On a crisp January morning in 1861, a ten-year-old boy looked into the distance while tending his cattle. At the end of a narrow valley covered with forests, he saw a cloud of dust. Soon, horsemen appeared out of it. He knew they were up to no good. He quickly ran to the apple trees that stood not far from the farm where his mother and sister were, and climbed up one of them. He had known for a long time that their farm was on disputed land that had once belonged to the Mexicans until they were driven out by the Apaches, but now belonged to the Americans. Everyone called this land Apacheria.
A dozen Apaches, wildly painted and armed, came to the corral with the horses and cattle and began to round them up. An Apache named Beto approached the tree where Felix was squatting in the canopy. The boy’s heart was iced, he was sure the Indian was going to kill him. But the man just laughed, beckoned him to come down, and Felix obediently climbed down from the tree. Beto put him on the back of his horse and galloped off after the other warriors. Why he kidnapped Felix is unknown, perhaps because he had red hair, which was supposed to be a sign of something special, or perhaps because, like him, he was without one eye.
These Apaches were members of the Aravaipa tribe, who lived north-west of the Sonoita Valley. They named Felix Coyote because they weren’t sure if he was their friend or foe, and the whites called him Mickey Free. The kidnapping of the boy sparked the longest war in American history, lasting from 1861 to 1886. Blood flowed in streams from the Pecos River in Texas through New Mexico and Arizona deep into Mexico. The boy played an important role in this war, constantly moving back and forth between the world of the Indians and that of the white settlers, no one thought of him as their own, but no one could do without him either.
His father-in-law was John Ward, one of the many Irish emigrants seeking a new life in America. He was not interested in California, where gold was discovered in 1848, but decided to settle in the Sonoita Valley. He farmed, hunted, sometimes stole a cow if he had the strength, and sold hay to Fort Buchanan, an American military post 20 kilometres away, to support himself. He always had to watch out for Apaches and Mexican bandits crossing the border. He took as his companion an unmarried Mexican woman who already had a son and a daughter. The red-haired son he adopted was Felix.
The Sonoita Valley was sparsely inhabited. In 1860, the population was only 51 and the military garrison at Fort Buchanan provided only basic protection against Indian attacks. The whole area, including the part of Arizona south of the Gila River, totalling 30,000 square miles, was purchased by the US government in 1853 from the corrupt Mexican dictator Santa Anna, because it was to be the site of a railway line to California. The heart of this new territory was the mountainous Apacheria region.
Here lived the Apache, a people of mysticism and magic. Nature determined their rhythm of life and belief. The population of just over 10,000 was divided into many tribes; there were the Mescaleros, the Chiricahuas, the Jicarillas, the Lipans and many others. Although they spoke the same language, the tribes lived in isolation from one another. They belonged most to the family, then to the tribe and finally to the nation. They lived on marauding attacks, but they made a clear distinction between economically justified attacks and war. Economic hardship forced them to plunder, but not to kill. Military raids were only aimed at revenge, and then they knew no mercy in dealing with their opponents; they tortured them to death.
The key to their success has been their mobility. They knew the land, they knew where the drinking water was and where the best places to hide were in the many canyons. Anyone who wanted to enter and settle on this land had to get permission from the undisputed leader of the Apache Chiricahua, Mangas Coloradas.
In 1837, Coloradas began attacking Mexican settlements, roads became dangerous, owners had to close profitable mines, and Mexican peasants, who refused to give up their weapons for fear they would be used against them, gave up and began to leave the area. Later, the Apaches helped the Americans to gradually force the Mexicans out of the area and also fought with the Americans, but then made peace with them, which was violated by both sides.
In January 1861, one-eyed Beto gathered a dozen friends and set out on a trek because food was scarce. They painted their bodies, some drew white lines on their faces or two white arms across their chests. They knew there were enough cattle and horses on Ward’s ranch. They approached him in the early hours of the morning. Beto saw that the boy had climbed a tree, and in any other case he would have killed him instantly. But he did not do so now, because he saw that the boy, like him, had only one eye. The Indians, with the boy and the spoils of twenty cows, quickly moved away from the farm, splitting into three groups and confusing the pursuers. John Ward was not at the farm at the time, and when he returned, his Mexican wife pleaded with him to return her son.
Ward rushed to Fort Buchanan for help. The post commander ordered the young and inexperienced Lieutenant G.N. Bascom to go after the Indians with a small party of horsemen. He followed his captors towards Apache Pass, lost the trail and returned to the outpost. But the trail pointed to the Indian camp of the Apache chief Cochise, son-in-law of the Mangas chief Coloradas, who often camped near the pass.
John Ward insisted that he wanted his stepchild and cattle back. And so Bascom, accompanied by Ward, set off once more for the Apache Pass. It had something that everyone in the desert was looking for – a spring of fresh water flowing into a small hollow. The coachman thought twice before allowing one of the Butterfield Mail Company’s 141 horse-swapping post offices to be set up near it. He must have made a tacit agreement that he would not be too much bothered by the army here and that the Indians would not trouble the mail coaches coming from the east coast of America and bound for California.
