Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico [1 ed.] 9780803244580, 9780803232525
From 1866 through 1886, the U.S. Army occupied southern Arizona and New Mexico in an attempt to claim it for settlement
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Copyright © 2012. Nebraska. All rights reserved. Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Central,
Copyright © 2012. Nebraska. All rights reserved. Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
Copyright © 2012. Nebraska. All rights reserved. Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
Copyright © 2012. Nebraska. All rights reserved. Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
© 2012 by the Board of Regents of the University of Nebraska Parts of chapter 2 were originally published as “Journey to the ‘Outside’: The U.S. Army on the Road to the Southwest,” New Mexico Historical Review 85, no. 4 (Fall 2010): 349–74. Copyright by the University of New Mexico Board of Regents. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission. Parts of chapter 7 were originally published as “Colonized Labor: Apaches and Pawnees as Army Workers,” Western Historical Quarterly 39 (Autumn 2008): 283–302. Copyright by the Western History Association. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America
Copyright © 2012. Nebraska. All rights reserved.
∞ Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Lahti, Janne. Cultural construction of empire: the U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico / Janne Lahti. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-8032-3252-5 (cloth: alk. paper) 1. Arizona — History, Military — 19th century. 2. New Mexico — History, Military — 19th century. 3. Frontier and pioneer life — Arizona. 4. Frontier and pioneer life — New Mexico. 5. Imperialism — Social aspects — Arizona — History — 19th century. 6. Imperialism — Social aspects — New Mexico — History — 19th century. 7. United States. Army — History — 19th century. 8. Military dependents — Arizona — History — 19th century. 9. Military dependents — New Mexico — History — 19th century. I. Title. f811.l35 2012 355.009791 — dc23 2012023629 Set in Sabon.
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
List of Illustrations
vii
Acknowledgments
ix
Introduction: A Colonizer Community in the Borderlands 1. From Apacheria to American Southwest 2. Journey to the “Outside”
33
3. The Place Facing Colonialism
64
4. Apaches in White Army Minds
110
5. Army Village as Middle-Class Living Space 6. Manual Labor and Leisure 7. Colonized Labor
180
245
253
Bibliography
313
337
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Index
150
217
Conclusion: An Empire Notes
17
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
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Copyright © 2012. Nebraska. All rights reserved. Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
Images
1. A street view of Tucson, Arizona
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2. A view overlooking Prescott, Arizona 3. Fort McDowell
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4. Lake Constance at Fort Grant
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5. Officers and wives at Fort Verde
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6. Sixth Cavalry soldiers at Fort Grant
204
7. Officers and families near Fort McDowell 8. Officers’ hunting party at Fort Grant 9. A group of Apache soldiers
210 213
227
Maps
xiv
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1. Southwest borderlands
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
Copyright © 2012. Nebraska. All rights reserved. Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
Copyright © 2012. Nebraska. All rights reserved.
Several institutions and many individuals helped me in making this project come true. The asla-Fulbright fellowship, together with funding from the Academy of Finland, enabled me to spend three semesters at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 2003–4. Time at unl proved invaluable for me as a young historian in general and for this study in particular. I not only had the opportunity to participate in excellent graduate courses and seminars but familiarized myself with the exciting avenues of intellectual inquiry that are postcolonialism and whiteness studies. I was lucky enough to conduct my primary source research in excellent facilities at unl’s Love Library. Dr. John Wunder and his family, alongside John Husmann and his wife Larae, helped us in getting settled in Lincoln, and I hope they all understand how much we appreciated their time and effort. At unl my biggest gratitude goes to John Wunder. His breadth of knowledge, ability to offer constructive criticism, and kindness and empathy serve as a model to all historians. Also, I owe a special credit to Margaret Jacobs and Michael Tate for their patience in hearing my ideas, their encouragement, and their thoughts on the West, colonialism, and the army. My appreciation also goes to Victoria Smith, David Wishart, Kenneth Winkle, and Peter Maslowski. A research fellowship from the Arizona Historical Society allowed me
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
Copyright © 2012. Nebraska. All rights reserved.
to conduct some additional archival research in the United States. In Tucson, James Turner and Bruce Dinges especially made me feel welcome in what was my first visit to the heartlands of old Apacheria. I value their comments and help. Some of the archival research for this book was already completed in 1998, when I, as an undergraduate, had the opportunity to study for a semester at the University of California, Berkeley. In hindsight it is easy to conclude that there are few better research libraries than the Bancroft Library on the Berkeley campus. Dr. Kerwin Klein and his reading seminar had much to do with why my interest in the American West developed into a professional scholarly investigation. In Finland and at the University of Helsinki my warmest thanks go to Markku Henriksson and Erkki Kouri for their supervision and for believing in me. Both have been very supportive of my research and have always found the time to help me and listen to what I had in mind. I also want to thank Markku Peltonen and Hannes Saarinen for their support. The fellowship from the Finnish Cultural Foundation gave me the opportunity to write my study full-time, whereas the University of Helsinki’s grant for finishing the doctoral dissertation enabled me to bring one crucial step of this process to a close. I am also appreciative of the financial assistance given by the History Department at the University of Helsinki, the Chancellor’s Travel Grant, and the Finish Doctoral School of History, which made many of my research and conference trips possible. I would like to pay tribute to the skill and intellectual sharpness of Dr. Andrés Reséndez, who served as my opponent during the dissertation defense. Michael Coleman and Pekka Hämäläinen also did an excellent job going through the text and suggesting many improvements. There are many others who read parts of the manuscript at some stage. I benefited greatly from their insightful evaluations and suggestions. Kevin Adams was of exceptional help during the early stages of this project. Of those not previously mentioned I wish to say thanks to Sherry Smith, Robert Wooster, Todd x
Acknowledgments
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
Copyright © 2012. Nebraska. All rights reserved.
Kerstetter, Lorraine McConaghy, Merry Ovnick, Colleen O’Neill, Ona Siporin, Durwood Ball, and Robin Walden. Naturally, all mistakes and errors left in the text are my own. For their observations during conference sessions, Erika Bsumek and Bruce Vandervort also deserve recognition. Also, thanks go to Joseph Wilder for his help. At the University of Nebraska Press Matthew Bokovoy deserves recognition for his sound and perceptive advice and for believing in this project. Matt and Elisabeth Chretien have had the patience to answer all my questions, no matter how silly, and the skill to explain in a thorough yet easily understandable manner the basics of the publishing process. Also, when it came time to select illustrations, cooperation with the Sharlot Hall Museum Archives in Prescott and the Arizona Historical Society in Tucson went as smoothly as one could ever hope. Libby Coyner, Scott Anderson, Kate Reeve, and Kathleen Yetman did a swift job in responding to my sometimes urgent inquiries and requests. During the finishing stages, the Academy of Finland’s Postdoctoral Fellowship allowed me to keep my full focus on this project. Finally, I wish to thank my parents for their love and support and my wife Sanna and our two children. Sofia and Juho grew up alongside this study and learned at a very young age that their father spent too much of his time working on “that” book and could not be disturbed. I hope they read the book some day.
Acknowledgments
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Copyright © 2012. Nebraska. All rights reserved. Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
ad
Fort Huachuca
Fort Grant
Silver City
Black Range
Fort Craig
Fort Cummings
Fort Bayard
Map 1. Southwest borderlands.
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook Chiricahua Reservation
Chiricahua Mountains
Fort Bowie
Clifton
Tombstone
Willcox
Fort Thomas
Dragoon Mountains
Fort Lowell Tucson
Camp Grant
White Mountains Mogollon Mountains
White Mountain/ San Carlos Reservation
il r o a d
Fort Apache
iver Camp Salt R San Carlos
Fort McDowell
Fort Verde
c Ra
Mogollon Rim
Atlantic & Pac ifi
iver la R Gi acific Rail ern P ro South
Yuma/ Arizona City
Gila City
Ver Whipple Barracks
Prescott Camp Date Creek
Ehrenberg
r
Fort Mojave
100 miles
r
Colorado Desert Fort Yuma
Mojave Desert
50
i ve to To n i n Bas
San Diego
Los Angeles
San Francisco
0
R de
Color ado Ri ve
ran d e Santa Fe
G
El Paso
Mesilla
Fort Selden
Fort Stanton
Pec os
Fort Union
ra n
de
Mescalero Reservation
Fort Marcy
oG Ri
DA EVA A N RR E I S Atchison, To p e k a , & Santa F e Rail road
Copyright © 2012. Nebraska. All rights reserved.
ver Ri
Ri
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A RR SIEDRE A M
A Colonizer Community in the Borderlands
In the colonies it is the policeman and the soldier who are the official, instituted go-betweens, the spokesmen of the settler and his rule of oppression. . . . The intermediary does not lighten the oppression, nor seek to hide the domination; he shows them up and puts them into practice with the clear conscience of an upholder of the peace; yet he is the bringer of violence into the home and into the mind of the native. —fr a n tz fa non, The Wretched of the Earth Truths are illusions about which one has forgotten that this is what they are.
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—fr iedr ich nietzsche, “On Truth and Lie”
In 1921 William Corbusier, a former army surgeon now in his seventies and in ailing health, returned for a visit to Arizona. Taking the railroad to Bowie, he stopped at the San Carlos Indian Agency. There the Apaches and Yavapais, former rulers Corbusier had fought against in the 1870s and 1880s, were confined in reservations and living in poverty, as the best lands had been taken by whites. “Most of them,” Corbusier judged, “had made very little progress.” Next he saw the Globe copper mines before driving by automobile to the Roosevelt Dam, a powerful symbol of civilization that
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
Copyright © 2012. Nebraska. All rights reserved.
