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Chief Cochise
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"He carried himself at all times
with great dignity, and was
always treated by those about
him with the utmost respect and,
at times, fear."
Joseph Alton Sladen, 1872
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"You must speak
straight so that your
words may go
as sunlight into
our hearts.
Speak Americans..
I will not lie to you;
do not lie to me."
CHIEF COCHISE c.1815-1874, Chief of the Chiricahua APACHE in Arizona,
noted for courage, integrity, and military skill. From 1861, when soldiers
unjustly hanged some of his relatives, he warred relentlessly against the U.S. army.
Peace talks in 1872 promised him a reservation on his native territory, but after
he died his people were removed.
In 1861, Cochise, Chief of the Chokonen band of the Chiricahua Apache tribe,
was wrongfully suspected of abducting the children of a rancher, and
stealing his cattle. Lieutenant George Bascom, who led the investigation, lured
Cochise to a meeting. Bascom wasted no time in accusing the Indian of the raid,
although the Chief claimed innocence. When Bascom tried to arrest him,
Cochise slashed through the tent with his knife and escaped,
suffering three bullets wounds in the process.
On the morning of April 30, 1871, 150 Anglos, Mexicans, and Papago Indian
mercenaries attacked a sleeping Indian camp, massacred from 86 to 150
of the innocents, mostly women and children. Of the survivors, women were
raped and children carried into slavery. The American President Ulysses S. Grant,
who had devised his post-Civil War Peace Policy to avoid such massacres, was
outraged and sent a peace commission to Arizona.
Cochise was bitter, but he also realized that he fought a battle he could not
win. He expressed his resignation in the following way: "My people have killed
Americans and Mexicans and taken their property. Their losses have been greater
than mine. I have killed ten white men for every Indian slain, but I know that the whites
are many and the Indians are few. Apaches are growing less every day". Still the
great Chief did not want to get locked up in a Reservation:
"Nobody wants peace more than I do. Why shut me up on a reservation?
We will make peace; we will keep it faithfully. But let us go around free
as Americans do. Let us go wherever we please".
In the end, Cochise's skill as a diplomat helped his people
retain the lands they so cherished. Many have said that he was the most
powerful Apache leader in history. At his death, it was reported that his people
wailed loudly for more than a day. After his death, the Government broke the
historic treaty made with Cochise and in 1876 moved the Chiricahua
from the ancient mountain homeland to the hot, flat, dry, Arizona desert.
Cochise's youngest son Naiche and Geronimo led a group of Chiricahua Apaches
that fled into the mountains, and over the border to Mexico eluding the troops for over
a decade, refusing to surrender until 1886.
These are the Chiricahua Mountains where
Cochise and his family hid.
It is an amazing and mysterious place.
The terrain is such that someone could be hiding
only a few feet away from you and you would
never know it. It is amazing.
There is a sweet B & B up in the Stronghold.
