agent. Even the officers when
applied to for information cannot tell them
what to do. There seems to be no settled
policy, but a general idea to kill them
wherever found. I, also, am a believer in
that, if we go for extermination, but I
think, and I am sustained in my opinion by
most of the officers accompanying my
expedition, that if Miguel and his band were
placed on a reservation properly managed,
and had a military post to protect them,
they would form a nucleus for the
civilization of the Apaches, as they seem
more susceptible of it than any tribe I have
seen. I even believe that, if the Apache is
properly managed, he could be used against
the Apache, and so end the war in a short
time. Miguel said that he had soldiers, and
would place them at my disposal whenever I
wanted them."
Be it said to the honor of General Ord that
he instructed the district commander to send
Colonel Green into the White Mountain
Country to see whether it was fitted for a
reservation for the friendly Apaches.
General Ord in his report makes the
following pertinent comment: "The
earnestness with which the troops make war
on the hostile Apaches is in proportion to
the good will shown toward the inoffensive
or friendly Indians. Many border white men,
especially those that have been hunted, or
lost friends or relations by them, regard
all Indians as vermin, to be killed when
met; and attacks upon and murder of quiet
bands, who in some instances have come in to
aid in pursuit of more hostile savages, is
nothing unusual in Arizona. One citizen is
now in confinement, arrested by the troops,
for an attempt to murder a friendly Hualapai
near Camp Mohave, and dozens of them are at
large now who have tried it and succeeded.
These citizens are not proceeded against by
the civil authorities of the country.
Reservations to be at all safe from such
attacks in that country must be forbidden
ground to all white men, save the troops
sent there to watch the Indians and guard
them and officers of the Indian Bureau."
It seemed that the conscience of the nation
was, at last, being aroused in protest
against the injustices and cruelties so long
practiced against the Indians. The wise and
humane action of Colonel Green and General
Ord related above was only one indication
among many that the people, both civil and
military, were awakening to a sense of their
responsibility toward the savages whom we
first ruthlessly dispossessed of their
native heritage and then shamelessly
oppressed and mistreated. The Apaches were
the wildest, least known, and least
encountered, but now, even they, because of
their fierce resistance and the awful
atrocities of the inhuman war now being
waged between the white man and them, were
attracting the sympathetic attention of
humanitarians, statesmen, and soldiers
alike. The dawn of peace and good will was
not far off, but there were still to be
devastating storms and deluges of blood.
April 15, 1870, the new Department of
Arizona was created. The citizens of Arizona
had long desired this action and were
hopeful that the military would now be able
to curb the Apaches. May 3 General George
Stoneman was appointed department commander,
and early in July he set up his headquarters
at Fort Whipple. Stoneman had passed through
Arizona in 1846 with the Mormon Battalion,
and though just out of West Point, had
discharged his duties with distinction.
Later he won the rank of Brevet Major
General for long and gallant service during
the Civil War. A brave, capable, humane
officer, he was highly qualified for his new
post. Yet within a few months he was the
most unpopular, bitterly criticized
commander Arizona had ever had; and during
the preceding six years she had had many.
The awakened East censured Stoneman for
killing wild Apaches wherever found, whether
good or bad; he was denounced and reviled in
Arizona because he did not proceed more
swiftly with the business of
extermination--the only policy at that time
at all popular with Arizonians. To make
matters worse for the new commander, the
Government had just inaugurated a program of
severe retrenchment in Army expenses.
General J. M. Schofield, Commander of the
Division of the Pacific, in his annual
report gave notice that the meager
appropriations for the quartermaster
department would require great reduction of
expenses in Arizona, the withdrawal of a
portion of the troops, the abandoning of
unnecessary posts, the breaking up of
expensive depots that could be spared, and
general economy in administration wherever
possible.