Apache Pass
Lieutenant Bascom camped near the pass with 50 men and invited Cochise to talk to him the next day. The unsuspecting man brought his wife, brother, four-year-old son and three warriors. The soldiers discreetly surrounded the tent where the meeting was being held. Ward translated and Bascom demanded that Cochise return the boy and the stolen cattle. Until he did so, he and his men would be held hostage.
As soon as Cochise heard this, he jumped up, took a knife, cut the tent canvas and rushed out. Shots rang out, and Cochise, wounded in the leg, rushed down the rocks into the depths. The other Indians tried to escape, but by then they were surrounded by soldiers. An hour later, Cochise appeared at the edge of the globe and shouted to Bascom to release the captured Indians and forget the incident. In response, Bascom ordered a volley to be fired towards him. The Cochise threatened him with revenge.
Bascom saw how uncomfortable his situation was, being with a small company in the middle of Indian territory, so he ordered everyone to move into the post office building. During the night, he had already seen Indian signal fires near the pass. These immediately attracted Chief Geronimo and a few soldiers, and the next day Mangas Coloradas arrived with his warriors. The next morning Bascom saw that the surrounding hills were swarming with Indians, who, with occasional shelling, were troubling the surrounded group of soldiers.
On that day, during the fierce Indian shelling, a mail carriage coming from the east broke through to the post, and the next day another one coming from the west, so that the number of besiegers on the Apache hillside increased. Bascom knew he needed help to get out of the jam. Five soldiers signed up to make their way to Fort Buchanan in the cover of night. They wrapped the horses’ hooves in cloth, slipped away unnoticed, and arrived at Fort Buchanan the next evening. One of the mail coachmen broke free in the opposite direction and also reached Tucson in the evening. Despite the snow flurries, military reinforcements were soon marching from both posts towards Apache Hill.
Bascom’s group was besieged on the fourth day, when reinforcements arrived from the military outposts. During this time, the Apaches attacked, but the defenders behind the stone walls of the post could not survive. Then all was quiet and the scouts found that the Apaches had retreated. But the soldiers discovered a terrifying scene. In the meantime, the Apaches had captured several carts of flour intended to feed the various military outposts. All those who accompanied these wagons were tortured, finally killed and buried in a cave. What to do now with the Apache prisoners? Bascom protested because Captain Moore, who had brought military reinforcements from Tucson, decided that they should be hanged. His protests did not help, as Captain Moore was senior in rank. Unable to reach an agreement, the officers decided that whoever won the card game would decide. Moore won and the hanging began.
The next morning, Bascom went with a company of soldiers to a group of oaks near the top of the Apache hill and told the Apaches what was in store for them. They began to sing their death song while the soldiers put nooses around their necks. They pulled them up so high that the wolves could not reach them later. Cochise’s wife Dos-teh-seh and their six-year-old son had to watch the hanging of six of their countrymen. Then the soldiers went back to their posts. Bascom was rewarded for his hanging, he was given a higher rank, and Moore was awarded a medal. The Cochise’s daughter and son were imprisoned for a time at Fort Buchanan, but then, not knowing who they were, they were released. They made their way to Mexico and then on to Cochise.
The bodies of six Indians have been hanging on an Apache hillside for months. The Indians avoided this supposedly haunted site and did not touch the bodies. The ravens plucked out their eyes and vultures tore the flesh from them. When summer came, the ropes on which they were hung were washed away and what was left of the bodies fell to the ground, where the ants took hold of the remains. The autumn rains could only wash away the white bones.
John Ward did not get his stepson back, and Felix later became an Indian scout and translator, and – or so they said – a villain, as all Indians were wont to be, who took on the whites in battles against their own people.
Beto took his one-eyed captive to the Aravaipa canyon and celebrated a successful robbery expedition there, then traded or sold the boy to the Aravaipa Apache chief Eskiminzin. Felix’s new home, squeezed between the narrow canyon walls and a small river, was not so different from his home at Sonoita. Trees, willows and heather grew on the banks, giving protection to the birds. Deer grazed along the banks, desert goats climbed the steep slopes and wolves prowled for their prey. Felix was a stranger to the Indian tribe, doing as he was told, learning to live with them and survive. But years later, it was not only the Apaches who despised him, seeing him as the one indirectly responsible for their long war with the whites, but also the white settlers who looked down on him.
Two months after Cochise fled the tent, Apaches were attacking everywhere. They burned post offices, ambushed soldiers waiting for them and took their horses, and attacked settlers’ farms. Cochiz was joined by Mangas Coloradas and his warriors and Vitorio and his warriors. In June 1861, they closed the road between Mesilla and Tucson. Butterfield’s Mail Company had to stop business. A month later, a courier made his way to Fort Buchanan with orders to abandon the post and retreat to Fort Fillmore on the Rio Grande. The number of troops in Arizona was thus noticeably reduced as the attack on Fort Sumter in South Carolina started the American Civil War and Lincoln recalled almost all the troops to the east coast of the country to quell the Confederate rebellion.
The unprotected white farmers realised that the game was up, picked up their belongings and left their fields. Most of the Mexican mine workers quickly went south to Sonora. John Ward and the rest of his family also retreated to Tucson. Those whites who remained were massacred by the Apaches. This exodus had almost biblical proportions. Long wagon trains of settlers with their meagre possessions moved to safety, avoiding the Apache escarpment as Indian fires burned at night on the nearby mountainsides.
