Note IV'-28 — Chapter IV · OBSERVATIONS ON NEW SPAIN.[IV'-1]

There is no historic period when the Apaches were not the scourge of the country they inhabited, down to the time when they were brought to terms by General Crook, in his Arizona campaigns of 1872 seq., and even since then their repeated escapades are matters of recent notoriety. They always warred with other Indians, always warred with the whites, and not seldom with one another. In Arizona particularly, so far as we are concerned, they did more to retard the development of the country than all other causes combined. For some years after the Territorial government was established, it was at the risk of life that one went out of sight of Prescott or Fort Whipple alone or with a small party. The Apaches lurked behind every rock, and hid in every bush; or, failing that, under cover of every three blades of grass—a trick they did to perfection—and reddened with blood every trail that led to the capital or the post. People were killed and stock was run off within a few hundred paces of both these places, and more than one pitched battle came off within ear-shot. A regular part of my business for two years was the extraction of Apache arrow-heads. The arrows used by the tribes nearest us were exactly such as Pike describes, though, so far as my observation went, the heads were all of stone, quite small and sharp, and very brittle, so that they usually shivered when they struck a bone and the fragments were not easily removed. They were only held in place with gum in the shallow notch at the end of the small hardwood stick that was set in the large reed, and thus were always left in the wound when the stick was pulled out. It is within my certain knowledge that they were in some cases poisoned; the common opinion was that the septic substance was derived from a deer's liver into which a rattlesnake had been made to inject its venom, and which was then left to putrefy in the sun; but how this case may really be, I never ascertained to my satisfaction. We continually hunted Apaches and killed a good many; a particular friend of mine, Mr. Willard Rice, who saved my life on a very ticklish occasion, when we were on a deer-hunt together without other companions, and who is still living near Prescott, is to be credited with at least 20 "good" (dead) Apaches—none of the score women or children, either. But such desultory operations as we could conduct in those years seemed to make little difference; it required Crook's systematic campaigns, on a large scale, to render the country inhabitable. The other side of the picture is, that the Apache has never committed an atrocity that we have not exchanged in kind, with the sole exception that we have probably never put a prisoner to death by slow torture, as was the Apache custom; that the Apache has not broken faith with us oftener than we are proud to say we have with him, and has not robbed us of more than we would like to take from him, if he had anything left to steal and we had an opportunity. The secrets of Indian agencies, like those of the Roman confessional, only leak out under great pressure. The Apaches that troubled us most in that particular vicinity of which I speak were known or supposed to be those of the Tonto basin, commonly called Tontos (Pinal Coyoteros). In scientific classification the Apache tribes and sub-tribes are numerous. The alphabetical list now recognized by high authority is: Arivaipa, Chiricahua, Faraone, Gileño (Gilans, or Apaches of the Gila, with four sub-tribes, Coyotero, Mimbreño, Mogollon, and Pinal Coyotero or Tonto), Jicarilla, Lipan, Llanero, Mescalero, Naisha, Querecho, Tchikun, Tchishi. All the Apaches within our jurisdiction have been brought under military subjection and restraint. The largest body of Apaches is now on the San Carlos reservation; their number is uncertain, say 2,000, representing several different tribes. Nearly as many more are in charge of the military at Camp Apache, in Arizona, say 1,900, known collectively as White Mountain Apaches. About 800 Jicarillas are on the Southern Ute Reservations in Colorado; some 500 Mescaleros are on the reservation of that name in New Mexico; and 300 other Apaches are on the Kiowa, Comanche, and Wichita Reservation in Indian Territory. After a recent outbreak had been quelled 356 prisoners were sent to Mount Vernon Barracks in Alabama. There are about 150 children at school in Carlisle, Pa. The total of perhaps 6,000 Apaches with which we have still to deal is not large in comparison with the numbers of some other tribes—but it is enough.