_From Copyright Photograph 1906 by E.S. Curtis_
Practically all the Apache were assembled in Arizona in 1865, and waged
hostilities with renewed energy for the next five years, being joined by
the Walapai in 1868. The close of this period found the situation quite as
unsettled as ever.
On June 4, 1871, General George Crook was placed in command. Crook was not
an exterminator. In the fall of the same year he said:
"I think that the Apache is painted in darker colors than he deserves, and
that his villainies arise more from a misconception of facts than from his
being worse than other Indians. Living in a country the natural products
of which will not support him, he has either to cultivate the soil or
steal, and as our vacillating policy satisfies him we are afraid of him,
he chooses the latter, also as requiring less labor and being more
congenial to his natural instincts. I am satisfied that a sharp, active
campaign against him would not only make him one of the best Indians in
the country, but it would also save millions of dollars to the Treasury,
and the lives of many innocent whites and Indians."
Crook's policy was one of peace, but he made it plain to the Indians that
if they did not agree to peace when liberal terms were offered, they could
expect a campaign against them hitherto unequalled in vigor. It was thus
that by 1873 the Tontos, Coyoteros, and Apache-Mohave were subdued and the
backbone of Apache resistance broken.
The Apache-Mohave and the Tontos were placed on a reservation on the Rio
Verde; the Coyoteros were taken to the White Mountain district near Fort
Apache; the Pinalenos and parts of other bands surrendered and were
established at San Carlos; in all, approximately three thousand Apache had
been brought under control. About one thousand hostiles yet remained in
the mountains, but by 1874 they had become so nearly subjugated as to make
it seem advisable to transfer the Arizona reservations from the War
Department to the Office of Indian Affairs, which was done. The policy of
the Indian Office from the beginning had been to concentrate the various
bands upon one reservation at San Carlos. Disaffection arose between
different bands until this became a despicable place to nearly all, while
continued adherence to the removal policy drove the Chiricahua from their
southern Arizona reservation to seek refuge with the Ojo Caliente Apache
in southwestern New Mexico, in 1876, although they had been living in
comparative peace for four years. In 1877 these Chiricahua and the Ojo
Caliente band were forcibly removed to San Carlos, but while en route
Victorio and a party of forty warriors made their escape. In September of
the same year three hundred more fled from San Carlos and settler after
settler was murdered. In February, 1878, Victorio and his notorious band
surrendered at Ojo Caliente, but gave notice that they would die fighting
before submitting to removal to San Carlos. The major portion of the three
hundred Chiricahua who had left San Carlos surrendered at Fort Wingate,
New Mexico, shortly before. All these were taken to the Mescalero
reservation in New Mexico.
Haunted by the dread of removal to San Carlos, the appearance of a party
of Grant County officials at the Mescalero agency on a hunting tour a few
months later caused Victorio and his band to flee with a number of
Chiricahua and Mescaleros to the mountains of southern New Mexico.
For two years, until he met his death at the hands of Mexican troops in
the fall of 1880, Victorio spread carnage throughout the southern portions
of Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona, and the northern states of Mexico,
enlisting the aid of every willing renegade or refugee of whatever band or
tribe in that section. After him Nane, Chato, Juh, Geronimo, and other
doughty hostiles carried the fighting and raiding along until June, 1883,
when Crook, reassigned to the Arizona district, followed the Chiricahua
band under Geronimo into the Sierra Madre in Chihuahua, whence he brought
them back whipped and ready to accept offers of peace. The captives were
placed upon the San Carlos and White Mountain reservations, where, with
the various other Apache bands under military surveillance, and with Crook
in control, they took up agriculture with alacrity. But in 1885 Crook's
authority was curtailed, and through some cause, never quite clear,
Geronimo with many Chiricahua followers again took the warpath. Crook
being relieved at his own request, Gen. Nelson A. Miles was assigned the
task of finally subduing the Apache, which was consummated by the
recapture of Geronimo and his band in the Sierra Madre in September, 1886.
