Geronimo

by Robert M. Utley

  9. White Mountain Apache scout John Rope described the movement in long and exacting detail: “Experiences of an Indian Scout: Excerpts from the Life of John Rope, an ‘Old Timer’ of the White Mountain Apaches,” as told to Grenville Goodwin, Arizona Historical Review 7 (January 1936): 31–68. Another scout’s story is shorter and less useful: “The Life of Sherman Curley—Arivaipa Apache,” Grenville Goodwin Papers, Arizona State Museum, Tucson.

  10. Bourke diary, May 16, 1883. Crook to AG MDP, July 23, 1883. Bourke writes that the woman said the Apaches had talked of sending emissaries to San Carlos, while Crook reports that they had been dispatched a few days earlier. Bourke also wrote of the Crook expedition of 1883 in An Apache Campaign in the Sierra Madre: An Account of the Expedition in Pursuit of Hostile Chiricahua Apaches in the Spring of 1883 (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1886, 1958).

  11. Bourke diary, May 17, 1883. Crook’s report of July 23, 1883, as cited. Rope, “Experiences of an Indian Scout.” Bourke and Crook give slightly different versions. Rope goes into great detail, although he confuses the horse episode with the captive woman first sent out rather than the sister of Chihuahua. For a profile of Chihuahua, see Sweeney, “Shadow of Geronimo,” 25–28, 67.

  12. Rope, “Experiences of an Indian Scout,” 64–65.

  13. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 118–19.

  14. Ibid., 113–14.

  15. An extended description of the exchange is in Thrapp, Sieber, 280–82. See also Bourke diary, May 20, 1883; Bourke, Apache Campaign in the Sierra Madre, 101–5; and Crook to AG MDP, July 23, 1883.

  16. Source cited in note 4. The quotation is from the Crook July 23, 1883, report.

  17. Teller to Lincoln, June 14, 1883, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, roll 173, NARA. John Bret Harte, “Conflict at San Carlos: The Military-Civilian Struggle for Control, 1882–1885,” Arizona and the West 15 (Spring 1973): 33, 36–37.

  18. Lincoln to Teller, June 15, 1883; Telegram, Schofield to AGUSA (forwarding Crook telegram), Presidio, June 20, 1883; Wilcox to Teller, San Carlos, June 15, 1883; Teller to Lincoln, June 18, 1883; Schofield to AGUSA, June 22, 1883; Telegram, AGUSA to Crook, June 25, 1883; Telegram, Crook to AGUSA, Prescott, June 26, 1883; Telegram, Schofield to AGUSA, Presidio, June 28, 1883; all in RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, roll 173, NARA. Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 69–71. Harte, “Conflict at San Carlos,” 36–37.

  19. Memorandum of the result of a conference between the secretary of the interior, the commissioner of Indian affairs, the secretary of war, and Brig. Gen. George Crook, July 7, 1883, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 174, NARA. The official transmittal to Crook, same date, added that the secretary of war directed that the Indians brought in by Crook and those to follow be subsisted by War Department appropriations.

  CHAPTER 17. RETURN TO SAN CARLOS, 1883–84

  1. The movements of the various Chiricahua groups in the summer and fall of 1883 are recounted by the following: Chihuahua, Naiche, Zele, Chatto, Kayatena, Geronimo, and one of his wives, Mañanita. All accounts basically agree with one another, although the chronology and sequence of occurrence is mixed. When buttressed by Mexican sources, however, the story of the Chiricahuas before they began arriving at San Carlos can be reconstructed. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, chap. 15. Indian sources, all of which I have examined, are: Statement of Chihuahua to Capt. Crawford, November 19, 1883; Statement of Kayatena to Capt. Crawford, November 7, 1883; Statement of Naiche to Capt. Crawford, November 5, 1883; Statement of Mañanita, March 21, 1884; Statement of Geronimo, March 21, 1884; all in RG 393, Misc. Records, 1882–1900, Post of San Carlos, NARA. Statement of Zele to Capt. Crawford, December 31, 1883; Statement of Chatto to Capt. Crawford, March 3, 1884; both in RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, rolls 175, 176, NARA. The Indian statements were generously provided me by Edwin Sweeney.

  2. Chatto’s statement. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 327.

  3. Zele’s statement quotes Juh. The statements made by the Chiricahuas to Capt. Crawford at San Carlos make no mention of Chatto’s raid but turn at once to Casas Grandes. Mexican sources, however, amply document the murderous destruction in western Sonora during July 1883. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 327–29.

