Territorial Politics a legislature, Counties, Public Schools, and a New Capital City chapter 6 the time

The "Baroness of Arizona" was supposedly the only heir to the Peralta family's huge Land grant.

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The Spanish-American War

Arizona's the United States declared war on Spain in 1898, Arizona's young men were eager to volunteer. Governor Myron H. McCord easily raised two companies of cavalry troops and placed Major Alexander O. Brodie in command. The flag for the Arizona troops was homemade by women in Phoenix. Today, it is displayed in the capitol building tattered, weather-beaten, and bullet-ridden.

The Arizona recruits trained at San Antonio, Texas. They were part of a cavalry unit known as the Rough Riders, organized by Theodore Roosevelt. Led by Colonel Leonard Wood, the Rough Riders went into action near Santiago, Cuba, without their horses. The horses were left behind because of a lack of ships. The cavalry became known as "Wood's Weary Walkers." They fought through the thick of the campaign. Brodie, though wounded in battle, served as Roosevelt's second in command. After the war, when Roosevelt became president, he appointed Brodie to be governor of the Territory of Arizona.

Captain Buckey O'Neill was killed in the Cuban campaign. Instead of hugging the ground, he carelessly stood up as Spanish soldiers fired. Just before a sniper shot him, O'Neill supposedly told his sergeant, who had pleaded with him to lie down, "The Spanish bullet isn't molded that will kill me."Colonel Roosevelt said that O'Neill was a serious loss to the Rough Riders since he was the idol of the Arizona troops.

The Spanish Army and Navy were no match for the Americans. The "splendid little war," as one official called it, was quickly finished. The Spanish-American War showed that Arizonans were ready to participate in the affairs of the nation.
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Charge of the Rough Riders at San Juan Hill (Painting by Frederic Remington)

Buckey O'Neill was one of the most colorful pioneers in Arizona history. Only nineteen when he rode into Phoenix on a burro, O'Neill worked as a typesetter and deputy sheriff. He then joined the silver rush to Tombstone and became a newspaper reporter at the time Wyatt Earp and his brothers were policing the town. Later, O'Neill started his own newspaper in Prescott. He offered a $100 reward for the capture of any rustler who stole cattle with a brand advertised in his paper.

O'Neill was elected sheriff of Yavapai County in 1888. In that job he gained fame by tracking down four train robbers. O'Neill and a small posse trailed the outlaws into Utah and captured them after a gun battle.

When the Spanish-American War started, O'Neill was mayor of Prescott and captain of the militia unit. He was killed fighting in Cuba.

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Chapter 6 Review

1. 
   How did Governor Goodwin choose a capital city for the new Territory of Arizona?
   
2. 
   What two government buildings were constructed in Prescott, the new capital?
   
3. 
   How were territorial governors chosen? List the territorial offices that were filled by election.
   
4. 
   Identify William T. Howell and Charles D. Poston.
   
5. 
   How did the first territorial legislature help to solve the need for roads?
   
6. 
   List the cities that were Arizona's capital during the territorial period.
   
7. 
   Name Arizona's original four counties.
   
8. 
   Why is Pah Ute County now known as the "lost county?"
   
9. 
   Why was the School Law of 1871 important?
   
10. 
    What did each of the following have to do with Arizona's pioneer schools: Anson P. K. Safford, Josephine Brawley Hughes, and Mary Elizabeth Post?
    
11. 
    List two ways that the thirteenth territorial legislature overspent.
    
12. 
    What were some important accomplishments of the thirteenth legislature?
    
13. 
    When did Phoenix become the capital? In what unusual way did the legislators move to the new capital?
    
14. 
    What event contributed to the decline of Hispanic-Anglo equality in the territory?
    
15. 
    What land problems delayed settlement in some parts of southern Arizona?
    
16. 
    How did James Addison Reavis try to claim 10 million acres in Arizona?
    
17. 
    Who were the Rough Riders and where did they fight?
    
18. 
    Why was a statue of "Buckey" O'Neill placed in front of the courthouse in Prescott?
    

Students and parents pose in front of Scottsdale's first school, 1896. Winfield Scott was on the school board. The city is named after him.

