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Show ramous Tighter, and Friend, f the ; ffz?i kMJiS lk' )f v & Wv1 , I . I ;.J rk$ i I HA-irV3. - , '' r 'N Manuelito, the Navajo ur m v , yz J At m W i IjJj r. a. f; By ELMO SCOTT WATSON tNE hundred years ago there was bora In New England a boy who was destined to become one of the most famous Indian fighters in American history. And " - w w paradoxical as it may j seem, this fighter of In dians also became known as one of j the best friends the Indian ever had. ; The date of his birth was Novem ber 8, 1830; the place was on a farm j near Leeds, Maine ; and his name was y Oliver Otis Howard. It would seem that from the beginning Destiny ruled that his career should be closely linked J with the fate of the red men, not Just j those of one tribe but of many tribes. As a boy he heard from the lips of I his grandfather stirring tales of In dian warfare during the Revolution. , - - When he went to West Point as a "' " " cadet at the United States Military academy he came In contact with many army officers who had served on the frontier against the wild tribes beyond the Mississippi, among them Maj. George H. Thomas, who had received re-ceived three brevet commissions for gallant conduct in Indian fights and who, as General Thomas, was to be hailed as "the Rock of Chickamauga" in the Civil war. Howard himself rose to the position of major general of volunteers in the Civil war, and repeatedly distinguished 1 himself during those four years. He left his right arm on the bloody field of Fair O.Iks during a gallant charge at "the head of the Sixty-first New " York Infantry and won for himself the medal of honor. He received the thanks of congress for his "skill and heroic valor" at Gettysburg, and for his gallant and meritorious services In the battle of Ezra Church and during i. the campaign against Atlanta, Ga., he was brevetted major general in the regular army. L His contact with the red men be gan almost Immediately after he was graduated from West Point in 1S54. In ' Pecenber, 1856, he was ordered to re- : port to Gen. W. S. Harney, a dlstln- j pulslied Indian fighter, in Florida, ( where a remnant of the Seminoles - who had refused to go west with the main portion of the tribe after the Close Oi ihe second Seminole war, t " were continuing their raids on white settlements under their lender, Chief I Billy Bowlegs. Howard was placed ' In command of an expedition to round up these recalcitrants and al- though it failed of its Immediate ob- -y. . .1ect, It resulted eventually in the sur- " ' "fender of Billy Bowlegs and permanent perma-nent pea:e in the Everglades for the first time in many years. Howard was next detailed to duty at West Point and was there when the Civil war began. At the close of the war he was made commissioner of the bureau of freedmen and refugees refu-gees and served in that capacity until 1S74. Then with the inauguration of President Grant's "Indian Peace Pol- - 1 Icy," Howard was detailed as a special commissioner to Arizona and New Mexico and especially to make peace with the Chiricahua Apaches under Chief Cochise whose reign of terror in the Southwest was holding back the settlement of that region. After holding councils with the Vumas, the rimas, the Maricopas, the Arivipas, - - the Mojaves, the Tontos and the White Mountain Apaches, and settling the troubles between them and the whites, Howard next went among the Navajoes for the same purpose. He I accomplished this by establishing a j force of Indian police and inducing their great war chief, Manuelito, to be the head of the force. But his main objective was still ahead of him that of bringing Cochise, Co-chise, the Apache, In off the warpath. After several unsuccessful attempts mm v Gen.Q. O. .Howard vv to Billy Bowlegs, theSeminole to get the chief to come In for a conference, con-ference, Howard, accompanied by a noted frontiersman named Tom Jeffords, Jef-fords, took his life In his hands and visited Cochise's stronghold. There he persuaded the Apache leader to make a "good peace," which Cochise kept as long as he lived. Howard's next assignment was in the Pacific Northwest where he was one of the Chief actors in the Nez Perce war. It was during this short war that Chief Joseph of that tribe made his epic dash for freedom toward to-ward Canada which has come down as one of the greatest military exploits ex-ploits In American history. No less brilliant than Joseph's retreat was Howard's pursuit of the fleeing Indians, In-dians, a pursuit carried on through some of the most difficult country on the North American continent. But when the Nez Perce leader was at last brought to bay in the Bear Paw mountains in Montana by Gen. Nelson A. Miles and forced to surrender, Howard, How-ard, who