  4. Mañanita statement. All the statements of Indian leaders to Crawford dwell on the Casas Grandes venture as if it happened soon after Crook’s departure. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 329.

  5. All the cited statements of leaders to Capt. Crawford deal with the Casas Grandes adventure. They are reconciled only by Mexican military reports cited by Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 330–32. The quotations are from Zele’s, Naiche’s, and Kayatena’s statements.

  6. Naiche’s statement. Allan Radbourne, “Geronimo’s Contraband Cattle,” Missionaries, Indians, and Soldiers: Studies in Cultural Interaction (1996): 3. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 336.

  7. Radbourne, “Geronimo’s Contraband Cattle,” 3–4. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 339. The Sonoran raids during October were reported in a dispatch from Chihuahua printed in the New York Times, October 28, 1883.

  8. A profile of Davis, including Crook’s commendation, is in Radbourne, “Geronimo’s Contraband Cattle,” 3.

  9. Radbourne, “Contraband Cattle,” 5. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 354–55.

  10. Geronimo statement. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 347–48. Radbourne, “Geronimo’s Contraband Cattle,” 5–7. Crook to AAG MDP, December 18, 1883, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 175, NARA.

  11. Telegram, Davis to AG DA, Camp near Skull Canyon, NM, February 26, 1884, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 176, NARA. Davis does not name the three men sent from San Carlos, nor does any other source I have found. But the three men included Chihuahua and Chappo. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 355–56. Radbourne, “Geronimo’s Contraband Cattle,” 7–8. Davis, Truth about Geronimo, tells his version of the story, chap. 6; but he must be used with caution because of many errors and a tendency to enlarge his role.

  12. Crook to AGUSA, through MDP, March 20, 1884, enclosing telegram; Davis to AG DA, Sulphur Springs, March 12, 1884; Davis to Crawford, San Carlos, March 16,1884; all in RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 175, NARA. Radbourne, “Geronimo’s Contraband Cattle,” 9–15, gives the most balanced account, drawn from official records of Treasury Department and the Bureau of Customs, as well as local newspapers. Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 85–101, recounts an essentially accurate but somewhat more colorful version. See also Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 356–58.

  CHAPTER 18. THE LAST BREAKOUT, 1885

  1. Statement of Geronimo, March 21, 1884, RG 393, Misc. Records, 1882–1900, Post of San Carlos, NARA. This is the original. For the cleaner version transmitted to Crook, see Crawford to Crook, San Carlos, March 21, 1884 RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 176, NARA. Encloses statement of Geronimo made to Crawford here on March 21, 1884, through J. M. Montoya and Antonio Díaz, interpreters.

  2. This prominent feature of Geronimo’s character emerges clearly in Edwin R. Sweeney, “Geronimo and Chatto: Alternative Apache Ways,” Wild West 20 (August 2007): 30–39.

  3. Crook to AGUSA, August 15, 1884, transmitting relevant documents, including Crawford to AAAG DA, July 24, 1884, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 175, NARA.

  4. Crook to AAG MDP, Prescott, May 17, 1884, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 176, NARA. Crook to AAG MDP, Prescott, [c. September 1884], SW, Annual Report (1884), 131–34. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 125. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 368–69. Porter, Paper Medicine Man, 167.

  5. Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 107. Davis writes that the Indians did no farming during the summer of 1884. Contemporary reports contradict this, although early winter storms reduced the yield.

  6. Crook to AAG MDP, Fort Bowie, September 9, 1885, SW, Annual Report (1885), 175–76. Crawford to Morton, San Carlos, June 25, 1884, Charles Morton Papers, MS 564, folder 7, Arizona Historical So
ciety, Tucson. Maj. Gen. John Pope to AGUSA, MDP, July 14, 1884, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 176, NARA. Pope had replaced Schofield in command of the Military Division of the Pacific. Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 125–30, recounts the arrest in detail, but with a dramatic flair that calls its credibility into question, especially in view of his similar exaggeration of the incident at Sulphur Creek. The best account, drawing on official records, is Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 376–79.

  7. Sweeney, “Geronimo and Chatto.”

  8. Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 106. Sweeney names the agents, drawn from the official roster of scouts. Cochise to Geronimo, 371.

  9. As related by Chihuahua’s son Eugene in Ball, Indeh, 49–50.

  10. SO 31, Hq. DA, April 21, 1884, convened the court, while GO 13, Hq. DA, July 14, 1884, set forth the findings and conclusions of the court. RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 175, NARA. Rolls 175 and 176 of this special file contain the documentation of the controversy. They are not cited individually because not central to the story of the Chiricahuas. A good synthesis is Harte, “Conflict at San Carlos,” 27–44.

