The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1891-11-18
A Hero of New Mexico.
By CHARLES r. LUMMIS.

By CHARLES F. LUMMIs.
/. When I look back over the strange
career of my brave old Spanish friend,
Colonel Manuel Chaves, whose weary
remnant of a body was laid to lest two
years ago under the shadow of the noblest
mountain in Western New Mexico, the
exploits of many heroes, who were
handler to the frame.maker, seem q trife
tame. Known and loved here, yet his
name seldom reached to the great outside
world of newspapers and historians, and
to-day he fills the grave of an almost IN
recorded hero. Yet I suppose there was
never a more remarkable life. For over
fifty years he was almost constantly
warning against the Apaches, ~Comanches,
Navajos and Utes. Over 200 of his
relatives were killed by Indians. He
participated in more than 100 fights and
carried a scar for nearly every one of
them. His body was such a network of
ghastly cicatrices that scarcely could you
lay your hand upon him anywhere with
out touching a scar. For the last fifteen
years of his life he suffered untold agonies
the result of his awful wounds and the
years of exposure and hardship, but he
met this more merciless foe as calmly as
he had met the Apache, and when, at
seventy-four, the Pickering soul went
out, it was calmly as a little child's.
Life on the New Mexican frontier in
his day was something which we can i'll
realize. There were no railroads then to
make travel easy for even the timid and
weak, nor mails to bring far friends
near; nor telegraphs to fash warning or
hope. The lonely New Mexicans, shut
off from contact, and almost from the
East by a vast and fearful wilderness,
were surrounded by savage nature and
still more savage man. II was one of the
bitterest lands on the earth, a land of
vast distances and scant product, of in.
finite thirst and little wherewith to
.quench it, a land of hardship eternal and
of daily danger, where boys were SOL
.diers and mothers had to fight for their
babes. 1t was almost as if there had
been no other world beyond those awful
plains. Whatever was consumed was
made at home, and found no other mar
.ket. There were not even firearms for
defence against the relentless savages,
a a scant supply of the clumsy old
Spanish escopetas, (aintlock muskets)
scarcely better weapons than the bows
and arrows whose use the settlers learned
from their foes. . Manuel was in his
youth a wonderfully expert archer, and
won countless ponies and blankets from
the Indians themselves in contests during
the short intervals of peace. Later ne
became the best rifle shot New Mexico
has ever produced.
The little town of Cebolleta, where
Manuel passed his boyhood, was never at
peace in the first half century of its ex-
istence. It was out and alone from the
other Spanish settlements, and in the
very heart of the Navajo country; and it
was a fearful sufferer at the hands of the
Indians.
1t was from Cebolleta that young Man.
uel started, when he was eighteen years
old, on his first expedition-though he
had already seen enough of wal at home,
and was accounted among the bravest of
the brave. With his eldest brother,
Jose, and fourteen other young men, he
started for the Canyon de Chusco, $50
miles to the westward, in the stronghold
of the Indians, on a trading expedition.
What documentary on the times in which
they lived-this seeking a market among
savages from whom murderous assaults
the traders were in constant peril even
while at home! They were attacked at
night in the Canyon de Chusco, and all
were killed save Manuel-who was left
for dead with seven arrows in his body,
and his Indian servant, Pahe, who was
also fearfully wounded. Alone and on
foot they started on that fearful journey
homeward. Pahe died of his wounds in
two DAYS, and Manuel dragged himself
alone the rest of the way, hiding by day
from the savages, crawling On by night,
followed by sneaking coyotes that never
left his bloody trail; tortured with thirst
and pain. with no food save the cactus
fruit, until at last a faithful servant
found him fainting on the last ridge O.
San Mateo and carried him home upon
his back.
When he recovered from these wound:
he was engaged as a guide to a party o
traders from Mexico to New Orleans, ant
thence went to St. Louis with a young
Cuban, who finally robbed him of all h
had in the world.
+ Then he returned to New Mexico anc
settled in Santa Fe, but in 1916 had t
flee to Utah on account of political com
piicaticns.
The following year he was rccalie
and put in command of IN expeditlo'
against the Utes, whom he thrasbe
.soundly.
The invasion of New Mexico by tn
America = forces in the Mexican wa. wa
not opposed, and the Territory becam
sart of the United States without blood
shed. Very sOon thereafter came til
"Taos rebellion" small but fierce W
srising of Apaches and Fueblos in tt
most northern of the Pueblo towns. an
Manuel played an important part in SUI
pressing it. In q fearful hand-to-han
Struggle, too, he saved the life Of hi
commander-Captain Zeran St. Vrall
H. A nnl nnn On,