had converted the Tonto Basin — through which Corbusier, in his words, “chased hostile Indians” in the 1870s — into a thirty-milelong lake. Old campsites were now buried under many feet of water. Continuing to Phoenix he stopped his car at a monument erected to a dead army comrade and spotted “the old Apache Trail which in May 1874, I climbed in many places, leading my horse.” During his tour Corbusier was able to compare the hardships of the past with what he understood as the progress of the present. Indians, rugged trails, wild nature, and warfare had made way for Anglos, railways, automobiles, extractive industries, and engineering marvels such as the Roosevelt Dam. The region that in the 1870s was still very much Apacheria had been transformed into the American Southwest. The indigenous homeland of the past was now a full member in the world’s most powerful industrial nation. Conquest had come at a hard price for Apacheria and its inhabitants, but for Corbusier and his fellow army men and women the new era represented civilization’s march over savage wilderness. According to their discourses, U.S. soldiers had saved the region and conquest had in fact been more like liberation.1 Over seventy years earlier, in 1846 the United States, then in the process of building its continental empire, fought a short war against Mexico. This conflict placed lands from Texas to the Pacific under U.S. rule. In New Mexico and Arizona, the United States found that formal control often meant little in an area dominated by powerful indigenous groups. Representing an intruder on indigenous lands, the U.S. Army engaged in a “second war of conquest” against the Apaches and Yavapais. The battles came to a close only with the famous surrender of Geronimo in 1886. For decades army officers, their dependents, and the enlisted men, born and raised in eastern United States or in Europe, found themselves in an unfamiliar physical terrain of deserts, valleys, and mountain ranges, fighting a war against people whose social divisions and culture they found difficult to comprehend and whose military skills and guerrillatype tactics frustrated them. Furthermore, white men and women 2
Introduction
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
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of the army were caught between an imperial center (eastern United States) — scarred and fatigued by a bloody civil war, focused on industrialization, and inclined to forget that the nation still had an army and ongoing wars — on one hand and a Hispanic-indigenous borderlands built on unfamiliar cultural foundations and natural geography on the other. Estranged, feeling abandoned by the general public in the East, uncertain of their social status, separated from a sense of purpose, dissatisfied with living so far away from home, frustrated by the everyday trials of colonial warfare and army life, and often unable to understand or value local ways of life in the colony, white army people sought to discover some justification and meaning to their mission and place value to their efforts. 2 With the official task of monopolizing violence for the U.S. regime, white army people were also interested in acquiring colonial authority, and they constructed identity, community, and power in discourse and in the social contexts of the everyday through difference. At the heart of colonialism, Partha Chatterjee argues, lies the rule of difference. In the view first brought to wide attention by Edward W. Said, colonizers, the agent of empire, constructed themselves and their others in relation to each other, and their own identity and character developed as a consequence of the form they gave to others. Preoccupied with explaining white privilege and their right to rule others, the colonizers gained in authority and collective identity when differentiating and ranking colonial peoples and places and establishing a vision of reality that promoted the difference between the familiar “us” and the strange “them.” This difference and colonizer superiority was built, codified, and maintained not only in discourse but in institutions and in the contours of everyday life, including travel and movement, public space, housing, and the domestic realm, as well as labor and leisure. The meanings of difference remained changing, flexible, and contested, as colonialism was never static or generic but displayed rich diversity and as the colonizers, with their limited power, produced less than successful hegemonic projects and formed tension-ridden and fractured Introduction
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communities whose boundaries had to be constantly reaffirmed and guarded. Where the lines of exclusion would be drawn — for example in terms of race or the respectability of personal or collective behavior — in any colony or community was not a given, but a product of differing views and negotiation.3 In the Southwest borderlands, officers, soldiers, and the army dependents categorized, assigned meaning and value, and created a social connection to the place facing colonialism — its landscapes, societies, peoples, and events — constructing power and identity for themselves in the process. They were interested not only in making the Southwest and its peoples understandable but also in controlling, reordering, and incorporating them. The product of army people’s writings, their “truth,” was subjective colonial knowledge or what one might call “white mythologies,” to revise a term from postcolonial theorist Robert J. C. Young.4 In their white mythologies, army people built hierarchies of difference where the colonized place and its peoples were portrayed and ranked in accordance to army needs and visions and in relation to the social and cultural norms at the imperial center. Those who penned the mythologies occupied a privileged position, holding their own beliefs, standards, and practices to be universally valid. Officers, dependents, and white soldiers painted themselves as powerful nation makers who struggled against the elements and penetrated an unwelcoming, exotic, and peripheral border region, liberating it from an era of decay and stagnation. Officers and their wives sought to place themselves at the top of colonial social hierarchies as a brave, refined, and respectable group who embodied progress and Anglo civilization. Empowering white army personnel, helping them to gain a sense of privilege and purpose, and justifying their invasion of other peoples’ land, army discourses made colonial warfare, the crushing of Apaches and the marginalization of Hispanics, and the reordering of the supposedly “peripheral” colonized region to better suit the national model seem right, even necessary. The imposed racial social hierarchy grounded on white superiority, the “othering” of colonial peoples, and the 4
Introduction
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
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beginnings of a massive exploitation of natural resources fueled by outside investments was camouflaged as progress. The army in the borderlands never formed a monolithic or united mass of colonizers. It constituted a community, an artificial imagined collective whose members were bound together by the same institution of violence and shared military goals and sense of mission but torn apart by class and race divisions. Scattered across Arizona and New Mexico, dozens of army villages, officially called forts or camps, formed living spaces where the life strategies and visions of the army elite of white officers and their dependents and the working class of white, black, and indigenous enlisted men defined community culture and dynamics.5 Army villages functioned as important sites for building and displaying identity, power, and distinctions. In everyday life officers and their dependents had ambitions to gain colonial authority and establish themselves as the cream of the white middle class by setting an example of civilized life in the colony. They transplanted eastern values and practices in an effort to maintain a lifestyle fit for middle-class whites and to turn the army villages into “islands of civilization.” In the process officers and their wives used leisure, living spaces, domestic life, and army journeys to showcase their class sensibilities and level of sophistication. In the end, many had to resort to compromises or readjust their goals, as the success of their efforts was not always what they had hoped. The identity of officers and their dependents also called for personal avoidance of manual labor and the power to get others to work for them. All enlisted soldiers were treated by the army as an underclass unfit for self-government. Their colonial privilege questioned, white soldiers were reduced into manual laborers and servants. They responded by deserting, working poorly, and building a rough yet liberating leisure world of their own. Locally hired indigenous soldiers functioned as colonized labor, a special racialized workforce characterized by the constant tension between integration and exclusion and between indigenous freedom and colonial control. In all, the army constituted a colonizer community, Introduction
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where boundaries of exclusion and privilege proved fluid and whose members produced projects characterized by ambitious goals, frustration, partial success, and renegotiation. This study, interested in the social worlds, labor regimes, and culture of the U.S. Army in post–Civil War Arizona and New Mexico, is not a military history in the common understanding of the term but rather an exploration into the minds and actions of a group of white colonizers executing the expansion of an empire.6 It not only approaches army people in the Southwest borderlands as a community of colonizers but holds that colonialism should be seen as a process where critically interrogating white colonizers’ identity and mentality is as crucial as capturing the colonized (subaltern) voice or investigating the battles fought and dispossessions enacted.7 To evaluate the nature and impact of colonialism, scholars need to understand how white colonizers thought and operated — how they built their power, justified their actions, categorized peoples and places, and made colonialism appear less harmful and exploitative. To do this it is necessary not only to discuss both army representations and actions but to map the connections between the two. Although Sherry L. Smith forcefully pointed it out more than a decade ago, it often seems less than obvious among the academic mainstream today that the army offers an excellent laboratory for studies of social history. Even less understood is the notion that the army has much potential in labor history and cultural history of colonialism. Arguably, the “frontier” army continues to be a less than trendy subject among academic historians. A quick survey of recent Southwest and borderlands history — which has broken new ground and introduced more sophisticated understandings concerning image making, travel writings, and the meanings of whiteness, race, and ethnic identity — shows that the army has at best been given a small side role in the story, but more often it has remained completely off the scholarly radar. For instance, a new study on the making of Indians, Mexicans, and Anglos in Arizona that includes in its discussion 6
Introduction
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government officials drawing boundaries of race and class seems to have forgotten the army, while a recent investigation of Germans in nineteenth-century New Mexico barely mentions one of the largest groups of Germans in the area: the U.S. Army enlisted men.8 Furthermore, while historians of the U.S. West have long been fascinated with overland migration or have written about European visitors, such as the famous British explorer Sir Richard Burton, the army remains largely absent in most descriptions of travel in the West, and army texts are not usually recognized as travel writings. For instance, one recent history of travels in the Southwest includes only one army narrative, thus overlooking the vast amount of army texts pertaining to the subject.9 It is probable that historians of the U.S. West in general still erroneously cling to perceptions of soldiers as men of action engaged in Indian warfare and isolated from the western society, seeing them as a group largely unconnected to what Samuel Truett calls “borderland dreams” or “industrial frontiers.”10 The reasons for this lack of interest might have something to do with military historians themselves. Often army history has been connected to top-down stories and outdated approaches that celebrate the army’s cause.11 Equally often, and in some ways quite naturally, much of army history has been preoccupied with the many aspects and details of military campaigns and battles or the lives of key army commanders. Army history has appeared conservative and peripheral to the larger field, where the interest for the past twenty years or so has been on critical analyses of race, class, and gender and on environmental history and ordinary people’s everyday lives. The American West has been approached, in the words of influential New Western historian Patricia Nelson Limerick, both as a “place undergoing conquest and never escaping its consequences” and as “one of the great meeting zones of the planet.”12 Military historians need to address more fully, and in all their varied, grimmer, and complex meanings, the two central themes of recent western history: conquest (and its legacies) and meeting grounds. Although several interesting studies have begun to enlarge the scope of research Introduction
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on army-civilian relations, economic history, the army’s noncombat role, and even architecture in the army villages, much still needs to be done.13 One of the little-discussed sides of army life that would need critical analysis is travel. While military historians have studied the exploits of army explorers, described conditions in the field during military campaigns, or at times explored army wives’ travels, the journeys that officers, their wives, and enlisted men regularly embarked on to reach their western stations have been the subject of limited interest.14 In most historical works, the army is readily present in the West. It never arrives to a specific place from anywhere; there is no journey or travel writing, and it seems as if army members did not have anything to say about how they got to different locations.15 In reality, white army men and women traveled from one region to the next often and wrote voluminously of their journeys. Studies of black soldiers have been in the forefront, opening the discussion on race and the army.16 But, apart from a recent work by Kevin Adams, the social worlds and identities of white soldiers and officers — especially the varied aspects and intersections of whiteness, class, manhood, and power — remain less explored, although the army offers a natural field for that kind of investigation.17 Much of army history has omitted the contested and constructed meanings of whiteness and the intersections of race and class in army identity and community. In recent years whiteness studies have demonstrated that race is a social construction, a public fiction, and that whites are not born, but they are made through factors specific to time, place, and class.18 Further complicating of what being “white” actually means, Matthew Frye Jacobson has shown that during the mid-1800s massive immigration of “undesirable” Europeans fractured all-inclusive formulations of whiteness in the United States into a hierarchy of white ethnicities with an emphasis on degrees of difference. This hierarchy reflected the perceived supremacy of the native-born Anglo-Saxons, while questioning the whiteness of many white ethnic groups, especially the Irish and the Jews.19 In the Southwest borderlands, race, whiteness, and class 8
Introduction
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interpenetrated when structuring the army experience. For officers, dependents, and white soldiers, racial privilege was significant but so were perceptions of class, and they used both as sorting techniques when constructing their identities and building hierarchies of the world around them. It was racial otherness that primarily defined both the Apaches and the Hispanics in army eyes. While white army personnel often painted Apaches as a racially distinctive enemy, an antithesis of whiteness, they mainly excluded Hispanics as nonwhite on the grounds that their racially mixed ethnicity had degenerated their Spanish blood. All army texts certainly were not blind to class divisions among the Hispanics and the Apaches, but in general they placed less significance on class when codifying the difference of these two groups. On the other hand, although there were many white immigrants among the soldiers and civilians in the border region, class usually overshadowed ethnicity, as army people described and ranked Anglos. Still, drawing a too-rigid boundary to separate race and class as markers of social differentiation or to simply say that race trumped class, or vice versa, in some particular sector of the army experience is risky. In army usage racial and class categorizations lacked the fixed permanence they often became associated with in the twentieth century. In army minds, race was not simply the same as skin color but rather a set of more or less permanent traits and characteristics, and class did not simply equal social position or labor status but was also something made visible in behavior, taste, and character. Class and race were acted out on an everyday basis, and those who failed to act, for instance, white or middle class, could risk losing their status. For example, while in many army texts the region’s prospectors and gamblers were classified as lower-class people, in some ways the army also hinted that these people were actually jeopardizing their whiteness by acting in an uncivilized manner. There were also concerns about imperial contamination inside the military, about falling out of class or race because of the harmful influence of the colony. On the other hand, some in the army implied that the Apaches could possibly escape Introduction
