Apache Wars
The Apache Wars were fought during the nineteenth century between the U.S. military and many tribes in what is now the southwestern part of the United States. Some historians group the Apaches and Navajos together because they have similar languages (Athapascan) and cultures.
The U.S. military fought the Navajos and Apaches (known by themselves as Inde, T`Inde, N`ne = "people") largely for their lands. Often the sides were provoked by white settlers, speculators or a new federal policy. Apache leaders like Mangas Coloradas of the Bedonkohe, Cochise of the Chokonen (also known as Chiricahua), Victorio of the Chihenne band, Juh of the Nednhi band, Delshay of the Tonto and Geronimo of the Bedonkohe led raids to drive whites from their land and resisted the military's attempts, by force and persuasion, to relocate their people to various reservations.
The Civil War brought many soldiers to the Southwest, including General James Carleton, who 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. In the late 1860s, 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 Sumner. Soldiers and civilians, especially from Tucson, constantly pursued various Apache bands for a variety of reasons through the 1860s and 80s.
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 Chiricaua 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 of 1886. Miles deployed over 2 dozen hiolographs 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 (including the Apache Scouts) were sent to Fort Marion in Florida. Many died there. Apache children were taken to the Carlisle school in Pennsylvania, where fifty of them died. Eventually some the Apaches in Flordia were allowed to return to the Southwest but Geronimo was sent to Ft. Sill Oklahoma.
Similar stories could be told about many other Apaches groups and their interaction with others.
See also
- Indian Campaign Medal
- Navajo Wars
- Navajo_Scouts
- George_Crook#Indian_Wars General Crook, Indian Wars section
- Emmet CrawfordLt. who died in Mexico
Resources
- Lavender, David. The Rockies. Revised Edition. N.Y.: Harper & Row, 1975.
- Limerick, Patricia Nelson. The Legacy of Conquest: The Unbroken Past of the American West. N.Y.: W.W. Norton, 1987.
- Smith, Duane A. Rocky Mountain West: Colorado, Wyoming, & Montana, 1859-1915. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1992.
- Williams, Albert N. Rocky Mountain Country. N.Y.: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1950.
- Thrapp, Dan L. The Conquest of Apacheria. Norman:University of Oklahoma Press, 1967 LCCCN 67-15588
- Bourke, John G. On the Boarder with Crook. Lincoln:University of Nebraska Press, 1971 LCCCN 74-155699 ISBN 00-8032-5741-4
- Cochise, Ciyé "The First Hundred Years of Nino Cochise" New York: Pyramid Books 1972
- Davis, Britton "The Truth about Geronimo" New Haven:Yale Press 1929
- Bigelow, John Lt "On the Bloody Trail of Geronimo" New York:Tower Books 1958
- Geronimo (edited by Barrett) "Geronimo, His Own Story" New York:Ballantine Books 1971
- Kaywaykla, James (edited Eve Ball) "In the Days of Victorio: Recollections of a Warm Springs Apache" Tucson: University of Arizona Press 1970
Categories
History of the American West | Wars of the indigenous peoples of North America | Guerrilla wars