Kas-Tziden (Nana).

 Photo courtesy Museum of New Mexico

The Tcihene, or "red paint people", were the eastern band of the Chiracahua Apaches. Their home was in the Black Range, the Mogollon, and the San Mateo Mountains of New Mexico. The settlers in the area, small farmers and villagers at first, called them Warm Spring or Mimbres Apaches and did not want them for neighbors. Soon miners were exploring the ore-rich mountains of the region and with strikes came the boomtowns with hotels, saloons, churches, homes and schools. Caught between 1) a growing number of settlers, 2) the vacillating policies of the Indian agencies, and 3) the Army's mission to establish and maintain peace in the area, the Tcihene found their old ways of life challenged at every turn.

Faced with concentration on reservations they did not like, in 1879 the great Tcihene chief Beduiat (better known as Victorio) led perhaps five hundred of his people from the Mescalero reservation to the freedom of the Black Range. There they were pursued by the Buffalo Soldiers and selected bands of Apache Scouts. On the morning of May 23, 1880 Victorio's band was surprised in camp by Army troops and Apache scouts and suffered a major defeat, losing thirty dead and a large number of their horses. Circumstances forced them to flee to an old haven, Mexico and the Sierra Madre Mountains. They had no way of knowing the disaster that awaited them.

On October 15, 1880 Mexican troops under the command of Colonel Joaquín Terrazas surprised Victorio's band of Tcihene Apaches at Tres Castillos, Chihuahua and killed almost all the warriors and a number of women who had fought alongside the men. According to Apache tradition Victorio died by his own hand. The old ones that survived the battle were shot, and over ninety women and children were enslaved. Only Victorio's advisor Kas-Tziden (whom the Mexicans called Nana), now in his mid-seventies, and a handful of Tcihene escaped the carnage. The disaster was such that the Tcihene became for all practical purposes a dead people. Kas-Tziden and his few followers waited and prepared their campaign of vengeance.

On July 13, 1881 a band of perhaps fifteen Tcihene Apaches led by old Nana crossed the Rio Grande near Fort Quitman, Texas and headed north toward New Mexico. In their wake in Mexico they left more than a dozen dead and wounded Mexicans. Four American surveyors and a teamster traveling from San José, Mexico to El Paso were ambushed and killed. Nana and his followers evaded the pursuing troops of their old nemesis Colonel Terrazas, and began a foray of vengeance that would be known ever after as "Nana's Raid."

The first victims after crossing the border were scattered Mexican sheepherders in the hills of southwest Texas. The band made its way into New Mexico and camped at Dog Springs in the Sacramento Mountains, there to be joined by a group of twenty-five men from the Mescalero Reservation. The swiftness and cunning of Apache raids being what they were, historians are not in agreement as to the exact path the raiders then took. After an ambush of a Ninth Cavalry supply train at at Alamo Canyon, Nana led his warriors to the southern edge of the White Sands to Laguna Spring.

Ojo Caliente Agency Ruins

Photo by James W. Hurst

One map, drawn by the famous artist José Cisneros, suggests they turned south at the San Andres Mountains, followed the eastern edge of the Organ Mountains, came through Anthony Gap, turned north toward Las Cruces and proceeded across the Jornado del Muerto and headed west to the San Mateo Mountains. Another map suggests that after the Alamo Canyon ambush they proceeded to Laguna Spring and then north along the foothills of the San Andres Mountains and then west to the San Mateos. Either way, they eluded pursuit and spread destruction and mayhem in their wake.

The end of July found the troopers of the Ninth Cavalry exhausted. Their horses were worn down and some men were without boots, having worn them out leading their fatigued mounts back to Fort Craig. While the soldiers were being rested and refitted, a posse of thirty miners and farmers decided to track down and apprehend the renegades. Militias and posses had been organized when first word of Apache raids reached the small mining, ranching and farming communities, but this was the first major attempt on the part of civilians to do the work of the Army. Under the leadership of James Mitchell, men from Winston, Chloride and surrounding farms headed for the eastern slopes of the San Mateos.

The posse entered East Red Canyon on the morning of August 2 and at noon decided to rest near a spring and graze their horses. The day was hot and while a few guards watched the horses the posse members snoozed in the shade. Suddenly from the surrounding rocks and bushes gunfire erupted and the screams of blanket-waving Apaches filled the canyon. In the resulting chaos the posse's horses and mules were driven off. The attack was over as quickly as it had begun. Two posse members were dead and seven wounded; it is not known if they even got off any shots at their attackers. Nana simply disappeared up the canyon with remounts and a supply of fresh meat. The posse's adventure was over, and it was forced into a humiliating walk from the canyon.

The next encounter with Nana came north of East Red Canyon at Monica Spring. Here units of the Ninth Cavalry and Apache Scouts fought a brief skirmish with Nana's rear guard as the wily old chief and his raiders rode off into the vastness of the San Mateos. The Army believed Nana was headed south to old Mexico, but he outwitted them again. He rode north from Monica Spring and attacked Garcia and then Seboyeta (August 11) before turning south. On August 12 Nana was fighting the Army in Carizzo Canyon

and on the 14th he appeared seventy miles south near Alamosa (Cañada Alamosa, presently called Monticello) a Mexican farming community. Nana attacked a nearby farm and left the mutilated bodies of the farmer's wife and children for the Ninth Cavalry troopers to bury. He moved swiftly toward the Cuchillo Negro Mountains to the west, herding stolen stock and carrying a mixed bag of plunder. Nana fought a skilled retreat. He managed to get his men and plunder safely to the mountains, and he even added some new cavalry horses to his well-stocked remuda. As he emerged from the south end of the Black Range, Nana attacked the mining camp of Gold Dust just four miles northeast of Hillsboro. The Apaches continued south and attacked Perry Ousley's ranch and then burned the Irwin ranch house near Lake Valley. Civilian volunteers from Hillsboro joined with a group of Lake Valley miners at Cotton's Saloon to discuss pursuit of the rampaging Apaches. A small cavalry detachment from Fort Cummings under command of Lt. George W. Smith arrived, and when word was received that Nana's band had entered Gavilan Canyon to the west the cavalry and citizen volunteers set out in pursuit.