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their racial status as antiwhite and, with the help of the civilizing process, become clones of white people. What the army experience reveals is that whiteness and class need to be analyzed together, by connecting lines between them and by treating them not as fixed or timeless categorizations but as changing and interpenetrating factors. While several historians of the post–Civil War army have noted that manual labor often took much of the soldiers’ time, they usually have not approached soldiers’ lives through the medium of labor. 20 Enlisted men represented a group who had voluntarily contracted their work output to the federal government, but whose daily lives were more similar to that of common laborers than to any ideal of professional soldier. Soldiers were only randomly trained in military skills because labor assignments or military campaigning took most of their time. Both white and black troops worked as servants for the officers and their families or sweated constructing and maintaining military villages, roads, and telegraph lines. Many soldiers felt cheated and misguided, thinking that the realities of army life were not what they had signed up for. Also, even colonial warfare often consisted of guarding some strategic location, which usually meant a plethora of labor chores for soldiers. War also included another line of soldier work: actual military campaigning, which in Apacheria meant exhausting and frequently fruitless chases punctuated by the rare opportunity for combat. The discussion of soldiers as workers and soldiering as work not only widens the boundaries of what counts as work and who are regarded as workers in the history of the American West but establishes the multiracial, instead of biracial, character of the army by including the indigenous soldiers. 21 So far histories discussing the lives of the common soldier have ignored the indigenous presence, while many studies of army campaigns often note indigenous contributions in passing, merely reminding readers that indigenous men participated in the action on both sides. 22 Studies that discuss their experience more fully have treated indigenous men not as workers or soldiers but as army’s sidekicks, as “allies,” “auxiliaries,” 10
Introduction
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“friendlies,” or, most often, “scouts,” using the term widely circulated in the discourses of nineteenth-century army personnel. 23 Indicating that indigenous duty was mainly reconnaissance, the term “scout” does not adequately describe what most indigenous men actually did in the army. Moreover, while a surging scholarly interest in Native American labor history has demonstrated that indigenous people actively sought work and used it for negotiating the changes brought on by the U.S. invasion, these studies have usually not integrated indigenous soldiers into their narratives.24 In the nineteenthcentury U.S. West, the army was an option to armed resistance and overflowing reservations, and in many cases it introduced indigenous men to wage labor and the American labor market. Recognizing that, like black and white troops, indigenous soldiers deserve to be discussed as workers and as members of the army community does not mean that the indigenous work experience or position was similar to other soldiers. In fact, it was difference that made the indigenous soldiers colonized labor. While army historians have discussed the opinions officers voiced regarding certain regions or indigenous groups, they have paid scant attention to the paradigms of postcolonial theory. 25 They have not approached the army as a group of colonizers, embraced the subjective representational nature of history, or fully investigated the links between army discourses and power. In short, historians have not written an army history centered on representations, colonial knowledge, and difference. Involving a critical stance, a close but suspicious reading of sources, and the asking of awkward questions, postcolonial theory questions the European narrative of progress and modernity and the assumption that the western point of view is normative and objective. The standard postcolonial premise is that knowledge is not innocent but connected to operations of power and in service of colonial conquest. Postcolonial theorists, most notably Edward Said, have shown that the power of colonizers was bound to, created, and sustained by the discourses of colonial peoples, places, and projects that colonizers themselves constructed and imposed Introduction
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on the minds of the colonizer and colonized alike. Importantly, the discourses, Said writes, could “create not only knowledge but also the very reality they appear to describe.” He also points out that what structured and enabled the discourses was “the idea of European identity as a superior one in comparison with all the non-European peoples and cultures.”26 While acknowledging that postcolonial studies have invigorated historical research, historians such as Dane Kennedy and Frederick Cooper have criticized it for favoring ahistorical analyses of literature over a thorough understanding of historical contexts and for producing a static and abstract generic colonialism that sees the colonizers as an “undifferentiated, omnipotent entity” with totalizing designs and fails to appreciate the uncertainties and inconsistencies in colonial projects. 27 In historical research, analyses of representations should never replace all discussion of events or ignore change over time. When discussing the army community, historians should balance attention between discursive representations (army stories) and social experience (army actions) and describe the construction of army identities and relations in discourse and in the activities of army members. Colonizers’ texts always reflect not only the specific historical contexts in which they were produced but also the personal and group agendas and motives of those who penned them. Therefore, colonialism needs to be explained as a place- and timespecific phenomenon grounded on historical realities, with an understanding of the peoples producing colonial power. 28 Lately scholars studying colonialism — Ann Laura Stoler, Catherine Hall, and Antoinette Burton, among others — have brought attention to the role of the intimate and the domestic in the grounding of colonial rule and identity as well as on the linkages between the colony and the metropole. Ann Stoler especially has stressed the significance of private lives, the management of the household, and the domains of the intimate in creating, displaying, and securing colonizer identity and in defining the cultural distinctions on which the memberships of different communities and racial groups 12
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relied. Colonizer communities, Stoler writes, were socially fractious and politically fragile, and they created cultures — “homespun creations in which European food, dress, housing, and morality were given new meaning in specific colonial social orders” — for cultivating their difference from others in the colonized region and maintaining social distinctions among themselves.29 It was far from irrelevant how living space in the army villages was organized or how army members lived, what kind of homes they had, what they ate, and how they worked, traveled, spent leisure time, or consumed money. The construction of a specific social order inside the villages and the orchestration of living space, domestic life, and leisure allowed officers and wives to make a visible statement of superiority in everyday life. For enlisted men, labor and living conditions set them apart from the officers, and leisure functioned as their principal realm for discovering social freedom. It was Edward Said’s ideas that brought the idea of colonialism from distant places to the heart of European culture. More recently, by emphasizing the transnational interconnectedness of imperial exchanges, or when urging a critical return to the connections between metropole and colony, or race and nation, scholars have demonstrated how the imperial centers and the colonies made each other, the links between them being relations of power.30 Thus, what happened in the Southwest borderlands was not isolated to the border region but connected to the imperial center in numerous ways. For example, white army people built their identity and power in relation to the colony and the imperial center. They wanted status in the local social order but also sought to claim national recognition and historical importance for themselves through their achievements in “liberating” the border region. Their desire for power and prestige in the colony was linked to their position as outcasts in the imperial center. In other words, the army, shunned in the East, wanted to reclaim importance through its exploits in the western colonies. Also, when army men and women moved back and forth between the colony and the metropole, their ideas of race and class and the Introduction
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colonial knowledge they produced moved with them. Officers were among the first white Americans with college-level training to move to the Southwest. Many of them, enjoying personal or family ties to politicians, business owners, and newspaper journalists in the East, tried to make themselves heard and actively circulated their views. They published memoirs, engaged in extensive personal correspondence, and contributed to professional journals and various local and national papers.31 Army experiences and discourses also provide an example of the process where white America defines itself and its others through encounters with peoples in what to Americans represent distant lands. The national character of the United States and the identity of white America was and is even today to a significant degree constructed through encounters — literary, real, and imagined — with different peoples in various places around the world. Often this encounter has taken place during a time of crisis, war, or conquest. In the twentieth century, Americans, for instance, carved an understanding of themselves and others through involvement in the two world wars and the bipolar age of the cold war, while in the post9/11 world Americans reassess the meanings of self and other in places such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Displaying less emphasis on chronological narrative, this work is mainly thematic, the chapters exploring structures of thought and human interaction and the workings of power. Each chapter functions like a window that offers a view into a house that is the U.S. Army experience in post–Civil War Arizona and New Mexico. The first chapter sets the historical context for the discussion of the army community through a short history of Apacheria. It explores the changes in the geopolitical power of the Apaches, the creation of Hispanic-indigenous borderlands, the pivotal moments in the U.S.-Apache wars, and the nature of the colonial regime the United States established. The next three chapters assess the army relationship with the 14
Introduction
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border region, focusing on social relations and lived experience, as well as on patterns of knowledge production. Chapter 2 looks to army people’s origins and status in the East before describing army journeys to Arizona and New Mexico. It discusses travel methods and routes, the significance of class en route, and army representations of the journey. The discussion of army travels and the investigation of army narratives establishes journeys as sites in the production of colonial power and demonstrates how the journey to colonial stations — in addition to daily life in the army villages — produced class identity and the learning of social place. The next chapter turns attention to white army personnel’s representations of the Apache heartlands — the landscapes, nonindigenous peoples, and settlements of south-central Arizona and New Mexico — by discussing the army’s social relations with the Anglos and Hispanics in the area. It also maps how army people produced the past, present, and future of the region and asks what role they reserved for themselves in all this. The important question that runs through this chapter is how army writings represented the borderland’s potential for white futures and the reasons behind the changes that took place in much of army representations in the 1880s. Chapter 4 places the spotlight on the army’s production of enemies. It investigates how and why white army people made the Apaches the colonized other and highlights the relationship between colonial knowledge (army stories of Apaches) and governance (the army’s acts of violence and management targeting the Apaches). This chapter ends with a short discussion on the impact of colonial knowledge on Apache history, and how the representations produced by white colonizers have influenced the approaches and terminology used by historians. The last three chapters shift the discussion more firmly to the contested dynamics and intimate social fabrics within the army community. Focusing on officers and their wives, chapter 5 discusses the orchestration and representation of public and domestic space in the army villages. The next chapter looks at life and social order in the army villages through the lenses of labor and leisure. The principal Introduction
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aim is not to describe or list all types of labor and leisure activities, nor to count their prevalence on a monthly or yearly basis, but rather to discuss how labor and leisure structured the army community and helped define the collective identities and differing cultures of the white elite of officers and dependents on the one hand and white enlisted men on the other. The final chapter discusses the implications of the Apaches — the white army people’s “principal enemy” — becoming workers in the multiracial army. While pointing out how the army used the Apaches and exploring the discourses white army personnel penned of the Apache workforce, this piece is also interested in how Apaches caught in the margins of empire actively sought ways to influence and counter the reshuffling of power in their world by working in the army. Sources in this book were used to recover the experiences of past persons and to understand the construction of knowledge, identity, and relations in discourse. When appropriate I also paid attention to silences in the process of historical production, seeing silencing as an activity in the arsenal of the colonizers. 32 Sources were examined to uncover no absolute truths, but to illustrate subjective experiences with an emphasis on the group rather than on the individual. This investigation approaches a person as a representative of his or her race, class, gender, nation, or some other socially constructed collective first and as an individual second. Partially subduing individuality for group collectives allows for a social reading of representations and for discussions of power between, and within, the army community and the colony that surrounded it, thus providing structure for the investigation of the army experience. In all, sources tell about the character of the army community, not of the army institution. They describe the peoples and their ambitions, fears, mentalities, relations, divisions, and hierarchies — the manifestations of power among a certain colonizer body.
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Introduction
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It is significant that the first strong federal presence in the West arrived in the form of conquering armies.
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—r ich a r d w hit e, It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own
The United States gained control of much of North America by purchasing, negotiating, and engaging in a series of aggressive wars. Intoxicated by a vision that it was destined to dominate the continent, relying on market capitalism and white supremacy camouflaged as Manifest Destiny, the United States conquered Mexican lands ranging from Texas to California. Ending the U.S.-Mexican War, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and the Gadsden Purchase in 1853 made New Mexico and what would become Arizona officially part of the U.S. Empire.1 For the United States to control these Southwest borderlands of its expanded empire, however, two wars, not one, were needed. The second conflict the Americans waged was against the area’s indigenous powers: Navajos, Yavapais, and, most significantly, Apaches. Militarily, it was the Apaches who represented the leading power in midcentury borderlands. Driven out of the southern plains in the 1700s by the Comanches, the Apaches had shifted their heartlands west by regrouping and reorienting their trading and raiding power against the line of Spanish-indigenous
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forces stretching from Sonora to West Texas. Until 1886, when the remnants of the Apaches’ geopolitical influence was crushed by U.S. and Mexican forces, Euro-American powers remained contested by the Apaches, whom they could not destroy, control, or ignore.
