20/12/2024
Chato: The Chiricahuas Return to San Carlos
(Geronimo and His warriors, Photo by C.S. Fly, March 1886, Courtesy National Archives)
This post is the thirteenth in a series of true stories about a Chiricahua chief, Chato, who lived in the times of the Apache wars, survived twenty-seven years of prisoner of war internment, and twenty-one years of life on the Mescalero reservation. The purpose of these posts is to provide the historical background for a duology of novels about Chato, the first book of which will be released next year. Chato’s story is told in: Book I, Desperate Warrior; and Book II, Proud Outcast. Book I, covers the years from 1877 to early 1886. In those years, desperate to get his wife and children out of Mexican slavery, Chato changed from a hard-eyed warrior to a hardworking supporter of General Crook. Book II covers the years from 1886 to 1934, when Chato survived betrayal by the army as a prisoner of war and proudly endured being treated as an outcast by some of his own People after they were freed. The events described in this post show how the Chiricahuas returned to San Carlos from their once hidden camps in Mexico.
After General Crook with his 197 Apache scouts and 50 troopers had taken the Chato-Bonito camp near the headwaters of the Río Bavispe and the scouts had destroyed the Chiricahua supplies of food gathered for the winter, he held council with the Chiricahua leaders. Crook told the Apaches that attacking their camp was an unplanned mistake, that he had come as a friend and wanted them to come back to San Carlos where he would ensure that they have their own piece of the reservation and an agent and commander who would treat them fairly. The Chiricahua leaders agreed to return to San Carlos but for many of the major leaders (e.g. Naiche, Gil-lee, Chihuahua, Chato, Bonito, Nana, Loco, Kaytennae, and Mangas) their followers had fled to hidden camps and had not come in. When the leaders sent smoke signals indicating they should return, few did. They feared the smoke signals were a trick by the scouts to capture them and not from their leaders. Crook approved of the leaders going out to look for their people, but he warned them that he would have to leave in four or five days in order to have enough supplies to make it back to his border camp without the people going hungry and that was with the beef they had stolen being used and the scouts hunting every day.
The leaders found a few of their people, but not nearly the number they expected (even then the Apaches hid so well in the Sierra Madre that their own leaders couldn’t find them). After meeting again with Crook, they agreed that he would go ahead with the people already in camp. The Chiricahua leaders could come as soon as they found the rest of their people and join the others at the San Bernadino Ranch border camp where supplies had been stored. From there they would all go on to San Carlos. Crook warned the leaders that if they arrived after the others departed, then they would risk being attacked by civilians and cavalry units who had not been informed that they were returning under terms of peace. The leaders promised they would return with their people and understood the risks if they were late. They were certain they could find their way back to San Carlos unseen.
After a short march from the original camp, Crook stopped long enough for the women to bake hearts of mescal to use for food during the return. During this time the leaders brought in 116 more people. Loco, Nana, Bonito, and Kaytennae stayed with Crook who now had 325 Apaches, 52 men and 273 women and children. Crook feared the Mexicans, expecting trouble from Apaches in the large numbers they had seen in less than a month, might attack and scatter the column if he returned by retracing his path back to the Río Bavispe on the western side of the mountains. Instead, he avoided contact and potential conflict with Mexican military and civilians by following trails on the eastern side of the mountains. The column’s first camp out of the mountains was at the springs near Carretas. Leaving Carretas they passed by the battle site of Aliso Creek where the Mexican army had attacked Geronimo and Loco’s people headed for Juh’s stronghold west of Casas Grandes. The Aliso Creek battle grounds still showed bones shining white in the sun, pieces of women’s clothes, beads scattered on the ground and camp utensils left behind when the survivors of the Mexican ambush escaped in the night.
The column continued along the eastern foothills where they had to put out a wildfire one evening. They then followed a trail near the international border that led a cross the San Luis Mountains into Sonora and to Crook’s border camp at Silver Springs near San Bernardino Ranch. The troopers, learning General Crook was soon to arrive with the column, prepared great pots of food for the hungry people and their army guides. The cooks served all they had in the pots and then made more for the people who hadn’t been fed. General Crook had Captain Crawford four companies of cavalry at the border es**rt the people north back to San Carlos. They arrived at San Carlos on June 23, 1883. The other leaders with the people they were looking for had not arrived for the intended meeting with Crook, but he was certain they would come.
Meanwhile the leaders who had stayed behind continued to find their people until they had most of them in hand. Since Crook had not set a firm deadline for their return, the leaders decided to raid Mexican herds and villages for livestock and supplies they could carry with them back to San Carlos. During a raid in July at Nácori Chico, Jelikinne, father to Geronimo’s wife, Zi-yeh, was hit in the head from a lucky vaquero long shot and was killed. Chato had built up a nice herd of horses and mules, but no cattle. The other leaders had also focused on horses and mules. Geronimo had decided to build up a first-class cattle herd that could support the Chiricahuas at San Carlos, but he had taken few horses and mules.
Summer passed into fall and still none of the leaders left behind had come to the border. The newspapers were giving Crook a lot of written heat about the Apaches left in Mexico who had not yet come in as promised. In October, Crook sent Lieutenant Britton Davis to the border with a pack train of supplies and a company of scouts recruited partially from the people who had already returned. At the border Davis was to await and es**rt late arrivals from Mexico. The scouts were there to encourage others to join them and to protect the people as they moved north to San Carlos.
Soon eight warriors and five women and children appeared at Davis’s camp. In late October, Naiche and Gil-lee arrived with nine other warriors and about eighteen women and children.
On November 16 Chihuahua and Mangas appeared at the camp with about ninety of their people and other small bands followed. By the end of November, 423 of those who had escaped into the Sierra Madre, including 83 warriors had returned to the reservation.
Another small group came in December 20.
Chato arrived on February 7, 1884, with nineteen followers and a large herd of horses and mules.
Geronimo came with 26 warriors and 70 women and children. He was slowly driving about 350 head of prime cattle he wanted to use for the herd the Chiricahua herd he planned for San Carlos.
The primary purpose for Davis having two companies of soldiers where he was a regular army officer and the scouts were enlisted men was to make Arizonans looking for payback against the Apaches who had burned their homes, stolen their livestock, and without mercy killed their families and friends, think twice about starting any kind of fight with the returning Apaches. Nevertheless, when es**rting the Apaches from the border to San Carlos, Davis kept away from traveled routes, avoided towns and ranches, and made fast marches of 40-50 miles a day. As a result, Davis had no trouble with revenge seeking settlers. Now with Geronimo and his people and cattle arriving, Davis’s low profile, fast march strategy was out the window.
Most of the information presented here is from Indeh by Eve Ball, Nora Henn, and Lynda Sánchez; From Cochise to Geronimo by Edwin Sweeney; The Truth About Geronimo, by Britton Davis; Geronimo by Angie Debo; Geronimo by Robert Utley; In the Days of Victorio by Eve Ball; and I Fought with Geronimo by Jason Betzinez.