Still not satisfied with their success, Cochise and Mangas waited for the wagon train to leave Tucson on 15 August 1861, because Tucson was also beginning to empty and there were no more than 60 men left. There were 24 men, 16 women and 9 children in this column. If the soldiers from Pino Alto had not come quickly to their aid, they would have been massacred by the Apaches.
Then Coloradas decided to drive the miners out of Pino Alto together with the Cochise. They gathered 200 warriors and surrounded the mining camp. The Apaches, who had spent the night before in the hills above Pino Alto, took the miners completely by surprise with their attack. They stormed their huts, scattered among the pine trees, and massacred them. Around midday, the fight was over and the Apaches now turned their attack towards the town, which was defended by Captain Massin with 15 soldiers. They managed to defend themselves, as they had a small cannon, and the Apaches retreated to the safety of the mountains. But the town was devastated and the soldiers and the surviving civilians abandoned it after a few weeks.
In the morning, let him be dead
The Civil War was not without consequences, even in such far-flung regions as Arizona and New Mexico, and Cochise was happy to learn that whites were now fighting among themselves. In February 1862, a large column of the Unionist army approached Apache Pass, with the intention of crossing over to the other side to engage the Confederate troops. The Apaches waited for them to approach the pass and attacked them. Although there were few casualties on either side, this engagement was a turning point in the struggle for Apacheria.
An American soldier’s horse was hit by a bullet and collapsed. Deciding to sell his skin as dearly as possible, he lay down behind the dead horse, pointed his rifle at the leader of the Apache group approaching him and fired. The Indian, struck by the bullet, slowly slid from his horse, and the other Apaches stood by in surprise and quickly carried the wounded man to shelter. Mangas Coloradas, who was seriously wounded, was then carried into the camp, where the white doctor, who had been captured there, had a gun put to his temple and was threatened with death if he did not rescue the chief. All this had a fatal impact on the coalition of Indian tribes. Cochise never again commanded hundreds of Apache warriors. The war continued, but in a different way.
Mangas Coloradas was tired. He was 70 years old, his wound was healing badly, his belligerence was failing and he sent a message to the American General Carleton that he was ready to make peace. He said, “I do not trust him. We will attack him with all our force and punish this gang of murderers. All the grown men must be killed and the children and women must be moved.” Coloradas still believed that peace could be made with the whites, even though Chiefs Geronimo and Vitorio opposed it.
So Coloradas came to the peace talks in Pino Alto and realised the deception too late. The soldiers held him hostage and imprisoned him in a hut. General West ordered two guards: “This old murderer has managed to escape from every prison yet and has left a trail of blood 500 miles long. I want to see him dead in the morning.”
The guards understood. Late in the evening, Mangas Coloradas warmed himself by the fire in front of his dungeon. The guards thrust their bayonets into the embers until they glowed, then began to stab the prisoner’s feet with them. Coloradas told them in broken Spanish to stop playing with him because he was not a child, then they shot him in the chest. An officer who had come to see what was going on gave the chief another grace shot in the head. The next morning, one of the soldiers scalped the body and the doctor ordered the dead chief’s head to be cut off and boiled in a pot, as he wanted his skull.
Kocsis swore to avenge his father-in-law’s death, and he began to hate the whites even more when he found out how they had mutilated Coloradas’s corpse. For the Apaches, this was worse than death, because the corpse must go to the eternal hunting grounds unharmed.
Felix Ward, the kidnapped boy, was not with the Aravapaiga tribe for long, having been mistaken for Indian medicine. He ended up in the family of Nayindin, the chief of another Apache tribe, the White Mountains. He grew up in the chief’s family, who adopted him, and played with the chief’s son, Black Rope. They were like brothers and everyone admired his red hair. Finally, he had a family again. He learned to hunt, look after horses, shoot a bow and chase animals.
John Ward, his bread-baking father, finally left Tucson with his family, but did not return to Sonoita because it was still too dangerous. Near Tubac, he took over the abandoned Potrero farm, selling hay for the war horses and raising pigs. The US army was only slowly returning to the outposts it had been forced to abandon, and even built some new ones. One of the new posts was Camp Grant, where young Lieutenant Howard Bass Cushing was transferred in 1870. His determination in the fight against the Indians soon made him an almost legendary figure.
Despite his courage, military campaigns against the Apache were usually unsuccessful. As patrols of soldiers constantly circled Arizona, the Apaches skillfully dodged, ambushed and immediately fled into the mountains. Travelling on the roads was dangerous and few mail wagons reached their destination. In 1868, the newly elected US President Ulysses S. Grant saw that this was no longer the case.
His “new Indian policy” has stunned many. He was determined that Indians belonged on reservations, where they would embrace Christianity and work the land. The army had no right to enter an Indian reservation until they were invited to do so by an “Indian agent”. Quakers, proponents of non-violence, were chosen as the first agents to manage the affairs of the natives and to take care of some of their basic needs, such as food distribution. Five food distribution centres were thus opened in Arizona, much to the chagrin of the white farmers. The problem for the Apaches was that at that time there was no reservation for them, and any Indians found outside the reservations could be attacked and killed by settlers or the army.