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Apache Power
The fragmented and multilayered Apache society was built on extended families, bands, clans, and groups who shared a similar culture and language and an interconnected living space, but no widespread common political authority or social sphere. By the mid-1800s, the Jicarillas, Mescaleros, Chiricahuas, and Western Apaches were usually counted as the main Apache divisions. 2 These groups were never homogenous social units, and all included a number of subdivisions. Anthropologist Morris Opler divided the Chiricahuas into three major bands, the Chihenne, the Chokonen, and the Nednhi, while ethnographer Grenville Goodwin counted five Western Apache groups — San Carlos, Cibecue, White Mountain, Northern Tonto, and Southern Tonto — which he further portioned into twenty bands and numerous local groups. At the bottom of Apache organization were extended families that formed the main productive unit and toward which a person felt most obligations and loyalty. Beyond the family, Apaches were connected through complex kin and alliance networks to those in local groups, bands, or clans. Referring to a certain geographic location, the band was the main political unit, with a specific name and leaders. Apache social groups were historical units that changed over time and integrated new members. Communities could diffuse and people regroup because of personal feuds, war, disease, or some other reason. The level of interactions between Apache bands and divisions displayed considerable variation. Some relations were characterized by intermarriage, trade, and close alliances, others by avoidance and animosity. Any strong Apache unity, or a concept of an Apache nation, so regularly voiced by white colonizers looking for permanent political designations and fixed ethnographic categories, remained a fantasy in the nineteenth-century 18
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colonial turmoil, existing only in the minds of those Americans who felt threatened by the Apaches’ military power.3 Ethnogenesis and change resulting from increased competition and violence brought on by the destabilizing impact of European invasions characterized Apache life throughout the postcontact period. Wars, slave raids, captive adoption, disease, forced labor, and missionaries’ efforts of conversion made instability and adaptation the hallmarks of Apache existence. In the 1600s the nucleus of Apache power had been located on the plains of New Mexico and Texas, their influence reaching from Sonora all the way to what today is Nebraska. During the next century the expansionist Comanches challenged the Apaches on the plains for the control of crucial natural resources, New Mexico’s markets, and the flourishing trade routes between New Mexico and the horticultural prairie villages in the East. The Apaches were vulnerable to Comanche cavalry attacks and increasingly the main targets of accelerating slave raids. Some Apache bands vanished altogether, while others regrouped or retreated. For example, the Lipan Apaches, whose raiding and hunting economies had frustrated the Spanish in Texas, saw their power decline and numbers diminish. They were forced to relocate southward, seeking alliances with the Spanish and integrating into other Apache groups.4 In New Mexico, the Spanish society, consisting of a mix of Europeans, Africans, and indigenous peoples, was largely confined to a narrow strip along the upper Rio Grande around Santa Fe and Taos.5 Until Mexican independence in 1821 ended the Spanish era, New Mexico remained plagued by a shortage of European colonists; troubled economics; a peripheral position in the empire; concern over the increased influence of other European powers, mainly the French, whose presence in Louisiana deeply troubled Spanish officials; and, perhaps most importantly, powerful and expansionist indigenous neighbors. Utes and Navajos flanked Santa Fe from the north and the west, the Comanche Empire stretched east all the way to the Texas plains, and Apaches were all around New Mexico’s From Apacheria to American Southwest
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Spanish settlements. In an effort to control their indigenous neighbors, the Spanish altered between the use of force and networks of trust and dependence built through trade, alliances, and incorporation. The Spanish introduced new products, such as horses and weapons, and built a demand for slave labor. This unleashed changes that unsettled and transformed indigenous life far beyond the immediate Spanish reach. Indigenous groups competing for horses, grasslands, material goods, and captives resulted in a world characterized by violence, where trade and cooperation coexisted very closely with raiding and slavery.6 In the late 1700s southern New Mexico and northern Sonora and Nueva Vizcaya represented the Apache heartland. The western edge of Apacheria was set against the Yavapais, Akimel O’odham (Pimas), and Tohono O’odham (Papagos) in and around the area where the Gila and Salt Rivers meet. From there Apacheria extended through Sonora and Nueva Vizcaya toward West Texas and northeastern New Mexico. Although Apacheria shrank and was exposed in the East, it continued to expand southward as the Apaches centered their trading and raiding power from the 1750s onward. As a result of Apache raids, Spanish losses in Nueva Vizcaya alone, during a three-decade period, included thousands of deaths, abandonment of settlements, huge losses in livestock, paralysis of the mining industry, and the decline of commerce.7 Apaches often operated in small, independent cells, constructing complex, changing, and fragile relations with their semisedentary indigenous neighbors and Hispanic settlements.8 A group of Apaches could enjoy successful trade with one Spanish town while raiding the village next to it. Apaches went after horses, crops, cattle, manufactured goods, and captives. Raiding and trading played an integral part in Apache economy and culture, as animals, captives, and goods became symbols of wealth and status. Still, not all Apache groups practiced extensive raiding. Many sought a significant portion of their subsistence from hunting, gathering, and farming. Also, some Western Apaches lived fairly isolated from European influences or contacts well into the mid-1800s. 20
From Apacheria to American Southwest
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By the late 1700s Apaches effectively controlled southern New Mexico, making travel between Santa Fe and El Paso precarious for the Spanish. Apaches also stopped the advancement of the Spanish Empire north in Sonora, thus keeping the territory that today is Arizona mainly Spanish-free. Spanish authorities sought to halt Apache pressure by punitive expeditions and, after realizing their ineffectiveness and cost, by gifts and food. This tactic resulted in temporary peace and in the settlement of some Apache bands in Spanish “reservations” in Sonora and Nueva Vizcaya.9 The fragile coexistence collapsed and the conflict intensified when Mexican officials could not afford to maintain the reservations. What little was gained by the Spanish in northern Sonora was almost all lost during the Mexican era. Sopori, Canoa, and Calabazas emptied, and in 1849 Apaches forced the abandonment of Tubac, leaving Tucson as the only Hispanic settlement. Even Tucson, with its population of 465 Mexicans and 486 “Manso” Apaches in 1831, was as much an Apache community as it was Hispanic. Apaches also depopulated much of the Sonoran countryside, pushing Mexican settlement southward, but also suffering considerable losses themselves.10 At the time of the U.S. invasion, the Apaches remained in control of the territory ranging from the Pecos River in New Mexico to the junction of Salt and Gila Rivers in Arizona, and from north-central Sonora and Chihuahua to central New Mexico.
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U.S.-Apache Wars
Testifying to the violent nature of U.S. expansion, the army not only was the main representative of the federal government in the West but in many instances functioned as the engine of American expansion. It was actively involved in the exploration of “new” areas, provided relief for white emigrants, built roads and telegraph lines, guarded railroad construction, offered protection for mines and ranches, and aided civilian law enforcement. The military also promoted the spread of white settlement by other means. According to David Smits, it was systematically involved in the near destruction of the From Apacheria to American Southwest
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buffalo, which greatly facilitated U.S. conquest of the plains. The army also went to places whites had not reached, trusting that military presence would lure in settlers who saw profitable business opportunities in the many army villages. Most important, however, the army sought to gain the monopoly of violence for the U.S. regime.11 From the country’s inception the military had threatened, fought, removed, or guarded any group who was seen to oppose American interests or who refused to submit and hand over its lands. Much of continental conquest was accomplished by disease, railroads, and the sheer numbers of white colonizers who took the lands and used them to support settler societies and extractive industries, but it was the army, as the enforcer of colonial order, that made certain that the United States had no competition for sovereignty in the various regions of the continent. During colonization, it was usually the army, not the local militia or police, whose job it was to use force against indigenous peoples if they left their prison camp–like reservations where the army often had first concentrated them during the U.S.-indigenous wars. Americans began to penetrate Apacheria in 1821, after Mexico abolished Spanish restrictions against foreign trade and residents. Stretching between New Mexico and Missouri, the Santa Fe Trail became the main avenue for American commerce and economic conquest, reorienting the region toward the United States. According to Andrés Reséndez, the economies of Mexico and the United States “were as different as night and day during the first half of the nineteenth century.” Between 1800 and 1860 Mexico’s total income declined 10.5 percent, whereas that of the United States rose 1,270.4 percent. The United States, enjoying a string of economic booms, experienced revolutions in industry and transportation. Demographically, Mexico remained at six million people, while the United States grew from five to thirty-two million. As Gen. Stephen Kearny’s Army of the West marched to Santa Fe in 1846, Mexico’s north was in practice already incorporated into the fast-growing and dynamic U.S. economy. American merchants had gained control of 22
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the region’s markets, being able to supply New Mexico with products unavailable from other sources.12 From the Apache perspective American traders at first represented a new opportunity for selling property stolen from Mexico and for acquiring a plethora of manufactured items, including more efficient weapons. Even the army looked like a potential ally in the struggle against Mexico. But as more whites arrived into the Apache heartlands, Apache-Anglo relations deteriorated. Newcomers disrupted Apache life by setting up permanent bases (overland trail stations, army villages, mining camps, ranches, and towns), depleting the game, and interfering with Apache raiding in Mexico. More often they also viewed the Apaches as inferior beings who stood in the way of civilization. Some Americans were concerned that the Apaches would block the overland routes to the gold rush in California and permanently prevent settlement and the extraction of natural resources. As Anglos and Apaches increasingly began to see each other as competition, the treaties that early prospectors and entrepreneurs had made with local Apache bands proved easily broken, and sporadic episodes of violence erupted more frequently. It was not only the Apaches desire for American goods, obtained increasingly by raiding, but their independence and military power that made them targets for U.S. aggression.13 In late 1850s and early 1860s Yavapais and Western Apaches faced an influx of white prospectors in south-central Arizona, while the Chiricahuas repeatedly clashed with gold-hungry miners who hovered in and around Santa Rita del Cobre and Pinos Altos. The Chiricahuas saw volunteer soldiers capture, torture, and murder one of their most influential leaders, Mangas Coloradas. In another incident the U.S. Army tried to arrest another widely respected Chiricahua leader, Cochise. Suspected of stealing some cattle and kidnapping a young boy, Cochise claimed innocence and managed to escape. His relatives were not so lucky, and the soldiers executed them after negotiations with Cochise, who in turn had captured some whites, did not lead to a result.14 From Apacheria to American Southwest
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As the second war of conquest gained in intensity, it became apparent that projecting military force onto an area that lacked infrastructure, railroad connections, and large masses of white colonizers, and that offered a terrain and adversary unlike the U.S. Army had ever encountered, was proving easier said than done for the federal government. Further complicating matters, American authorities lacked a central focus in the Southwest for much of the period. Federal presence was interrupted from the start of the Civil War until 1867, as the regular troops went east to fight, leaving the conquest of the borderlands to local volunteers. Organizationally, Arizona belonged to the military department of New Mexico before being transferred to the military department of California in 1865. Arizona had been divided into five semi-independent military districts in 1867, but a year later the number of districts was two. In 1869 Arizona, which then included southern California, formed a single district, but the next year it was made into a separate department. Furthermore, as Robert Wooster points out, the army and the federal government conspicuously failed to formulate an overall policy for dealing with the Indians during the post–Civil War era. The army’s high command not only was busy with inner rivalries but regarded conflicts against indigenous peoples as something less than “real” wars, which were understood as conflicts with European powers. All this, in addition to insufficient supplies, poor communications (no telegraph crossed the borderlands until the mid-1870s and no railroads reached it until the late 1870s), and the often less than satisfactory cooperation between various commands and branches of government, made for a difficult conquest.15 To complicate the situation for the invaders, the Apaches were not vulnerable to any particular food source, as were the equestrian buffalo hunters of the plains, who faced a catastrophe when the buffalo herds were nearly exterminated and when whites occupied key spots of nutritious grasslands and river bottoms necessary for the tribes’ large horse herds. The elimination of the mainstay of indigenous life was more difficult with the Apaches. 24