  11. Britton Davis, “A Short History of the Chiricahua Tribe of Apache Indians and the Causes Leading to the Outbreak in May –1885,” [c. 1920s] MS, Papers of the Order of the Indian Wars, box 4, C-4, US Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 375–87.

  12. Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 136–37.

  13. Ibid., 142. Crook in Arizona Daily Star, April 2, 1886. Parker, Old Army Memories, 152.

  14. Fisher to Capt. C. S. Roberts, In the Field, October 22, 1885, RG 393, LR, DA, 1885, NARA. Fisher attributed the delay to active field duty.

  15. Thomas Cruse, Apache Days and After (1941; Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), 205–6. A highly successful young officer in Apache country at this time, Cruse was not present but obtained his information from men who were. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 396–97.

  16. Sweeney, “Geronimo and Chatto,” 33–34.

  17. Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 149–51. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 400–405. Davis’s book omits some critical details, but they are provided in a Davis report to Crook in Crook to AGUSA, May 21, 1885, RG 393, LS, DA, 1885, NARA; and in a subsequent lengthy report to Crook, Fort Bowie, September 15, 1885. The latter was published in the Army and Navy Journal, October 24, 1885, and as an appendix to the 1951 edition of Davis’s book; this appendix was not included in the 1963 edition of Truth about Geronimo. See also Sweeney, “Shadow of Geronimo.”

  18. Thrapp, Sieber, 294.

  CHAPTER 19. BACK TO THE SIERRA MADRE, 1885

  1. The route, chronology, and actions of the Chiricahua breakouts must be inferred from the account of Lt. James Parker, an officer in the pursuing command, and from an account by Lt. Britton Davis. Davis is authority for the angry determination of Chihuahua to kill Geronimo, but he is vague about exactly where and when it happened. Davis treats it as a camp in the Mogollon Mountains. But that camp, on a rim of Devil’s Canyon, was the first true camp the Indians made after leaving Fort Apache, it was on the western edge of the Mogollon Mountains, and it consisted only of the people of Geronimo and Mangas. So the Chihuahua episode had to have occurred before this camp was made. I have treated it as a brief pause to rest on the San Francisco River, the only plausible explanation I can arrive at. Parker, Old Army Memories, 152–56. More detailed, and the source I have used, is “Extracts from Personal Memoirs of Brigadier General James Parker, U.S. Army Retired,” 113–16. For Davis, see his report to AG DA, Fort Bowie, September 15, 1885, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 183.

  2. Crook to AG MDP, Fort Bowie, April 10, 1886, SW, Annual Report (1886), 147. The telegraphic traffic ordering and describing these operations appears in RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 178, NARA. I have examined all these documents.

  3. The assault on Chihuahua is described in Capt. Emmett Crawford to Crook, Camp on Bertchito River six miles above Oputo, June 25, 1885; the surprise of Geronimo in Capt. Wirt Davis to Crook, Camp ten miles southwest of Huachinera, August 14, 1885. Both are in RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, the first in roll 178, the second in roll 179, NARA. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 434–35, 444–45.

  4. Crook to AG MDP Presidio, Fort Bowie, April 10, 1886, SW, Annual Report (1886), 148–49. Telegram, Crook to Sheridan, Deming, June 7, 1885, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 178, NARA. Crawford to Morton, Camp Skeleton Canyon, June 10, 1885, Charles Morton Papers, MS 563, folder 7, Arizona Historical Society. Henry W. Daly, “The Geronimo Campaign,” Journal of the U.S. Cavalry Association 18 (1908): 68. Charles P. Elliott, “The Geronimo Campaign of 1885–86,” ibid. 21 (1910): 217. Lt. Robert Hanna, “With Crawford in Mexico,” Arizona Historical Review 6 (April 1936): 56–58 (reprinted from Clifton Clarion, July 7, 14, 1886). Daly was a mule packer whose account is reliable. Hanna and Elliott were officers with Crawford. Morton was a member of Crook’s staff in Prescott.

  5. Crook to AG MDP Presidio, Fort Bowie, July 7, 1885, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 178, NARA.

  6. Ibid. Crook to AG MDP Presidio, Fort Bowie, April 10, 1886, SW, Annual Report (1886), 149.

  7. Pope to Sheridan, MDP Presidio, July 8, 1885, transmits Crook’s request to hold the women and children at Fort Bowie. Endorsements of Sheridan and Endicott approve but forbid transferring these people to the reservation under any circumstances. A Tucson dispatch of September 3 in the New York Times, September 4, 1885, reported the arrival at Fort Bowie of the captives taken at Bugatseka and the women’s description of the fight. The official report is Capt. Wirt Davis to Crook, Camp ten miles southwest of Huachinera, August 14, 1885, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 179, NARA.