at last had caught up with the fugitives, displayed a rare magnanimity mag-nanimity at the surrender of Chief Joseph. The Indian leader extended his rifle to Howard in token of surrender, sur-render, but Howard waived it over to Miles, thus declining In favor of his brother officer the honor which he had so richly deserved after his trying try-ing and difficult campaign. No sooner was the Nez Perce war over, however, than Howard was again in the field against the Piutes and Bannocks in the campaign of 1S7S which was nearly as arduous as was that of 1S77. This war resulted in the death of two important chiefs, Egan and Buffalo Horn, and Howard was again the victor in another conflict con-flict with savages. His next service was a series of councils with the Col-ville Col-ville Indians, the Spokanes, the Okanagans and the Coeur d'Alenes whose high regard he won by his efforts ef-forts to right the wrongs which they had suffered at the hands of the whites. The attitbde of Chief Lot of the Spokanes toward Howard was typical of the Indians of that region. When he learned that the general had been ordered east he protested against it. "You must not go ; you cannot go !" entreated the Indian chief with tears in his eyes, "You are the Indians' friend. If you stay everything will go on right, but if yon go the white men around me will get my land and there will be trouble. You must not go !" No doubt many another Indian leader lead-er would have concurred in Chief Lot's words, for until General Howard's How-ard's retirement from the army in 1S93 and his death in 1CH30, he was looked upon by most of ttie red men with whom he had had any contact as one white man whom they could trust. In his wide experience with the Indians and their confidence in him he has probably only two rivals Gen. George Crook and Gen. Hugh L. Scott. But It Is doubtful U either Crook i j'iajiu.ciii-o un.ejNa.vara Vs.!! (W Cfthe Apache lf4.V' Horn, sSiy theBannock or Scott knew personally so many noted red men as did Howard. To read his two books, "My Life and Experiences Ex-periences Among Our Hostile Indians" and "Famous Indian Chiefs I Have Known," Is to call the roll of most of the Indian notables over a period of more than forty years. In addition to those already mentioned in this article, ar-ticle, the list would Include Washakie, the great chief of the Shoshones; Geronimo and Natchez of the Chiri-cahuas, Chiri-cahuas, Red Cloud, Spotted Tail, Crow Dog and Short Bull of the Sioux, Pasqual of the Yumas, Antonio and Antonito of the Pimas, Santos and Eskiminzeen of the Aravipas; Pedro, Tsketesela and One-Eyed Miguel Mi-guel of the Apaches, White Bird and Looking Glass of the Nez Perces, Moses of the Yakimas, Sarah Winne-mucca, Winne-mucca, daughter of the great chief Winnemucca of the Piutes, Egan and Ovtes of the Umatillas, Homili of the Walla Wallas and Cut Mouth John, a Umatilla, who served as his scout during the Bannock and Piute war In 1S78 and with the forces under Howard How-ard during the Sheepeater campaign a short time later. Among his most interesting reminiscences rem-iniscences are those of Geronimo, the notorious Apache leader. "Geronimo was one of the Indian captains who was with Cochise when he decided that the Great Spirit wanted the Indians to make peace with the white men and eat bread with them," writes Howard in his "Famous Indian Chiefs I Have Known." "At that time most of the Indians were very happy to have peace, and Geronimo seemed quite as pleased as the others, though I believe he w-as not yet quite sure that it was time for peace to come. At any rate the great Cochise said it was, so Geronimo was ready to ride with us to meet the soldiers, and as I was willing, he sprang up over my horse's tail and by a second spring came forward, threw his arms around me and so rode many miles on my horse. During that ride we became friends and I think Geronimo trusted me, although he trembled very much when we came in sight of the soldiers near Camp Bowie. . .. . "In 1S00 I went to Mount Verion barracks, Alabama (where Geronimo and his warriors were held as prisoners prison-ers of war), and the first man I saw there as I gnt out of the train was Geronimo. He had a bundle of canes of different sorts of wood, which he hud peeled and painted and was" selling sell-ing thera one by one. When he caught sight of me he passed his canes to another Indian and ran to meet me. I could not understand his Apache but he embraced me twice and called his Mexican name 'Geronimo,' 'Geronimo,' many times so that I should be sure to know who he was. Then he got an interpreter and came to talk with me. 'I am a school superintendent now,' he said. 'We have fine lady teachers. Ail the children go to school. I make them. I want th3 to be white children." |