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During the late 1860s the army’s tactics of search and destroy brought violence into the lives of many Apaches and, together with Apache raiding, led to a cycle of vicious violence in an atmosphere filled with racial antagonism and desire for vengeance. One of the more notorious examples of colonial violence took place in 1871, when a joint force of Hispanics, whites, and Tohono O’odham Indians from Tucson surprised and slaughtered an Apache encampment near Camp Grant, murdering upward of one hundred Apaches and stealing dozens of children.16 Frustrated that the Apaches had yet to submit themselves to U.S. control, but also appalled by outrages like the massacre at Camp Grant, the federal government planned new initiatives in Apacheria in the early 1870s. First, government’s emissaries Vincent Colyer and Gen. Oliver O. Howard toured the region and made reservation pacts with various groups. Hurt by chronic warfare and dwindling resources, Cochise’s Chokonens accepted the offer to settle near the Mexican border, Chihennes were ordered to Tularosa and then to Warm Springs (Ojo Caliente), the Mescaleros got a reservation in eastern New Mexico, and most of the Western Apaches were to live at the White Mountain Reservation at San Carlos, while some Tontos joined the Rio Verde Reservation established for the Yavapais. Second, targeting those Western Apaches and Yavapais who chose not to come in because they did not want to give up their freedom and place themselves under U.S. control, because they considered reservation conditions — poor quality of land, disease, and malnutrition — life threatening, or because they did not know they were expected to surrender, the army launched winter offensives in 1872. Operations stretched from the Santa Maria River to the Salt River and the Tonto Basin, as mobile military units targeted villages, food sources, horses, and all material property. The campaigns destroyed some Apache and Yavapai groups and drove others on the run until they succumbed to hunger and exposure or accepted reservation confinement.17 In 1875 there were practically no free Yavapais and only a few free Apaches left on U.S. soil. Apacheria was fast turning From Apacheria to American Southwest
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into an occupied homeland, the American Southwest. Some Chiricahuas still remained free in the Sierra Madres in Mexico. The remote reaches of the Sierra Madre represented the small patch that remained of the once-extensive Apacheria. Having seemingly won the war, the federal government advocated concentration. The Rio Verde and Chiricahua Reservations were terminated, and reluctant Tontos and Yavapais driven to San Carlos, as were Chiricahuas from Arizona and New Mexico and many Western Apaches from Fort Apache. This proved a disastrous policy. Many refused to go, while others escaped the first chance they got, fearing what was going to happen to them and suspicious of the government that had betrayed them. Life at San Carlos often proved hard. Not only did bands and tribes who disliked one another have to live in proximity, but the soil was too often inadequate for subsistence, rations short, and agents corrupt. In addition, the government subjected Apaches to various “civilizing” policies that aimed to dismantle Apache identity, sociopolitical organization, and culture. One disillusioned Apache leader, Victorio, detested San Carlos and tried to persuade the government to allow his band to live near their homes in the Ojo Caliente area. The government stubbornly refused and ordered Victorio to return to San Carlos. He could not live there. Angry and frustrated, he started a guerrilla campaign that shocked the borderlands. Thousands of troops from both sides of the border chased Victorio’s outfit, usually gaining minimal results. It was the Mexicans who finally destroyed Victorio and most of his group in a battle at Tres Castillos on October 1880.18 At San Carlos things went from bad to worse. A messianic Ghost Dance movement led by Noch-ay-del-klinne, a Western Apache shaman, worried federal officials who imagined that the shaman was preaching a call to arms against all whites. The government decided to solve the matter by arresting the shaman. On August 1881 a column of cavalry from Fort Apache set out for the shaman’s village on Cibecue Creek. On its way back with Noch-ay-del-klinne in custody, a fight erupted between the white troops and the shaman’s Apache 26
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followers. Soon a fear of a general uprising swept across the region, and the army overreacted with a show of force as troops from all directions poured into the Southwest. Many terrified and suspicious Chiricahuas fled the reservation, while some Western Apaches refused to surrender and hid in the Tonto Basin country. In the summer of 1882 the army crushed the latter in the Battle of Big Dry Wash.19 During the 1880s the military’s hunts became increasingly ineffective against small Apache groups who, in their quest to live outside white control, often made rapid raids on U.S. soil to release their relatives, capture Apache women from the reservation, or obtain guns, ammunition, supplies, and horses and then hid in the Sierra Madre. For instance, during the summer of 1881 the remnants of Victorio’s group led by Nana rode a thousand miles in southern New Mexico and Arizona. These men were “willing to fight it out. They felt there was not much use in living,” one Apache later told historian Eve Ball. Dan Thrapp claims that Nana’s group killed fifty Americans, captured hundreds of horses and mules, fought several skirmishes with the soldiers — winning most of them — and eluded more then one thousand soldiers and civilians chasing them, before returning to the Sierra Madre.20 Similar skillful Chiricahua strikes followed in 1883 and 1885. Despite the campaigns for subsistence and women, there is little to suggest that the relatively small and warfatigued group of Apaches in the Sierra Madre planned to reclaim residence in their now-occupied southern Arizona or New Mexico homelands. At this time the Sierra Madre represented a preferred place of refuge: it had trees, grass, game, friends and relatives, and, they hoped, peace.21 The Apaches’ search for freedom proved shortlived as the U.S. Army, seeing Apache presence as a threat to the security of Arizona and New Mexico, invaded the Sierra Madre in 1883. Caught off guard, the Apaches agreed to try reservation life in the United States once more.22 For Apaches, submitting to colonial authority meant a culturally destructive, dehumanizing, and poverty-stricken existence on the reservations, where outsiders increasingly controlled their lives. Some From Apacheria to American Southwest
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of them, one Chiricahua remembered, knew they were “doomed” if they tried to live freely but still “preferred death to slavery and imprisonment.” Others felt that “we’ll not be killed. We’ll be free. What is life if we are imprisoned like cattle in a corral. We have been a wild, free people, free to come and go as we wished. How can we be caged?”23 In the spring of 1885, the circumstances at San Carlos, affected by the heated rivalry for reservation control between the civilian and military branches of the federal government, proved too much for the Chiricahua war leader and shaman Geronimo. Dissatisfied with what he saw was meaningless reservation life and fearing that the army would send him to the Alcatraz penitentiary or, worse, turn him over to local civilian authorities all too eager to hang him, Geronimo and his followers fled. The army went after them, but gained few immediate results. Only in early 1886 a column of Apache soldiers managed to convince Geronimo that it was in his best interest to talk with the region’s military commander Gen. George Crook. While the March 1886 peace conference convinced most Chiricahuas to surrender and face two years imprisonment in Florida, Geronimo had second thoughts and left with approximately forty followers. After a fruitless campaign, where thousands of soldiers chased the Apaches, of whom little more than ten were men, the army resorted to a peace overture when the region’s new commander, Gen. Nelson Miles, sent two Chiricahuas, Ki-e-ta and Martine, accompanied by Lt. Charles Gatewood, to negotiate with Geronimo in Mexico. They convinced Geronimo to surrender on September 4, 1886. The army removed Geronimo’s band, and in fact all those Apaches the army labeled Chiricahuas, to Florida as prisoners of war. Chiricahuas died in alarming numbers in their new location and had to endure as prisoners for twenty-seven years, relocating first to Alabama and then to Oklahoma. When released in 1913, their options included staying in Oklahoma or moving to the Mescalero Reservation in New Mexico. No Chiricahua Apache reservation exists in Arizona even today. In fact, the repatriation of the remains of Geronimo, who died in Oklahoma in 1909, to Arizona has yet to occur.24 28
From Apacheria to American Southwest
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
After Geronimo’s surrender, only a few individual Apache “outlaws” concerned the military. Large operations were over and Apache military power crushed. In 1886, forty years after the U.S.-Mexican War began, the United States had gained the monopoly of violence in Arizona and New Mexico.
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The U.S. Colonial Regime
The majority of the millions of European immigrants who sailed to the eastern seaports of the United States never reached Arizona or New Mexico. Although approximately 50,000 people rushed to California through southern New Mexico when the news of the gold rush spread in 1849, only a few stopped there.25 While in 1860 California could boast a total population of 370,000 people and Texas more than 600,000, New Mexico had 93,000 and Arizona only 6,400 inhabitants. Small mining booms in Arizona and New Mexico were overshadowed by richer findings not only in California but also in Colorado and Nevada, where the white population soared from next to nothing to approximately 40,000 residents following the rushes. In New Mexico and Arizona new mines were opened up on the Gila River, north of Yuma where Ehrenberg and La Paz sprang up, at Pinos Altos, and near Prescott and Wickenburg. Still, fewer miners and little capital typically followed the initial fervor. The number of whites remained low. Arizona had only 2,421 residents categorized as “white” (including Hispanics) in 1860 and 9,581 in 1870, of whom probably no more than 4,000 were “Anglos.” The number of whites with non-Hispanic parentage in New Mexico is estimated at roughly 2,000 to 8,000 during the period between 1850 and 1870. Fear of indigenous power, lack of manufacturing and industrial foundation, poor transportation connections, and the long distance from markets kept the mining and other forms of settler and extractive colonization in their infancy. According to a classic mining history, the potentially rich veins in Arizona and New Mexico seemed to remain an ever-promising, but usually elusive, attraction.26 From Apacheria to American Southwest
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New Mexico and Arizona received annual government subsidies of $1.25 million to $2 million between 1861 and 1885. Military consumption and contracts were the lifeline of many settlers, and without the army there would have been even fewer whites reaching these territories.27 While the first whites formed a diverse lot — including a contingent of Mormons — many of them originated from the South, advocated slavery, and were at least sympathetic to the Confederate cause during the Civil War.28 After the war the Irish and the Germans formed the largest immigrant groups and German Jews gained prominence as merchants and creditors. Seeking to overcome the shortage of white women and in an effort to better integrate themselves to the society, several whites at first married into Hispanic families. Still, over time the American rule came to rest increasingly on racial privilege, and the new regime, writes Deena J. González, impoverished the majority of Hispanic residents, stealing their land base through legal and extralegal maneuverings and reducing them to marginalized wage earners with lowly valued and paid jobs controlled by whites. Anglos took control of local politics, many of the businesses, law firms and banks, new railroad and mining, and the largest newspapers. Those Hispanics who defended their rights, families, or lands became easily labeled as “bandits” or troublemakers.29 By the end of the century, some historians argue, the racial fault line between whites and Hispanics firmly defined one’s place in the southwestern society. At the top were the owners and managers of the railroads, copper mines, and land-and-cattle companies, all of whom were white. In the middle were business owners, ranchers, and farmers, mainly whites but also a few prominent Hispanics. At the bottom were people who had only their own labor to sell. Whites dominated most skilled-labor positions, while Hispanics occupied the unskilled jobs.30 In the early 1880s transcontinental railroads intensified the cultural and economic change in the Southwest, breaking the grip of distance and bringing in outsider investment and the materials of eastern society. In Santa Fe, waterworks arrived in 1882 and electricity 30
From Apacheria to American Southwest
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
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in 1891. When President Rutherford B. Hayes visited Santa Fe in 1880, he became the first U.S. president to enter New Mexico, and this was thirty years after the area had been established as a territory. Rail lines meant that more whites were now coming and going with increasing speed. Total Arizona populace increased from 40,000 people in 1880 to 59,000 in 1890 and 122,000 in 1900, while New Mexico rose from 119,000 people in 1880 to 153,000 in 1890 and 195,000 in 1900.31 According to William Robbins, the American West was “the great natural-resource reservoir and the investment arena for eastern U.S. and western European capital.” The Southwest, like the rest of the West, became something of an extractive colony or an outpost of the capitalistic economy and the western world caught in the midst of the Industrial Revolution.32 While manufactured goods and luxuries were brought in, large quantities of extractive produce, most notably silver, copper, and cattle, were shipped out. Following the confusion of the Civil War, when the Southwest was briefly invaded by Confederate forces, a few mines had managed to stay in operation, but any kind of a boom had to wait until 1878, when a rich silver strike created the town of Tombstone. This finding drew thousands of people into southeastern Arizona and produced millions of dollars worth of silver. By 1882 the new town had become the largest in the territory, with approximately 10,000 to 14,000 residents.33 In the next decades industrialization increased copper demand exponentially and southern Arizona developed into one of the world’s leading copper regions. By 1900 mines in Clifton, Morenci, Jerome, Bisbee, and Globe-Miami produced tens of millions of pounds of copper and attracted thousands of workers from Mexico and different European countries.34 Cattle fever swept over the Southwest in the 1880s as Anglo ranchers took control of New Mexico’s plains and Arizona’s ranges, outsider investments multiplied, and cattle poured into the region from Texas and the Great Plains. The violent decline caused by drought, blizzards, and overgrazing on the plains only increased the momentum, From Apacheria to American Southwest
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and every source of permanent water in the Southwest was quickly taken. In the early 1890s as many as two million head of cattle and sheep were reported for Arizona, whereas in New Mexico the number of cattle in 1890 was more than 1.6 million, a dramatic increase from the 347,000 heads in 1880 and 57,000 in 1870. New Mexico was the heartland of sheep ranches in the United States, with nearly five million heads in the late 1880s.35
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The establishment of the U.S. regime, secured by the end of the U.S.Apache wars in 1886 and cemented by Arizona’s and New Mexico’s statehood in 1912, had created a new order of life in Apacheria. The United States imposed a social, economic, cultural, and political reorganization of the whole area. It subjected the region to forced integration into the nation and the world economy, while also creating a race-based hierarchy that privileged whites, displaced and marginalized many Hispanics, and through destructive conquest subjugated and segregated the region’s powerful indigenous groups. As active participants in this colonization process the men and women of the U.S. Army sought opportunities to change the world, carve boundaries and hierarchies, construct knowledge and community, and gain personal and collective power.
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From Apacheria to American Southwest
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
The regiment . . . was ordered to Arizona, that dreaded and then unknown land, and the uncertain future was before me.
