All through the Rocky Mountains, except in what we have called the northeastern triangle, this system of human slavery extended, and it had obtained such a root that it was very hard to extirpate. In Colorado it was brought to a summary end, so far as white slaveholders were concerned, in 1865, through the efforts of the government. Indian Agent Head, accompanied by Deputy Marshall E. R. Harris, visited all owners of Indian slaves and informed them that they must be released. Says Mr. Head, “I have notified all the people here that in future no more captives are to be purchased or sold, as I shall immediately arrest both parties caught in the transaction. This step, I think, will at once put an end to the most barbarous and inhuman practice which has been in existence with the Mexicans for generations. There are captives who know not their own parents, nor can they speak their mother tongue, and who recognize no one but those who rescued [!] them from their merciless captors.” In New Mexico and Arizona the slaves have not yet been fully emancipated. There were twenty Mexican slaves released from among the Navahos in 1883. In 1866 the number of Indians held as slaves and peons by the whites was estimated officially at two thousand. There are undoubtedly many Indian slaves held among the Mexicans in those Territories now, but the system of peonage, and the fact that they are kept in fear of expressing discontent, makes it difficult to release them. In Northern Mexico there are numbers of Indians, of our tribes, still held in slavery, and the officials of Arizona reservations are continually besieged with appeals to restore to our Indians their captive kindred.
The condition of these slaves was as shocking as proclaimed in the Mormon document quoted above. The female captives were nearly always subjected to indignities, both among the Indians and the whites, and among the latter they were frequently made public prostitutes for the gain of their owners. Among the Indians there was also the constant liability of sacrifice for religious purposes. At the death of any person of prominence it was customary to kill one or more captives, who should serve as slaves to the deceased in the spirit world, as has been recounted herein, in the narrative of the captivity of Olive Oatman. Walker (Wacca), the noted Ute chief, who died in 1855, and was buried on a high mountain about twelve miles southeast of Fillmore, Utah, was accorded full honors of this kind. Four Pi-ede slaves, three children and one woman, were buried in the grave with him. Three of them were killed and thrown into the grave; the other was thrown in alive. Among the Chinooks the burial custom was to bind a slave hand and foot and tie him to the corpse, after which they were deposited together in the place of sepulture; after three days the victim was strangled by another slave. The particulars of the treatment that might be anticipated by captives were known to both races, and, as may be imagined, the whole system tended to make their hatred intense. When people are killed, and out of the way, warfare may to some extent be forgotten, but when relatives and friends are held in slavery, there is a constant pressure to rescue them or be revenged. This was a feeling common to both sides, and in regard to women it was perhaps more strong with the Apaches than with the Mexicans. The Apache women were noted for their chastity. In this respect they were far superior to the Mexicans, and equal, if not superior, to any Indians on the continent. The fate to which their captive wives and daughters was doomed often caused poignant sorrow among them. Of course there was not the same effort made by the whites to restore Indian slaves to their tribes that there was to recover Mexican or American slaves. The “axiom” of Aristotle, that ” Barbarians are designed by nature to be slaves,” is one that has always been adopted by superior races when thrown in contact with inferior ones.
The forcible purchase of the Mexican boys by the Boundary Commission was not forgotten by the Mimbreños, who considered it an invasion of their rights. The relations of the parties were soon further complicated through the killing of an Apache by Jesus Lopez, a Mexican teamster. The Apaches insisted that the Americans should hang this man, who undoubtedly deserved hanging. Mr. Bartlett objected to performing such summary justice, but promised to have the offender tried at Santa Fe. The Indians contended, with much show of reason that he ought to be hung there, where the crime was committed. After a lengthy discussion, in which it was urged that the Apaches had recently killed an American on the road between Janos and the mines, for which they had made no reparation, the matter was arranged by paying the mother of the murdered man thirty dollars, and twenty dollars per month thereafter, being the amount of the murderer’s wages. Three weeks later the Indians began stealing the horses and mules belonging to the Commission. They vehemently denied that they were guilty, at first, but soon a pursuing force overtook one of the bands of thieves, and found it commanded by Delgadito (the Slender), a Mimbreños chief, who had slept in the Commissioner’s camp only two nights before. In the course of a month nearly two hundred horses and mules were taken, and at the end of that period the advancement of the work caused Mr. Bartlett to move on with his almost dismounted command. The Mimbreños considered his departure as a victory for them, and always thought that they drove the Americans away.
