|
|
|
America's World Market Spirt Of The West Mallstore!
CLICK HERE for more western Decor and Gift idea's!
__________________"Native American History"________________
Scroll Down To Bottom of Page for "Native American History Articles"
The Battle of the Little Bighorn, 1876
In late 1875, Sioux and Cheyenne Indians defiantly left their reservations, outraged over the continued intrusions of whites into their sacred lands in the Black Hills. They gathered in Montana with the great warrior Sitting Bull to fight for their lands. The following spring, two victories over the US Cavalry emboldened them to fight on in the summer of 1876.
To force the large Indian army back to the reservations, the Army dispatched three columns to attack in coordinated fashion, one of which contained Lt. Colonel George Custer and the Seventh Cavalry. Spotting the Sioux village about fifteen miles away along the Rosebud River on June 25, Custer also found a nearby group of about forty warriors. Ignoring orders to wait, he decided to attack before they could alert the main party. He did not realize that the number of warriors in the village numbered three times his strength. Dividing his forces in three, Custer sent troops under Captain Frederick Benteen to prevent their escape through the upper valley of the Little Bighorn River. Major Marcus Reno was to pursue the group, cross the river, and charge the Indian village in a coordinated effort with the remaining troops under his command. He hoped to strike the Indian encampment at the northern and southern ends simultaneously, but made this decision without knowing what kind of terrain he would have to cross before making his assault. He belatedly discovered that he would have to negotiate a maze of bluffs and ravines to attack.
Reno's squadron of 175 soldiers attacked the northern end. Quickly finding themselves in a desperate battle with little hope of any relief, Reno halted his charging men before they could be trapped, fought for ten minutes in dismounted formation, and then withdrew into the timber and brush along the river. When that position proved indefensible, they retreated uphill to the bluffs east of the river, pursued hotly by a mix of Cheyenne and Sioux.
Just as they finished driving the soldiers out, the Indians found roughly 210 of Custer's men coming towards the other end of the village, taking the pressure off of Reno's men. Cheyenne and Hunkpapa Sioux together crossed the river and slammed into the advancing soldiers, forcing them back to a long high ridge to the north. Meanwhile, another force, largely Oglala Sioux under Crazy Horse's command, swiftly moved downstream and then doubled back in a sweeping arc, enveloping Custer and his men in a pincer move. They began pouring in gunfire and arrows.
As the Indians closed in, Custer ordered his men to shoot their horses and stack the carcasses to form a wall, but they provided little protection against bullets. In less than an hour, Custer and his men were killed in the worst American military disaster ever. After another day's fighting, Reno and Benteen's now united forces escaped when the Indians broke off the fight. They had learned that the other two columns of soldiers were coming towards them, so they fled.
After the battle, the Indians came through and stripped the bodies and mutilated all the uniformed soldiers, believing that the soul of a mutilated body would be forced to walk the earth for all eternity and could not ascend to heaven. Inexplicably, they stripped Custer's body and cleaned it, but did not scalp or mutilate it. He had been wearing buckskins instead of a blue uniform, and some believe that the Indians thought he was not a soldier and so, thinking he was an innocent, left him alone. Because his hair was cut short for battle, others think that he did not have enough hair to allow for a very good scalping. Immediately after the battle, the myth emerged that they left him alone out of respect for his fighting ability, but few participating Indians knew who he was to have been so respectful. To this day, no one knows the real reason.
Little Bighorn was the pinnacle of the Indians' power. They had achieved their greatest victory yet, but soon their tenuous union fell apart in the face of the white onslaught. Outraged over the death of a popular Civil War hero on the eve of the Centennial, the nation demanded and received harsh retribution. The Black Hills dispute was quickly settled by redrawing the boundary lines, placing the Black Hills outside the reservation and open to white settlement. Within a year, the Sioux nation was defeated and broken. "Custer's Last Stand" was their last stand as well.
Carnage at the Little Bighorn
George Herendon served as a scout for the Seventh Cavalry - a civilian under contract with the army and attached to Major Reno's command. Herendon charged across the Little Bighorn River with Reno as the soldiers met an overwhelming force of Sioux streaming from their encampment. After the battle, Herendon told his story to a reporter from the New York Herald:
"Reno took a steady gallop down the creek bottom three miles where it emptied into the Little Horn, and found a natural ford across the Little Horn River. He started to cross, when the scouts came back and called out to him to hold on, that the Sioux were coming in large numbers to meet him. He crossed over, however, formed his companies on the prairie in line of battle, and moved forward at a trot but soon took a gallop.
