D e s e r t E x p o s u r e
February 2012
Hiking Apacheria
Before Boundaries
Exploring the past through maps and memories.
by Jerry Eagan
When I peruse a historical book for possible purchase, I sort the "sheep from the goats" in several ways. The first sort is about footnotes; the second sort is about maps. No maps, no purchase. If you read all 28 articles of mine you'll see I've defined "Apacheria" in terms of its vast size as one of its most important factors. In this article, I want to show how important maps were and certainly are as I "Hike Apacheria."
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Taylor Mountain, which looms above the Lower Mimbres River. Camp Rio Mimbres was located near the base to interdict Apache movement from east to west through Gavillan Canyon and Cooke’s Canyon. (Photos by Jerry Eagan) |
I began reading history when I was seven years old; I've read at least a thousand historical books since. On a recent trip to the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson, I purchased a map that blew my mind.
The map was inked onto a large piece of canvas with grommets and eyelets, so that it could be stretched out onto either an upright wooden frame that might be displayed at the field commander's tent, or perhaps tied down onto a large table so the winds that frequently whip up our part of the country wouldn't blow it off into the sagebrush. The canvas suggested this was truly a field map that was going to be subjected to the rigors of the chase. This was my kind of map! Stretched out, the map was roughly six by five feet.
The legend on the map reads: "Outline Map of the Field of Operations against Hostile Chiricahua Indians showing operations from 12th. April 1886 to the Date of their Surrender 4th. September 1886 Compiled and Drawn by Direction of Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles Commanding the Department of Arizona in the office of First Lieut. E.J. Spencer Corps of Engineers Engineer Officer of the Department Oskar Huber Top Assistant Charles Kern, Troop ‘K,' 4th Cavalry."
How can a historian write about the locations, movements and people without maps? History's about many things, but at the least, it's about land, people and time. Maps help readers orient themselves to the subject at hand. (In the desert Southwest, note how many important features relate to water: arroyos, cienegas, creeks, malpaises, playas, streams, rivers.) Maps are vital in understanding the Apache and Apacheria.
I own more than 150 topographical maps and 15 BLM surface-management maps. Each 7.5-inch topographic map shows details of a particular grid that's also laid out on larger BLM maps. The "7.5-inch topos," as I call them, provide me with detail sufficient to understand the contours of the land I hike. Note that those maps we routinely use are "framed" inside a rectangle. Rectangles are common features for us because rectangles fit into our cultural, spatial and temporal world views.
Apaches had no written language. They'd draw pictures in the dirt to show other Apaches how to go from one place to another. They described places in their own ways, often giving places male or female names. But when Apaches scouted for and drew maps for Spaniards, Mexican or Americans and wanted to tell their employers about Apacheria, how did they do that?
I contend that until the Spaniards, Mexicans and Americans came, the Apaches didn't even think in terms of right angles, straight or crooked lines as being boundaries. Imagine yourself hiking around that vast area around Fort Cummings and Cooke's Canyon, or the Cooke's Range just north of Deming. I've hiked there 20-25 times in the last nine and a half years. In all these years, I've encountered only six or eight others actually hiking off-road.
On topographical maps, Fort Cummings is surrounded by a "reservation" within a rectangle. Most forts were contained within such boundaries, but the lines were artificial. The Apaches visited those springs at Cooke's for hundreds of years. Ancient ones had preceded them, so trails would have led to those springs. Before the place was overrun with cattle, the water might have stood in a pond, perhaps shaded by large mesquite trees. Perhaps watercress grew on the pond's surface and perhaps that natural food source was included in the Apache name for the place.
I'm not sure what Apaches called those springs. Cooke's Peak was "Standing Mountain," or "White Ringed Mountain," but was Pachecho de los Mimbres to Spanish explorer Juan Batista de Anza, who led an expedition into Apacheria in the late 1700s. One of his officers, Capitan Don Joseph Antonio Vildosola, called it San Miguel in the late 1700s. Cooke's Springs had no English name until Captain Phillip St. George Cooke, leader of the 1846-47 Mormon Battalion, led his men through the area and either named it for himself, or someone else did. Regardless of the various names, all travelers, Apache or otherwise, knew that there was always water and it was reliable.
Much of what we know about Apacheria comes from what Apaches in the 19th century told men such as John Cremony, James Bartlett, William Emory, anthropologist Morris Opler and John Bourke, General George Crook's longtime aide-de-camp, who later became an amateur anthropologist of sorts. These and others, such as Keith Basso and Granville Goodwin, interviewed many Apaches who'd lived in the mid- to late 19th century and were central characters of the Chiricahua Wars.
As readers know, I'm fascinated by how the Apaches moved over the skin of this vast territory before the white man. Information collected by those mentioned above was gained because Apaches spoke about the people, places and things that had been important in those last 100 years of freedom they'd lived in spite of the efforts of Spaniards, Mexicans or Americans to corral them. Some details were undoubtedly teased out by nefarious Anglos or Spanish speakers; some interviewers were men such as the reprehensible James Kirker, who first befriended the Apaches, then turned on them when the "price was right for their scalps."
Others, like Merijildo Grijalva, had been captured and raised by the Apache as one of them. Abducted around age 10, Grijalva quietly stoked his hatred for his captors. A captive for nearly a decade, the young Sonoran was given a chance by Cochise to interact with American soldiers when the Apaches needed an emissary. Grijalva traveled with Cochise and his band for 10 years, so he was careful when he abandoned Cochise and did so when the old man wasn't looking. Grijalva had never forgotten how the Apaches had killed his family, so he never looked back when he left. As an Army scout, Grijalva led American soldiers to Cochise's favorite rancherias. In the end, Grijalva's knowledge of Cochise's movements was crucial to ending the old man's reign of terror.
Merijildo Grijalva was among the 61 men whom Captain Reuben Bernard led out of Fort Bowie on Oct. 16, 1869, with 15 days' provisions. The record of that march noted: "Marched south on the east side of the Chiricahua Mountains…. On the 8th my marching was entirely at night. During the night of the 19th the moon was entirely obscured by clouds, making the night very dark, causing me to quit the trail and wait for daylight… next morning.
"I started early on the trail and with great difficulty followed it to the top of one of the highest mountains in the vicinity where I found an Indian encampment that had been evacuated but a few days…. After a few hours... I found their trail leading west through the mountains…. Following it about ten (10) miles, I came upon a fresh track. Here I took to the gallop knowing the Indians had seen us." Captain Bernard took off in one direction while Grijalva and his patrol took off the other way. Others simply waited; they'd lost the trail.
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Several of “Bartlett’s Giants,” drawn by Boundary Commissioner George Bartlett in 1850, following the end of the Mexican War. |
Shortly after, the trails were found leading them again to the Indians. Bernard "ordered the guide to take five (5) dismounted, and go to the top of a rocky mesa and see what he could discover…. I looked back to see how the men were getting up the hill and saw several Indians running for the crest." It was at that point in the chase that Bernard ordered all but six men to guard the horses for the entire column. "Before the men had reached half way up the hill, the Indians had opened fire on the guide and five (5) men, compelling them to take shelter behind rocks. At this, firing commenced from all parts of the rocks above us…. Two (2) men were killed (by arrows and rifle fire) and one (1) wounded." Behind rocks, Bernard's men "made themselves secure."
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