AMERICAN-INDIAN WARFARE.*
THE campaigns described in Captain Bourke's reminiscences are those undertaken by General Crook in 1871 against the Apaches of Arizona, and again in 1876 against the Sioux and Cheyennes in Montana. The last war, therefore, in which " Sitting Bull " was overthrown, does not come within the scope of the work, for General Crook bad retired from the management of Indian affairs after the last chastisement of the Chiricahua Apaches in 1883, and a subsequent successful effort to arrange matters with them ; his last work being thus of a peaceable nature. He belonged to that class of Indian-fighters who avoid bloodshed as long as may be consistent with sound judgment. He died in March, 1890, worn out, no doubt, by the hardships and anxiety and terrible strain of his campaigns. Mr. Bourke's reminiscences begin with the description of * Os the Border with Crook. By John G. Bourke, Captain, 3rd Cavalry, H.S. Army. Illustrated. London : Sampson Low and Co.
military life on a lonely and dangerous frontier-post, in his case Old Camp Grant, Arizona, situated on the confluence of the Aravaypa and San Pedro. The place was notorious as the worst throughout the States. The climate was torrid and dry, and though there was nothing for the garrison to do, the most perpetual watchfulness was necessary, as the Apache, the very type of the wary, relentless Indian, never missed an opportunity of killing a strayed man. A man was not safe a thousand yards from the camp. One or two ambuscades re- lieved the monotony of the routine ; a settler's party was nearly annihilated, and a rapid pursuit organised after the enemy ; and then we are transferred to a frontier town, Tucson, and have an opportunity of studying the semi-civilised life of the West. Physically, the Apaches were a race of a fine type, with the chests of mountaineers and with great powers of en- durance, and terrible foes,—a great contrast to the Papagoes, a harmless, industrial race in the neighbourhood of Tucson. The sketches of frontier-men in the chapters devoted to Tucson life, are evidently true to the letter. The character of a certain Duffield is an admirable instance of the sort of man who terrorised his neighbourhood. This ruffian, said to have killed thirteen men, was the only Tucson man who dared wear a silk hat. He appears to have been a gentlemanly fellow, was not a bully, and waited for the other man to begin. One " Waco Bill," a true " tough," arrived in course of time at Tucson, anxious to subdue the celebrated Duffield. Half-drunk, he approached the group in which the mail- inspector was standing :—" Whar's Duffer? " he cried, or hiccoughed " I want Duffer (hie) ; he's my meat. Whoop !" " Waco Bill" was felled to the ground by a huge fist, and his hand sought his revolver ; but Duffield, who had all the time preserved the utmost calmness, shot out of his pocket, and the bullet striking, bent over his opponent with a bow and a wave of the hand. My name's Duffield, Sir," he said, " and them 'ere's me visitin' kee-yard." At a ball—where heavy armament is not the rule—given a few days after, some of Duffield's friends, sitting with him in a room a little way off the dancing-floor, persuaded him to produce his battery ; and from the armholes of his waistcoat, his boot-legs, his hip-pockets, and the hack of his neck, came eleven weapons, mostly small " Derringers," and one knife. The company did not feel called upon to make any remark. The next day, a suspicious movement on the part of Duffield gave the Chief Justice an excuse, long waited for, to have him arraigned for carrying concealed deadly weapons. All went well till the chief witness for the prosecution was asked to show the jury how the prisoner had drawn his revolver. " Well, Jedge, the way he drawed her was just this," and in illustration, the witness drew a fully-cocked " six-shooter " from his hip. Amid the laughter which followed, the case was quashed.
