AZ Mil Hist 7 Arizona Indian Wars – Part II This article continues the story of the Indian Wars in Arizona during the period 1849-1886 and will address the Camp Grant Massacre and events until the final surrender of Apache leader Geronimo. The influx of settlers and miners coming into Arizona continued to crowd onto the lands of the Arizona tribes, creating increasingly uneasy relationships. Then, in April 1871, as recounted by David Roberts in They Once Moved Like the Wind, an event near Camp Grant, a small Army outpost north of Tucson, would touch off years of renewed warfare between the government and the Apache tribes. Camp Grant was located near the junction of the San Pedro River and the Aravaipa Creek northeast of Tucson (see Southern Arizona map below). A small band of Aravaipa Apaches under their chief Ezkiminizen approached the Army commander at Camp Grant, Lt. Royal Whitman, to make a truce. The Aravaipa are known in Apache as the Dark Rocks People (after the black rocks of the Galiuro Mountains and Aravaipa Canyon). The Aravaipa appeared to be worn down by warfare and wanted to live on their land in peace, perhaps in an arrangement similar to the “feeding stations” in the north. Whitman was sympathetic and sought authority from his commander in California for the truce. Soon over 500 Indians from several bands were camped near Whitman’s garrison seeking peace. The people of Tucson, to the south, were increasingly unhappy with Apache incursions and were affronted by Whitman’s “coddling” of these particular Apaches. A local Tucson leader named William S. Oury organized a vigilante group to seek “justice.” During the winter and spring, William S. Oury and Jesús María Elías formed a “Committee of Public Safety,” blaming every raid in southern Arizona on the Camp Grant Apaches. Once again, the local whites seemed to assume that every Apache tribe somehow coordinated with every other tribe and shared blame for these raids. The Tucsonans had appealed to the area commander, General Stoneman for relief, but were not satisfied by his tepid responses. The committee organized a vigilante group in great secrecy, and on the afternoon of April 28, six Americans (including then-Tucson mayor Sidney R. DeLong), 48 Mexicans, and 92 O’odham, gathered along Rillito Creek and set off on a stealthy march (see route of the 1 raiders below). They avoided the main trail to Camp Grant in order to surprise the Aravaipa and headed to Aravaipa Canyon. Before dawn on Sunday, April 30, they surrounded the sleeping Aravaipa Apaches. The Apaches were taken completely by surprise. Most of the Apache men were alleged to be off hunting in the mountains. No adult Indian was left alive to tell the tale. All but eight of the corpses were women and children. Twenty-nine children had been captured and were sold into slavery in Mexico by the Tohono O’odham and the Mexicans. A total of 144 Aravaipas had been killed and mutilated. Overcome by the catastrophe, Whitman offered each of his interpreters $100 to go into the hills to convey to the surviving Aravaipa that his soldiers had nothing to do with the massacre. None of the interpreters was tempted, although $100 was a fortune then. Then, as Roberts continues, Whitman did a brave thing. In broad daylight on the morning of May 1st, and vulnerable to the grief-stricken warriors he knew must be watching from the hills, he set about burying the mutilated corpses. The devastated Aravaipa seemed to understand. Slowly they straggled in to Camp Grant, expressing their grief to Whitman. They asked Whitman to help retrieve their stolen children. Whitman was eventually able to retrieve a few, but most had disappeared into the trafficking markets in Mexico, never to be seen again by the Aravaipa. As an afterthought for his efforts, Whitman was court-martialed in December 1871. He was charged with failing to pay for drinks in a Tucson saloon. The local newspapers, unable to implicate him in the massacre and still resentful of his “coddling,” assailed him on more personal grounds. The court, recognizing the absurdity of the charges, threw out the case. But Whitman’s career was ruined. He retired on a pension in Washington, DC and would spend the rest of his life brooding over the events at Camp Grant. The Camp Grant incident is not without controversy. As Constance Lynn Altshuler points out in her Chains of Command, some articles found in the Aravaipa camp could be traced to people killed by the Apaches. The owner of a horse swore under oath that he found it in the Aravaipa camp. Some “unopened packages could only have come from a devastated ranch or a dead traveler.” The whereabouts of the Aravaipa men is also controversial. Why was a hunting party needed when 90 male Aravaipa already drew rations from the