During the stay of the Commissioner’s party, a number of miners had settled at the Pino Alto gold mines, northwest of the Santa Rita mines, and these remained there when the copper mines were abandoned. They grew in numbers, and the Mimbreños were unable to dislodge them. After several years Mangas Colorado tried to accomplish this end by deceit. He would approach a miner and tell him in a confidential way of wonderful gold mines to which he would escort him, out of personal friendship, only they two must go alone. No one risked a trip with the kindhearted chief, but after several weeks some of the miners happened to compare notes, and the probable treachery was revealed. The next time Mangas appeared at the mines, he was tied up and soundly whipped. It would have been far more politic to have killed him. He never forgave this injury – the greatest that could be inflicted on an Indian – and he certainly avenged it on a royal scale. For years he was the greatest and most vindictive leader of the Apaches. He united himself by marriage with Cochise (Cheis), the principal chief of the Chiricahuas, and also made a marital alliance with the Navahos that gave him great influence in that tribe. Murders and robberies innumerable were committed under his leadership. He succeeded for a long time in keeping together larger bodies of warriors than had ever been known among the Apaches, and in devastating all the regions through which they roamed.
During all this time the Jicarillas were disturbing the peace on the northern side of the Rio Grande settlements. In October, 1849, they committed the massacre of the White party which attracted widespread attention at the time. Mr. White, with his wife and child, was coming to Santa Fe, where he had formerly been a merchant, in company with a wagon train belonging to Mr. Aubrey. They had passed the country considered dangerous, and the Whites started ahead, accompanied by a German named Lawberger, an unknown American, a Mexican, and a Negro. While camped between Rock Creek and Whetstone branch, a party of Jicarillas approached them and demanded presents. White refused, and drove them out of camp. Presently they returned, and were again refused and ordered out Instead of going they opened fire, killing the Negro and Mexican. The others tried to fly, but were killed, excepting Mrs. White and the child, who were taken prisoners. The dead bodies were laid along the road, but were not scalped or stripped, and the Indians concealed themselves. A party of Mexicans soon came along, and began plundering the wagons. The Indians fired on them, but succeeded only in wounding one boy, who was left for dead. He lay quiet until the Indians went away, and then came to Santa F6 and reported the occurrence. A company of dragoons, with Kit Carson as guide, followed the Indians for three or four days before they found them. They made an attack and killed several, but the Indians murdered Mrs. White and the child before they fled. A severe snowstorm came on, from which both aides suffered severely, and rendered farther pursuit impossible. In 1851 these Indians murdered a party of eleven persons who were carrying the mail. After some further hostilities they entered into a treaty with Agent Calhoun, and went on reservations near Fort Webster and Abiquiu, but the treaty was not ratified. Mr. Meriwether, who succeeded Mr. Calhoun in August, 1853, found the Jicarillas on his hands, with no money to provide for them. He told them he could do nothing for them, and turned them out. As they had made no provision for winter, they proceeded to support themselves by theft. In a few months their depredations became so insufferable that the troops were sent after them. Lieutenant Bell had a successful skirmish with them on March 5th, but on March 30th Lieutenant Davidson’s command of sixty men was attacked by two hundred Jicarillas and Utes, and only nineteen men escaped, most of them wounded. A large force of regular and volunteers was then put in the field, and, on July 30th General Garland reported that the Jicarillas had been subdued and bad sued for peace. There was one band, however, that escaped and took refuge among the Utes; these renegades with their allies destroyed the settlement on the Arkansas, and were punished as recorded in the sketch of the Utes hereafter.