The campaign against the Chiricahua Apaches assumes a, place now in Mr. Bourke's reminiscences. The route lay along the Mogollon Mountains, and we are told that during the eleven days which it took to cross this wild and rugged plateau, the ground was a carpet of wonderful luxuriance of colour ; though the flowers, owing to the dryness of Arizona, so Mr. Bourke thought, had no scent. In Clear Creek Calton, how- ever, on the northern slope of the Mogollon range, the wild hop grew by the side of the stream, and scented the air. Here, again, we are told of Crook's power of observation. Not only was he the first man awake, but nothing escaped him, the animals and their habits, the plants, the uses of herbs, the courses of streams, everything that was of interest or might be of use, he knew, and his vigilance was sleepless; no wonder the Indians marvelled at him. This movement appears to have been a preliminary scout, and it was not till an attack had been made uponiGeneral Crook at Date Creek, that orders arrived to dHve the Apaches into their reserva- tions. At Date Creek, Crook was having a conference with the Apache-Yumas when the Indians attempted to kill the party. Fortunately, the Hualpais had warned Crook, so that the plan came to naught. The Apache-Yumas, with a few Apache- Mojaves among them, were allied to the Mojaves of the Colorado and the Hualpais, these last being a small but brave tribe. Crook's campaign was against the Apaches of the Tonto Basin, a ragged country somewhat lower than the three mountain-ranges that surround it,—the Mogollon, the Matitzal, and the Sierra Ancha. A detachment, led, it must be said, by an Apache who had been brought up in the strong-
hold, surprised a " rancheria " in Salt Canon, a cave defended by a bulwark of boulders. The Apache-Mojaves fought with the courage of despair till bullets and the stones thrown by another detachment of troops from over the cliff killed them all. Another immemorial stronghold was stormed, and the Apache-Mojaves surrendered. When things became quiet, Crook could say, in a general order, that his troops had terminated a campaign which had lasted from the days of Cortez. The problem of civilising the Apache seemed likely to be successful : an intelligent race, they could grow crops—an inheritance from the Jesuits—and were willing and able to assume the habits of a pastoral people. Crook did his very best to raise the Apaches, but his efforts to establish a market for their produce were rendered useless by the American agent. In 1874, Crook made a tour through Arizona, and found everywhere the Apaches peaceable and industrious. He visited the Moquis, a race well deserving study, who live in houses of rock on the northern side of the Colorado Chiquito, in that Wonderland of America, the " Painted Desert," the Grand Canon, the Cataract Cation, and the Canon of the Colorado Chiquito. The colouring of the dried earths and rocks possesses a gorgeousness of which those who have seen the cliffs at Alum Bay can form a faint notion. The Moquis had sold arms to the Apaches, but Crook did not punish them, contenting himself with a warning. To the Franciscans the Moquis owe their pastoral tastes and their peach orchards—they had at this time flocks of sheep and goats, and great crops of luscious peaches. About this time the military telegraph line was run in Arizona, and the Apaches were much impressed when one of their own chiefs sent a warning of his arrival by the white man's talking wire. One of the grimmest pieces of humour ever perpetrated by a North American Indian oc- curred at Crook's headquarters, Camp Apache. An Apache chief, " Pitone," had returned from a mission of peace to the Yumas, and having a grievance against " Pascual," the Yuma chief, bade the telegraph operator inform that chief that if he did not perform a certain promise, the Apaches would go on the war-path and wipe the ground with the Yumas. But peace, apparently, was not to last long ; there were two clouds already, the Chiricahuas and the Indian Ring. A short quotation from Mr. Bourke will explain the working of the
Ring 7, " The Indian agent, Dr. Williams, in charge of the Apache- Yumas and Apache-Mojaves, had refused to receive certain sugar on account of the presence of great boulders in each sack. Per- emptory orders for the immediate receipt of the sugar were received in due time from Washington. Williams placed one of these immense lumps of stone on a table in his office, labelled, Sample of sugar received at this agency under contract of —.' Williams was a very honest, high-minded gentleman, and deserved something better than to be hounded into an insane asylum, which fate he suffered."
One could scarcely come across an expression more thoroughly significant of American tone than the calling of a man of ordinary conventional and commercial honour, "an honest, high-minded gentleman."
