D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
May
2009
HIKING APACHERIAFaces and Names
Putting names to the faces of the last Apache holdouts, who surrendered with Geronimo.
By Jerry Eagan
August 27, 1886. Northeast of Fronteras, Sonora: "In the afternoon Geronimo, Natchez (sic), and most of the outfit (Geronimo's band) came over (the Bavispe river). Natchez is hereditary chief and real leader. Geronimo is the man who always appears. Had a long talk, during which all arrangements for surrendering to us and going with us to Skeleton Canyon were gone over and agreed to. Geronimo stated: 'We have not slept for six months and are worn out.' and stated that he and his party are tired out and anxious to join their relatives in Florida. All they seemed to dread especially was falling into the hands of the civil authorities in Arizona. . . . The Indians are literally worn out with anxiety and hard traveling. They have constantly been on the watch, frequently attacked, and have again and again had close calls. Natchez looks thin, and has not entirely recovered from a wound received several weeks ago in a fight with some American ranchers near Cumpas. . . . They were told General Miles would use every possible effort to send them promptly out of Arizona and to save their lives."
— From the unpublished journal of General Leonard Wood, who was part of the group chasing Geronimo and his men into Mexico in 1886.
I'd guess regular readers of this series have spent more time than they care to admit reading about "the Apache Wars," fought predominantly by Americans and Apaches. Within a 36-year time frame, Americans who conquered much of the territory previously claimed by the Spanish Empire and the Mexican government, and who inherited "the Apache problem," more than once probably wished they could at least return the Apache peoples, who were so utterly belligerent and incorrigible, to the Mexicans.
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The famous track-side
photo taken on Sept. 10, 1886, near the Nueces River in Texas. (Photo
courtesy of the Arizona Historical Society / Tucson, http://arizonahistoricalsociety.org) |
A variety of "Apaches" inhabited southeastern Arizona and southwestern and southeastern New Mexico, after the defeat of Mexico in our war with them. Aravaipa, Coyotero, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mohave, San Carlos, Tontos, White Mountain and Mescalero Apaches were all more or less conquered and tamed by 1883. One by one, those various groups were sent off to reservations, and, having finally submitted to American authority, most got land near their normal traditional "homelands." The Eastern and Western Chiricahua, though, it seems accurate to say, would have been exactly whom American soldiers or Arizonans or New Mexicans meant when they said: "The only good Apache is a dead Apache."
By 1885, though, many Americans hoped the Apaches who'd been corralled onto the San Carlos or Fort Apache "agencies," in Arizona, had thrown in the towel. Among the Apaches on San Carlos and Fort Apache, both located less than 150 miles from Silver City, the Chiricahua had also been concentrated, very unwisely, with some of their former Apache enemies. Often, when not fighting Spanish, Mexicans or Americans, the Chiricahua had fought the White Mountain and Tonto Apaches.
The Western Chiricahua groups were most associated with Cochise and his band. The Eastern Chiricahua contained fragments of the Coppermine, Gila and Mimbres Apache, formerly under the leadership of Mangas Coloradas. They also included the Chihenne (Warm Spring and, some now say, Chi hen De) Apache of Victorio, Loco and Nana and the Ndenai of northern Mexico, headed by Juh. These Apaches were the ones people worried about.
This latter amalgamated group probably numbered only about 700 to 1,000 men, women and children by 1885. They were, however, the most dangerous thousand men, women and children who existed in the Southwest. In May 1885, when several hundred Chiricahuas "bolted" from the San Carlos Reservation, they left a trail of death and destruction behind them as they ran south for their haunts in northern Chihuahua and Sonora.
Hunting these Apaches down consumed the labors of up to 5,000 American and perhaps as many Mexican soldiers for 16 months. At the end of that period, the warrior and medicine man, Geronimo, and 12 other men, plus women and a half-dozen children, remained. It was this last group who surrendered, finally, on Sept. 4, 1886, in Skeleton Canyon, just on the Arizona side of the border. Skeleton Canyon's western side opens on the Arizona side of the line, but the eastern end comes out near Cloverdale, New Mexico. (Today, Skeleton Canyon is locked, due to very dangerous drug-traffic encounters.)