These hostiles were taken as prisoners to Florida, later to Alabama, and
thence to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where, numbering 298, they still are,
living as farmers in peace and quiet, but still under the control of the
military authorities.
[Illustration: _Alchise_ - Apache]
_Alchise_ - Apache
_From Copyright Photograph 1906 by E.S. Curtis_
One of the last hostile movements of note was the so-called Cibicu fight
in 1882. In the spring of that year an old medicine-man, Nabakelti,
Attacking The Enemy, better known as Doklini, started a "medicine" craze
in the valley of the Cibicu on the White Mountain reservation. He had
already a considerable following, and now claimed divine revelation and
dictated forms of procedure in bringing the dead to life. As medicine
paraphernalia he made sixty large wheels of wood, painted symbolically,
and twelve sacred sticks, one of which, in the form of a cross, he
designated "chief of sticks." Then with sixty men he commenced his dance.
One morning at dawn Nabakelti went to the grave of a man who had been
prominent in the tribe and who had recently died. He and his adherents
danced about the grave and then dug up the bones, around which they danced
four times in a circle. The dancing occupied the entire morning, and early
in the afternoon they went to another grave, where the performance was
repeated. In each instance the bones were left exposed; but later four
men, specially delegated, went to the graves and erected a brush hut over
the remains.
Nabakelti told the people that they must pray each morning for four days,
at the end of which time the bleached bones would be found clothed with
flesh and alive again. By the end of the second day the Apache band on the
Cibicu became excited almost to the degree of frenzy. They watched the
little grave-houses constantly and gathered in groups about other graves.
Some of the Apache employed as scouts with the detachment stationed at
Fort Apache heard of the craze and obtained leave of absence to
investigate. They returned and informed the commanding officer, then
acting as agent, that their people were going mad, whereupon a number of
scouts and troopers were sent to learn the cause of the trouble and to ask
Nabakelti to come to the fort for an interview. Though angered by the
message, the old man agreed to come in two days. Meanwhile he had the
little brush houses over the bones tightly sealed to keep out preying
animals and curious Indians. He then explained to his people that, owing
to the interruption by the whites, it was probable that the bones would
not come to life at the end of four days, as predicted, but that he would
make a new dance later and prove the efficacy of his creed.
Then he started for the fort with his entire band of dancers, sixty-two in
number, each with his "sacred medicine"--wheels, sticks, and drums. They
journeyed afoot, stopping occasionally to dance, and reached the grounds
of the fort late in the afternoon of the second day. On they passed,
dancing in a spectacular manner, and camped that night on the flat a
little above the fort, where they waited for someone to come over to
interview them. The agent did not send for Nabakelti that night, so at
daybreak he started up White river with his band, passing by the present
agency site, and crossing into Bear Springs valley. Thence they took the
trail toward the Cibicu again, reaching the Carrizo in the evening, where
they camped for the night and performed another dance. The following
morning they took the trail for their home, which they reached rather
early in the day.
As soon as the band had reached its destination, another summons was
delivered to Nabakelti to appear before the agent at the fort. This time
the old man sent back word that he would not come: he had gone once, and
if any had wished to see him, they had had their chance.
On receipt of this reply, sixty mounted soldiers, armed and provisioned,
were sent over to the Cibicu to put a stop to the dancing. Apache scouts
had been stationed to watch the manoeuvres of the Indians and to keep the
officials informed. They met the troopers, who made a night ride to the
stream, and informed them where the old medicine-man was encamped. Early
in the morning the soldiers reached the Cibicu at a point about two miles
above Nabakelti's camp, whence a detachment was despatched to arrest the
medicine-man and bring him to the place where headquarters were being
established. It was the intention merely to arrest and hold him while the
troops rested for the day, preparatory to taking him back to the fort; but
it was deemed necessary to send a force sufficiently large to cope with
the Indians should they attempt resistance.
[Illustration: Mescal Hills - Apache]