The Mescaleros, to the southeast of the Kio Grande settlements, were the Apaches for whose civilization there seemed the best prospect. They were more devoted to agriculture than the others, and consequently had more to lose by war. They exercised the ancient prerogative of thieving to a limited extent for some years, but in the winter of 1854-55 their depredations became so extensive that they could not be tolerated. Captain Ewell, of the 1st Dragoons, was sent against them with one hundred and eighty men. The Mescaleros met them on the Penasco, on the night of January 17th, and fought them all the next day as they advanced. The troops lost three killed, and the Indians were seen to bear away fifteen dead bodies. The Mescaleros retreated in the direction of the Guadalupe Mountains. On February 23d a party of fifteen warriors attacked a grazing camp of four soldiers; surprising them and pulling their tent down upon them, but the soldiers extricated themselves and drove the Indians off with heavy loss. The Mescaleros then concluded that their mission was not fighting the Americans. They came to Agent Steck at Fort Thorne, and begged for peace. Peace was granted, and a reservation was given them in their own country, between the Pecos River and the Sacramento Mountains. The Mescaleros thereafter behaved quite well until the Texan invasion, early in the civil war, but the Mexicans gained in bloodthirstiness what the Indians had lost. In February, 1858, a militia party from Messila, known as the “Messila Guard,” attacked a peaceful Mescalero camp close by the village of Doña Ana, and pursued the Indians into the houses of the Doña Anans, where they fled for refuge. Eight or nine Indians were killed and one child taken captive. The citizens of Doña Ana denounced this affair as a riotous and wanton outrage, though they seemed to object more to the disturbance of themselves than to the wrong done the Indians. In April these same valienies attacked the Mescalero camp on the reservation near Fort Thorne, killed seven and took several prisoners. The garrison was promptly called to arms, and after a brief chase captured thirty-five of the attacking party, including Juan Ortega, their leader. The military authorities were now thoroughly indignant. The officers at the fort knew that these Indians had been peaceable and well behaved, so that Mexican affidavits of outrages committed by them were not effective; and the prisoners were held, notwithstanding the writs of habeas corpus that were issued for their release. General Grarland also determined to withdraw his troops from Fort Thorne and let the valiant Messilans have their fill of Indian fighting. This called forth a petition from the people, in which assertions of their own valor and prayers for protection are ludicrously blended. General Garland left two companies to protect settlers innocent of outrage, but informed others that they ” have no claims to the protection of the military, and will receive none.”
The eastern Apaches remained at peace until the beginning of the war of the rebellion. They were not making any material progress towards civilization, except in the matter of becoming drunkards. The intercourse laws could not be enforced in New Mexico because there were no “Indian lands.” The Mexicans had treated the Indian title as extinct, and we had taken the Mexican title, in consequence of which our legislators assumed that the Indians, who actually held the country, and had held it from the “time when the memory of man runneth not to the contrary,” had no title whatever. To make this absurdity more serious in its results, none of the treaties made with the Apaches were ratified, and therefore the reservations designated for them did not come within the protection of the intercourse laws. The result was that the most of the property that the Jicarillas and Mescaleros got hold of went for aguardiente. The Western tribes continued their piratical warfare. Several expeditions were sent against them, but none resulted in any permanent advantage or any material punishment to the Indians.
At the opening of the war a Pandora’s box of evils was opened over every square mile of New Mexico and Arizona. Among the officers of the army were many Southerners, and these did not hesitate to return to the South. Some tried to take their soldiers with them, but these attempts were generally unsuccessful. Immediately after came an order withdrawing the troops from the frontier posts. This meant a desertion of nearly all the country, for life in it had only been made possible by the presence of the soldiers. The overland mail company abandoned its line through the two territories (one at that time), thus putting an end to all communication. The Western Apaches seemed to have awakened to new life. They pursued their work of murder and robbery with such daring that no safety was possible. Men were killed and ranches plundered in the midst of well settled districts. The Indians seemed to be everywhere.
This activity was occasioned in the first place by a military blunder. In the spring of 1861 some Apaches stole a cow and a child from the Mexican mistress of an American, and, on complaint of the latter at Fort Buchanan, seventy-five men were sent to demand the property of the Chiricahuas, who were accused of the theft. The party went to Apache Pass and camped, with a white flag flying over the tent of the commander. Under its protection Cochise and five other chiefs came in to talk. They professed absolute ignorance of the theft, and stuck to it, on account of which obduracy orders were given to seize them. Cochise seized a knife, slit the canvas, and escaped, carrying with him three bullets. One chief was knocked down and spitted on a bayonet while attempting to follow. The other four were bound. The Indians at once began hostilities by killing some prisoners. The captive chiefs were hung in retaliation, and the Apaches attacked the troops. The latter were badly whipped, and obliged to return to the fort. The abandonment of the posts by the troops soon after on the order of recall was believed by the Indians to have resulted from their hostilities, and they were satisfied that they need only fight if they desired to rid themselves of the Americans. The Arizona settlements, which were at that time all within the Gadsden Purchase, and chiefly in the Santa Cruz Valley, were made desolate. At first ranches were destroyed one after another, and travellers waylaid and murdered. Having accomplished this work thoroughly, the Apaches began operations against the strongholds of their enemies. The silver mines east of Tubac were held for a few weeks; but it was necessary to arm the peons to accomplish this, and arming them forced the Americans in charge to stand guard constantly, to preserve their lives from their employees. The mines were abandoned as soon as their business affairs could be arranged. Tubac was deserted soon afterwards. Tucson dwindled away to a village of two hundred souls.