Nana's trail was an easy one to follow, probably because the old warrior knew he would be pursued and Gavilan Canyon was a place made for an ambush. The alcohol-induced enthusiasm of the civilians began to wear off as the day, August 19, progressed and soon only twenty of the original forty volunteers remained. As Lt. Smith was preparing to scout the situation, the hung-over civilians foolishly entered the canyon. The troopers and their supply wagon chased after them, and as the supply wagon entered the canyon Nana slammed the door. What followed was an almost perfect manifestation of chaos.

The supply wagon and pack train blocked retreat as panicked miners fled. Troopers returned fire as best they could and soon the narrow canyon was clouded with gunsmoke and dust. Lt. Smith was shot from his horse, three troopers were also dead, and three more were wounded. This was a terrible toll from a command of only eighteen, and yet the fighting continued for six more hours. At about four in the afternoon, cavalry from Lake Valley arrived and the Apaches broke off the fight. The troopers found Lt. Smith's horribly mutilated body. They took the dead and wounded to Fort Bayard and from there to Fort Cummings where the dead were buried. Nana's small band rode south with a renewed remuda and a thousand rounds of ammunition captured in the ambush. It was a good day's work for the Apaches; it was a terrible price for the Army caught in a predicament precipitated by the foolishness of drunken civilians.

Two days later, having eluded patrols sent to intercept him, Nana slipped past Fort Cummings under cover of night and rode rapidly for the Mexican border. While Nana's movements after the fight in Gavilan Canyon are not known with any certainty, we can make an educated guess based on routes to Mexico favored by the Apaches for ages. He probably went past the Florida Mountains near Deming and headed southwest to the Apache Hills near Hachita.

He may have crossed the Hachita Valley southwest to Granite Pass and then through the pass to the Playas Valley. A movement west just north of the Whitewater Mountains would have taken him to San Luis Pass. This pass provides access to the Animas Valley, and less than fifteen miles to the southwest lies Guadalupe Pass, the gateway to Sonora for countless generations of Apaches. By August 24, Nana's raid was over and he and his warriors crossed the border into Sonora, Mexico. Pursuit was not an option, as the Army had been ordered not to pursue the hostiles into Mexico.

The raid contained the essence of legend. With a band of perhaps fifteen and never more than forty, Nana ranged over more than a thousand miles of some of the most inhospitable terrain in the American southwest, at times covering seventy to eighty miles in a day. He was pursued by thousands of soldiers and hundreds of civilians with little respite. His band killed thirty and perhaps fifty Americans. Since he left no dead or wounded behind, we will never know his losses. He won virtually all of his clashes with the Army, captured hundreds of horses and mules, and generally ravaged the countryside at will.

Whether the raid is seen as a vengeance raid or as a manifestation of the irascible nature of the Apache warrior, it was a grand, bold, and bloody adventure.

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For the adventurous who would like to follow in the path of Nana, the following recommendations are in order: a 4WD vehicle, the Forest Service map Cibola National Forest: Magdalena Ranger District, and a copy of The Roads of New Mexico.

To visit East Red Canyon, take I-25 north of Truth or Consequences to the Route 85 interchange. Take 85 north to Crawford Hollow, and turn left on the primitive road and follow it northwest to Forest Road (FR) 86. FR 86 will take you to East Red Canyon. To get to Monica Spring continue north on FR 86 to FR 478 and take 478 north and east to Route 107. Take a left on 107 and proceed north to FR 52. Turn left on FR 52 and take it to Monica. The spring is located just south on FR 549. To return you can take FR 549 north to New Mexico 60. Going east on NM 60 through Magdalena will get you to I-25 for the trip home.

For a visit to the old Warm Spring Apache reservation, take I-25 to Route 52 and take 52 west to Winston. You will be passing through and into much of the heart of Apache country. Gas and other necessities may be purchased at the store in Winston (you may want to visit Chloride while here). Continue north on 52 to Wildhorse Canyon (52 turns from blacktop to gravel), and proceed to the Alamosa River. Almost immediately Forest Road 140 appears on your right. Take FR 140 to the Warm Spring, still flowing into the Alamosa River as it was in Nana's day. On the other side of the river are the ruins of the Ojo Caliente Agency (the only place Geronimo was ever captured).

A trip to Hillsboro will put you near Gold Dust, the mining community shot up by Nana and his raiders. Take NM 27 south from Hillsboro to drive through Lake Valley, proceed south to Nutt and take NM 26 to the Florida Station. A right turn on a ranch road will take you to the site of Fort Cummings. Come back from the fort to NM 26 and turn right to Deming. Take Route 180 out of Deming northwest to NM 61, turn right and drive northeast past Dwyer to Gavilan Arroyo. To the northeast is Gavilan Canyon.