In 1886, much of America couldn't have cared less what happened in Arizona and New Mexico territories. Neither was yet a state, and the nation was largely focused on becoming an emerging giant of industry, with a healthy dose of political and military power. Nonetheless, President Grover Cleveland would have preferred the Apache men be hanged for their "depredations" against American citizens.
Initially told they would be sent to Florida, where many of Apache families had already been exiled, Geronimo and his band got on board a train leaving from Bowie Station, Arizona Territory, under the guard of soldiers of the cavalry. En route to their exile, though, the train was stopped, most likely to allow everyone to go "to the bathroom." On Sept. 10, at one such stop, a photographer named A.J. McDonald collected one of the most famous photos associated with the Apache surrender.
In my ongoing researching of Apacheria, I visited the New Mexico State Records Center and Archives in Santa Fe. There, I perused the enormous file of Albert Schroeder, an archaeologist, anthropologist and ethnologist for the US Forest Service in New Mexico. For my money, Schroeder is the most meticulous and detail-oriented historian of the Apaches as they existed in New Mexico: His archives run to 75 cubic feet of material. Before heading to Santa Fe, I examined the index online and planned what files I wanted to inspect. Upon arrival, noting the hours of operation and my own checkbook, I determined it was best to simply copy and read later. That was an effective tactic, although I could easily return, and spend days reading and copying his files.
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An Apache cairn at Canada Alamosa. (Photo by Jerry Eagan) |
Among all the various hundreds of pages I copied, one set of a hundred-plus pages provided me with tremendous insight into those Apaches in that famous photograph taken as they rested along a train track. Because Schroeder was involved heavily in Indian land and water claims issues, he needed to know as much as possible about the heritage of the largest number of Apaches who lived either at Fort Sill, Okla., or Mescalero, NM. In a letter prepared by Gillett Griswold and sent to Schroeder, Griswold detailed perhaps the finest, most thorough descriptions of the Apache in that photograph.
Griswold was the director of the US Army Artillery and Missile Museum at Fort Sill. Sometime in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Griswold had asked one elderly surviving Chihenne Apache — Jason Betzinez (Beet ZEE-nes) — to try to identify the Apaches in that photograph; he'd asked not once, but twice. Betzinez wrote I Fought With Geronimo, a comprehensive history of growing up in a war environment. While, despite the title, he's not thought to have actually fought with Geronimo, Betzinez had many valuable insights into the life of the people around Geronimo.
I'd always wondered who those men and women were who chose to stay "out" with Geronimo to the bitter end. Griswold's letter to Schroeder stated that much work had been done to seal the names of "Geronimo's last band comprising those who surrendered with him in September, 1886, a subject of much confusion." He wrote that a photograph was taken of the captives in Texas, as they were seated along the Southern Pacific Railroad track bed near the Nueces River, en route from Fort Bowie to San Antonio, Texas, on Sept. 10, 1886. Rather than proceed directly to Fort Pickens in Pensacola, Fla., where the men were to be exiled (the women and children went to Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Fla.), the Apaches were detrained at San Antonio. There they awaited President Cleveland's decision on whether the men should be punished by hanging for their "crimes."
Prior to 1962, Griswold said generally, no more than four or five of the 20 individuals in the picture had been identified: "In order to correct this situation before the passages of time made it impossible, the Director of the Fort Sill Museum. . . obtained in 1959 from the oldest and most knowledgeable Fort Sill informant, Jason Betzinez, a Warm Spring-Bedonkohe, identification and relationships of all the individuals who appear in the 1886 group photograph, as well as several others who were with the group but not in the photograph. These identities were secured without reference to the census (previously conducted). Betzinez readily recognized all of the individuals, and on several subsequent occasions, at intervals of several months. . . re-identified those in the picture. He was related to some of them, and had known all of them well. Geronimo was his 2d cousin. . . He [Betzinez] ,Fun, Tsisnah, Perico and Chappo, and Ahnandia had been raised together like brothers."
