Lesson 7: Quakers, Red Cloud, Southern Plains War, and a New President
Mangas Coloradas, Cochise, and Geronimo Fight Union Soldiers, July 14, 1862.
By 1861, the aging Mimbres Apache Chief Mangas Coloradas was becoming considerably uneasy about prospectors who were rushing into the gold-mining town of Pinos Altos in New Mexico. This was his peoples’ traditional range and Mangas, to lure the miners away, told them each separately that he could lead them to a large gold deposit. Unfortunately, the various miners he’d talked to discovered the Indian’s plot and became enraged.
The miners seized Mangas Coloradas, tied him, and beat him with a bullwhip until he was unconscious.
Seeking revenge, in 1862, Mangas Coloradas asked his friend Cochise to help him drive the miners out. But Cochise had his own plan.
The Confederate Army of the South had entered New Mexico and Arizona. In the summer of 1862, the Union Army sent 1,800 soldiers to beat them back. This being done, the Union sent Captain Thomas Roberts with 126 men to take possession of New Mexico. These troops had to enter Apache Pass and Cochise knew they were coming.
Apache Warriors
Together, Cochise, Mangas Coloradas, and Geronimo assembled 700 warriors and mounted an ambush on both sides of the pass. Many of these Apaches were armed with white man’s guns and the attack should have been deadly.
When Captain Roberts entered the pass, seeking the water at the springs, the Indians let his command enter, including two strange looking wagons. Then the Apaches attacked.
Army horses reared in fright, men fell from their saddles while others hurried to find shelter. Even one of the strange wagons toppled. Roberts gathered his troops and managed to right the wagon, and then the Army did a strange thing. The troops turned both wagons so that they faced opposite sides of the canyon. Then, suddenly, flames and smoke blasted from the vehicles with a sound like thunder.
These mountain howitzers in the Army's possession fired 12-pound canister that, when fired, ripped shrapnel through the Apache ranks before Roberts took his troops on to the stage station.
At this new location, later that evening, Cochise attempted another attack. Again the Indians were overpowered by the whites’ big guns.
One year later, Mangas Coloradas became tired of the fighting. When he entered the town of Pinos Altos, intending to talk peace with the miners, Brevet General Joseph West seized him and put him under guard. West’s words to those guarding Mangas Coloradas were:
“I want him dead or alive tomorrow morning. Understand? I want him dead.”
That night, while Mangas was imprisoned, his guards heated bayonets in the fire and burned the chief’s legs and feet. When Mangas Coloradas protested he was killed with four shots, then scalped and decapitated.
Now enraged to even more fury, Cochise fought on for another 10 years, stacking depredation upon depredation.
Apache Wickiup
Because of the Indian Wars on the Southern Plains, including Arizona, General Sherman, in 1870, wrote to the Secretary of War that:
“We had one war with Mexico to take Arizona, and we should have another to make her take it back.”
How about a trip to the land of the Apaches? No, don't get up. Just click on the link below and you are on your way.
A Glimpse at the Southwest By Jennifer Leavitt http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/amer... Many an articulate writer has been hard pressed to capture the spellbinding aura of this state. Here, a cultural blend of Spanish, Native American, Anglo and new Texan winds its way through adobe towns, pueblos and artist communities.
The source for this section is:
Capps, Benjamin. The Great Chiefs: The Old West. Time-Life Books, Alexandria, Virginia, 1975.
