The Apache Wars were a series of armed conflicts between the United States Army and various Apache tribal confederations fought in the southwest between 1849 and 1886, though minor hostilities continued until as late as 1924. After the Mexican–American War in 1846, the United States annexed conflicted territory from Mexico which was the home of both settlers and Apache tribes. Conflicts continued as American settlers came into traditional Apache lands to raise livestock and crops and to mine minerals.
The U.S. Army established forts to fight Apache tribal war parties and force Apaches to move to designated Indian reservations created by the U.S. in accordance with the Indian Removal Act. Some reservations were not on the traditional areas occupied by the Apache. In 1886, the U.S. Army put over 5,000 soldiers in the field to fight, which resulted in the surrender of Geronimo and 30 of his followers. This is generally considered the end of the Apache Wars, although conflicts continued between citizens and Apaches. The Confederate Army briefly participated in the wars during the early 1860s in Texas, before being diverted to action in the American Civil War in New Mexico and Arizona.
Background
Historically, the Apache had raided enemy tribes and sometimes each other, for livestock, food or captives. They raided with small parties, for a specific purpose. The Apache only rarely united to gather armies of hundreds of men, using all tribal male members of warrior age.
The first U.S. Army campaigns specifically against the Apache began in 1849.
Conflicts
Jicarilla War
At the start of the Mexican–American War in 1846, many Apache tribal chieftains promised American soldiers safe passage through their land, though other tribes fought in defense of Mexico and against the influx of new settlers to New Mexico. When the United States claimed the frontier territories of Mexico in 1848, Mangas Coloradas signed a peace treaty, respecting the Americans as the conquerors of the Mexicans' land.
However, as Tiller relates regarding the treaty signed at Santa Fe on April 2, 1851, "The Jicarillas were expected to comply with the terms of the treaty immediately, yet as far as the new Mexicans were concerned, their part of the bargain would go into effect only after Congress had ratified it." The United States Congress never did ratify the treaty. An uneasy peace between the Apache and the Americans persisted until an influx of gold miners into the Santa Rita Mountains of present-day Arizona led to conflict.
The Jicarilla War began in 1849 when a group of settlers were attacked and killed by a force of Jicarillas and Utes in northeastern New Mexico. A second massacre occurred in 1850, in which several mail carriers were killed. The U.S. Army became involved in 1853. The Army went on to fight at the Battle of Cieneguilla, a significant Apache victory, and later the Battle of Ojo Caliente Canyon, an American victory.
Chiricahua wars
In 1851, near the Pinos Altos mining camp, Mangas Coloradas was attacked by a group of miners; they tied him to a tree and severely beat him. Similar incidents continued in violation of the treaty, leading to Apache reprisals against European Americans. In December 1860, thirty miners launched a surprise attack on an encampment of Bedonkohe on the west bank of the Mimbres River in retaliation for the theft of numerous livestock. According to the historian Edwin R. Sweeney, the miners "... killed four Indians, wounded others, and captured thirteen women and children." The Apache quickly retaliated with raids against U.S. citizens and property.
In early February 1861, a group of Coyotero Apaches stole cattle and kidnapped the stepson of the rancher John Ward near Sonoita, Arizona. Ward sought redress from the nearby American Army. Lieutenant George N. Bascom was dispatched, and Ward accompanied the detail. Bascom set out to meet with Cochise near Apache Pass and the Butterfield Overland Stagecoach station to secure the cattle and Ward's son. Cochise was unaware of the incident, but he offered to seek those responsible. Dissatisfied, Bascom accused Cochise of having been involved. He took Cochise and his group of family members, including his wife and children, under arrest. Angered, Cochise slashed his way from the tent and escaped. After further failed negotiations, Cochise took a member of the stage coach station hostage after an exchange of gunfire.
With Bascom unwilling to exchange prisoners, Cochise and his party killed the members of a passing Mexican wagon train. The Apache killed and ritually scalped nine Mexicans and took three whites captive but killed them later. They were unsuccessful in attempting an ambush of a Butterfield Overland stagecoach. With negotiations between Cochise and Bascom at an impasse, Bascom sent for reinforcements. Cochise killed the remaining four captives from the Butterfield Station and abandoned negotiations. Upon the advice of military surgeon Bernard Irwin, Bascom hanged the Apache hostages in his custody. The retaliatory executions became known as the Bascom affair; they initiated another eleven years of open warfare between the varying groups of Apache and the United States settlers, the U.S. Army and the Confederate Army.
After the American Civil War began in April 1861, Mangas Coloradas and Cochise, his son-in-law, struck an alliance, agreeing to drive all Americans and Mexicans out of Apache territory. Their campaigns against the Confederates were the battles of Tubac, Cookes Canyon, Florida Mountains, Pinos Altos and Dragoon Springs. Other Apache war parties fought the Rebels as well; Mescalero Apache attacked and captured a herd of livestock at Fort Davis on August 9, 1861, with the Apache killing two guards in the process. The Army sent out a patrol to try to retrieve the livestock, and the Apache killed them all in an ambush. Mangas Coloradas and Cochise were joined in their campaign by the chief Juh and the notable warrior Geronimo. They thought that they had achieved some success when the Americans closed the Butterfield Overland Stagecoach and Army troops departed, but those actions were related to the beginning of the Civil War.
The United States military leadership decided to move against the Arizona Confederates in what the Union considered part of the New Mexico Territory by dispatching a column of Californian volunteers under Colonel James Henry Carleton. The California Column, as it was known, followed the old Butterfield Overland Trail east. In 1862 the troops encountered Mangas Coloradas and Cochise's followers near the site of the spring in Apache Pass. In the Battle of Apache Pass, soldiers shot and wounded Mangas Coloradas in the chest. While recuperating, he met with an intermediary to call for surrender with the United States.