Griswold went on: "Those whose names are preceded by an asterisk do not appear in the railroad embankment photograph. Those whose names are not asterisked appear in this photograph and consist of 14 men, 4 women, and 2 boys, 20 in all. There were 32 individuals not counting the scouts Kayihtah and Martine, in the San Antonio Census. Of these, 26 are identified below, leaving 6 women unidentified. Since the [San Antonio] Census did not list the women's names, since [some of the women with Geronimo and Naiche] were not photographed, and since Betzinez stated that some of the men listed were single at the time of the surrender and the census is incorrect in listing all the women as their wives, no means was available for him to identify the remaining 6 women."
It's often noted, in describing who the Apache were in that famous photo, that one of the women was Lozen, the famous woman warrior and sister of Victorio. Jason Betzinez, who was also a Chihenne Apache, would have known Lozen. Her name does not appear in the index, nor did he ever single her out in the famous trackside photo. He did not, of course, single her out as one of the six women who were never photographed, either. Therefore, ether he was mistaken when he named the Indians in the photograph, or he was confused about names and faces, or he refused to name her or pair her face with her name, as Apaches have done in her case. (Lozen's story is more complex than I can deal with here and now.)
Identifications of the Apaches who, with Geronimo, were the last to surrender, based on the recollections of Jason Betzinez. Most appear in the famous track-side photo taken on Sept. 10, 1886, near the Nueces River in Texas; those with an asterisk do not appear in the photo. Geronimo — Grandson of Chief Mah-ko of the Bedonkohe. Died at Fort Sill, Okla., 1909. Natchez (sic) Naiche — Chiricahua and Mimbreno. Son of Cochise and hereditary chief of the Chiricahua. Died in Mescalero, NM, 1921. Pe-re-co (a.k.a., Perico, "White Horse") — Bedonkohe. Second cousin of Geronimo. Half-brother of Fun, Tsisnah and Jozhe. Went to Mescalero in 1913, date of death unclear. Fun — Bedonkohe. Second Cousin of Geronimo. Brother of Tsisnah and Jozhe, half-brother of Perico. Killed himself at Mount Vernon Barracks, Alabama, 1892. (He'd accused his wife of infidelity; she would not reconcile with him; he shot her and then killed himself.) Ah-non-di-a Ahnandia — Bedonkoe. Second cousin of Geronimo. First cousin of Fun, Tsisnah, Jozhe, Perico. Died in Alabama, 1892. Na-pa/Nah-bay — Nednai (Mexican Chiricahua). Brother of Laziyah. Died in Alabama, date unclear. Ya-nozhe/Yahnozha — Chiricahua and Nednai. Brother-in-law of Geronimo, who was married to his sister. Went to Mescalero in 1913. Died 1954. *Tish-nolth-tonzee/Tissnolthetos — Chiricahua. Related to Chief Chihuahua. Went to Mescalero in 1913. Died there, date uncertain. Bish-I/Beshe — Chiricahua. Father-in-law of Chief Naiche, being father of Naiche's third wife, Ha-o-zinne. "One of the oldest Apaches living at Fort Sill." Cha-po/Chappo — Bedonkohe. Son of Geronimo. Died of tuberculosis at Mount Vernon Barracks, Mobile, Ala., 1894. La-zai-yah/Laziyah — Nednai. Brother of Nah-bay. Died at Fort Sill, 1896; C Molzos/Motsos — Goso Chiricahua. Related to Mithlo's first wife, who was a sister of Kayitah. Died at a farm home near Carlisle Barracks (School), Pa., 1890. Kilth-di-gal/Tsinah — Bedonkohe. Second Cousin to Geronimo. Brother of Fun and Jozhe, half-brother of Perico. Died at Fort Sill in 1900. Seponne/Zhon-ne/Zhonne — Chiricahua. Son of U-go-hun. Half-brother of Naiche's third wife, Ha-o-zinne. Went to Mescalero in 1913. Died there, date