In 1875, Crook was transferred to the Department of the Platte, which included Nebraska and the Territories of Wyoming, Utah, and part of Idaho, and, we suppose, the Dakotas. The Indian tribes distributed over this country
were the Bannocks and Soshones, in Western Wyoming and Idaho ; the lithe, in Utah and Western Wyoming ; the Sioux and Cheyennes and Arapahoes, in Dakota and Nebraska ; and
five bands, the Otoes, Poncas, Omahas, Winnebagoes, and the once renowned Pawnees, who would only cause trouble by
counter-raiding the hostile tribes. The Sioux and Cheyennes were the most powerful and dangerous, being in addition " horse-Indians ; " at one time, indeed, if they are not now, they used to be the finest horsemen in the West. As to the origin of the campaign, it was the same old story, —treaties not carried out, the incursions of miners into the Black Hills, utter indifference to the rights of the Indians, who had been guaranteed the country all the way from the Missouri to the Big Horn Mountains. Let us quote Mr. Bourke again :- " It was never a matter of surprise to me that the Cheyennes, whose corn-fields were once upon the Belle Fourche, the stream which runs around the hills on the north side, should have become frenzied by the report that these lovely valleys were to be taken from them whether they would or no."
At first the Government directed Crook to expel all un- authorised persons from the Black Hills ; then they changed their minds, and ordered all the Indians to come in and be inspected. Some of them naturally refused to do this. Mean- while the stream of fortune-hunters poured towards the Black Hills. Finally, Crook and his command left for the Powder River and Big Horn on March 1st, 1875. The pages that de- scribe the intense cold, the snowstorms, the laborious travelling before the Indians could be found, will give a sufficiently realistic account of what winter campaigning in Wyoming and Montana means. After a rapid march, with half-rations, they surprised the village of " Crazy Horses," and though the attack was not the complete success it should have been, yet seven hundred ponies were captured, and a hundred tepis burnt. The wealth in clothes, furs, skins, saddles, meat, powder, all sorts of weapons, culinary, and cutlery, and bedding, will serve to correct some of our impressions as to the poverty of the Indian. The severity of the weather was such that the ponies were recovered by the Sioux, and the dead deserted, and nearly every one frost-bitten. This was the end of the winter campaign. The summer campaign began in May, and the Soshones sent a detachment to help from their reservation in the heart of the Rockies. The arrival of these useful allies made a sensation, a striking picture, indeed, of " the pomp and circumstances of war," the band of warriors coming left-front into line in " splendid style." As an irregular cavalry, these " horse-Indians " would be unapproachable. The fight of the Rosebud now described for us was only a type of what the Custer disaster became,— a cul-de-sac into which the troops might be tempted to pursue fleeing Indians. A week after this event, the Custer massacre took place. From what could be gleaned from the Indians, the destruction of the troops seemed to them certain when they divided. They had surprised an Indian village, be it said. Custer was an Indian-fighter himself, but in no other warfare is anything like a mistake so relentlessly punished; for every minute the Indian fights, he watches a hundred. During the ensuing winter, a Cheyenne village was "wiped out," and the Cheyennes, offended at " Crazy Horses'" indifference to some complaint of theirs, joined battle against him, various other tribes sending in bands for the same object. " Crazy Horses," therefore, in May, 1877, the following year, surrendered. Among the many fine figures of the North American Indians, no other chief stands oat in better colours. He was brave, no man being allowed to pass him in the charge, and generous, for he kept nothing, except his arms; and his charity to the poor was great, and made for him hundreds of friends. The same sinister singu- larity attaches to "Crazy Horses'" fate, as to that of his medicine-man, " Sitting Ball," which occurred a few months ago. Little Big Man's " story, the pleasantest one, was that in the attempt to wrench some knives from " Crazy Horses," who was trying to escape from the guard-hut, the chief was wounded; on the other hand, the surgeons did not know whether the wound was from a knife or a bayonet, and the chief died a few hours afterwards. The chief of the Sans Arcs and " Crazy Horses" father were with the great Sioux chief when he died. When the breath ceased about midnight, " Touch the Clouds," of the Sans Arcs, placed his hand on the dead man's breast, and said : "It is good ; he has looked for death, and it has come." Captain Bourke closes his chapter with the following words : "As the grave of Custer marked the high-water of Sioux supremacy in the trans-Missouri region, so the grave of Crazy Horses,' a plain fence of pine-slabs, marked the ebb."
A short campaign against the Apaches closes the volume,— one replete with interest, if lacking in arrangement and systematic narrative.
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