The very name Apache means enemy and stands on the pages of all Indian
history as a synonym for terror. Since our knowledge of them, the Apaches
have been hostile and in every conflict they were favoured with rare and
gifted leadership. It required the skill, strategy, and profoundest
generalship of two of the greatest generals of the Civil War to subdue and
capture the daring and reckless Geronimo, whose recent death closed the
final chapter of a long line of unspeakable Apache atrocities.
Koon-kah-za-chy, familiarly known as Apache John, because of his surrender
to civilization, visited the last Great Indian Council as a representative
of one of the many groups of this great body of Indians scattered through
the southwest. There is an indefinable air of stoicism in the demeanour
of all of these great chieftains. The subject of this text is not lacking
in this prominent Indian element. A keen and piercing eye, a sadly kind
face, a tall and erect figure, Apache John bears his sixty years of life
with broad and unbending shoulders. He was fond of becoming reminiscent
and said: “The first thing I can remember is my father telling me about
war. We then lived in tepees like the one in which we are now sitting.
We were then moving from place to place, and the old people were
constantly talking about war. That was the school in which I was brought
up—a war school. We kept on moving from place to place until I grew to
manhood. Then I came to see a real battle. The first time I was in a
battle I thought of what my father had told me. He told me to be a brave
man and fight and never run away. I think this was good fighting, because
I know what fighting meant from what my father had told me. At that time
if an Indian wanted to win distinction he must be a good man as well as a
good fighter. I was in a good many battles, until finally I had to give
up fighting. About seven years ago the Government gave me advice, and
with that advice they gave me different thoughts, and to-day I am one of
the head men among the Apaches. I am head chief among the Kiowa-Apaches
and I counsel peace among them. I used to think that my greatest honour
was to be won in fighting, but when I visited the Commissioner in
Washington he gave me other thoughts and other ways of thinking and doing
until I felt that the new kind of life was the better. When the
Commissioner told me these things I wrote them down in my mind and I
thought that it was good. One of the greatest events in my life was when
I found myself surrounded by two tribes of my enemies. This fight was by
the El Paso River, and the bands of our enemies wore yellow headgear; the
fight continued all day long until about five o’clock, when the Apaches
were victorious.”
By long and stubborn tutelage both from his father and the members of his
tribe, this boy was taught the war spirit and in manhood he exemplified
it. The principles of peace taught him in one short hour at Washington
changed the whole tenor of his life: a pathetic commentary on what
civilization might have accomplished with the Indian.
[Climbing the Great Divide]