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—m a rt h a summer h ay es, officer’s wife
In the summer of 1869 Julia Davis had just returned from a year-long honeymoon in Europe. She hoped that her husband, Murray Davis, a captain in the U.S. Army, would be assigned to a pleasant station somewhere near their Oakland, California, home, where they could raise their infant son in safety and comfort. When the orders arrived, however, they brought unwelcome news. Captain Davis was to take charge of a body of troops and lead it across the desert to Arizona. Julia wrote, “I thought of my husband going down and the dangers of Indian warfare, and being perhaps killed by savages, whilst I was far away, and I could not bear it.” Worried that the journey and life in Arizona would prove too demanding on his wife and child, Captain Davis insisted that they stay in California and left for his new post. Deciding otherwise, Julia packed hastily, gathered their son and a nurse, and caught up to her husband in San Diego. She recalled, “All my friends of course cried out I was mad. I should die of hardship and fatigue, and my husband would have to bury me in the desert.” After some heated arguments with her husband, Julia joined a
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
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detachment of the Eighth Cavalry, numbering twenty-four enlisted men and two officers, for the journey of forty-one days and approximately six hundred miles to Camp McDowell, Arizona.1 The officers and soldiers the army assigned to Arizona and New Mexico faced long journeys with uncertain expectations. On the road army travelers soon discovered that comforts often did not reach preferred standards. These factors negatively impacted the representations penned by officers, wives, and enlisted men. So did the army’s search for colonial authority. While their portrayals express genuine disappointment and shock at both the natural environment and the society they encountered along the route, the army’s written accounts also show how the authors differentiated themselves from the peoples and landscapes that failed to meet their standard of civilization. Army travelers constructed subjective knowledge designed to secure colonial authority and power for the new rule and rulers. In the colonial context, travel was much more than simple movement across space. It was, in fact, a crucial site in the production of colonizer identity and power. In other words, travel and travel writing represent one of the domains where the colonizers established their superiority in relation to the terrain they invaded and the people they colonized. Literary scholar Sara Mills argues, “Travel writing is essentially an instrument within colonial expansion and served to reinforce colonial rule once in place.” Similarly, anthropologist Mary Louise Pratt concludes that travel writing helped produce “Europe’s differentiated conception of itself in relation to something it became possible to call ‘the rest of the world.’”2 Travelers assigned specific meanings to themselves, the journeying process, and to the landscapes, peoples, and settlements they encountered. They judged the suitability of the travel region for the purposes of the colonial regime and evaluated it against their norms, while simultaneously constructing specific identities for themselves. Transient Conquerors
In the Southwest borderlands the army represented a congregation of outsiders. Apart from the indigenous soldiers hired by the army, 34
Journey to the “Outside”
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
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all officers, soldiers, and dependents originated from other regions in the Unites States and even other continents. White enlisted men generally came from two sources: the urban working class in the East and groups of immigrants from Europe, especially Germans and Irishmen. After the Civil War approximately 50 percent of enlisted men were immigrants. For example, in 1886 the enlisted ranks had 11,377 native-born and 10,163 foreign-born whites. Of the latter 3,640 were German and 3,518 Irish.3 As a rule, the army did not enlist whites from the small local population in the Southwest, deeming the supply of possible recruits insufficient both in quantity and quality. Most recruiting was instead conducted in the more populous eastern states such as New York, Massachusetts, and Pennsylvania. In the East, Edward Coffman argues, soldiering was viewed as a low-status occupation. Popular beliefs reflected the antiarmy atmosphere of the nation. The public at large regarded the enlisted soldiers as men of questionable character and unfit to work in real and meaningful occupations. Contrary to the popular image, however, it was fairly difficult to get accepted into the army. In the 1880s only 28 percent of the applicants proved successful. Loathed by the general public, the man who volunteered as a common soldier ventured westward in search of better life and new opportunities. Many enlisted to find a steady job, especially important in times of economic uncertainty, while others wanted adventure. There were also those who saw the army as a way to escape their troubled past, while several immigrants joined to ease their transition in a new land.4 Undoubtedly there were many among the soldiers who wanted to make their lives more meaningful and feel important and valued. In some soldiers’ minds participating in the conquest of the trans-Mississippi region was a way to achieve recognition and respect from their country. Officers and their wives were generally American-born, middleclass whites who came mostly from the eastern United States and had largely rural or small-town backgrounds. Of the 2,140 officers in the army, only 176 were foreign-born in 1886. Many officers Journey to the “Outside”
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were proud to acknowledge that their families had a long history on American soil. For instance, of men who served in the Southwest, Lt. William Carter claimed to be seventh-generation native-born, while Maj. Adna Chaffee made it known that he was eight-generation native-born of English ancestry.5 Officers and wives frequently heralded from the middling or well-to-do sections of society. Eveline Alexander, for example, was born in Utica, New York, and raised in the comfortable surroundings of her family’s large country estate on the shores of Lake Oswego near Auburn. Educated by private tutors and also attending an elite school, she was related to many of the “first” families of New York and accustomed to mingling among the society in New York and Washington dc. Alice Kirk Grierson was born into a prosperous upper-class merchant family in Ohio. She attended first-class schools and became a teacher before marrying into the military. Another officer’s wife who went to Arizona, May Banks Stacey, supposedly descended from Oliver Cromwell. Stacey came from a distinguished Pennsylvania family, her father being a prominent lawyer and judge.6 Several officers and wives made it known in their writings that they came from a long line of army lineage and that their ancestors had helped to make the nation great in the past. One officer’s wife, Ellen Biddle, noted that her great-greatgrandfather already served his country, her father was in the army for fifty years, and her husband, brother, and son all also served.7 The identity of officers and their wives was anchored on the twin foundations of innate white privilege and notions of class superiority displayed in character and behavior. While no strangers to quarrels and petty jealousy, officers often displayed strong group solidarity and portrayed themselves as “fine men”: educated, brave, and intelligent gentlemen.8 Their wives were “ladies,” cultured and gentle, and together they formed a society refined in tone. Claiming to possess a high moral sense, great integrity, and a generally recognized high standard of honor, officers and wives oftentimes painted themselves as “exemplary citizens” who deserved the admiration of all respectable and reasonable people. They constituted a “delightful,” 36
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Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
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“interesting,” “congenial,” “beautiful,” and “most agreeable” group of people, one wife thought. The strong sense of unity was only increased by frequent intermarriages.9 After the Civil War almost 40 percent of officers came from New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. Geographically and culturally the officers were northerners, or “Yankees,” and a southern officer proved a rarity. In the East, the prospects for an average army officer were rather dismal after the Civil War. For officers as a group, the war had been their highlight in the public eye. It had brought success and reputation that there was little opportunity to repeat afterward in the East. The American people were traditionally suspicious of large standing armies and were tired of the bloody fighting. They wished to forget war’s horrors and pursue peaceful endeavors. Industrialization, Robert Utley writes, also made many think that war, so destructive to economic productivity and material well-being, had become a thing of the past. From the general public’s viewpoint there was no need for armies anymore. Furthermore, there existed no strong constituency or interest group in the East that would have depended on the army or spoken for its welfare. Instead, many southern democrats were openly antagonistic toward the army because of Reconstruction in the defeated South. Reflecting this consensus, between 1866 and 1874 Congress drastically reduced troop numbers from one million to twenty-seven thousand men. The remaining officers and soldiers were sent either to control the trans-Mississippi area or to supervise Reconstruction. Consequently, people in the East no longer felt the presence and influence of the army in their everyday lives, and the American public soon forgot that the nation even had a regular army. When a woman was introduced to a colonel of the army in 1885, she remarked, “I supposed the Army was all disbanded at the close of the war!”10 Unnecessary and unwanted in the East, army officers and their wives could identify with those middle-class Americans who saw their social position decline and economic opportunities disappear in the increasingly industrial postwar United States. Many middle-class Journey to the “Outside”
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whites short on their luck, Brenda K. Jackson writes, moved west in search of not only wealth but social prominence.11 While declining economic opportunities forced members of established merchant and farming families to relocate, army officers moved because U.S. conquest called them west. Troubled by the army’s disappearing significance at the national level, many tried to make the most of the opportunities that expansion brought and welcomed new possibilities for building social status and national recognition. Although some officers obsessively recalled the glory of their Civil War service, most, especially of the younger generation, built their identity in the framework of continental conquest.12 Officers and soldiers never permanently settled in one army village or in a single territory or state. Instead, they constituted a community of transient conquerors, moving from one station to another, crisscrossing the West, and sometimes the continent, in irregular intervals. The army believed that the term of a unit’s service in regions considered remote and unhealthy should be limited to between two and four years. This was not a fixed rule, and exceptions were made. For example, the Sixth Cavalry spent a decade and a half in the Southwest. However, even the Sixth changed territories during its stay, first stationed in Arizona from 1875 to 1884 and then in New Mexico until 1890. In general, troops frequently, yet in random intervals, exchanged stations. Due to this policy, between 1868 and 1886, nine out of the ten total army cavalry regiments were represented at one time or another in New Mexico or Arizona. During this same period, contingents from eight infantry regiments served in Arizona, and units from six infantry regiments in New Mexico.13 In addition to the exchange of army units, the discharged enlisted men, deserters, and new recruits, as well as officers on leave or on detached service, created considerable army traffic to and from the Southwest. The turnover among enlisted men was high, with the army replacing an estimated 25 to 40 percent of the approximately three thousand men stationed in Arizona and New Mexico each year.14 Although most stayed in their designated stations as long as 38
Journey to the “Outside”
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
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their units did, officers also moved. When the Sixth Cavalry was stationed in Arizona in 1878, two out of seven staff officers and ten of thirty-six field officers were not present. In the Twelfth Infantry, also serving in Arizona at the same time, three of five staff officers and seven of twenty-seven field officers were not in their stations. Most of the absentees were either on leave in the East, on temporary detached service, or en route to join their command.15 The army established a considerable presence in the thinly populated Southwest. In 1870, of the 6,834 Hispanic and Anglo males residing in Arizona, 1,885 were soldiers. With the influx of white civilians, the situation had changed considerably by 1880, but still the 1,581 white soldiers probably formed the largest single profession in the society of 35,160 Hispanic and Anglo whites of both sexes. Furthermore, the number of soldiers increased throughout the 1880s, as the army poured in to end the U.S.-Apache wars. By 1885 Arizona had 2,235 soldiers as residents. New Mexico had a much larger nonindigenous population all along due to a long history of Spanish and Mexican settlement. In 1850 when New Mexico became a U.S. territory, it had at least 57,000 Hispanic and roughly 2,000 Anglo residents. The number of Anglos increased only gradually. When railroad tracks reached the proximity of Santa Fe in 1880, the Anglo population remained at little more than 10,000, while the white and black soldiers numbered 1,207. Most of the civilians lived in the north-central section of the territory along the Rio Grande, while the majority of army camps, with the exception of Forts Wingate, Marcy, and Union, were located in the Apachedominated southern New Mexico.16 Long Journeys
The army cohort based its preconceptions of the journey that they faced and the region that awaited them on ignorance and fear. In 1866 the Southwest was not entirely unknown to American people. Anglo merchants, trappers, explorers, and prospectors on their way to California gold fields traversed the area prior to the Civil War. Journey to the “Outside”
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The Santa Fe Trail had lured Anglo merchants and American goods into the Southwest since the 1820s, making Santa Fe a well-established American outpost. Yet only a handful of Anglos ventured to the more remote Tucson before the 1870s. Furthermore, neither ranching nor mining had yet boomed in the prerailroad Southwest, and the region still lacked an industrial foundation. Consequently, in 1866 few white Americans or European immigrants lived in Arizona and New Mexico, had visited the area, or knew much about it. Before departing for the Civil War, the army had established a presence in the Southwest and expressed views of the region. For instance, in 1852 New Mexico department commander Lt. Col. Edwin V. Sumner suggested that the United States should abandon the Southwest.17 It is unclear how much the post–Civil War generation of officers, soldiers, and dependents who had not served in the prewar Southwest knew of these earlier experiences. According to Martha Summerhayes, an officer’s wife who first entered Arizona in 1874, “old campaigners” in the army “knew a thing or two about Arizona,” whereas her younger generation “did not know.” “We had never heard much about this part of our country,” she wrote. Another army wife remembered that she and her husband started their “pilgrimage” toward the Southwest in 1869 with “childlike simplicity,” being completely ignorant of what awaited them. And one lieutenant relied on reading a book about New Mexico at West Point Military Academy for information on his assignment.18 As late as the 1880s, army personnel assigned to the Southwest claimed that they knew little about Arizona or New Mexico before traveling to the area. When Lt. Thomas Cruse received his assignment to Fort Apache, Arizona, he was unable to locate his destination on the maps available to him in the East. Will Barnes, a private, noted in his diary that in his mind Arizona “seemed like a fairyland so far away.”19 Many were frightened by rumors and tales of the journey ahead. According to one officer, “the climate of Arizona had such a bad reputation that I feared for my health,” while another was told that in Arizona it was “hot as hell.” The latter officer 40