What Stoneman actually did during his brief
year of command was: to continue the policy
of placing Indians who showed a friendly
disposition upon reservations and supplying
them with food, blankets, and instruction in
the ways of civilization; to build permanent
military roads into the wilds inhabited by
the Apaches; to abandon, or recommend the
abandonment of ten of the eghteen posts in
the Territory; to discharge as many
employees as could be dispensed with,
reducing the number "from thousands to as
many hundreds"; to cancel contracts by which
the Government was deliberately being bled;
to set the soldiers at work at Camps Bowie,
Date Creek, Yuma, Hualapai, Verde, and
Thomas building quarters; and, finally, to
carry on vigorously the main work required
of him, the chasing and killing of
recalcitrant Apaches. The troops were kept
constantly on the move, trying to forestall
attacks of the enemy and pursuing and
punishing marauding Apaches with relentless
vigor. Most daring and resourceful among a
score of officers, indefatigable in energy
and courage, who distinguished themselves
during this period were Bourke, Ross,
Winters, Sanford, Russell, Carrol, Almy, and
above all, Lieutenant Howard B. Cushing who
died in desperate action, May 5, 1871. No
man during this period had done so much as
he to quell and chastise the militant
Apaches. Indeed, in view of the fact that up
to this time the policy of killing Indians
was the supreme test of a commander's
success, Stoneman deserved a high rating;
for by October, 1870, in the numerous deadly
expeditions led by the officers named above,
two hundred Apaches had been slain.
Nevertheless, before the beginning of the
year 1871, the attacks upon Stoneman and the
Army by citizens and the newspapers were
scathing, scornful, and bitter in the
extreme. Bare facts alone cannot make clear
the state of mind in Arizona at this time.
The modern reader must view the situation
with a sympathetic and imaginative mind if
he would know the whole truth. No one was
wholly to blame except bad white men and bad
Indians. The suffering and death inflicted
upon the settlers of Arizona had driven them
to frenzy, fear, and fiery hatred. During
the year that Stoneman was in command, the
Apaches had renewed their attacks with the
most deadly intent. They struck
simultaneously at points far apart. The
stage stations, both east and west of
Tucson, on the San Pedro, at the Cienega,
and near the Picacho were attacked; Pete
Kitchen's ranch near the border was raided
and his boy killed in the field; Tucson
itself was taken by surprise and a large
number of beeves and work oxen were driven
into the mountains; a mail carrier was
killed near San Xavier; the Paymaster's
clerk and one of his escorts were killed on
the road between Camp Reno and Camp
McDowell; A. J. Jackson was murdered at San
Pedro; and a Mexican was killed and scalped
near Fort Wallen. On Portrero Creek six
Mexicans were attacked and killed; the ranch
of Gardner, near Sonoita, was raided, his
herd of cattle was stampeded, a Mexican boy
was captured, and David Holland killed; at
Davis Springs, not far from Camp Crittenden,
Peter Riggs, Thomas Venable, and a Mexican
were killed and goods valued at six thousand
dollars were burned; a Mexican wagon train
was attacked on the road between Phoenix and
Wickenburg, one teamster was killed and
three wounded, and a horse and thirty-two
cattle were stolen; in an attack upon a
wagon train near Camp McDowell, George King
was killed, two men wounded, and twenty-five
mules stolen; two prominent men, Kennedy and
Israel, were killed about twenty-five miles
northeast of Tucson by a large party of
Apaches, their teams captured and their
wagon train and valuable goods burned; and,
finally, most tragic of all, a party of
Mexicans returning to Sonora after a visit
to relatives in Tucson, were massacred near
the border. A beautiful young Mexican girl,
Doña Trinidad, was one of the victims. The
above is a typical, but only partial, list
of the atrocities visited upon the
inhabitants of Arizona during the incumbency
of General Stoneman.
In order to form a rounded and correct
picture of conditions in Arizona at this
time it is necessary for us to consider some
very prevalent sins and shortcomings of the
white population. There were staunch and
honest citizens in Arizona at that time
--but their number was all too few. On the
other hand, there were numerous cruel and
depraved men. Some of the finest, most
honorable Americans in Arizona at this
period were Army officers, and they, as well
as other honest and decent white men, have
made it clear to us that innumerable
worthless citizens of that day exceeded in
vileness and brutality any outrage ever
traced to an Apache. Residents of
Arizona--especially politicians, corrupt
contractors, and some of the Indians
agents--regularly robbed the Government and
cheated the Indians.