"The Valley was about three fourth of a mile wide, on the left a line of low, round hills, and on the right the river bottom covered with a growth of cottonwood trees and bushes. After scattering shots were fired from the hills and a few from the river bottom and Reno's skirmishers returned the shots.
"He advanced about a mile from the ford to a line of timber on the right and dismounted his men to fight on foot. The horses were sent into the timber, and the men forward on the prairie and advanced toward the Indians. The Indians, mounted on ponies, came across the prairie and opened a heavy fire on the soldiers. After skirmishing for a few minutes Reno fell back to his horses in the timber. The Indians moved to his left and rear, evidently with the intention of cutting him off from the ford.
"Reno ordered his men to mount and move through the timber, but as his men got into the saddle the Sioux, who had advanced in the timber, fired at close range and killed one soldier. Colonel Reno then commanded the men to dismount, and they did so, but he soon ordered them to mount again, and moved out on to the open prairie."
"The command headed for the ford, pressed closely by Indians in large numbers, and at every moment the rate of speed was increased, until it became a dead run for the ford. The Sioux, mounted on their swift ponies, dashed up by the side of the soldiers and fired at them, killing both men and horses. Little resistance was offered, and it was complete rout to the ford. I did not see the men at the ford, and do not know what took place further than a good many were killed when the command left the timber.
"Just as I got out, my horse stumbled and fell and I was dismounted, the horse running away after Reno's command. I saw several soldiers who were dismounted, their horses having been killed or run away. There were also some soldiers mounted who had remained behind, I should think in all as many as thirteen soldiers, and seeing no chance of getting away, I called on them to come into the timber and we would stand off the Indians.
"Three of the soldiers were wounded, and two of them so badly they could not use their arms. The soldiers wanted to go out, but I said no, we can't get to the ford, and besides, we have wounded men and must stand by them. The soldiers still wanted to go, but I told them I was an old frontiers-
man, understood the Indians, and if they would do as I said I would get them out of the scrape which was no worse than scrapes I had been in before. About half of the men were mounted, and they wanted to keep their horses with them, but I told them to let the horses go and fight on foot.
"We stayed in the bush about three hours, and I could hear heavy firing below in the river, apparently about two miles distant. I did not know who it was, but knew the Indians were fighting some of our men, and learned afterward it was Custer's command. Nearly all the Indians in the upper part of the valley drew off down the river, and the fight with Custer lasted about one hour, when the heavy firing ceased. When the shooting below began to die away I said to the boys 'come, now is the time to get out.' Most of them did not go, but waited for night. I told them the Indians would come back and we had better be off at once. Eleven of the thirteen said they would go, but two stayed behind.
"I deployed the men as skirmishers and we moved forward on foot toward the river. When we had got nearly to the river we met five Indians on ponies, and they fired on us. I returned the fire and the Indians broke and we then forded the river, the water being heart deep. We finally got over, wounded men and all, and headed for Reno's command which I could see drawn up on the bluffs along the river about a mile off. We reached Reno in safety.
"We had not been with Reno more than fifteen minutes when I saw the Indians coming up the valley from Custer's fight. Reno was then moving his whole command down the ridge toward Custer. The Indians crossed the river below Reno and swarmed up the bluff on all sides. After skirmishing with them Reno went back to his old position which was on one of the highest fronts along the bluffs. It was now about five o'clock, and the fight lasted until it was too dark to see to shoot.
"As soon as it was dark Reno took the packs and saddles off the mules and horses and made breast works of them. He also dragged the dead horses and mules on the line and sheltered the men behind them. Some of the men dug rifle pits with their butcher knives and all slept on their arms.
"At the peep of day the Indians opened a heavy fire and a desperate fight ensued, lasting until 10 o'clock. The Indians charged our position three or four times, coming up close enough to hit our men with stones, which they threw by hand. Captain Benteen saw a large mass of Indians gathered on his front to charge, and ordered his men to charge on foot and scatter them.
"Benteen led the charge and was upon the Indians before they knew what they were about and killed a great many. They were evidently much surprised at this offensive movement, and I think in desperate fighting Benteen is one of the bravest men I ever saw in a fight. All the time he was going about through the bullets, encouraging the soldiers to stand up to their work and not let the Indians whip them; he went among the horses and pack mules and drove out the men who were skulking there, compelling them to go into the line and do their duty. He never sheltered his own person once during the battle, and I do not see how he escaped being killed. The desperate charging and fighting was over at about one o'clock, but firing was kept up on both sides until late in the afternoon."