undetermined. Lo-nah/Huniona — Nednai. Nephew of Beshe. Father of Bessie Gooday. Died at Carlisle Barracks, 1895. * Wife of Geronimo, Ih-tedda — Mescalero. Seventh wife. Mother of Robert and Lenna Geronimo. Went to Mescalero and died there, date undetermined. Wife of Naiche, Ha-o-zinne — Chiricahua. Third wife of Naiche, daughter of Beshe. Went to Mescalero in 1913. Died there, date undetermined. Wife of Perico, Bi-ya-neta Tse-dah-dilth-thillth — Bedonkoe and Warm Springs. Last wife of Perico. Mother of Dolly Mithlo and Isabelle Enjad. Went to Mescalero, 1913. Died there, date undetermined. Wife of Ahnandia, Tah-das-te — Chiricahua. Second wife of Ahnandia. Went to Mescalero in 1913 as Coonie's last wife. Date of death undetermined. Wife of Chappo, Nahd-clohnh — Bedonokohe. Gave birth to a girl the night of their surrender to General Miles, Sept. 4, 1886. Both died in Florida or Alabama, dates uncertain. Skayocoarnet — Age 11. Kanseah — Chiricahua and Bedonkohe. Jasper Kanseah, age 13. Died at Mescalero 1959, and was the last survivor of Geronimo's band; Garditha — Nednai. Orphan boy, age 10. Brother of cousin of Charlotte LoSahnne. Uncle of Robert Gooday. Died in Florida or Alabama. Also seen in famous picture with Santiago "Jimmy" McKinn. He was reported to have broken his back, and it had healed awkwardly. * Estichinduntoya/Alchintoyeh — Nednai. Regis Alchintoyeh, age eight or nine. Son of E-jo-nah. First cousin of Sam Kenoi. Died at Apache, Okla., circa 1919-20. * Laeswani — Age six. Lo Sahnne — Nednai. Charlotte Lo Sahne, age eight or nine. Daughter of Neez-golth-kisen and Ni-yah. Sister or cousin of Garditha. Went to Mescalero, 1913. Died there, date uncertain. * Nahi's infant — Nednai. Age two. Daughter of Nah-bay. Died in Florida or Alabama, where mortality was very high. * Chapa's baby — Bedonokohe. Daughter
of Chappo. Nahd-clohnh was her mother. Died in Florida or Alabama. (Leonard
Wood noted in his memoirs that Nahd-clohnh had, while riding 14 miles
the day before, had her baby and that "the command halted perhaps
an hour for this purpose. She looked pretty pale, but otherwise seemed
to pay little attention to the incident.") The list included in Louis Kraft's excellent Gatewood and Geronimo provides the best list of names of people in the famous photo. He states: "First row, from left: Kanseah; Yanhosha; Unknown; Ahnandia; the rest, unknown until the third person on the right, She-ga (often misidentified as Ih-teda); at far right, Beshe. Much confusion surrounds the identification of the women in the back row, from left: Naiche's wife Haozinne; Perico's wife, Biyaneta (sometimes named as Lozen or Dahteste), Chappo's wife, Nohchlon (sometimes named as Lozen), and Ahnandia's wife, Tahdaste. "
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It has been only in the most recent 150 years that historians have begun to pair up faces and names to satisfy reader curiosity. That practice of pairing names and faces has never been perfect. Americans, certainly, love to see photos or artist's renderings of "famous people." Nonetheless, it's clear that not all photographers or artists cared about gathering the names of their subjects. Due to that oversight, historians have plowed these fields, to try to make those connections.
My purpose is to honor these men and women who raised so much hell in the United States, and have since been the focus of so much written American history. (Who hasn't wanted to just raise holy hell at times?) I gladly join the ranks of those historians who have felt an obligation to pair Apache faces with names. Many victors in history have often not cared about enumerating their former enemies.