In his report of September 28, 1869, General
Ord states that "at one post inspected by
me, I found that its garrison of eighty-six
men had lost fifty-four men by desertion,
and every deserter had carried off a good
horse and repeating rifle, worth together
from $150 to $300 at the post. These horses
and arms are generally sold to citizens in
the vicinity for half or a third of their
value, so that the citizen finds more profit
in encouraging desertion by buying the
deserter's arms, horse, and clothing than in
arresting him for the small reward of about
$20 in gold. . . . If the paymasters and
quartermasters of the army were to stop
payment in Arizona, a great majority of the
white settlers would be compelled to quit
it. Hostilities are therefore kept up with a
view to protecting inhabitants, most of whom
are supported by the hostilities. Of course,
their support being derived from the
presence of troops, they are continually
asking for more." Stoneman affirmed when he
reduced the number of posts in the
department that the only hardship involved
was the money loss to the people in the
vicinity of the deserted posts, as they
would "be unable, as heretofore, to dispose
of their hay, etc., to the Government at the
usual and exorbitant prices." At Fort Thomas
a citizen had contracted to furnish five
hundred tons of hay at eighty-two dollars a
ton in gold. When Stoneman took command,
this agreement was canceled, and a contract
entered into for two hundred tons at
forty-four dollars in paper money.
Joseph Fish, an Arizona pioneer, in his
well-known unpublished manuscript, writes:
"Of all the contractors of early days, it is
hardly possible to find one who remained in
the Territory. As soon as they made their
money, they went east or to San Francisco to
live. Not one of this patriotic fraternity
cared a fig for Arizona. The people were
taught to oppose agencies where the Apaches
worked and were fed. They feared that it
would reduce the military force for one
thing, and that it would suspend campaigns
and lead to an inactive state of war."
As a climax to the whole situation described
in this chapter came the Camp Grant Massacre
of April 30, 1871. The story of this deed
constitutes the blackest page in the
Anglo-Saxon records of Arizona. In February,
1871, one hundred and fifty Arivaipa Apaches
led by Eskiminzin, their chief, came to Old
Camp Grant and expressed an earnest desire
to live at peace. They declared that they
were not hostile to the whites; that for
five years they had been living in the
mountains like wildcats, in fear of the
troops; and that many of their number had
perished from exposure and starvation. Now
they were very poor, without food or
clothing, and many were old and sick. Here
in the fertile Arivaipa Canyon, near its
junction with the San Pedro, before the
coming of the Americans, they had for many
years built their wickiups, planted their
crops of corn, and lived happily. They
begged that they might return to their
native fields under the protection of the
troops.
Lieutenant Royal Whitman, who was then in
command at Camp Grant, was convinced that
they were in desperate straits and had a
sincere desire to live at peace. He had no
authority to receive them or to deal with
them, but told them he would consult his
superiors to find out what could be done,
and, meantime, that they should settle down
in their old fields near the post where he
would supply them with food and blankets.
March 1 they came back to the spot that had
been their home for generations--sixty
warriors poorly armed, and ninety children,
women, and old men. Whitman was a drunkard
and, no doubt, was crooked in his dealings
with the Government, but he had a warm heart
and a genuine interest in these good,
well-disposed Indians. He rode over to their
camp frequently; he knew them by name--men,
women, and children; and he won their
complete confidence and friendship. The
influence he exerted over them was really
remarkable. Other Arivaipas, singly, and in
small bands, gradually came in and settled
near the post, and they were all regularly
cared for and supervised by Whitman. Among
them there may have been some hostiles who
used this improvised reservation as a safe
rendezvous before and after a raid; but it
has never been proven that there were such;
and the other white men at Camp Grant, as
well as reliable pioneer writers of that
day, give it as their opinion that these
Indians were sincere and peaceful.
Meantime, bloody and destructive raids were
constantly occurring near Tucson, around
Tubac, and in other parts of southern
Arizona. At each new outrage the settlers
grew more frantic. They had never approved
of this irregular settlement of Indians near
Camp Grant. They declared that renegades
were continually slipping away from this
reservation, committing some new outrage,
and then returning to be fed and protected
by Whitman until they were ready for another
outbreak. Late in April a small band of
Indians drove off a number of horses and
cattle from San Xavier and killed a man. The
people of Tucson and San Xavier declared
that the outlaws were from Eskiminzin's
band. Excited crowds in Tucson came together
in public meetings demanding vengeance; and
a committee of three or four leading
citizens was sent to interview General
Stoneman, then near Florence, with the
demand that the Arivaipa Indians be punished
and that the settlers be given protection.
General Stoneham replied that he had a very
limited number of troops at his disposal;
that they were constantly in the field in
pursuit of bad Apaches; that Tucson was the
most populous center in the department; and
that its citizens would have to protect
themselves as best they could.
This answer supplied oil to the fire of
their rage. A secret movement was at once
set on foot to destroy, root and branch, the
Indians on the Camp Grant Reservation.