Cochise was blamed for all the looting, pillaging and devastation in Arizona and New Mexico. Lieutenant Cushing vowed to destroy him. He followed with his troops, destroying small Indian settlements as he went, but time and again Cochise eluded him. As Cushing and his small party pursued him, he fell into an ambush by the Indian chief Geronimo. The Indians were cleverly hiding behind rocks, and Cushing took first a bullet in the chest and then in the head. The surviving soldiers quickly retreated to the nearest military post before returning to the ambush site to bury the bodies when reinforcements arrived.
There was not an Indian tribe that did not celebrate the death of Lieutenant Cushing. “Indians are still killing around, and warlords are engaging in peace talks with them and handing out food”, said an outraged editorial in the Tucson Citizen. Tucson had 3 000 inhabitants at the time, with few settlers elsewhere.
In May 1867, Indians attacked John Ward’s farm and took all his cattle. Ward was wounded and died of his injuries a few months later. His Mexican wife decided to return to Mexico with their children and died shortly afterwards. She never found out what happened to Felix. Such attacks further upset the white settlers and, as appeals to the military authorities did not help, they decided to take action themselves.
At that time, young Lieutenant Whitman was in command of Camp Grant. One day, five Apache women came in, all skin and bones. They begged for food and left a message that their chief, Eskinzin, the very man with whom the boy Felix had been staying for some time after his abduction, wished to see the captain. The chief told Whitman that his Aravaipa tribe was tired and hungry and that they wanted to plant maize nearby, thus giving up their nomadic way of life. Whitman promised them food and protection. Hundreds of Indians settled in Aravaipa Canyon, eight kilometres from Camp Grant.
Meanwhile, the settlers in Tucson have decided to take them to task. A little over a hundred of them gathered, joined by some Mexicans and Papago Indians. They set out in secret, travelling at night and avoiding military patrols and Indian hunters. On April 30, 1871, they approached the Indian camp. Lulled by Whitman’s promise of protection, the Indians failed to post guards and the slaughter began. The parrots quietly approached the tents and almost inaudibly killed the sleepers. Then shots rang out and the fire of the burnt tents lit up the scene. A few Apaches, including Eskiminzin with his two-year-old daughter in his arms, managed to flee across the stream into the rocks. His two wives and five children lay with their heads smashed in the camp. 125 Apaches, mostly women and children, were killed as the men were on the hunt.
Red-haired Indian Scout
The report of the massacre has upset Washington and the Attorney General has been tasked with charging the ringleaders with murder. All the accused were, of course, acquitted to the applause of the settler crowd at the trial. The Eskimo did not accuse Whitman of anything, saying only: “I tried and my people tried.” He then drove to a nearby farm where McKinney, the owner, had been his friend for many years. The farmer invited him to lunch, after which they sat on the porch and smoked. Then Eskinzin got up, pulled out a revolver and shot him in the head. “There can be no friendship between us and white people. Anyone can kill an enemy, but only a strong man can kill a friend.” He mounted his horse and rode off into the mountains.
Finally, Washington had second thoughts as Apache attacks on settlers and soldiers grew more and more violent. They designated seven areas as reservations for the Apache tribes and told them that by February 1872, all Apaches had to be in their designated reservation. Anyone found outside would be considered an enemy and would be shot. Thus, General Crook in Arizona was ordered to launch a military operation against all Apaches not on reservations.
General Crook needed a large number of Indian scouts, most of them of mixed descent, but also true Indians. One of them was Mickey Free, who was once called Felix Ward. With his ponytail of red hair and one eye missing, and his story of kidnapping, he was known to all as the one whose kidnapping started the Apache War. He became the most famous Indian scout. The army gave him the name Mickey Free because they could not pronounce his Indian name.
His facial features were ugly and his demeanour repulsive. Mickey Free was an Apache warrior, taking part in attacks on enemies and killing and murdering women and children. His return to the white world proved far more difficult than his entry into the Apache world.
The first victims of Crook’s military operation were the Tonto Apaches, who were camped in various places. Most of the fighting was done by Indian scouts, who were not only recruited by the army for scouting duties, but were often sent to the front lines. With the support of the scouts, the army easily tracked down their camps, and the scouts discovered the main Tonto Apache camp on a hill called Turret Peak.
The surprise was complete. As Mickey Free and the other Scouts approached the camp, the Indians started running in the opposite direction towards the soldiers, who shot them. Some jumped off the cliff to avoid capture, others hid in the bushes. While the scouts danced a victory dance by the fire, smoke signals told the other Indians that the enemy had taken the camp. The other Tonto Indians then surrendered. The start of the military operation was therefore a success and Mickey Free decided to continue working for the whites as a Boy Scout, earning a salary of $17 a month. In October 1873, President Grant promoted General Crook to Brigadier-General, and his rivals, Generals A. Miles and Armstrong Custer, were green with envy. But the greatest of Apache leaders, Cochise, still refused to be caught.