What was lacking in the desperate nature of the situation was added by the invasion of the Texans. They occupied all of the southern part of New Mexico, and all of what is now Arizona that was occupied by the whites. On the southeast they occupied Fort Stanton, the only post in the Mescalero country. All the Apache tribes except the Jicarillas were within the region held by them, and the Jicarillas were the only Apaches that remained at peace. It is worth remembering that but for the friendly attitude of the Jicarillas and the Utes, New Mexico must almost certainly have fallen into the hands of the Texans. The Mescaleros, who had been behaving well previously, became involved in a quarrel with the Confederate soldiers, and a fight resulted in which several were killed on both sides. The Mescaleros then began an Ishmaelitish war, sparing no one. The settlements which had grown up on the Rio Bonito were quickly devastated, and the war was carried to the villages of the Rio Grande country. On the southwest Mangas Colorado prevented the settlers from suffering the pangs of ennui. Most of the Mimbres went to war immediately after he was flogged by the miners, and the Chiricahuas and Gileños made common cause with them. On the morning of September 27, 1861, a force of over two hundred warriors attacked the mining village of Pino Alto, but fortunately for the people Captain Martin had arrived the night before with a detachment of the Arizona Guards, a volunteer organization, and after several hours’ hard fighting the Indians were driven off with considerable loss. Soon after one hundred and fifty warriors attacked a large wagon train, one day out from Pino Alto, and besieged it for fourteen hours. The train escaped destruction by the timely arrival of the Arizona Guards, who escorted it to the Mimbres River.
Any long continuance of this state of affairs must have been ruinous to New Mexico; but aid was at hand. The Colorado Volunteers marched down from the North, turned back the Texans, and joined Canby in driving them from the Rio Grande. At the same time General Carleton, with a column of three thousand Californians, was advancing by way of Fort Yuma, driving all hostiles before him, and opening communication through to the coast. The combined forces of Mangas Colorado and Cochise made a desperate resistance to his advance at Apache Pass, in the Chiricahua Mountains, but the Californians were supplied with howitzers and shells, and the Apaches found that their positions, which they had made almost impregnable to direct attack, afforded them no protection from these new missiles of their white foes. They fled with a loss of sixty-six killed; the Californians had two killed and three wounded. Just after this engagement Mangas Colorado was seriously wounded while trying to cut off a messenger that was carrying back news of the fight at the pass. He was taken to the village of Janos, in Northern New Mexico, by his warriors, and put under charge of a physician there, with notice that if he did not recover, everyone in the place would be killed. He recovered. A short time after his recovery, early in 1863, he was captured by Captain Shirland of the California Volunteers, and killed while attempting to escape. It is said that the sentinel stirred him up with a heated bayonet and then shot him. It was time for him to die. He was about seventy years old, and had secured all the revenge to which one man is entitled. His skull is said to ornament the phrenological museum of Prof. O. S. Fowler.
General Carleton arrived at the Rio Grande settlements in September, 1862, and relieved Canby, who went to take a glorious part in the great struggle in the South. Carleton, being rid of white enemies, devoted his attention to the subjugation of the Indians. He first sent Col. Kit Carson, with five companies of New Mexican volunteers, to occupy Fort Stanton, from which he was to operate against the Mescaleros and any Navahos that were in that region. Captain McCleave, with two companies of California Volunteers, was sent into the Mescalero country by way of Dog Cañon (Cañon del Perro), from the southwest. Captain Roberts, with two companies of Californians, was sent into the same region from the south, by way of the Hueco (Wacco) tanks. The orders to each command were: “The men are to be slain whenever and wherever they can be found. The women and children may be taken prisoners, but, of course, they are not to be killed.” Carson took possession of Fort Stanton with no material hindrance. McCleave encountered the Apaches at Dog Cañon, which was one of their greatest strongholds. There were about five hundred of them –