Great Warriors II

Some Native tribes were powerful enough to stake their claims to their hunting and home range such that trespassers knew they were risking their lives to pass through it.  The Comanche protected Comancheria, in what is now Texas and New Mexico.  Likewise, the various Apache bands staked out their own territory, from north of the Arkansas River through the northern border states of Mexico, from central Texas into what is now New Mexico and Arizona. Like most tribes, the Apache were not a centralized entity, but a collection of nomadic bands who depended primarily on hunting and raiding for their subsistence.  A hunting range of adequate size to provide game was absolutely essential to their existence.  Warriors spent a great deal of time and energy patrolling their band's territory and fending off trespassers, whether from other tribes or European trappers, traders and settlers.  The most effective Apache bands were the Plains Apache or Kiowa-Apache, whose port...

Most military officers in the American west knew relatively little about dealing with Natives.  It wasn't only a language barrier and a cultural divide, but an atmosphere of mistrust and unwillingness to understand.  For one young officer, this insensitivity would lead to a war that would last over two decades in Arizona Territory. Lt. George N. Bascom was born in 1837 in Owingsville, Bath County, Kentucky.  His ancestors were of French Huguenot and Basque extraction, hence the origin of his name.  He graduated 26 in a class of 27 at West Point in 1858, barely missing being that year's class goat by one unfortunately classmate below him.  No matter where he stood in his class rankings, though, West Point didn't teach a class about dealing with Natives.  Bascom was stationed at Camp Floyd in what is now Utah as a member of the 7th Infantry before being posted to Fort Buchannan in Arizona.  His first major assignment was a ticklish and dangerous one....

A Native leader gained prominence through his skills in war and hunting, his wisdom in council and force of personality.  It also helped to be at the right place at the right time, and to be related to other powerful leaders.  Mangas Coloradas, c 1793-1863, had all of the above. Mangas was a Bedonkohe Apache by birth, who later married into the Mimbreno division of the Apache.  The Mimbreno controlled hunting and home range from the Rio Grande in Texas through southwester New Mexico.  Mimbreno leader, Cuchillo Negro, became Mangas mentor and may have also been his brother-in-law.  In time, Mangas became father-in-law to Cochise of the Chiricahua, Victorio of the Mimbreno/Warm Springs Apache, and Kutbhalla/Caballero of the Mescalero.  Mangas name was the Spanish word for Red Sleeves, a translation of an Apache name referring to a pink shirt.  Mangas got his start in raids against the Mexicans.  The Apaches hated the Spanish and the Mexicans for m...

According to Arizona lore and the plot of the James Stewart movie Broken Arrow , a stage coach driver and post rider by the name of Tom Jeffords gets fed up with the Apache raids disrupting traffic on his mail lines in Arizona Territory.  So he heads into the Chiricahua Mountains to look up Cochise, walks into Cochise's camp and asks him to knock it off.  Impressed by Jeffords bravery, the two become friends and Jeffords talks Cochise into making peace with the White Man.  Did it happen?  A qualified yes. Thomas Jefferson Jeffords, 1832-1914, was born in Chautauqua County, New York, in what had once been Iroquois country.  As a boy, his family moved to Ashtabula, Ohio.  Tom worked as a sailor on the Great Lakes and even captained ships himself before deciding to follow a series of smaller gold rushes further and further out west.  He eventually ended up in New Mexico, working as a civilian courier at Fort Craig.  During the Civil War, Jeffords...