Thomas Jeffords was a pilot in his youth, guiding ships on the Great Lakes, but after the Civil War he found his way to Arizona, where he carried the mail between Tuscon and Santa Fe. He carried it by carriage or on horseback and therefore knew how dangerous a business it was. In 16 months, he had lost 12 assistants. He knew that if he did not do something, his business would collapse and he decided to go to Cochise himself and suggest that he should not attack his riders, as they were completely harmless to him. Everyone advised against this crazy journey, but Jeffords persevered and set off.
The Apaches looked in amazement at the lone rider who dared to enter their territory alone. After a long wandering, and with the Apache guards keeping a watchful eye, he arrived at Kochi’s camp. Cochise listened to him and promised not to harass his horsemen again. Thus the two men struck up a most unusual friendship. The settlers looked at Taglit – for that is what the Apaches now called Jeffords – with dismay. They accused him of selling guns to the Apaches, supplying them with ammunition, living with them from time to time, and even collaborating with them in attacks on the Mexican side.
General Howard, sent by President Grant to Arizona in 1872 to make peace with the Apaches, needed just such a man. Howard went to the Tularosa Indian Reservation, home to some 300 disgruntled Apaches who wanted to return to their former territory. Jeffords knew how difficult a mission General Howard was embarking on, but he was ready to help.
In the last days of September 1872, a small group of negotiators, led by Howard and Jeffords, reached Koçiz’s camp. Cochise made a strong impression on the General. He was tall, of erect build, with already slightly greying hair and penetrating eyes. The peace talks began. Cochise said that no one wanted peace more than him, because both nations were suffering from the attacks. He was ready to make peace with the whites, but he could not decide for himself, but must consult the other chiefs of the Apache tribes, and above all the great chief at Washington must provide him with a better territory for a reservation than that which he was now offering.
Howard nodded that he thought that was fine and assured him that he would be back in two weeks for an answer. He kept his word and turned up at the camp two weeks later with a cart full of corn, flour, sugar coffee and clothes. He arrived just as the Great Indian Council of Chiefs was in session. He knew that not all the chiefs would agree to the peace offered, but he assured Cochise that he would be given a new territory for the reservation, bordering Arizona and Mexico and including the highlands. The US government would provide most of the food and clothing, and Jeffords-Taglit would be placed as its agent.
The demand for a credible government agent was understandable, as almost all previous agents were crooks who stole from the Indians whatever they could scrounge. The robes offered to the Indians were worthless, the flour mouldy, the clothes old and torn and the delivery irregular. No wonder if the Indians protested and riots broke out, often resulting in gunfire.
Before Howard and his entourage headed back to work out the details of the peace agreement with Washington, he curiously eyed the burly Indian who, along with Cochise, had the most say on the Indian side. He wore a white shirt with a military laundry sign on the hem and the words Cushing. So he met the murderer, Lieutenant Cushing. When he asked Jeffords who he was, Jeffords told him that the Mexicans called him Geronimo.
Meanwhile, the forced relocation of Indians to reservations continued. Thus, a sad column of Indians from different tribes made the 250-kilometre journey from Campo Verde to the San Carlos Reserve. It was February and they were caught in a snowstorm on the way. The Indians were on foot, both women and children, and they had to carry all their belongings with them. Soon the weaker ones fainted, but the soldiers who accompanied them on horseback did not allow the dead to be buried. Food ran out in the first week. Along the way, there were also clashes between the various Indian tribes that were in the column. Mickey Free often stood between the warring tribes on horseback, shouting, threatening and persuading.
Crossing a cold river with water up to an adult’s chest, the Yavapais Indians had had enough. They painted their faces with war paint and guns appeared from somewhere in their hands. The first shots were fired. Mickey Free began to convince them that help was coming with food and warm clothes. Finally, peace reigned among the crowd of thousands, but everyone arrived in San Carlos dissatisfied.
Mickey Free returned home happy. He was now almost a major figure, earning $152 a month as a translator. He decided to renew his wardrobe, which now included new boots, a top hat, trousers and underwear. Anything he had left over, he shared with his fellow Apaches, as was the Apache custom. So, well done, he went to the courtship, confident that he would soon marry Ethlay, the sister-in-law of the chief of the White Mountains tribe, who would bear him a son.
Of all the Apache tribes, only the Chiricahuas and the Cochise have now defended their move to San Carlos, since the agreement between General Howard, which was well-intentioned, and the Cochise remains a mere letter on a piece of paper. It was opposed by the settlers and also by some American commanders. All this resulted in tragic events that took thousands of lives. In June 1874, Jeffords and Cochise met for the last time. The chief had been ill for several months and knew that the end was near. He died the next day. Accompanied by hundreds of Chiricahua, his body was taken to the mountain where there was a large chasm. They killed the horse and the chief’s dog and threw them into the abyss, followed by weapons, and finally the chief’s body was lowered by ropes into the depths. The great chief of Apacheria was no more.