Extermination --nothing less--was the end
and aim of these "leading citizens," all of
whom had always held that club and gun only
could end the Apache menace. The two men who
took the initiative in the infamous affair,
Jesus M. Elias and W. S. Oury, were two of
the most militant and influential pioneers
in Arizona.
The expedition left Tucson secretly in small
parties in order to avoid suspicion on the
part of the military. Some miles out of
Tucson on the road to Camp Grant guards were
stationed to turn back any rider who might
be sent to warn the troops at Camp Grant of
what was afoot. The party rendezvoused,
April 28, in the Pantano wash, east of
Tucson. There were one hundred and forty-six
in all: five Americans in addition to W. S.
Oury, the leader; forty-eight Mexicans; and
ninety-two Papago Indians. A wagonload of
arms, ammunition, and provisions had been
supplied by the Adjutant-General of the
Territory. Leaving the Rillito at four P.M.,
the company went by Cabadilla Pass, between
the Rincons and the Santa Cruz, and lay
hidden most of the next day on the San
Pedro. Marching all night they reached the
encampment of the Indians just at dawn; and
with clubs, rifles, and revolvers fell upon
the Indians before they were fully awakened
from their slumbers. The camp was unarmed
and most of the men were away hunting in the
mountains; but men, women, and children,
utterly dazed and surprised, were brained by
the Papagos with clubs, or shot down as they
ran by Mexicans and Americans. One hundred
and eight Arivaipas were slaughtered during
the course of a few minutes. Only eight of
this number were men. Twenty-nine children
were "spared" and taken by Tucson citizens
or sold by the Papagos into Sonora as
slaves. Two of these children escaped and
five were later recovered from Arizonians.
The fate of the rest was never known. From
the point of view of the avengers the
expedition was a great success. The "red
devils" had all been killed or captured; the
army had been outwitted; and not a man in
the punitive expedition had been hurt "to
mar the full measure of the triumph," in the
words of Oury. The deep damnation of the
deed cried out trumpet-tongued to the people
throughout the nation. In his report of that
year General Schofield referred to this
ferocious incident as "no less barbarous
than those which characterize the Apache."
Captain John G. Bourke writes: "The
incident, one of the saddest and most
terrible in our annals, is one over which I
would gladly draw the veil." Historians who
were residents of Arizona in the middle
seventies--for example, Joseph Fish and John
P. Clum--with bitter indignation, stamp the
outrage upon their pages in all its gory
horror. President Grant, in a letter to the
Governor of the Territory, declared that he
would place Arizona under martial law unless
those who engaged in the massacre were
promptly brought to trial before a civil
court. One hundred and four of those who
took part in the affair were indicted and
tried before a Federal judge in Tucson.
After being out only twenty minutes, the
jury "exonerated them. The majority of
leading white men in Arizona at the time
approved, or at least condoned, the action
of their fellow citizens. No Arizona judge
or jury would have convicted a white man for
killing an Apache.
Bibliography
Annual Reports of the United States War
Department, 1868, 1869, 18701871.
Arizona Daily Star, June 19, 1910.
Bancroft H. H. Arizona and New Mexico.
Works, Vol. XVI I. San Francisco.
Bourke John G. On the Border with Crook. New
York, Scribners, 1891.
Chronological List of Actions with Indians
in Arizona and New Mexico. January, 1866 to
January, 1891. A.G.O., War Department, Old
Records Section. Washington, D.C. Supplied
by Charles Morgan Wood.
Clum Woodworth. Apache Agent. Boston,
Houghton Mifflin, 1936.
Farish Thomas Edwin. History of Arizona,
Vols. V and VIII. Phoenix.
Hammond George P. After the Civil War,
Wanted--A Policy. Unpublished ms. supplied
by Charles Morgan Wood.
Hammond George P. General Stoneman in
Charge. Unpublished ms. supplied by Charles
Morgan Wood.
House of Representatives, Executive
Documents, I, Part 2, 41st Congress, 2d
Session.
House of Representatives, Executive
Documents, 42d Congress, 2d Session.
House of Representatives, Miscellaneous
Documents. Nos. 18 and 19, 38th Congress, 2d
Session.
Journals of the Third Legislative Assembly,
Territory of Arizona. Prescott, 1867.
Journals of the Fifth Legislative Assembly,
Territory of Arizona. Tucson, 1869.
Schmeckebier Laurence F. The Office of
Indian Affairs. Baltimore, Johns Hopkins
Press, 1927.
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