Chief Cochise
~ Shi-ka-she ~
~ Hardwood ~
~ Chiracahua Apache ~
The Legend Continues

The information I finally settled on to use for this honoring of the Great Warrior Chief Cochise was written by the "Apache Authority" Edwin R. Sweeney, I make no claim to his words and do not necessarily agree with some of the content. As this is his writing I cannot nor would I ever change the content. We have also provided a listing of quotes by Chief Cochise. It is truly unfortunate that their are no true native renditions of the life of Chief Cochise, at least none that I have been able to find. If any reader of this message knows of such a document please provide me a copy or if on Net the URL of the document so that I may do true honors to this Great and Noble Chief..........GreyWolf Runs With Elk

At Times Cruel, Chiricahua Chief Cochise Had
Courage and was Devoted to the Truth.
BY EDWIN R. SWEENEY

IN THE SUMMER of 1872 a truly extraordinary development took place in our nation's capital. President Ulysses S. Grant, hoping to bring an end to the Apache war in southeastern Arizona, dispatched Brigadier General Oliver O. Howard to Arizona to make peace with Cochise, the celebrated leader of the Chokonen band of Chiricahua Apaches. That his activities occupied the thoughts of America's military and civil leaders would have come as a surprise to the aging chieftain, who was provincial and unpretentious by nature. Yet, Cochise's reputation had convinced the top officials in Washington that he was the key to obtaining a lasting peace with the Chiricahua Apaches. At that time--except perhaps for Red Cloud, the great Lakota chief--Cochise may have been the most famous Indian in the West.

That designation would not have flattered him. After 12 years of war against the Americans--a bloody, merciless conflict that had begun after American troops had betrayed him in 1861--Cochise had come to the conclusion that he must make peace to ensure the survival of his people. Age was beginning to take its toll, his health was deteriorating, and the long war that he had waged against Mexico and the United States had taken the lives of many of his people. Accordingly, when General Howard rode into Cochise's camp in the Dragoon Mountains in southeastern Arizona, accompanied by his aide, Lieutenant Joseph A. Sladen, and by Thomas J. Jeffords, a frontiersman trusted by Cochise, they found the chief ready to make peace.

Cochise and his Chokonen band ranged throughout southeastern Arizona, southwestern New Mexico and northern Mexico. Born about 1810, he had matured during a relatively peaceful period of Apache-Mexican affairs. In 1831, however, relations deteriorated sharply, and treachery and war replaced harmony and tranquility. This precarious state of affairs with Mexico would continue throughout Cochise's life, although truces and armistices occasionally interrupted hostilities. From time to time, Mexican officials, unable to defeat the Chiricahuas in combat, turned to mercenaries and scalp hunters to exterminate the Apaches. The infamous Johnson and Kirker massacres of 1837 and 1846, in which mercenaries slaughtered some 175 Chiricahuas, left indelible impressions on Cochise. He lost his father, an important band leader, in one of those premeditated massacres, probably during Kirker's slaughter. Naturally, such chicanery and deceit served only to exacerbate hostilities, for revenge was an important factor in Chiricahua warfare.

In 1856 Cochise became the principal war leader of the Chokonen band after the death of its chief, Miguel Narbona. Two years later he experienced his first contact with Americans at Apache Pass (in present-day Arizona), where he met Apache Agent Michael Steck. He had no reason to act militarily against these newcomers, who had done nothing to earn his contempt and were then not a significant force in southern Arizona. Relations became strained in 1860 because of a few Chiricahua stock raids--raids that the Apaches did not consider to be warlike.

In February 1861, war between the Chiricahua Apaches and Americans erupted in a senseless and violent encounter at Apache Pass. First Lieutenant George N. Bascom, with a detachment of soldiers, arrived at Apache Pass and requested a parley with Cochise. Bascom, seeking a boy recently captured by Western Apaches, believed that Cochise's people were responsible. Bascom ordered his soldiers to surround the tent when Cochise and his family came in to parley. Cochise, discovering that he was a prisoner, cut his way out of the tent to freedom (the Chiricahuas would forever refer to this incident as "Cut the Tent"). But five members of Cochise's family were unable to escape. A few days later, Cochise captured a stage employee and soon after attacked a freighter train, killing all the Mexicans with the train and capturing three Americans. He offered to exchange the hostages for his relatives, but Bascom refused to budge unless Cochise returned the boy. Frustrated, Cochise tortured his prisoners to death. Bascom retaliated by hanging Cochise's brother and two of his nephews. Later, Bascom released Cochise's wife and son.

The execution of his relatives aroused in Cochise a passionate hatred of Americans and touched off the fierce conflict that was to last throughout the 1860s. It mattered little that only a few Americans had betrayed him; he hated them all. Initially he raided and killed for revenge; later, even as his rage abated, he continued to wage war, for the conflict had evolved into a bloody cycle of revenge--American counterstrikes and Apache retaliation. Cochise assumed an aggressive posture for the first five years of the war as he enlisted the aid of other Chiricahua bands, notably the Bedonkohes and Chihennes under his father-in-law, the 6-foot 5-inch statesman Mangas Coloradas (whom Americans had also driven to war).

During the summer of 1861, the Chiricahuas ambushed several parties at Cooke's Canyon in New Mexico Territory and, on September 27, 1861, openly assaulted the mining town of Pinos Altos, N.M., but the miners repulsed their attack. By that time most Anglos had abandoned southern Arizona, leaving it virtually uninhabited by whites except those living in Tucson and at a few isolated mines. Cochise naturally concluded that his people had driven the Americans from his country. "At last your soldiers did me a great wrong, and I and my whole tribe went to war with them," he said. "At first we were successful, and your soldiers were driven away and your people killed, and we again possessed our land."

In June 1862 the California Column under Brig. Gen. James Carleton halted at Tucson before resuming its journey east to drive the Confederate forces back to Texas. The column's route lay through Apache Pass. Cochise and Mangas Coloradas, believing that the troops had come to punish them, prepared an ambush, hoping to prevent the whites from obtaining water at Apache Springs. Captain Thomas Roberts led an advance detachment that clashed with the Chiricahuas on July 15-16, 1862. Cochise had positioned most of his men on the hills overlooking both sides of the spring. The Americans finally drove the Indians from their breastworks when Roberts unleashed two mountain howitzers that lobbed several shells near the Indian positions. Both sides fought hard, and both lost men.

Cochise's fury was ignited again in January 1863 when Americans duped Mangas Coloradas into a parley and executed him--which, to the Chiricahuas, "was the greatest of wrongs." For Cochise, the loss of his father-in-law and fighting ally was a deep and unquenchable grief. Mangas' execution reminded Cochise that he could not trust Americans, especially soldiers.