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Departure to the reserve
All these years, Cochise and Jeffords have worked to keep the peace. Now that Cochise was gone, everything was different. His son Taza, who succeeded him as chief, did not have his charisma and other young chiefs opposed the succession and raised their heads. Geronimo regularly invaded Mexico, sowing fear and trembling among the Mexicans, always returning to safety in Arizona after an attack, and demanding food and clothing for his people from Jeffords. The white settlers were also becoming more vocal, as rumours spread that gold and silver could be mined in the mountainous Chiricahua region, and there were demands that Jeffords be recalled as an agent and replaced by someone who would ‘disarm the Indians, drive away the drunkenness, and move them to another reservation’. Also, more and more Indian families were leaving the reservation out of frustration and settling where they thought they would be better off.
Meanwhile, Washington has already decided that everything, including the Chiricahua Apache, should be moved to the San Carlos Reserve. Around 550 US troops had already gathered around Tucson, assisted by 100 Indian scouts, and Jeffords had been dismissed as Indian agent. Taza had no choice but to lead the column of 210 Chiricahua on wagons towards San Carlos. But it was mostly just women and children, the warriors joining Geronimo, who was plundering in New Mexico.
But then Geronimo’s carelessness was avenged. In April 1874, he turned up with a group of Apaches at the Ojo Caliente Reservation in New Mexico to get a regular supply of food and clothing. Instead, the new Indian agent, John Clum, told him that he was under arrest. Geronimo laughed at him, “You are very brave to talk like that. You must be careful that your body is not left here for the coyotes to eat.” Then 50 soldiers rushed out of the ambush with rifles drawn and surrounded Geronimo, who was taken prisoner. Geronimo just spat and said to the agent, “You came to our country a year ago and you are already breaking the peace agreement made between the Great Chief and Taglito. Don’t tell me about breaking the deal, you with your sick brain.”
In the same month, 435 Apaches, including the chained Geronimo, went to the San Carlos Reserve under heavy guard. When they arrived there, Geronimo was imprisoned in the Indian Agency building, where he remained until July 1877. He was then released because they were convinced that he was now “completely subdued”. But when Geronimo stepped out into the dazzling light and freedom, he immediately began to plot revenge.
The San Carlos Reserve has been a disaster for the Indians. Five thousand Indians from different tribes lived here on barren land. Many tribes were hostile and feuding, fights and murders were the order of the day, as were complaints about the irregular distribution of food. Mickey Free was also frustrated because he was no longer employed as a translator. The Indian chiefs shunned the one-eyed, red-haired native, distrusted, feared and hated him, knowing that he was the one who had started the war. He was becoming more and more agitated, for he had heard rumours that the Indian chiefs were preaching in a trance by the fireside that the dead chiefs would come back to life and begin a decisive struggle against the whites.
He decided it was best to stay with his wife and child in the San Carlos Reserve. Here he also got a job with the Indian police. But when he tried to arrest two thieves who, with the knowledge of an American Indian agent, were stealing supplies and selling them on the black market, the agent had him imprisoned for two weeks and eventually dismissed him from the police force. An action that the agent quickly came to regret.
Jeffords knew that what was happening in San Carlos could not last forever. One night in early September 1877, led by Chief Vitorio, 350 Apaches left the reserve in four groups and headed back to the old Ojo Caliente reserve where they had lived before. They walked at night, knowing that the army would pursue them. When they got to Ojo Caliente, they asked the Indian agent for food because they were starving. Then they waited to see what would happen. After a long hesitation, the order came that they were to return to San Carlos under guard. But when the day of departure arrived, most of the Indians had already fled into the mountains. Then Vitorio began his war.
Of course, Vitorio did not always win, he left his dead warriors behind him, but he evaded skillfully and rarely engaged in open combat. When the going got tough, he split his fighters into smaller groups and sent them across the border into Mexico, where he was pursued, but much less successfully. He felt safer in Mexico, but in October 1880 he had no choice. The road to Arizona and New Mexico was blocked by numerous border guards and the Mexican army was pressing in from the south. In desperate need, with little ammunition and with his wives and children impeding his rapid movement, he decided to retreat to Tres Castillos, where there was a small lake by the side of a mountain range.
But Colonel Terrazas of Mexico also knew that he was going there. He surrounded Vitoria, which was already running low on ammunition. What followed was a man-to-man battle that Vitorio could not win. Colonel Terrazas arrived in the Mexican city of Chihuahua with 88 Indian scalps hanging from a pole. Vitorio’s was sold for 2 000 pesos.
In June 1881, Fort Apache was alarmed by rumours that Indians were gathering in large groups, dancing around fires as if in a trance, and saying they were going to drive the whites away. Fort Apache was the most exposed point of the Republic, but it was poorly fortified, having no defensive wall at all. It contained a total of 150 able-bodied men, including Indian scouts, who could not be relied upon.
What happens during these dances is what Mickey Free is supposed to have told Major Carr after watching this dance assembly. Mickey Free really had a lot to say. The ceremonial dances were led by a Crow called the Dreamer near San Carlos on the Cibecue Creek and attended by several hundred Indians. Major Carr was convinced that they should be dispersed and the returnee arrested, especially as the Indians were constantly cutting his telegraph wires and he was thus constantly out of touch with the outside world.
