Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-03-06

attacked him flight is the only thing that
would have saved Gen. Crooks shoulder
straps when the news got back to Wash
lngtOn. He was to make war on and cap
ture all the other Apaches he found loose,
put the worst OF the whole bunch, these
Chiricahuas We're to be used as expert
ment stations. so to speak. by the War De-
partment and the peace commission"
people.
This is what Gen. Miles wrote of these
''white-winged' beasts in a report which
he made to the government when he dis
placed Crook: The Chiricahu Apaches are
the lowest, most brutal and cruel of all the
Indian SaVageS on this continent. They kill
for the pleasure of killing, and they take
tiendish delight in the most cruel tortures
burying men, all except their heads over
great ant hills to have their flesh slowly
eaten off until death relieves their eXcru-
ciating agonies. Hanging little girls by the
under jaw on meat hook to suffer slow
death and men by their feet with their
faces over slow fire. are congenial pas
times to them. In morals they are de-
graded They will not work
While all this is true as holy writ and
much more of incredible cruelty might be
told, the true Apache never took a scalp.
That peculiar sort OF hendish pleasure was
left to the other tribes of Indians
This great war chief of the Apaches Ger
onimo, is the son of old Mangus Colorado,
or "Chal-o-row," said to be the double dis
titled essence of beStial cruelty who as
war chief of the Warm Spring Chiricahuas
devastated Arizona New Mexico and So
nora Mexico, for half a century 1t can
safely be said that for 400 years the temple
of Janus of these blood-thirsty Apaches
was never closed.
Espijo speaks of them in the story of his
explorations in that country and no man
since Espijo has written of that country
who has not added a bloody chapter about
the Apaches
Old Colorado didn't know much about the
Bible, in all probability. though since Es-
pijo's time self-saCrificing missionaries of
the black robe and the white" have vast
ed their lives in trying to raise the cross
IN those waste places, but, just the same
this willy old sinner followed the precept
train up child in the way he should go"
Qndian fashion,. and so We had Geronimo
Nero? Caligula? Why they were angels
of peace and mercy compared with the war
chief Geronimo when, like the south wind
he swept through the mountains of that
southwestern country blasting burning
butchering all the fair-faced he found Old
General Harvey, when after the Indians
once upon time, ordered: NO quarter
No living soul must escape, Nits make
lice!' So Ii was with Geronimo All that
breathed must die. So they bore not the
medicine charm Of the Apache He killed
because killing was a Joy.
In his raids of rapine and plumber Geroni-
mo was led at first by old Cochise the he
reditary chief Of the Apaches, and one of
the most daring and relentless leaders that
ever baffled the United States army He
died In his sins. very old and broken, in
1879. and his son NatcheZ became the head
chief. with Geronimo an Apache Ma
poleon, and eventually the successor of old
Cochise and Natchez. with his subtle
crafty, vlliainous genius for Indian war
fare For ten long years United States
troopers trailed after Geronimo and his
band Of Turkey braves (Chiricahua is
Pache for turkey)
Had All Corralled
Gen Crook had all of the Apache bands
corralled once, excepting the Chiricahuas.
and he could have laid his hands on that
band any time, but in 1919 he was relieved
from duty in the Apache country and sent
up among the Utes.
Then there was about seven years of
chaos In Indian affairs In - west. with
the Apaches making about every other page
of its history red with blood and burning
homes. The ChirIcahuas taunted the
Apaches who were on their reservation
where Crook had put them. and where they
were building cabins and tlling their farms
They-the Chiricahuas-said that the
peaceable Apaches were "squaw men," a
term of Incompatible opprobrium among
Indians, because they had TO work and
must stay on their reservation. The Chiri-
cahaus because OF their peculiar exemption
did not have to work, and were not watched
by the military. The peace" people were
trying their hypnotic powers on these
uB4ItSl VI al the ApdCHtS. ana the W ar
Department seemed to be under the same
spell.
OF course "squaw-man' had to be an
swercd. II was a challenge 10 a duel of
factions of tribe. The Chricahuas on
one side. led by Geronimo. Young Natchez
Old Mana Victoria and few other power
full chiefs. and the other Apache tribes In
the language of General Sheridan Hell
broke loose again in 1881. and President
Cleveland, tired of Peace. peace when
there is no peace, reassigned General
Crook 10 the Arizona department and
turned him loose to do the best he could
1t is a long story, how General Crook
finally rounded up the sulen bucks and
their families. a long and heroic story of
suffering. privation. massacre and blood
Crook rode muleback over all the Apache
territory. and IL is a country of hog back
hills, volcanic mountains deep canons, I'M
fordable rivers. with not one square acre
OF level ground in the nearly a million
square miles of territory over which the
marauding Indians ranged.
United States soldiers were killed like
dogs from the ambush of these Businesses
but very few of the Apaches Bit the dust
Finally. March p. 1885, Crook got the
whole bunch rounded up in the Canon de
los Embudos, and Geronimo and his chiefs
surrendered.
That very night the troopers guLrding