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Anglo-Apache Relations

Raids, Reservations, and the BIA

chapter 7

THE TIME

1870-1910
PEOPLE TO KNOW
Geronimo

General George Stoneman

William S. Oury

Jesus Maria Elias

Sidney DeLong

Vincent Colyer

General O. O. Howard

Tom Jeffords

Cochise

General George Crook

Nock-ay-del-klinne

General Nelson Miles

Martha Summerhayes

Santa Cruz Valley

Camp Grant

Aravaipa Canyon

Chiricahua Reservation

White Mountain Reservation

Fort Apache

San Carlos

Camp Verde

Tonto Basin

Fort McDowell

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TERMS TO UNDERSTAND

resent

marauding

moral

indict

justifiable

Indian agent

precipice

impregnable

ration

contractor

exile

inaugural

Military Department of Arizona is organized.

Camp Grant Massacre

Cochise meets with General O.O. Howard. Crook fights the Battle of Skull Cave.

General Crook defeats Apaches at Turret Peak.

John P. Clum is appointed Indian agent at San Carlos.

General Crook leaves Arizona. The Camp Verde and most of the Fort Apache Indians are moved to San Carlos.

Battle at Big Dry Wash

Geronimo surrenders twice. Apaches are exiled to Florida.

Chiricahuas are moved from Florida to Oklahoma.

Geronimo dies at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

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Apaches Fight for Their Way of Life

GERONIMO, LEADER OF ARIZONA'S last Indian fighting force, surrenders! For eighteen months he has evaded thousands of soldiers bent upon capturing his tiny band of Apache warriors. The day: September 4, 1886. The place: Skeleton Canyon in southeastern Arizona.

"This is the fourth time I have surrendered," says Geronimo.

"And I think it is the last time," replies General Nelson A. Miles.

The next day they reach Fort Bowie and Miles wires a triumphant telegram across the country: "The Indians surrendered as prisoners of war . . . I intend to ship them to Florida without delay."

How did Geronimo and the Apaches come to this sad ending? Let's look back a few years and find out.

Geronimo (1823-1909) was a Chiricahua Apache war leader, not a chief.

(Stamp design 1994 U.S. Postal Service. Reproduced with permission. All rights reserved.)

Geronimo surrendered to General Nelson A. Miles.

For centuries the Apache bands lived by hunting, gathering, subsistence farming, and raiding. Their homeland, in the rugged country of eastern Arizona, was ideal for hit-and-run raids. The warriors–agile, disciplined, and untiring–would sweep down from the mountains to run off horses and cattle at a ranch or to attack a wagon train. When chased by cavalry, the warriors lured pursuers into a canyon ambush or fled across the range. Very seldom did they fight in open battle.

To Anglo pioneers, the raiding lifestyle was wrong. They thought of the Apaches as an obstacle to progress. Apaches, on the other hand, resented the invasion of outsiders—first the Spanish and Mexicans, and then Americans. The warriors fought with merciless fury and cunning to keep their way of life.

The U.S. Army

The U.S. Army played an important role on the Arizona frontier. Cavalry and infantry units protected settlements, wagon trains, and Colorado River crossings. Army engineers built roads and telegraph lines. Life was dangerous for soldiers assigned to duty in Arizona. Their main job was to chase marauding Indians.

When the Military Department of Arizona was organized in 1870, Arizonans were protected by eighteen forts. General George Stoneman was in command. He had instructions to follow President Grant's Indian peace policy of "moral persuasion" and kindness. So Stoneman appeased the Apaches by giving them rations of food and clothing. The goal was to get Indians on reservations as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Indians continued to raid up and down the Santa Cruz Valley south of Tucson. A rancher was killed near Tubac and a woman kidnapped. A raiding party drove off livestock from the San Xavier

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Mission. The Tucson Citizen published a story blaming the Aravaipa Apaches near Camp Grant for the San Xavier raid. The Aravaipas had been given permission to live near Camp Grant on their old homelands in Aravaipa Canyon.