He left 60 men at Fort Apache, and on 31 August 1881 set out with the rest for the rendezvous. He was concerned only that his column was being followed in the distance by armed Apaches. Major Carr stopped a few kilometres from Cibecue Creek and sent negotiators to the return. They invited him to Fort Apache for a talk, but threatened to kill him if he resisted. The wreck did not resist at all, but more and more Apaches, painted in battle colours, gathered near him. When the group reached Major Carr, the soldiers saw that nothing good was coming their way.
Mickey Free was 10 kilometres from Fort Apache on his way to San Carlos when he heard gunshots near Cibecue Creek and immediately sensed what was happening. He rushed to nearby Fort Grant and informed the commander. Newspapers from San Francisco to New York then carried big headlines about the Cicebue Creek Massacre, with Mickey Free recounting that Apache Scouts had been at the forefront of the massacre.
Mickey Free immediately took his wife and son and rushed to San Carlos with them as soon as he could. He knew that the army would retaliate and would make no distinction between loyal and disloyal Indian scouts. Then, suddenly, Major Carr appeared alive outside Fort Apache with his decimated band of men. He spent a long time explaining to his superiors what had happened, as he was threatened with court-martial. They were all unanimous in their belief that it was a rebellion of Indian scouts who had opened fire on the soldiers and joined the Apaches. Major Carr repulsed the attack despite the indiscriminate firing, but was left with seven dead and a number of wounded, and without his horses, but managed to return to Fort Apache two days later. The returnee was also dead.
The death of the return of Sanjac upset the Indians of San Carlos, and it was particularly poignant that troops of the US Cavalry had invaded the reserve looking for Indian scouts. Geronimo gathered the chiefs and they decided. One night, some 400 Apaches fled the reservation, taking refuge in the mountains, looting the surrounding countryside, attacking isolated farms and mail shipments. The soldiers pursued them, but in vain, in a mountainous area full of canyons, Geronimo repeatedly eluded them or retreated into Mexico and attacked Mexican outposts there. “I killed a lot of Mexicans, I don’t know exactly how many, because I often didn’t count them because they weren’t worth it,” he told us around the campfire, and the young warriors listened eagerly.
One Mexican, however, was worth counting. Juan Mata Ortiz commanded the Mexican troops that defeated Vitoria and his warriors. Old Ortiz lived on his ranch, Geronimo captured him and roasted him alive on a fire.
Invasion of Mexico
Meanwhile, Mickey Free has been given the grim task of bringing rebellious Scouts to justice. He did catch a few, and in March 1882, three were convicted and hanged. Now Mickey Free was a traitor to the Indians and an apostate from his own people. He continued to work as a scout until the end of September 1882, when he was hired as a lieutenant in the San Carlos Indian Police at a salary of $20 a month. He was 35 years old and a well-known figure on the reservation. Some people remembered him for a long time: “He wore cavalry boots that came up to his knees, and around his hips was a big leather belt that held two cavalry pistols. With a tuft of red hair and a small red moustache and a characteristic smile, he looked like a true Irishman.”
Others remembered it as a most unusual and interesting combination of humour and ill will, generosity and bloody cruelty. He was cynical about the everyday values of the Apache, but when he was a Boy Scout he faithfully followed their battle rituals. He took a Tonto Indian as his second wife, but she died after giving birth to a son. Mickey Free was a man who oscillated between two cultures and did not really know which was his.
Soon he was assigned to head a spy service in San Carlos. Together with seven reliable Apaches, including two women, he gathered information and reported on everything that was happening on the reservation.
Washington knew full well that the Apaches would always take refuge in Mexico when the going got tough, but the Mexican government refused to allow US cavalry to cross the Rio Grande and pursue them into Mexican territory. Even orders to military commanders along the border strictly forbade them to cross. Yet, despite all the official prohibitions, this is exactly what happened, with the secret permission of Washington and the tacit approval of Mexico. All that was needed was to wait for the right trigger to justify such an action.
On the twenty-eighth of March 1883, Judge Hamilton McComas carelessly arranged a picnic in the countryside for his wife and six-year-old son. Unfortunately for him, a group of Apaches led by Chief Chatto stumbled upon him. The judge was felled by gunshots, and his wife’s head was smashed in with a hoof, as they felt the bullet had caused damage. They took the little timid Charley with them. A wave of indignation swept America, with consequences for the Apaches similar to the kidnapping of Mickey Free.
Chato and his warriors retreated across the river into Mexico and disappeared in the Sierra Madre mountains. He was followed by a strong US Army company with Indian scouts led by Mickey Free. They were dressed in civilian clothes. In a narrow canyon, which then widened into a grassy amphitheatre, they saw the Scout and his fighters. But there were only women and children in the Indian camp, and General Crook, who led the march, knew that these were important hostages.
When Geronimo, who was on the march, learned that the camp was taken, he decided to return and negotiate. He had few warriors and even less ammunition. Crook was also in an unenviable position, being on terrain he did not know and could not expect help. But unlike Geronimo, he had enough soldiers and ammunition.
Negotiations continued for several days and finally Geronimo, seeing how tired his people were, agreed to surrender. On the 10th of June 1883, a column of 52 Indians with 273 women and children set off for San Carlos. Geronimo promised to come back later, when he had gathered the rest of the Indians, who were scattered throughout Mexico and Arizona. Of course, they never found the young, timid Charley McComac. Geronimo surrendered on 26 February 1884 in New Mexico.