fort? Lt. Whitman had not reported the men absent, which meant that he had not issued the passes required for their absence under the agreement. Whitman himself had a history of public drunkenness and 2 was later court-martialed three times. Nevertheless, his efforts with the Aravaipas seemed honorable and the massacre did in fact occur. But the momentum created by Whitman’s good intentions would continue. When President Grant heard of the massacre, he took swift action. President Grant was enraged when he heard about Camp Grant and vowed decisive action. He informed Governor A.P.K. Safford that if the perpetrators were not brought to trial, he would place Arizona under martial law. He then installed General George Crook (see photo below) as Arizona military commander. As David Roberts relates, Crook was a decorated Civil War veteran (Bull Run, Antietam, Chickamauga, Winchester) and had spent 13 years fighting Indians in the plains and the northern territories. Chief Crazy Horse lauded Crook as more to be feared than any Sioux warrior. General Sherman, then commander of the US Army, called Crook “America’s best Indian fighter.” And for good reason. Crook was an unusual officer, says Roberts. He hated wearing his uniform, preferring unostentatious plain civilian garb (see photo below left). He rode a mule. He never smoked or swore, or drank alcohol, tea, or coffee. He was thoroughly unpretentious. Because of his manner of dress and his peculiar whiskers, the Apache dubbed him "Gray Fox." And he differed from nearly all his fellow officers in the Indian wars in one vital respect: He had a limitless curiosity about the Indian way of life. His curiosity led to a measured sympathy, but foremost he knew the best way to fight your enemy is to know him through and through. He interviewed everyone he could find who had any experience against the Apaches. He realized that the set formations of his recent Civil War experience had no use in Arizona. His army would need to accommodate the mobility and speed of the Apache warriors. He went to Arizona and went to school. He talked with the Coyotero and White Mountain Apaches lingering outside Fort Apache in central Arizona. He recognized that “the average Apache was a far superior horseman, a far better conditioned athlete, and a man far more attuned to the brutal Arizona landscape than the average American soldier.” Crook observed that “It takes and Apache to catch an Apache.” If the nearby Apaches would join his campaign, he promised them “to forgive the crimes of the past, to enforce the same laws for whites and Indians alike, and always to tell the truth.” His decision to use Indian scouts to hunt the warlike tribes was unheard of and controversial, but it would make a difference. Encouraged by early success, Crook moved to Fort Verde, where he began planning a full campaign against the Apaches. 3 Meanwhile, by 1872, and after protracted and bloody warfare, Cochise recognized that the Americans seemed to be an unstoppable and growing tide into Arizona. He decided that he needed to come to terms with this force, continues Roberts. A man named Tom Jeffords (see sketch below) helped Cochise make this possible. Jeffords had come to Arizona as a prospector and later worked as a supervisor for the stage line. The Apaches were killing his drivers and station people and he needed to stop the losses. Jeffords could speak some Apache and offered to help arrange a truce. He calmly walked into Cochise’s stronghold unarmed and asked to see Cochise. The Apaches were astounded by his audacity and courage, and were not even sure which one they admired most. Cochise himself was impressed by Jefford’s courage and they became unlikely friends. Cochise had already bargained with Crook and had offered to protect travelers across Apache Pass if his people could stay in their homeland on a reservation. After some negotiation with a visiting Washington emissary, General Oliver O. Howard (see sketch below), and with the help of his only white friend, Tom Jeffords, the government granted Cochise’s Chiricahua tribe a reservation on their homeland in southeastern Arizona. The reservation became official in December 1872. Howard’s conclusion of the agreement with Cochise (see photo left) put an end to Crook’s own obsession with Cochise. Crook had believed that the Chiricahuas would only agree to the reservation after defeat in battle. But Cochise had seen enough of battle and he now had the preserve he sought. With this agreement, as Roberts relates, Crook could no longer pursue Cochise. So he turned his attention to the only Apaches in Arizona who had refused reservation life. He would set his sights on the “Tonto Apaches” who lived in the tangled wilderness east of the San Carlos and Fort Apache reservations.