The Camp Grant Massacre was a low point in Anglo-Apache relations. The people in Tucson were angry because General Stoneman did not protect the settlers. Left to their own devices, William S. Oury and Jesus Maria Elias organized an expedition to attack the Aravaipa Apache camp. Oury was a former mayor of Tucson. The Elias family had a burning desire to get revenge against the Apaches. The family had been run out of the Tubac area by Apache raiders. At least three members of the Elias family had been killed.

In April, 1871, 148 men-94 Papagos, 48 Mexicans, and 6 Anglos—gathered outside Tucson. With guns, ammunition, and food, the expedition traveled by night on foot. About daybreak they reached Camp Grant and split into two groups. The Papagos attacked the sleeping Apaches in the Aravaipa camp with clubs. The Mexicans and Anglos waited on nearby bluffs and shot down any Apaches who managed to escape.

The assault was so swift and fierce that approximately one hundred were dead within a few minutes. The victims were mainly women and children, since most of the men were away hunting in the hills. Some of the Apache children were spared and turned over to the Papagos as slaves.

Back in Washington, President Grant was naturally shocked by the brutal massacre, calling it "purely murder." About a hundred men were indicted. Only one, Sidney R. DeLong, was tried in Tucson. All the parties involved agreed before the trial started that the fate of DeLong would be that of the others. The trial was a farce, just to satisfy the government in Washington. The jury found DeLong and the others not guilty.

It was almost impossible at that time to convict a person for killing an Apache. Even the judge was convinced the expedition was justifiable. The United States government, he said, did not give the Papago, Mexican, and American residents protection from Apache raids and murders. They had "a right to protect themselves and employ a force large enough for that purpose," he told the jury.

The Camp Grant Massacre has been called one of the bloodiest incidents in the white man's long and shameful relationship with the American Indians. By any standard of decent human conduct, it was one of the saddest days in Arizona history.

"I do not expect to see any of them [the attackers] punished ... but I do ask you to get back fourteen of our children that they have taken captive."

—Eskiminzin, Aravaipa Apache chief

William S. Oury

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Apaches Are Put on Reservations

The Camp Grant Massacre focused national attention on the Arizona Territory. General Stoneman was blamed by both those who sympathized with the Apaches and those who hated them for the army's ineffective way of dealing with the Apaches. He was replaced by General George Crook.

President Grant sent Vincent Colyer to Arizona as a peace commissioner. Colyer, a Quaker and Grant's principal adviser on Indian matters, had sympathy for the Indians. He hoped to make treaties with the Apaches and get them onto reservations. Newspaper editors in the territory were hostile to Colyer. They called for a strong military campaign against the Apaches. Colyer, however, proceeded with his peaceful work. By the time he departed in 1871, he had all the major Apache tribes except the Chiricahuas on reservations.

The village of San CarLos is on the Apache reservation of the same name, 1880s.

Howard arrived the following year to continue Colyer's work. Howard was a one-armed Civil War hero known as "the Christian General." The Aravaipa Apaches were pleased when Howard arranged for the return of six captive children from Tucson residents. The Tucson families had adopted the children after the Camp Grant Massacre.

The most dramatic event of Howard's visit in Arizona was a meeting with Cochise. Cochise was led to the meeting by Tom Jeffords. Jeffords had sealed his friendship with Cochise by an Apache blood ceremony. Jeffords was probably the only white man who could have convinced Cochise to meet with Howard.

In the Dragoon Mountains, Cochise agreed to a treaty. He promised permanent peace in return for the Chiricahua Reservation in southeastern Arizona. Jeffords was appointed Indian agent there. "Hereafter," Cochise said in his native tongue, "the white man and the Indian are to drink the same water and eat the same bread."