APACHE INDIANS
APACHE INDIANS. The Apache Indians belong to the southern branch of the Athabascan group, whose languages constitute a large family, with speakers in Alaska, western Canada, and the American Southwest. The several branches of Apache tribes occupied an area extending from the Arkansas River to Northern Mexico and from Central Texas to Central Arizona. Generally, the Apaches are divided into Eastern and Western, with the Rio Grande serving as the dividing line. Two groups, the Lipans and the Mescaleros, lived partially or entirely within the confines of Texas. The Apaches went by numerous names. Because of their nomadic nature, it seems probable that several names were used to identify the same band or tribe. Some names of Apache bands in Texas were Limita, Conejero, and Trementinaqqv (perhaps the same as Limita). But only the names Lipan and Mescalero survived into the nineteenth century. The name Apache most probably came from the Zuñi word apachu, meaning "enemy," or possibly Awa'tehe, the Ute name for Apaches. The Apaches referred to themselves as Inde or Diné, meaning "the people." The Apaches arrived in the Southwest between A.D. 1000 and 1400. After somehow being separated from their northern kinsmen, they carved out a home in the Southwest-apparently migrating south along the eastern side of the Rocky Mountains, then spreading westward into New Mexico and Arizona. In time, pressure from the Comanches and other tribes pushed the Apaches farther south and west.
The social unit of the Lipan and Mescalero Apaches was the extended family. Several extended families generally stayed together and were led by their most prominent member, who acted as chief advisor and director of group affairs. A number of the groups lived in close proximity and could unite for defensive or offensive purposes, or for social or ceremonial occasions. The leader of the combined groups was the band leader. The Lipans had no formal organization larger than the band. This loose organization caused problems in relations with the Spanish, and later with the Mexicans, Texans, and Americans. One Apache band, for instance, might make peace with its enemies, while another would remain at war. Likewise, when the Apaches made peace with one enemy Indian settlement, it did not mean that they made peace with other affiliated settlements. Band leaders were always males, but females held a central place within the tribe. Upon marriage, the groom moved in with his wife's family and had to hunt and work with his in-laws. If the wife should die, the husband was required to stay with her family, who would usually supply him with a new bride. The wife had little obligation to the husband's family, but if he died, his family could provide a cousin or brother for her to marry. Men were allowed to marry more than one woman, but few besides wealthy or prestigious leaders did so. On those rare occasions, they were required to marry sisters or cousins of their wives.
The Apaches were nomadic and lived almost completely off the buffalo.qv They dressed in buffalo skins and lived in tents made of tanned and greased hides, which they loaded onto dogs when they moved with the herds. They were among the first Indians, after the Pueblos, to learn to ride horses. Learning from runaway or captured Pueblos, the Apaches quickly adapted to their use of horses. Formerly peaceful trade relationships with the Pueblos deteriorated, however, as the Spanish discouraged trade with the Apaches and forced the Pueblos to work their farms. When the Pueblos became unwilling or unable to trade with the Apaches, the nomadic Indians turned their new equestrian skills to raiding for horses and supplies. The Spanish first contacted the Apaches in 1541, when Francisco Vázquez de Coronadoqv and his men encountered a band of "Querechos" on the journey to Quivira.qv From 1656 to 1675, the Spanish settlers and Pueblo Indians of New Mexico suffered heavily from almost continuous Apache raids. These raids, in conjunction with drought, harsh Spanish rule, and missionary activities, led the Pueblo Indians to revolt and to drive the Spaniards out of New Mexico in 1680 (the "Pueblo Revolt). When the Spaniards reconquered New Mexico in 1692, the Apaches were a powerful nation of mounted Indians who raided with impunity wherever they desired. But the Apaches' dominance was short-lived. Their aggressive behavior turned their neighbors into enemies, and a new, potentially powerful tribe, the Comanches, began pressuring the Apaches from the north. By 1700 the Apaches began migrating southwest as the Comanche, Wichita, and Tejas Indians, better armed through trade with the French, began to occupy the dominant position on the South Plains. In addition, the Apaches had never adapted completely to a Plains culture. They continued to establish rancherías, where they built huts and tended fields of maize, beans, pumpkins, and watermelons. This attempt to improve their source of food was a major cause of their defeat by the Comanches. Twice a year, during planting and again during harvesting, the Apaches were tied to their fields. As a result, the Comanches knew where to find their enemies and could launch devastating raids upon the Apache settlements. With each successful raid the Comanches grew stronger and the Apaches weaker.
