The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1894-09-24

the tree top and make it feed from their
lips and come at their voice. We are
like the deer and the wild bird. We
listen for your voice, and we follow your
steps -
This was said at Mount Vernon bar
racks, Alabama, where the Chiricahua
captives have been for the last six years
living in incidence and with abundance
Of good things, but never ceasing to
pine for their native mountains. Mount
Vernon barracks are, according to lovers
Of the picturesque, the most beautiful
army post in the country, situated about
six miles north of Mobile and in para
disc of oak, magnolia and other subtrop-
ical trees and shrubs. The climate is in
every way unlike that of Arizona, and
the Indians suffered accordingly, SO it
was once decided to remove them to the
Fort Sill reservation, in Indian Terri
tory, but that was promptly vetoed
when the border men pointed out the
obvious fact that they could easily es-
cape thence and make their way back
to Arizona
It is hard to believe that the Apaches
bloOdthirsty and untamable, are first
cousins to the progressive and rather
pleasant Navajoes, but both are from
the same great OffshoOt of the Athabas-
can race. The Navajoes combined with
a remnant OF the old and senicivilized
Mexican Indians and have maintained
an art and civilization Of their own,
while the Apaches took to the noun
tains and grew more savage every year.
Fifty years ago the department estimat-
ed that in Mexico and the United States
they could muster 80, 900 warriors.
This was an exaggeratiOn, but still they
We're very powerful When General
Crook went at them 20 years ago, they
did not have to exceed 1, 500 warriors,
yet that small number had pretty near
ly depopulated Arizona.
In 1872 the hostiIes of that territory
We're in three great bands, the greatest
under the famous Cochise. General
Howard, with single aid, penetrated to
his mountain fastness and made a treaty
which Cochise kept honorab1y till his
death Geronimo broke away, and a long
and rather romantic war followed In
1888 General Crook captured the whole
band, numbering 600, and located them
on reservation, but Geronimo and
Neches broke away again, murdered
l34 whites and escaped into Mexico. In
1856 General Miles captured the last of
the hostiles, their surrender being on
the agreement that their lives were to
be spared In two years they had killed
176 Americans.
They claim that one of the terms of
the surrender was that they were not to
be taken out of Arizona, but they were
sent to Fort Pickens, Florida, and later to
Fort Marion, near St Augustine Their
native land is very high and very dry,
with cool nights; their land of captivity
is low, moist and hot. In the former
they had 3 range over some 40, 600 to
go, 900 square miles, and in the latter
they were confined to a few acres. Yet
they did not all die, as might have been
Many of their young people
have been fairly well educated. The lads
are employed in Pennsylvania as cattle
herders and farmhands and the girls at
the domestic occupations. Day schools
and Sunday schools have been success
fully maintained among them, and those I
enlisted in the army have made good
soldiers Meantime another large branch
OF the Apaches has been located in the
Indian Territory, and civilization has
made great progress among them. So it
has been decided to allow the old pris-
0ners to die at home and the youths to
start anew there