Before Howard left Arizona he had all the Apaches concentrated on three reservations—White Mountain with its San Carlos subdivision, Camp Verde, and the Chiricahua.

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After General Howard made peace with Cochise, General Crook was permitted to find and bring in all Apaches and Yavapais who were not living on reservations. While waiting for his chance, Crook trained an unusual but very efficient army of small, fast-moving units. Apache scouts were hired as trackers and were paid army wages. Crook himself wore a weather-beaten canvas suit with a Japanese style summer hat and rode a mule.

Crook's first campaign was aimed at encircling Indians in the Tonto Basin area. The first major encounter was the Battle of Skull Cave. The Indians hid in a cave on a cliff near the Salt River. Twice they refused to surrender. The soldiers discovered that rifle bullets fired at the slanted ceiling of the cave would ricochet down on the Indians. When all the shooting was over, the troops found piles of dead bodies in the cave. Some seventy-five people had died. Only eighteen women and children lived long enough to leave the Salt River Canyon as captives.

Several months later, Crook's forces caught up with Apaches who had murdered three people near Wickenburg. One of the victims was an eighteen-year-old British immigrant. He was severely tortured—rolled in cactus, his ears and eyelids cut away, and his body stuck with burning splinters.

Crook, with the help of Indian scouts, tracked the renegades to Turret Peak, north of the Verde Valley. Crawling up the mountain on their stomachs at night, the soldiers charged the Apaches as the sun rose. Some of the Apaches were so panic-stricken they jumped off a steep precipice and were killed.
---see picture

Meeting of Crook and Geronimo was painted by Francis H. Beaugureau.

—Captain John G. Bourke, who served with Crook

—Cha-ut-lipun, chief of Tonto Basin Indians

—General George Crook

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The Skull Cave and Turret Peak battles broke the resistance of the Tonto Apaches. They suffered great losses in strongholds considered to be impregnable. Defeated, the remaining Apaches began to assemble near Camp Verde. In return for food and protection, they agreed to remain on reservations.

After the main Apache battles were over, General Crook gave attention to building first-class wagon roads to connect the military posts. He also brought in the first long telegraph line. It ran from San Diego to Fort Yuma and on to Maricopa Wells. One branch went to Fort Whipple and Prescott. Connecting lines were built later to other forts and towns.

Crook was popular with the people. Before leaving Arizona he was honored by Governor A. P. K. Safford and a large banquet crowd in Hatz's Hall in Prescott.

"Before the end of May, 1873, Crook had all the Apaches in Arizona except the Chiricahuas hard at work at Camp Apache and Camp Verde, digging irrigating ditches, planting vegetables of all kinds . . . living in houses arranged in neatly swept streets . . . on the road to prosperity and civilization. . . ."

—Captain John G. Bourke, Century Magazine, 1891

Martha Summerhayes wrote about her experiences as a young army bride.

Martha Summerhayes was a young army bride who lived with her husband Jack at military posts in Arizona during the 1870s. They arrived at Fort Yuma by the water route from San Francisco.

"And now began our real journey up the Colorado River on the steamer Gila with the barge full of soldiers towing after us, starting for Fort Mohave," Martha wrote in her book Vanished Arizona. It was "122 degrees in the shade," as the Gila puffed and clattered upstream.

After two months of rough travel, Martha and the lieutenant got to Fort Apache. Their home was a primitive log cabin. "I could never get accustomed to the wretched small space of one room . . . I had been born and brought up in a spacious house." While at Fort Apache Martha gave birth to a son. The wives of Apache chiefs gave her a "beautiful papoose-basket or cradle. . . . made of the lightest wood and covered with the finest skin of fawn."

Then came a hot time at Ehrenberg, a steamboat landing on the Colorado River. "Guests . . . were always astonished when the Cocopah Indian waited on them at table, for he wore nothing but his gee-string. . . . The Indian brought us water every morning in buckets from the river. It looked like melted chocolate."