As the Apaches fled before the Comanche onslaught, many groups moved westward into New Mexico and Arizona. Others, mainly the Lipans and Mescaleros, fled southward into Central Texas as well as into northern Mexico. There, they collided with the Spanish, who were advancing northward. The Spanish had earlier aided the Tejas Indians of East Texas in their raids against the Apaches. When the Spanish founded San Antonio in 1718, the Apaches discovered a convenient, accessible location at which to stage raids against their European enemies. The Spanish at San Antonio attempted to make peace with the Apaches but had little success. After a series of clashes, the viceroy ordered the governor of Texas, Fernando Pérez de Almazán,qv to secure peace with the Apaches through gentle means. Noting that the Jicarilla Apaches had made peace with the Spanish in New Mexico, the viceroy saw hope for similar conciliation with the Texas Apaches. The viceroy therefore forbade any further campaigns against the Apaches in 1725, and his decision appeared to be justified by a substantial drop in Apache raiding over the next six years. During this lull in activity, Pedro de Rivera y Villalónqv made a general inspection of the entire Spanish frontier and recommended, among other things, a reduction in the size of the garrison at San Antonio. Influenced no doubt by the relative quiet around San Antonio, Rivera suggested that the garrison be reduced. This action raised a storm of protest from the missionaries and settlers at Bexar. They feared renewed raids once the Apaches learned of the smaller force at San Antonio. The Regulation of 1729, based largely on Rivera's recommendations, forbade governors and commanders from waging war on friendly or indifferent Indians, discouraged campaigns against hostile Indians by friendly tribes, and encouraged granting peace to any enemy tribes who sought it. During the 1730s and 1740s, the Apaches and Spaniards continued to wage war on each other. In 1743 Fray Benito Fernández de Santa Anaqv urged the establishment of missions for the Apaches in their own lands, arguing that this was the best solution to the most serious Indian problems in Texas. On August 19, 1749, four Apache chiefs with numerous followers buried a hatchet along with other instruments of war in a peace ceremony at San Antonio. For the first time both sides appeared genuinely to desire peace, and the Apaches, decimated by Comanche raids, appeared willing to accept Christian conversion in exchange for protection by the Spaniards.
The missionaries at San Antonio proposed several plans to set up missions for the Apaches, but competition among proposals delayed their implementation. The first formal mission for the Texas Apaches was established not at San Antonio but in the jurisdiction of San Juan Bautistaqv on the Rio Grande. Late in 1754, Alonso Giraldo de Terrerosqv established the mission of San Lorenzo, situated in Mexico eighteen leagues west of the presidio at San Juan Bautista. San Lorenzo had a degree of success until Father Terreros retired from the management of that mission to promote a larger project intended for the San Saba River in Texas. Less than a year after San Lorenzo was established, its neophytes became discontented, revolted, burned the mission buildings, and deserted. The missionaries blamed the failure of that first Apache mission on the natural inconstancy of the tribe, as well as on their reluctance to live away from their homelands. The latter reason helped bolster the argument for placing a mission closer to Apache territory. Revived prospects for mining in the region of San Saba, which was located in the heart of Apachería, also boosted the argument for that location. In addition, Terreros's cousin offered generous monetary support for the mission. The plan for a mission-presidio-colony project was soon under way. When Terreros, the presidio commander Col. Diego Ortiz Parrilla,qv and their entourage arrived at the San Saba River in April 1757, they found no Indians to greet them. Still, despite Ortiz's objections, the missionaries demanded that construction begin, and Ortiz yielded to their entreaties. In June 1757 the first Indians began to arrive at the site, and within days 3,000 Apaches encamped around the mission. The missionaries were extremely pleased until they learned that the Indians were not willing to enter the mission. Instead, they had gathered for their annual buffalo hunt and for a campaign against their enemies, the northern tribes. The Indians soon departed, promising to return to settle at the missions upon completion of their quest. During the autumn and winter of 1757, small groups of Apaches would appear at the mission; but after partaking of the priests' kindness, they continued their migration to the south. On March 16, 1758, a party of 2,000 Comanche, Tejas, Bidai, Tonkawa, and other Indians swooped down upon Santa Cruz de San Sabá Mission, killed eight of the inhabitants, pillaged the supplies, and burned the buildings.