  8. Telegrams, Pope to AGUSA, MDP Presidio, July 27, 31, 1885, both transmitting Crook telegrams of same dates, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 179, NARA. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 448.

  9. Geronimo’s movements are reconstructed from reports of the officers trying to run him down. Crawford to Crook, Camp near Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, August 30, 1885, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 183, NARA. Telegram, Pope to AGUSA, MDP Presidio, September 6, 1885, repeating dispatch from Crook repeating telegram from CO Fort Bliss, ibid., roll 179. Lt. Britton Davis to Crook, Fort Bowie, September 15, 1885, ibid., roll 183. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 454–60.

  CHAPTER 20. CHASED BY CROOK’S SCOUTS, 1885–86

  1. Crawford to Crook at Fort Bowie, Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, August 30, 1885, attaching Elliott to Crawford, Buenaventura, August 24, 1885. Lt. Col. Pedro S. Marcías, to Commander in Chief 2nd Military Zone Chihuahua, San Buenaventura, August 23, 1885. Pope to AGUSA, MDP Presidio, September 6, 1885, repeating dispatch from Crook repeating dispatch from CO Fort Bliss, September 5. Elliott to AGUSA, Fort Columbus, NY, June 22, 1886. Britton Davis to AG DA Prescott, Fort Bowie, September 15, 1885. All in RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, rolls 179, 183, 184, NARA. Elliott, “Geronimo Campaign of 1885–1886,” 217, 225–26. Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 184–88.

  2. None of the official sources, including Crawford’s August 30 report, refer to the confrontation in San Buenaventura. The only source is the account of scout Sherman Curley, which is specific enough to establish credibility. In his August 30 report, Crawford referred briefly to Elliott’s experience but emphasized the cordial way in which it ended. Elliott wrote nothing about what may have happened after his release. See “The Life of Sherman Curley—Arivaipa Apache,” Grenville Goodwin Papers, folder 32.

  3. Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 190–95.

  4. Col. Luther Bradley to AAG DA, Santa Fe, September 13, 1886, SW, Annual Report (1886), 182. Telegrams, Bradley to AG DM, Santa Fe, September 12, 13, 1885, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 179, NARA. Daniel D. Aránda, “Santiago McKinn, Indian Captive,” Real West 24 (June 1881): 41–43.
Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 462–63.

  5. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 469–76. Louis Kraft, Gatewood and Geronimo (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2000), 106–8. Telegram, Gatewood to Crook at Bowie, Fort Apache, September 22, 23 (4), 1885, RG 393, LR, DA, 1885, NARA. Telegram, Bradley to AG DM, Santa Fe, September 22, 24 (2), 26, 1885;telegram, Pope to AGUSA, MDP Presidio, September 30, October 2, 10, 1885; all in RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 179, NARA.

  6. Telegrams, Bradley to AAG DM, Santa Fe, November 5, 7, 9, 16, 1885; telegram, Schofield to Sheridan, MDM Chicago, November 11, 1885 (repeating Miles from DM); telegram, Crook to AG MDP Presidio, Fort Bowie, November 17, 1885; all in RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 180, NARA. George Crook diary, 1885–87, entries through November 1885, Crook-Kennon Papers, US Army Military History Institute, Carlisle Barracks, PA. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 479–91. Silver City Enterprise, November 20, 1885.

  7. Crook to AG MDP Presidio, Fort Bowie, April 10, 1886, SW, Annual Report (1886), 151. 1st Lt. S. W. Fountain to AG Dist. NM Santa Fe, Alma, NM, December 12, 21, 1885, RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 181, NARA. Crook to Sheridan, Fort Bowie, December 26, 30, 1885, ibid., roll 180. Sweeney, Cochise to Geronimo, 480–83, 487–91, 507–12.

  8. For the Miles controversy, see telegram, Gov. Edmund Ross to President Cleveland, Santa Fe, September 18, 1885. This is followed by an exchange of telegrams up and down the chain of command, including between Crook and Miles, with a final blast by Crook to AG MDP Presidio, Fort Bowie, September 18, 1885. On September 19, Gen. John M. Schofield, Miles’s superior in Chicago, advised Washington that he had just given instructions to Miles that would remove all cause of conflict between him and Crook. RG 94, LR, OAG, 1881–89, M689, 1066 AGO 1883, roll 179, NARA.