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Victorio and the Reservation System — a prescription for disaster
Last updated on Friday, July 18, 2003
Victorio, Warm Springs Apache Chief, 1825(?)-1880 
In the years immediately before the outbreak of the Civil War, the Board of Indian Commissioners in Washington, D.C. had discussed a policy of removal and concentration for the Southern Apaches of New Mexico and Arizona Territories. Simply put, the policy called for the removal of the Mimbres, Central Chiracahuas, Coyoteros, Gila, and Mogollon bands from those areas where they would have potentially disruptive contact with white settlers and placement on reservations where they could become self-supporting through farming and animal husbandry.
The policy was not really new, having had its origins in the earlier nineteenth-century Jeffersonian policy of removing Indians in the path of white westward expansion to territories west of the Mississippi River. There, it was hoped, the Indians would learn the arts and crafts of "civilization," and by the time the westward movement of European immigrants caught up with them they would be ready for assimilation into Jefferson's dream of a rural republic of independent yeomen.
As the plans for the Apaches developed by 1870, six areas were considered for reservations: Fort Apache in Arizona; the Santa Lucia reserve along the Gila River; the Mimbres River near Pinos Altos; along the Alamosa River at Ojo Caliente; an area east of the Rio Grande near Fort Stanton; and the valley of the Tularosa River . Vincent Colyer, secretary of the Board of Indian Commissioners, was charged with the task of recommending a suitable area from among those considered, and he quickly established criteria for a viable reservation: arable land, good water, remote from white settlements, surrounded by mountains not easily crossed, and an abundant supply of wood and game. Colyer would soon learn that it was easier to establish criteria than it was to get the Southern Apache bands to accept them.
W. F. M. Arny, former Indian Agent, acting in 1870 as United States Special Agent, issued in November of that year a report that included his estimate of the number of Southern Apaches. The bands mentioned above, plus the Mescaleros, Arny estimated at 3,638 men, women and children (of whom 910 were warriors). These were the Apaches who, according to Arny, were "the most savage, barbarous, and uncivilized Indians on this continent. Their exploits in the way of murder, robberies, and torture are unparalleled in the history of any other tribe of Indians: they have robbed mails, burned Stage Coaches, have torn out, cooked and eaten the hearts of some persons, and have burned at the stake stage passengers and other prisoners . . . and [have] retarded the mining operations of one of the richest portions of the United States." The years of warfare, Arny believed, had made these Indians ready for peace if suitable area could be found for them.
In the fall of 1870, a large number of Southern Apaches were living at Ojo Caliente, in the valley of the Alamosa River, fifteen miles northwest of Canada Alamosa (present-day Monticello). A dozen miles south of Canada Alamosa, at Cuchillo Negro, Cochise was camped with perhaps 150 of his band. Special Agent Arny envisioned a reservation here that would commence "two miles north of the Hot Springs and running thirty miles down the valley, and twenty miles in width." Arny believed this area, minus the few settlers who were there and who could be removed at minimal expense, would be sufficient to support the entire Southern Apache population. The area was a favorite of the Mimbres band (often called the Warm Spring Apaches), and was claimed by their great leader, Victorio, as their ancestral homeland. The failure to recognize this claim would, in the near future, have disastrous results.
By the spring of 1871, some twelve hundred Apaches were located in the Canada Alamosa Valley, their first reservation. While they were generally pleased with the area, the meager weekly rations were insufficient to maintain them, and they began to forage on their own. They were quickly blamed for every depredation in the surrounding area, many, if not most, of which were the work of the Mexican contrabandistas located at Canada. In August, Vincent Colyer recommended the removal of the Apaches from Ojo Caliente to the Tularosa Valley, some seventy airmiles to the northwest.
On November 20, General Sheridan ordered the creation of the reservation: It was to extend thirty miles from the headwaters of the river and to spread ten miles inland from either bank. By April, 1872, an agency was established, and in early May the first Indians began to move. By the first of June perhaps four hundred and fifty Apaches had arrived; the rest had simply taken to the mountains and disappeared, many of whom joined their Chiracahua cousins in Arizona. Among those on the new reservation, discontent grew when in the fall, word reached them of the creation of a new reservation in the Chiracahua and Dragoon Mountains of Arizona for Cochise and his band.
With the coming of summer in 1874, Tularosa was abandoned, and the Mimbres were allowed to return to Ojo Caliente. Some four hundred and fifty returned, and the following year the Army built a Post along the Alamosa River near the warm spring and not far from the entrance to Canada Alamosa. The next year saw increased contact between the Indians and nearby settlers, the most unsettling result of which was the development of a trade in whiskey and corn for tizwin. Drunkenness and its accompanying violence became a major problem.
Unknown to the Mimbres was a growing sentiment within the Army, the Indian Bureau, and among settlers in Southern New Mexico and Arizona for a new version of the removal policy: concentration of all Southern Apaches at San Carlos, Arizona. In 1876, the Chiracahua reservation was closed in favor of San Carlos, and many of the Arizona Apaches, rather than follow Taza, son and successor to the deceased Cochise, to the hated area, joined their kinsman at Warm Springs. There the renegades found numerous allies for their raids, and it soon became evident that Ojo Caliente had become a nest of brigands. In May 1877, the removal of the Warm Spring Apaches to San Carlos began. The prescription for disaster had been prepared.
Early in September 1877, Victorio and perhaps three hundred followers, Warm Spring and Chiracahua alike, fled the reservation and began three years of intermittent depredation, mayhem and violence, the likes of which the Southwest had never seen. Victorio wanted a return to Ojo Caliente, and for a brief time in 1878 he returned, only to flee again when informed he and his people were to be transferred to the Mescalero Agency. He returned to the Mescalero Agency at the end of June and took up residence only to flee again in the late summer of 1879. His raids continued, and on September 4 he attacked the Ninth Cavalry guard at the Post at Ojo Caliente, inflicted a number of casualties, and fled toward the Black Range.
The late winter and early spring of 1880 found Victorio in the mountains from which he continued his raids, inducing a large number of Mescalero warriors to join him. Pursued diligently by the Army, he made his way to Mexico, crossing the border by early June. He had eluded two thousand cavalrymen and several hundred Indian scouts. He had lost a number of his men, his son included, inflicted heavy casualties on the Army, and hoped that the wilderness of Chihuahua would provide shelter and sustenance for his weary band. He had perhaps one hundred warriors, not all fit for the rigors of combat, and four hundred women and children. Victorio's trail of life was about to end.
On October 15, 1880, Joaquin Terrazas and his troops located Victorio's band making its way to Tres Castillos . Aided by Mata Ortiz and his men, Colonel Terrazas attacked the outnumbered Apaches as evening drew near. The fight lasted through the night and into morning, ending at about ten with the death of Victorio and nearly seventy of his men. Seventy-eight scalps were taken for the bounty, one report claiming that the state of Chihuahua paid fifty thousand dollars for the grim trophies. A triumphal march was held in Chihuahua City, the scalps displayed on lances for all to see, and the prisoners marched to jail to the sound of playing bands and cheering populace. The next day the children were distributed among those who wanted them, the adult captives were later sold into servitude, and Colonel Terrazas, promoted to full colonel, is said to have earned $27,450 from the scalps and prisoners he personally claimed.
Victorio and his followers paid a horrible price for their bid to escape the reservation system designed for them by the American government; a price, paradoxically, they had inflicted on hundreds of men, women, and children in New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico. The clash between the Euro-American cultures of the United States and Mexico on the one hand and the Indian cultures on the other seemed always to be played out in the context of classical tragedy: Even the apparent winners lost.
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