Despite the disaster at San Saba and the apparent untrustworthiness of the Apaches, the Spanish continued in their efforts to keep the peace. The Apaches for their part did just enough to keep the Spanish interested. They even joined Colonel Ortiz on his campaign in 1759 to punish the northern tribes. Although some of the Lipans retreated before the final battle, most of them apparently served Ortiz well during the campaign. The Lipans continued to ask for a mission but refused to settle in the region of San Saba after the massacre that had occurred there. They desired a location more remote from their Comanche and northern enemies. In January 1762 the new Apache mission, San Lorenzo de la Santa Cruz, was established on the upper Nueces River halfway between San Saba and the Rio Grande. Once the mission was established, several Apache bands visited it, but only one band of more than 300 actually settled at the mission. Within a month, however, an Apache chief requested the establishment of a second mission at a site several miles downstream from San Lorenzo. In February 1762 Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria Mission was established. Life at the missions progressed relatively smoothly until a smallpox epidemic hit the neophytes in 1764. In addition, the missions were too poor to feed the Indians regularly, and the missionaries demanded too much labor from them. Slowly, the Lipans became discouraged with mission life. In 1766 they abandoned Candelaria; and when the Comanches and other northern tribes began raiding San Lorenzo, the Apaches deserted in droves. By the summer of 1767, both missions were devoid of Lipan Apaches.
At approximately this time, the Marqués de Rubíqv completed his inspection of the frontier, and upon his return to Mexico set forth his recommendations. He believed that the Comanches and other northern tribes attacked the Spanish only because of the latter's connection with the Lipan Apaches. Rubí felt sure that friendship could be cultivated with the northern tribes and that with their help the Apaches could be exterminated, or at least sufficiently reduced. By the 1790s the Apaches had become relatively quiet, although they continued to raid sporadically. The Spanish made peace treaties with them in 1790 and again in 1793. When the Mexican War of Independenceqv began in 1811, the decreased attention that the Spanish paid to Indians caused them to become bolder, and they again staged raids. These attacks continued until the end of Spanish rule in Texas and Mexico. Antonio María Martínez,qv the last Spanish governor of Texas, reported raids by Lipan and Comanche Indians, even on the capital of Texas, San Antonio (see CAPITALS).
The Mexican government quickly signed two treaties with the Lipans. In each, the Mexicans promised to supply the Apaches with annual gifts of gunpowder and corn in exchange for peace. As Anglo-Americans began moving into Central Texas, the Apaches cultivated a friendship with them, each side hoping that the other would help defend them against hostile tribes in the area. The Lipans often raided into Mexico and sold their stolen horses and goods to the Anglos. The Mexican government generally overlooked these depredations, because of the usefulness of the Apaches against the formidable Comanches.
When Texas gained its independence, the relatively cordial relations between whites and Apaches continued. The Texans drew up their own treaty with the Lipans in 1838. The alliance broke down in 1842, and 250 of approximately 400 Lipans left Texas for Mexico, where they joined the Mescaleros on destructive raids across the border for several decades. In 1865-67 alone, Uvalde County reported the theft of more than $30,000 worth of livestock and the deaths of eighteen people. The Mexican government was reluctant to act, because several Mexican border towns profited handsomely from the purchase of plundered goods from the Apaches. Finally, in 1873, Col. Ranald S. Mackenzieqv led a force of 400 soldiers into Mexico to destroy the Lipan villages. His army killed or captured virtually all of the surviving Lipans, and they were deported to the Mescalero Reservation in the Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico, which had been assigned to the Mescaleros in 1855 but not officially established until 1873. In 1905 the remainder of the Lipans in Mexico drifted onto the Mescalero Reservation. In 1970 about 1,660 Indians were enrolled there-not only Mescaleros, but Chiricahuas, Lipans, Kiowas, and a few Comanches as well. Thirty-five Lipans were living in Oklahoma in 1940 but were not officially listed among the tribes of the state.
"An All AMERICAN CELEBRATION Gift Mall Store"
We carry a large collection of patriotic collectible figurine gift items.
We also carry Native American Indian collectible vase, pottery, jugs, American wild life gifts, western cowboy items. We have the NASCAR store, decorative clocks, American USA nostalgia gifts, silver jewelry, electronics, custom T shirts, and many other fine sculpture , statue, items.
You may also click on to our other online Mall Stores for an "Endless Shopping Experience" You are in total control of your shopping - when, where, how much - without sacrificing selection or service. Your transactions are safe and secure, and your order arrives at you doorstep quickly!
Home
Copyright 2004-2008, all rights reserved worldwide
An All-American Celebration Gift Mall Store
"America's World Market"
A DL Solutions company
|
|