Journey to the “Outside”
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
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also expressed concern over the “troublesome Indians” and Mexicans who “delight in robbing mails and passengers.” He was convinced that because of this danger, “no one thinks of going to Arizona without being well armed.” In the 1880s Alice A. Sargent, an officer’s wife, wrote, “We did not much relish the prospect of going to Arizona, for many and lurid were the tales that were told of the dreadful heat, the sand storms, the Gila monsters, centipedes, tarantulas etc., but when Uncle Sam said ‘March,’ we marched.”20 In 1866, when the regular army began returning to the Southwest from the Civil War, the region was not easily accessible. No transcontinental railroad traversed across the Southwest and no water routes, except on the lower Colorado River, penetrated it. “Arizona was in those days separated from ‘God’s Country’ by a space of more than fifteen hundred miles,” one officer wrote. 21 Incoming and outgoing troops resorted to a combination of boats, wagons, stage coaches, mules, and horses to reach their destinations. Many enlisted soldiers simply walked. After the nation’s first transcontinental railroad was completed in 1869, connecting California to the East via a central route, train travel became an option. When Will Barnes was ordered to Arizona in late 1879, he first used the transcontinental railroads to reach San Francisco, California, and then, after a week’s leave, sailed on a steamer to San Diego, changing boats in Los Angeles. From San Diego he took the stage to Yuma on the Colorado River and then continued by rail to its terminus, which at this time was at Casa Grande, some 135 miles distant. After waiting two days for a vacant seat on a stage coach, he journeyed onward to Tucson. There, after receiving orders to report to Fort Apache, “that far-away, out-of-the-world frontier military post,” Barnes took the eastbound stage coach, and after a ride of 125 miles, changed to a two-seated open buckboard. He reached Fort Grant via roads that were “just as nature made them: a foot deep in dust in dry weather, and often bottomless mud in wet weather.” Again waiting a few days, he then journeyed by buckboard to Fort Thomas, where, following another delay of four days, Barnes faced Journey to the “Outside”
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a “solemn-faced old government mule,” which would carry him the rest of the way to Fort Apache over a rough, steep, and “perfectly awful” trail. Following a small skirmish with the Indians, the party Barnes had joined reached its goal, Fort Apache. After weeks of travel by ocean steamer, train, stage coach, buckboard, and mule via several stopover stations, a few towns, and a number of army posts, Barnes finally arrived at his new military home. 22 Barnes’s journey was rather typical in the sense that officers and soldiers, with families, routinely made these arduous journeys across the terrain of the Southwest. While Barnes traveled alone, the majority of soldiers and many of the officers and their wives, like Julia Davis, arrived in sizable army columns. The army penetrated Arizona and New Mexico both from the east and the west. Soldiers assigned to New Mexico usually moved overland either via Fort Union and Santa Fe in the northeast of the territory or, less frequently, from the south, through El Paso, Texas. 23 To reach Arizona, army personnel often ventured by way of the Pacific Ocean and California. When departing from eastern United States to Arizona, the first step was a sea voyage to the Panama Isthmus, followed by further oceanic travel to the Pacific seaports. After the advent of the transcontinental railroad in 1869, one trip to San Francisco took nine days by rail when departing from New York. 24 Army travelers continued from San Francisco, often by boat, southward either to Drum Barracks outside Los Angeles or to San Diego. In the early 1870s both supplies and troops were increasingly transported by steamboat from California around Cape San Lucas, the southern tip of the Mexican Baja California peninsula, to the mouth of the Colorado River and then up the river by small steamers to Forts Yuma and Mojave and the village of Ehrenberg. The army argued that this water travel offered greater dispatch and economy, and better conditions for both humans and materiel than did the overland route through the Sierra Nevada and the Mojave and Colorado Deserts. To make water transportation more feasible, the army had first explored and established steamboat traffic on the Colorado River in 42
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Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
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the 1850s, and this water route played a significant transportation role until the Southern Pacific Railroad reached the river at Yuma in 1877. When moving overland from California, army personnel went from Drum Barracks to Fort Mojave (approximately 285 miles), or alternatively to Ehrenberg (293 miles), and from San Diego to Fort Yuma (200 miles). The major drawback of the whole ordeal was that when crossing the Sierra Nevada and the Mojave and Colorado Deserts as much as half of the capacity of wagons had to be preserved for water and forage. Forts Yuma and Mojave acted as gateways to points farther east in Arizona. From Mojave the main routes led toward Prescott, while Yuma roads went in the direction of Tucson.25 With the army came an abundance of animals, manufactured goods, and a wide array of other belongings. Although the army wanted to encourage the use of local products to supply the troops and posts, in practice much was imported. As late as 1877, on the eve of the railroads, Arizona ranchers could not produce enough animals to feed local army villages and Indian reservations. Supplies mostly arrived from the same direction as peoples, the way from California having the monopoly in Arizona, with the exception of Fort Apache, which was at least occasionally supplied from the east, and New Mexico from the north and south. In 1877, for example, contractors operated nineteen routes from California and one from Colorado to reach Arizona posts, while army villages in New Mexico were maintained by eight routes from the east.26 Wagons led by mule and ox teams functioned as the only mode of supply transportation overland. With plenty of heat and dust, the lack of grass and water endemic, and the roads too few, lengthy, and in uncertain condition, the movement of supplies was expensive, slow, and uncertain. Army posts were widely scattered, some far from the main roads, and therefore hard to reach. Problems piled up as wagons fell to pieces, mules became unserviceable, and materials arrived in insufficient quantity and poor quality. Sometimes a post even ran out of supplies and had to be aided by others. 27 Whether the troops started their journey toward the Southwest Journey to the “Outside”
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from the Great Plains, the Pacific Northwest, or east of the Mississippi River, the distances proved enormous. The companies of the First Infantry and the Tenth Cavalry from Texas averaged “only” 489 miles before reaching their Arizona posts, but the troops of the Third Cavalry from Wyoming marched 1,190 miles on average when ordered to the Southwest. Even longer journeys awaited the Twelfth Infantry when sent from Arizona to the East, with trips averaging 2,602 miles.28 Distance was not the only challenge posed by army travel. Overland travel was often conducted in massive columns, making the journeys time consuming, slow, and cumbersome. One officer’s wife wrote, “Nothing in my whole army experience wearied me so much as those endless days of slow, monotonous travel.” Capt. John Bourke felt much the same: “Our battalion slowly crawled from camp to camp with no incident to break the dull monotony.”29 When the Fifth Cavalry left the Southwest in 1875 and was replaced by the Sixth from Colorado, Indian Territory, and Kansas, or when the Eighth Cavalry departed New Mexico and exchanged places with the Ninth from Texas, half a regiment, or approximately 400 to 450 men, moved at a time. Slow-moving army columns, which consumed vast amounts of water, food, and forage, appeared like moving clouds of dust when seen from a distance. Because of the slow pace of travel, troop transfers often took several months to complete. For instance, the men and women of the Eighth Cavalry, on their way from New Mexico to Texas, spent anywhere from eight weeks to four months on the road.30 Even the relatively “short” trip between San Diego and Fort Apache took six weeks, and in 1866 troops from the Third Cavalry marched nearly ten weeks from Fort Smith, Arkansas, to Fort Union.31 Class and Travel
Despite the long and cumbersome nature of army journeys, officers and wives considered themselves paragons of Victorian civilization in the West. This image demanded that they maintain high standards of living and a sense of refinement during their travels. 44
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Ideally, officers and their wives hoped to arrange leisurely journeys. “We expect to have a very nice time on the route,” one army wife wrote.32 In reality, during the prerailroad era, trips proved long and arduous, and exposure to the elements was painful and taxing for many unprepared, overconfident, and inexperienced army travelers. As their journeys progressed, officers and wives became increasingly disappointed with what they experienced, which in turn shaped their representations. For most officers and wives, a successful journey required the help of servants, either civilians or soldiers. Officers strove to employ maids, personal servants, nurses, and other laborers to do much of their physical work and provide for their comfort. 33 No less important to officers and wives was arranging accommodation on boats and wagons that reflected the travelers’ class, sense of style and taste, and level of sophistication. In boats they preferred to reside in what one army wife referred to as “very comfortable” staterooms. Books, music, singing, conversations, and games made the days pass quickly. While officers and their families sought to enjoy cheerful leisure in the company of “respectable” people, servants made their beds, hauled travel trunks between the vessel’s hold and quarters, and served drinks and meals.34 During overland journeys many officers’ families sought to make their wagons comfortable and refined. Capt. Anson Mills and his wife Hannah “Nannie” Mills had their wagon covered with white canvas, added on “elegant green blanket to line the top to keep off the heat and protect the eyes,” put up curtains for ventilation and privacy, installed removable seats that made room for the bed, and built in little pockets for small articles inside the wagon. The wagon was as “convenient and elegant a thing as one could imagine,” and even “a queen might be proud to ride in it.” Wagons, then, served as a symbol of class status, especially when officers and wives did not have to drive but instead hired teamsters or assigned drivers from the enlisted ranks.35 A successful travel experience also entailed a plethora of material Journey to the “Outside”
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comforts. Officers and wives carried a large supply of different goods, including bags, books, cases, baskets, linen, sewing materials, clothing, shawls, china, silver, guns, sabers, fresh and canned fruits, candles, chairs, rocking chairs, mattresses, matting for the floors — even a fine damask and editions of Schiller and Goethe, bought from Germany. Describing the inside of her wagon during the first day of travel, Eveline Alexander, an officer’s wife, wrote, “I cannot begin to enumerate the various articles with which I was surrounded.” Officers and wives categorized most of the items as necessary for “survival” en route, while the remaining articles were considered critical for home making in their new posts.36 Operating under the assumption that her family could obtain nothing along the way, Julia Davis stuffed her baggage wagon with “linen, books, a bed, pictures, curtains — everything I could think of for house-keeping.”37 Generally, the limit of baggage the army allowed one officer was three large army chests, or approximately one thousand pounds. Officers had to pay for any excess weight. Many army families regarded these limits as ridiculously low. They insisted on taking all their belongings and complained that they could not exist without them. When told to pack, some army wives, staggered by weight restrictions, were unable to decide what to take and what to leave and simply stared paralyzed at their belongings. Many officers and their wives left the actual packing to their servants. Martha Summerhayes, for example, confessed that she was utterly helpless in packing and simply did not know how to do it.38 When camping on the road, officers and their wives aimed to consolidate their class status by displaying style and sophistication. Wives wrote that they took a “passive position” or sought a “comfortable place to rest” by sitting on, for example, a “fine willow rocker,” while the enlisted men unpacked and packed the wagons, put up tents, and prepared meals.39 Some took a more active role. They did not so much sweat building camp but enjoyed leisurely sightseeing and describing the “strange” flora and fauna.40 On one wagon journey, officers and their wives enjoyed a breakfast of coffee, eggs, 46
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bacon, bread and butter, and condensed milk, while dinner consisted of canned meat, vegetables, bread and butter, coffee, and canned fruits. The presentation of the meals was no less important than the menu. One officer’s wife remembered that on the road, meals were served on a red and white tablecloth spread on the ground. Officers and their dependents gathered together and sat on boxes with their plates, cups, knives, forks, spoons, and napkins. For its dining pleasure, another party of army travelers had hauled a special tent furnished with a board floor to offer more comfortable surroundings and to shelter against the wind, dust, and heat.41 Camp life, the menu, utensils, and the setting demonstrate how officers and their wives cherished specific conventions and tried to observe or apply them even when on the road in the Southwest. Dress was another potent symbol of class status. Julia Davis, adjusting her appearance to the demands of the overland journey, wore a blue serge dress, no hoops or extra skirts, braided her hair in one long tail, and sported a hat large enough to hide her almost entirely.42 It seems that Julia Davis was well prepared, wearing what another army wife referred to as “sensible clothes for traveling.” Other wives prioritized appearing genteel over practical utility. Lydia Spencer Lane, an officer’s wife, noted that the dress of many wives was more suited to Fifth Avenue in New York than a six-hundredmile ride in an army ambulance.43 Some unprepared army families took to the road without any bedding or tents, anticipating wrongly that they would sleep at ranches. They actually spent their nights in the wagons or relied on the kindness of those fellow travelers who offered to share space in their tents.44 Disappointment permeated many army journeys. For one thing, some officers and wives complained about their travel accommodations, grumbling that their tents and wagons were like ovens. Not everybody could secure, or afford, the kind of transportation they would have preferred. During her trip, one wife was irritated when “refused proper transportation — an ambulance and four mules with driver” and had to settle for “a small, two-seated vehicle and span Journey to the “Outside”