These were certainly among the most fierce warriors in American history. They went into exile in Florida. From the moment they arrived, they began to suffer the vagaries of life in the United States in terms of births, deaths, disease, social and psychological disorders and fates that time layered like ocean sediments over their other lives.
Most never made it back to New Mexico, even though all longed to return to these vast open spaces under blue skies. A few may have been brave enough to return, albeit secretly. As I hike Apacheria, I've taken photographs of Apache art, possible domestic tools or implements, fragments of arrowheads, perhaps objects of jewelry, sometimes breastworks of old fighting positions, perhaps even a long-since-abandoned wickiup circle of stones. The artifacts of the Apache, if one eschews a metal detector, are ephemeral. Only archeologists or other Apache might conclusively say: "That is Apache!"
I believe that "they" — whoever "they" might be on any given day — lead me to where they were. In such places, a riveting, quiet "presence" often comes over me. When I look at these photos and read the names, I wonder: Are any of the spirits I encounter "out there" the spirits of the Apache in that track-side photo?
Recently, I met a 70-year old Apache man, whom I've since hiked with a few times. We hiked near his Apache family's homeland, at Ojo Caliente, in Caada Alamosa, very close to where some of his Hispanic and Apache ancestors lived. As we drove into Caada Alamosa in our trucks, separately, I stopped to point out petroglyphs at one location, and then, later, what I felt might be a fighting position. He agreed with me in both cases. Neither of us had ever seen either of these two places or recognized them as possible Apache features.
On the way home from Caada Alamosa, alone, I spotted what I thought were breastworks. Upon closer examination, I believe I was correct. Higher above the canyon floor, perhaps 100 feet, was rimrock, and, below it, what appeared to me to be an overhang and landing. My instincts suggested it would be a place for yet another defensive position, and perhaps also a place for Apache pictographic art.
I climbed that ridge finger and found what appeared to be breastworks long overgrown with grasses. At the base of the rimrock, there were, sure enough, a dozen red painted pictographs. I thanked the spirits who led me there.
In the tall grass that had grown over the breastworks, I found a small stone that looked different from all the stones around it. I don't know if the stone had significance for anyone, but it spoke to me. I don't know if it is or is not an Apache stone, nor whether any Apache ever touched it. If so, I think it likely it was an ornament or piece of good luck object, since it has smooth sides.
The location of this place is in the heartland of Victorio, Lozen, Nana, Loco and Cuchillo Negro. It is not likely to have been used or touched by any of those who surrendered with Geronimo. It doesn't matter. I will carry it with me from now on.
I believe I was led to this particular fighting position, on this particular day, on a casual drive out of Caada Alamosa, without any knowledge before hand of where to stop, much less, where to look. How was that possible? Why even investigate? You have your theories; I have mine.
For some reason, it has felt very important for me to provide as complete a listing of names and faces of these men and women as I can. Their lives were no less or more important than those of our relatives. They had hopes and dreams, too.
For me, it is my way to say: "Here are some of them! Here are some of their names!" Do you see them? Will you sound out their names to honor their spirits? Look at how individualistically they dressed. Would you ever have guessed Apaches could "accessorize" so cleverly, as a friend of mine recently suggested? Look deeper into their faces. Do you see their humanity? Can you sense their individual essence? Can you understand what terror they also brought?
Can you imagine some of them killing violently, viciously, brutally?
They were here and now they are gone, as are our ancestors.
This is the 16th article in Jerry Eagan's "Hiking Apacheria" series; to read the complete series, see www.desertexposure.com/apacheria To learn more about "Hiking Apacheria," contact Eagan at skyminder.eagan805@gmail.com or visit his new website, www.hikingapacheria.com He is working on a book that will collect the articles in this series, and on selling photographs of Apacheria.
Special thanks to: Barry Drucker, archivist, New Mexico State Records Center and Archives; Karl Laumbach; Dalton Estes; Eddy Montoya; Keith Odenheim, administrator, Doa Ana County GIS Division; Denny and Trudy O'Toole; Sherry and Steve Robinson; and, of course, lovely Dorothy Eagan.