A settlement area has been designated for all Chiricahua Apache at Turkey Creek, 25 kilometres from Fort Apache. But even here Geronimo was not happy, more drunk than sober, claiming that Mickey Free wanted to murder him. In May 1885, 42 Apaches fled the reservation with 92 women and children. They moved quickly, killing everyone they met along the way. The horrors they committed outraged the press. Finally, Mickey Free discovered Geronimo’s camp, but he and a small band of warriors managed to escape again. The army captured his wife and young son and took them to Fort Apache.
While everyone was looking for Geronimo in Mexico, he snuck out, sneaked into the Indian camp at Fort Apache at night where his wife and son were being held, freed them, stole a dozen horses in passing, and fled to Mexico. General Crook felt ashamed.
Geronimo’s new pursuit in Mexico has begun inauspiciously. The Mexicans attacked the American company as unwanted intruders and killed the leader, Captain Crawford. Geronimo watched the Americans and Mexicans shoot from a hill, smiling slyly. The next day, he invited the Americans to talk to him, claiming that he was ready to return to San Carlos, that he was not guilty of the crimes of which he was accused, and that he had only escaped from the reservation because Mickey Free wanted to murder him. He is ready to surrender at the US border in a month.
The surrender was arranged for 14 March 1886 in Mexican territory, but Geronimo and the other loyal chiefs did not surrender until 27 March. A few days later he again escaped. The other Indians who surrendered were put on a train and taken to Florida. None of them ever returned to Arizona.
In Washington, it was decided that a change of personnel was needed in Arizona, and Nelson Miles became the new commander. What amazed him most was how there could be 400 Chiricahua around Fort Apache, who were technically still prisoners of war, but had weapons. He intended to move them from Arizona to Indian Territory in close proximity to their sworn enemies, the Comanche. Incidentally, in Arizona, as early as 1883, it had been proposed that the San Carlos Reservation should be abolished, and Washington had quietly agreed.
End of the Indian War
Now Geronimo was just an outlaw with 35 Indians, some of them wives and children, hunted by a quarter of the entire US army. “Surrender, you will join your people in Florida and wait for the government’s decision,” was the last offer of surrender. Geronimo nodded, but asked if he could return to the Chiricahua Reservation. He could not believe it when he heard that the reserve no longer existed and that the Chiricahuas had been moved to Florida as prisoners of war.
The next day, he decided to surrender with the rest of the Indians. On the second of September 1886, Geronimo and General Miles stood facing each other. The translator introduced the General and said, “General Miles is your friend.” Geronimo replied, “I have never seen him. But I need friends. Why shouldn’t the General be my friend?” The officers present burst out in raucous laughter.
Geronimo was transported to Fort Pickens, Florida, where 16 Chiricahua had already been forcibly resettled, and nearly 400 other Chiricahua were resettled near Fort Marion, also in Florida. This was the beginning of a 27-year-long captivity. The Indian War was over.
Geronimo has become a real tourist attraction in Fort Pickens. He was taught to sign his name clumsily and then sell the autographed photos for two dollars. Seventeen prisoners often gave battle dances and sold handicrafts to tourists. At Fort Marion, where the rest of the Chiricahuas were held, there were no tourists, only poverty in an old brick fort, and the sanitary conditions were appalling. Later they were sent to Alabama, where living conditions were more bearable. A year later, Geronimo and others joined them. But in 1894, they were all moved again, this time to Oklahoma, where they started farming.
In 1905, Geronimo even rode in a parade to celebrate the election of Theodore Roosevelt as President of America. They met and the old chief told him, “I beg you to cut my ropes and set me free. Let me die in my own country as an old man who has been punished enough and is now free.” Roosevelt refused. It all ended for Geronimo one cold night in Oklahoma when he fell off his horse drunk. Half submerged in a stream, he spent the whole night and contracted pneumonia. He died on 17 February 1909. In 1913, the government gave the Chiricahuas the choice of staying where they were and working the land, or returning to the reservation in New Mexico. Most chose to return.
Thomas Jeffords retired to his ranch near Tucson and lived a hermit’s life with his dogs until 1914, when he died. Later, in the 1950s, a film was made about his friendship with Cochise called Broken Arrow. Mickey Free was already a broken man on the San Carlos Reservation when he was still a Boy Scout. His son, whom he loved dearly, was shot dead by an Indian in a drunken stupor. According to Apache custom, he should have sought out the killer and taken revenge. But he knew that the whites would not allow such revenge. He did not take revenge, and so he confessed that he was more white than Indian.
In 1900, his wife died and he was left alone. He retreated to his one-room cottage and tended his vegetable garden. “The last time I saw him, I noticed how he had collapsed. He was a withered, stooped, little old man,” recalled one of his contemporaries. Mickey Free was the last remnant of an era that had passed, having outlived all his contemporaries. He died sometime in the spring of 1914, shortly before the world entered the First World War. He was buried according to Apache custom in a canyon near his home. As was customary, his house was set on fire. The white world took no notice of his departure.