In January 1863, Coloradas agreed to surrender to U.S. military leaders at Fort McLane, near present-day Hurley in southwestern New Mexico. Coloradas arrived to surrender to Brigadier General Joseph Rodman West, an officer of the California militia. American soldiers took him into custody where he was murdered under the pretext of an escape attempt. On West's orders, Coloradas was stabbed with red-hot bayonets and shot. He was beheaded so that his skull could be sent to a phrenologist in New York City for study.
Men, that old murderer has got away from every soldier command and has left a trail of blood for 500 miles on the old stage line. I want him dead tomorrow morning. Do you understand? I want him dead.
The war dragged on for another 9 years as the Apaches fought harder to avenge Mangas Coloradas' memory.
Colonel Carleton then decided to move the Navajo and Apache to reservations. Initially, he intended to make the Rio Grande valley safer for settlement and end the raids on travelers. He began by moving various tribes of Mescalero and Navajo onto the reservation at Fort Sumner. He enlisted Kit Carson, one-time friend of the Navajo, to round them up by destroying their crops and livestock, and moving them on the Long Walk to Fort Sumner.
Texas Indian Wars
On November 25, 1864, the Plains Apache fought in one of the largest battles of the American Indian Wars at the First Battle of Adobe Walls. Carson led an army of 400 soldiers and Ute scouts to the Texas panhandle and captured an encampment from which the inhabitants had fled. More than 1,000 Comanche, Kiowa and Plains Apache attacked. Carson took a position in an abandoned adobe building on top of a hill and repulsed several attacks. After a day of fighting, Carson retreated and the Indians permitted him to leave without opposition. Iron Shirt, a Plains Apache chief, was killed in the battle. Six soldiers were killed; the army estimated that the Indians suffered 60 killed and wounded.
The last battle between the U.S Military and the Apaches in Texas were both the Battle of Rattlesnake Springs and the Battle of Quitman Canyon, both taking place in the summer of 1880. The last well recorded Apache raid into Texas was the McLaurin Massacre of 1881, although Apache raids in the state were believed to have happened until 1882.
Yavapai War
The Yavapai Wars, or the Tonto Wars, were a series of armed conflicts between the Yavapai and Tonto tribes against the U.S. in Arizona. The period began no later than 1861, with the arrival of American settlers on Yavapai and Tonto land. At the time, the Yavapai were considered a tribe of the Western Apache people because of their close relationship with tribes such as the Tonto and Pinal. The war culminated with the Yavapai's removal from the Camp Verde Reservation to San Carlos on February 27, 1875, an event now known as Exodus Day.
In 1871, a group of 6 white Americans, 48 Mexicans, and almost 100 Papago warriors attacked Camp Grant and massacred about 150 Apache men, women, and children. Campaigning against the Apache continued in the mid-1870s. The Skeleton Cave massacre and the Battle of Turret Peak are prime examples of the violence in the Arizona region. Soldiers and civilians, especially from Tucson, frequently pursued various Apache tribal war parties, trying to end their raids.
Victorio's War
In 1879, the veteran Chiricahua war chief Victorio and his followers were facing forced removal from their homeland and reservation at Ojo Caliente, New Mexico and transfer to San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona. On August 21, 1879, Victorio, 80 warriors, and their women and children fled the reservation. Victorio was joined by other Apache, especially Mescalero, and his force may have reached a maximum of 200 warriors, an unusually large force of Apache.
For 14 months, Victorio led a guerrilla war against the U.S. Army and white settlers in southern New Mexico, western Texas, and northern Mexico. He fought more than a dozen battles and skirmishes with the U.S. Army and raided several civilian settlements. Several thousand American and Mexican soldiers and Indian scouts pursued him, as he fled from one stronghold to another. Victorio and many of his followers met their end on October 14, 1880, when they were surrounded and killed by Mexican soldiers at the Battle of Tres Castillos in Chihuahua, Mexico. A lieutenant of Victorio's, Nana, continued the war. With fewer than 40 warriors Nana raided extensively in New Mexico from June to August 1881. Nana survived the raid and died of old age in 1896.
Battles near Fort Apache
In August 1881, a force of soldiers from Fort Apache Indian Reservation was sent to investigate recent reports of Apache unrest and to detain the medicine man Nock-ay-det-klinne. The arrest of Nock-ay-det-klinne by three Native scouts was peaceful until they made their way back to camp. Upon arrival on August 31, the camp had already been surrounded by Nock-ay-det-klinne's followers. The Battle of Cibecue Creek began, and Nock-ay-det-klinne was killed. The following day, the Apache warriors attacked Fort Apache in reprisal for the death of Nock-ay-det-klinne.
In the spring of 1882, the warrior Na-tio-tisha led a party of about 60 White Mountain Apache warriors. In early July they ambushed and killed four San Carlos policemen, including the police chief. After the ambush, Na-tio-tisha led his war-party northwest through the Tonto Basin. Local Arizona settlers were greatly alarmed and demanded protection from the U.S. Army. It sent out fourteen companies of U.S. Cavalry from forts across the region. In the middle of July, Na-tio-tisha led his war-party up Cherry Creek to the Mogollon Rim, intending to reach General Springs, a well-known water hole on the Crook Trail. Noticing they were being trailed by a single troop of cavalry, the Apache laid an ambush seven miles north of General Springs, where a fork of East Clear Creek cuts a gorge into the Mogollon Rim. The Apaches hid on the far side and waited. The cavalry company was led by Captain Adna Chaffee. The chief scout, Al Sieber, discovered the Apache trap and warned the troops. During the night, Chaffee's lone company was reinforced by four more from Fort Apache under the command of Major A.W. Evans. Then they were ready to begin the Battle of Big Dry Wash.