At Fort McDowell "the men were kept busy, scouting and driving the renegades back to their reservation." Sleeping under the clear and starry Arizona sky was not always fun at the fort. Crawling ants had to be outwitted by placing each cot leg in a tin can of water. When the coyotes howled, chills ran up Martha's spine.

Jack's regiment was transferred to Texas until Geronimo went on the warpath for the last time in 1886. Then they returned. Martha wrote, "We traveled to Tucson in a Pullman car. . . . We went to take breakfast before driving out to the post of Fort Lowell. . . . Iced cantaloupe was served by a spic-span alert waiter. . . . then quail on toast . . . Ice in Arizona? It was a dream, and I remarked to Jack, 'This isn't the same Arizona we knew in '74'!"

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CONTRARY TO COMMON BELIEF, there were many whites who treated the Apaches kindly. General Crook was fair with Indians who lived peacefully. He offered to help them become self-supporting by buying all the corn and hay they could produce. Tom Jeffords did much for the Chiricahuas while he was agent. Another man who stands out is John P. Glum. He was only twenty-three when the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) appointed him agent at San Carlos. A member of the Dutch Reformed Church, Clum was determined that Apaches would get a square deal.

Clum organized a small body of Indian policemen to replace supervision by soldiers. He gave the Apaches their own court. Clum had each band of Apaches elect a representative to meet with him as a council. More importantly, he persuaded the Apaches to turn in their guns. An Indian who wanted to go hunting could check out a rifle. Clum forbade the manufacture of "tiswin," an alcoholic drink. He found work for the Indians, principally in constructing agency buildings and living quarters. Many Apaches liked Clum and trusted him.

A Failed Policy

The Bureau of Indian Affairs tried to move most of the western Apaches to one reservation. Clum cooperated in this "removal policy." He thought he could control all the Indians at San Carlos without military help. The Camp Verde and most of the Fort Apache Indians were moved to San Carlos. During the next two years, Clum and his native Indian police force personally escorted the Chiricahuas to San Carlos.

Then Clum suggested that the army be ordered out of Arizona. He said the presence of troops made the Indians edgy. Clum claimed he could take care of all the Apaches with Indian police. When the BIA turned him down, he resigned as an Indian agent. He rode away from San Carlos to become editor of the Tombstone Epitaph and a friend of Wyatt Earp.

Before General Crook left Arizona, he protested against the herding of many different Apache tribes onto one reservation. The Apaches resented it too. At San Carlos they were overcrowded and often were shorted on rations. Some of the tribes and bands were suspicious and hostile toward each other. The Chiricahuas were especially unhappy at San Carlos.

Geronimo and his followers were troublemakers for a dozen years. They liked to make fun of men in other tribes who worked, calling them "squaws." Several times, Geronimo's band slipped away to Mexico.
---see picture

Indian agent John P. aim posed with Apaches at San Carlos, 1875.

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What do you think?

In Oklahoma, each tribal member was given his or her own land and the surplus land was sold. What would be the advantages and disadvantages of that system for American Indians in Arizona?

Are there ways in which the reservations actually helped Indian people in Arizona? How were the people hurt by being forced to live on reservations?

The Battle at Big Dry Wash

The White Mountain Apaches at the San Carlos Reservation were stirred up by Nock-ay-del-klinne, a medicine man. He had learned about Christianity at a school in Santa Fe and was impressed by the story of a resurrection. Nock-ay-del-klinne started his own religion and taught his followers a kind of ghost dance. He claimed power to bring two dead chiefs to life once all the whites were driven away.

Nock-ay-del-klinne was arrested by soldiers, then shot while trying to escape. The White Mountain Apaches then went on the warpath. They killed ranchers north of Globe and drove away stock. Cavalry troops caught up with the Apaches and defeated them at Big Dry Wash. This battle was the last major action between the U.S. military and the Apaches on Arizona soil.
---see picture

Evolution of Apaches from warriors to Indian scouts to U.S. soldiers. (Painting at the Fort Apache Museum)

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