The review. [volume] (High Point, N.C.) 1908-19??, 1913-09-11
FREEZING THE APACHE
CAPTIYES

ties-Chato's Plan When Raiding
Geronimo, Widest Old Savage
in American History.
Congress has finally cut the bonds
that permit those members of the
tribe of Geronimo, last of Americas
fighting Indians to walk forth free
men.
These Apaches who have been
held az prisoners of war for twenty
seven years, have been allowed to
decide whether they would accept
allotments of land in Oklahoma or
would return to the Mescalero coun-
try in New Mexico, in the region
where their ancestors lived and
hunted. Of the PSI members of the
tribe eighty-six chose to remain in
the land where they have lived
prisoners for generation while the
remaining two thirds still heard the
call of the land of their fathers. So
a portion of the tribe will become
landowners and free men in Okla
homa, while freedom for the balance
will mean likewise the breathing OF
the airs of the world southwest.
The remnant of an Apache tribe
which Uncle Sam has been holding
as prisoners of war, is by no means
the tribe of Indians that he captured
twenty seven years ago, The raw
ages of time and disease have car
ried off the older Indians at a much
greater rate than they have the
younger ones. Many of the original
captives were children at the time
the tribe was brought East and had
in no way participated in the depre-
dations of their fathers. These chill
dren have, however, been held pri,
soners through the tWenty-seven
years that have interviewed. The
great mass of the present tribe is
made up of them and their children.
Probably half of the present tribe
has been born in captivity, and is,
therefore, suffering punishment for
offenses of parents or grand parents
that were committed before they
came into being.
So it comes to pass that the feder-
al government has been holding as
prisoners of war and ever-diminish-
ing tribe of people, very few of whom
have ever committed any offense
against the government. Those who
are best acquainted with these In
dams, state that they are unable to
find more than five survivors of the
old war parties OF Geronimo. If
these figures are true there are 256
entirely innocent persons who have
thus been kept in captivity On the
basis of the broadcast possible inter-
probation of the guilt of any of these
people it must be acknowledged
that there is no possibility of more
than a very small percentage of
them ever having offended against
the government. So, in America IN
the twentieth century, is to be found
a case that is in every way cOmpar-
able with these conditions which
existed in England in the days when
Charles Dickens, as a boy, was
thrown into London prison, and
there languished, because of debts
that were owed by his father.
OF this tribe in its captivity Walter
C. Roe, superintendent of religious
Indian mission located at Fort Sill.
is the historian. He has lived among
the captive Apaches for years and
has a personal acquaintance with
every one of them. In summing up
the story of their lives while forgot
ten by the government, he says:
After the Apaches surrendered
which they did in 1885, it was deci
ded to transport them to the East
and hold them as prisoners of war
1t is interesting to note that other
Apaches, some of them who were
non combatants, while few had
actually been scouts for the United
States troops, were added to tbs
captive band, so that finally, 407 in
number, it was taken to Forts Pick
ems and Marion, in Florida but {
year later was transferred to Mount
Vernon barracks, Alabama
There it's ranks were SO decimal
ed by tuberculosis that those who
remained, numbering 308, were re
moved to the Fort Sill military res
ervation, in Oklahoma, in 1894
Here, under the wise direction O.
Capt. (now Col) Hugh L. Scott, the,
were settled in family groups, set tt
work building houses, breaking GU
land and making fences, encouraged
by the repeated assurances of gov
eminent officials to believe tina
their warderings were over and tina
they were to remain in undisturbeC
possession of permanent homes
The homeless band were unsophisti
Gated enough to believe these pledge