| Show AX APACHE SKETCH flow Tie Slave Terrorized the Western Country for Years II When about eighteen months ago the inhabitants of Arizona were startled by the announcement from military authorities that Geronimo had left the San Carlos or White Mountain reservation with sixty j bucks and taken the warpath it was not t Jmown whether his action was the result of L real or fancied grievances but it is certain II it did not arise from want of food nor is it probable that there was undue restriction I exercised or that the lordly savage was made to feel the infringement of his rights I or dignity But having enjoyed from his youth the unbounded freedom of the mountains moun-tains canyons and deserts of Arizona it is likely he had become tired of Uncle Sams beef flour and bacon and fell back on his original savage proclivities resuming his vocation of cutting throats scalping and flaying alive or roasting at slow fires all in mere aboriginal playfulness Just as that depressing malady known as ennui sometimes drives people crazy so the inert listless vagabond life of the reservation reserva-tion drove Victorio Cochise Geronimo Natchez Chihuahua and their comrades to wild raids and marauding expeditions that they might test the white mans prowess as against their own rid themselves of the intolerable in-tolerable restraint of the reservation taste once more the freedom of the hills and resume the wild instincts of savage life There are two classes of Indians upon the reservation one the Pueblo or semicivil ized who are satisfied with agricultural pursuits and flocks and herds and the other the entire savage who has never subsisted save by the chase and who has lost his huntinggrounds from the encroachments of civilization These grounds once the home of the antelope the elk the mountain sheep and the bear and the buffalo now echo the lowing of the white mans cattle the bleating of sheep and goats and the tramping of the horses and mules that occupy the ranges where once the Apache hunted and held undisputed sway No wonder that the boundaries of the reservation are the dead line to him He has never worked and how shall he begin when there is neither inducement nor compulsion com-pulsion Inside the reservation there is nothing except to lie in cold obstruction and to rot The fierce turbulent Apache warrior looks to the distant hilltops mutters something about liberty or death and suiting suit-ing the action to the word takes to the warpath war-path giving as a pretext that the Indian Agent has stolen his supplies and forced him to turn renegade Human nature is said to be pretty much the same everywhere and from the days of King Philip the last of the Wampanoags down to the Modoc War and from Captain Jack to Cochise and Geronimo it is the same old story involving identical facts Yet there are those who affect to believe that the Ethiopian can change his skin and the leopard his spots As good a farm hand as I ever saw was a fullblood Apache boy taken prisoner on the Verde river raised on the farm of N B Bowers and taught by that gentlemans wife to read write and cipher and run the dairy As complete a housekeeper as I ever met was a fullblood Apache girl taken prisoner when a child of 6 or 7 years of age and given to Mrs Wade Arnold who lived at Montezumas Well near Beaver Creek Arizona She was a perfect per-fect treasure the embodiment of neatness and order But these children were not isolated upon a reservation They were reared among the whites had cows pigs and chickens to care for and household duties to perform Existence was rendered attractive by the recurrence of daily duties The Indian In-dian life with them was absorbed within that of white companions When the exclusiveness ana isolation 01 the reservation system shall have ended and the nations wards hold their lands in severally be citizens of the United States and made amenable to the laws then we may hope for peace security and freedom from the liability to perpetual outbreak and massacre The fact is throughout the length and breadth of the land an Indian reservation is a perpetual menace against security to life and property When elements ele-ments of combustion exist there is always reasonable likelihood of fire and no man can divine when and where the hostility of the red man shall break out afresh A few years ago the old Apache Chief Victorio when nearly 90 years of age left the Mescalero Reservation in New Mexico i and started on the warpath For five months this old Indian raided five counties in New Mexico in a section of country reasonably well settled and yet with all the troops the United States sent against him and in spite of the aid the settlers could contribute he remained master of the situation butchering and plundering right and left This miserable miser-able paralytic who had to be lifted into and out of the saddle who could neither mount nor dismount alone and had no use of any part of his body except his right arm swinging his bridlerein with the feebleness of a child and lashed to his pons to prevent hin from falling nevertheless rode one hundred hun-dred miles in twenty hours He scouted the land as silent as a spirit but terrible as a thunderbolt dominating and swaying his band to the last by the nod or word of command com-mand as imperative and binding and thoroughly obeyed as an edict of he Czar In an Apache camp fine words butter no parsnip moral force alone determines who shall lead the band and then each man endeavors en-deavors to outvie his leader The world is full of books and the books are full of recitals recit-als of great men and their achievements but it is to ray conviction that the present generation on the Western frontiers has found in the persons of Chiefs MangusCol orado or the Red Arm Coohise Victorio and Geronimo elements of native military ability moral power and physical endurance almost without parallel Time and persistence however tell the tale and Geronimo finally comes into General Gen-eral Miles camp and as alleged unconditionally uncondi-tionally surrenders Geronimo is a quantity quan-tity which affects the welfare of the people of Arizona and neighboring localities whether on or off the reservation and now that we have him in possession the question arises what are we going to do with him Shall he be handed over to the civil authorities authori-ties and tried for murder What is his status He is a ward of the nation and when he broke away from the military camp and butchered everybody in his path by whatever what-ever tenure he was held it would seem to follow that he should be tried and executed by martial law Certain it is that the people of Arizona demand that his miserable life shall be brought to an end and so far make atonement for the hundreds of victims vic-tims who have suffered death at his hands through the inconceivable horrors of the scalpingknife and burning stake I agree entirely with the views of Lieu tenantGeneral Sheridan who urges that the surplus lands of these large Indian reservations reserva-tions should be sold withholding such an amount of acreage as may be necessary to give each Indian family a reasonablesized farm to hold in severalty The proceeds of these salesshould be deposited in the Treasury Treas-ury as a trust fund and the interest applied in such manner as Congress shall direct to benefit the Indians only in efforts to attain civilization Alia California |