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of horses.” Julia Davis was unhappy that her white-topped wagon pulled by four horses had nothing but a simple mattress laid in it: “In this we were to live, sleep, and travel.”45 Many army wives quickly found that their material comforts did not provide immunity from the heat, sand, and dust of the southwestern roads. Their fine appearance crumbled and their entertainments failed. Heavy clothing suffocated them and their elegant hats did not shade their heads or faces, which burned and blistered. One wife was disgusted with her “rather fagged and seedy” appearance and regretted not bringing enough “thin wash-bodices” to battle the dust which covered her from head to toe. Another wife was disappointed that, after a day of traveling in the intense heat, her companions were too exhausted to play cards in the evening.46 In addition, fires, wagon rollovers, and other accidents caused material losses and mental stress. Any goods or items destroyed could be replaced only through borrowing from others or ordering from the eastern United States.47 Travel on boats was equally miserable. Intense heat in the quarters and rooms could sap the energy of army people to the point that no one could maintain conversations or entertainments. High temperatures in the Gulf of California and on the Colorado River made the staterooms so unbearable that officers and families escaped to the deck to sleep during the night. Army travelers wandered around the boat in search of cool spots. According to Summerhayes, the days were “interminable” and the heat “destroyed both our good looks and our tempers.” She had “never felt such heat, and no one else ever had or has since.” Heat was not the only inconvenience for officers and wives traveling by boat. They also had to contend with seasickness and a lack of services, amenities, and companionship. Some army people were troubled by the river streamer crews, composed mostly of “savage” Indians, on the Colorado River. The availability and quality of food and drink was also an issue for many officers and wives. One officer, for instance, grumbled that “cooking was about as bad as it could be.” Summerhayes remembered, “The ice supply decreased alarmingly, the meats turned green . . . and the 48
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odor which ascended from . . . [the] refrigerator was indescribable.” After drinking black coffee and “bad warm water” for nine days, she was “longing for a cup of good tea or a glass of fresh, sweet milk.” The twelve coconuts she had bought from a group of Mexicans who boarded the vessel to sell fruits and vegetables did not help for long. In Guaymas, Sonora, Summerhayes, by now “desperately hungry and thirsty,” went ashore in search of better food and refreshments. She stated, “I mustered what Spanish I knew, and told . . . I would pay . . . any price for a cup of coffee with fresh milk.” Luckily, she had an ample supply of dollars, and she bought not only coffee with milk, but fresh butter, chicken, creamy biscuits, and more coconuts.48 Officers, especially those with higher rank and better salary, could afford to improve their travel diet by purchasing food at high cost wherever it was available. On one instance, an officer and his wife invested eighteen dollars — more than a month’s salary for an enlisted soldier — on apples, lemons, and oranges to refresh their food stocks on their journey.49 Enlisted men experienced even more arduous journeys than those described by officers and wives. The common soldier did not worry exceedingly about entertainment or his clothing style, nor did he travel in style. He sailed on flatboats towed by the steamers on rivers and rode in boxcars or in day coaches aboard trains. On steamers soldiers went ashore to the riverbanks to sleep their nights.50 On overland journeys, when the officers rode in their wagons, the enlisted men, not belonging to the “happy favored” class, as one of them sarcastically commented, simply marched. Whatever the mode of travel, the class division between enlisted men and the officers persisted. “Gashuntz,” an enlisted soldier, wrote that “after a march of 268 miles we reached this corner of the human garden, Fort Yuma. . . . Yes, here we are, shirtless, shoeless, and I might with propriety add brainless.” His unit’s marching had been an exhausting ordeal that tore the men to pieces both physically and mentally. The rest periods usually proved too short for the exhausted soldiers, and they had to get up so “barely” past “twelve o’clock midnight” that the enlisted men dubbed their early breakfast “supper.”51 Journey to the “Outside”
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Later in life one soldier remembered that “traveling in the desert those days was a very primitive matter.” To the amazement and outrage of the enlisted men, officers sometimes left the men to struggle by themselves. For example, John Spring, a soldier, recollected that, when his unit marched from Drum Barracks to Yuma, officers found the trip “somewhat tedious” in their ambulances and therefore left the columns in charge of noncommissioned officers and rode ahead as quickly as possible to the next resting place. One sandstorm not only blinded and sickened this group of soldiers who traveled without their officers but made them choose the wrong path. Not realizing their folly until after many miles and knowing absolutely nothing about the nature of the country they were in, they continued, hoping to reach Yuma. Utterly helpless in what to them was “terra incognito,” soldiers became angry and desperate, especially after their ranking sergeant deserted. The low point was reached when one soldier perished and was buried in the sand. Following three nights and days of exhausting wanderings in the desert, the soldiers were rescued by Mexican teamsters who escorted them to a stage station. After two more days of marching, they reached Yuma with blistered feet, burned skin, and tattered clothes. The ranking sergeant had been found wandering about by Yuma Indians. According to Spring, this sergeant was physically and mentally a wreck. It is unclear if he ever fully recovered.52 Unlike officers and wives, enlisted men had very few material goods to transport. They also lacked the economic means to ease their travel burdens. They had no servants, few personal luxury items, and little money with which to purchase fruits and vegetables to supplement their poor rations. Fresh meat was a rarity, and fresh vegetables almost never seen. Hardtack, beans, bacon, and coffee — the standard army fare — kept the enlisted men going. During the journey, some sold or exchanged their clothes for whiskey from locals.53 Although some officers and wives realized that common soldiers suffered more than they did, they still expected enlisted men to serve them, cook their food, make their beds, and erect 50
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their tents. Soldiers quickly learned to know their place. One veteran army wife gave the following advice to a newcomer: “You must never try to do any cooking at the camp-fire. The soldiers are there for that work, and they know lots more about it than any of us do.”54 Another wife recollected a disappointing journey when there were no servants available. She personally had “for the first time in my life, and under the greatest disadvantages, to cook an entire meal.” She learned to make coffee and grill bacon “but never to enjoy cooking over a camp-fire.”55
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Dark Passage
During the prerailroad era, the western route to Arizona inspired army men and women to write more about their journey into the Southwest than any other army path into the region. These travelers used descriptions of the passage from California to Arizona to construct their own identity and power, differentiate the colonial region from the eastern United States, and symbolize what entering the Southwest meant for the army. These accounts describe a journey to the “outside”: a perilous descent from the civilized world into a foreign and remote wilderness.56 Army discourses never represented army journeys as part of an unjust conquest of other peoples’ land. Instead, journeys were portrayed as sites that tested the army people’s resilience and character and established their superiority in relation to the colonial terrain and peoples. Army travelers often presented the beginning of their journeys as “normal,” civilized traveling, a quiet prelude that stood in stark contrast to upcoming challenges. Traveling overland, Frances Boyd wrote that she enjoyed civilized San Francisco and charming Los Angeles. During the first days of travel inland from Los Angeles, she experienced the most beautiful country imaginable. Roads were good, and nights were enjoyed in people’s homes with good food and comfortable beds. She felt happy and confident. On the fifth day, however, the tone in her writing changed. The column left “civilization” behind and entered the endless track of sand and the terrifying heat of Journey to the “Outside”
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the Mojave Desert. Starting inland from San Diego, Lt. Col. George Crook traveled the first days over a hilly, mountainous country, before dropping “down into the Colorado Desert.” From “there to Yuma it was like being in an oven,” Crook wrote. 57 The “uninteresting and monotonous country” of the California deserts appeared to weary army eyes as forlorn peripheries plagued with crushing heat, furnace-like winds that raised dreadful sand storms, and aridity. The desert appeared as “one vast expanse of sifting sand.” One army traveler described the Mojave Desert: “In all my frontier life and travel I never saw anything so utterly desolate as was that desert.” Another army member confessed that she “had no idea that such a forlorn district was comprised within the limits of the United States.” Forests, fertile fields, or even grass was nowhere to be found, according to army texts. “We never saw anything which, by a vigorous effort of our imagination, could be called a patch of grass,” an officer recalled. 58 Travelers were further disappointed when they reached the Colorado River. They characterized the Colorado as “broad, shallow, and full of quicksands that are constantly changing” or called it the “most turbulent” river with a “furious current.” Others wrote that they witnessed an unknown, mighty, and untamed river with a “swift-flowing current” that “sweep[s] by like a mass of seething red liquid, turbulent and thick and treacherous.” One soldier was shocked that the river seemed “nearly half sand.”59 The army labeled Fort Yuma, the military post on the Colorado River, “the hottest place that ever existed.” Almost all travelers tellingly repeated a well-circulated army legend: a soldier who had died at Yuma returned to beg for his blankets, for he found hell too cold a place for his taste.60 Adding to the distress of new arrivals were the troops whom they saw going the other direction or leaving Arizona. “From the great joy manifested by them all, I drew my conclusions as to what lay before us, in the dry and desolate country we were about to enter,” one army wife recalled.61 As her husband’s column marched inland, Julia Davis became 52
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utterly disappointed with the conditions. After leaving San Diego she sensed that “we were going farther and farther from civilization.” On their route, they encountered only “glaring sand, and alkali dust.” There was “not a tree, not a shrub, not a green thing of any kind” and “the monotony” of the landscape was “only broken by rocks, frightful hideous rocks. . . . You cannot fancy such a country!” Genuinely disquieted, she wrote, “Every day the sun came up fierce, unclouded, into the dazzling sky, and burned over our heads, and grew hotter and hotter, and the alkali sands scorched our eyes, and choked us until we gasped for breath, and the heat from the ground seemed greater even than the heat from the sun.” Revealing her ignorance of the region, Davis confessed that before the journey started she “had dreamt of a tropical vegetation, and forests and prairies” but now found “a desert — great bare purple rocks, and still more bare tracks of sand.”62 Like Julia Davis, most officers and their wives were shocked by and disgusted with the desert environment. Compared to the farmlands and forests in the East, the southwestern landscapes they encountered seemed like unproductive wastelands. Officers and wives liked the desert’s people no better. According to many travelers, the Colorado River area was settled primarily by a “poor class” of Mexicans, “lazy, more than half-naked Indians,” or mestizos. Officers and wives contrasted the Colorado River indigenous and Hispanic people with Anglo society and deemed the region’s inhabitants unintelligent and unproductive. Army personnel felt that the people they met were unable to tame nature for the sake of industry or build a prosperous and moral society anywhere, let alone in a demanding desert environment. Army writings implied that to develop the Southwest, a better class of white men and women needed to settle the region. With only a handful of white people and few or no middle-class whites, the area, in army travelers’ eyes, lacked “proper” society and was “foreign” and “inferior.” Army men and women did not witness the kind of places they would have valued: prosperous family farms, thriving industrial centers, Journey to the “Outside”
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and small orderly towns built of brick and wood. Instead of “hardworking” and “moral” middle-class whites dominating the region, they experienced places such as Gila City, once a boomtown for silver. One army observer commented that the town was “not exactly a city, to be sure,” but “a few old adobe houses and the usual saloon.” Army travelers categorized Ehrenberg as “entirely isolated from the world,” or wrote that “of all dreary, miserable-looking settlements that one could possibly imagine, that [Ehrenberg] was the worst. An unfriendly, dirty, and Heaven-forsaken place.” For one officer, Arizona City was “quite a town, balls and shootings being the order of the day.” Others painted it as “the home of the bad man” or as a “distinguished village,” consisting of two rows of adobe huts along a wide street with no walk, but plenty of villainous dens, and “indeed little else.” One army member was convinced that “one might travel a long way before seeing a more God-forsaken looking city” than Arizona City.63 Army men and women usually labeled the Indians living near the Colorado River as harmless naked savages and ignorant wretches who lived a stone-age existence.64 As the travelers left the Colorado River, their perception of indigenous peoples changed dramatically, and their fear of Indian attacks, especially from Apaches, increased. East of Yuma, army people crossed areas occupied by Maricopas or Tohono O’odham, and farther to the north they entered Yavapai or Pai territory. As they neared the heartland of Apacheria, some army personnel, having heard stories of travelers killed and mutilated by Indians and witnessing sites of previous attacks along the route, grew increasingly worried. They imagined that there were Apaches behind every rock, ready to attack at any moment. According to Julia Davis, units stuck close together and allowed no stragglers, because “we knew the Indians were watching us, and we never knew when they might attack.” Creating a sense of danger, travelers retold stories they had heard of past atrocities in bloody and detailed manner and approached old “massacre” sites along their route almost as if they were sacred shrines. In these places, the army wrote, 54
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“helpless” white pioneers or soldiers had in the past fallen victims to Indians’ cruelty. That the Indians usually did not attack them, army travelers reasoned, was because the troops moved in large numbers and the Apaches dared not to confront them.65 In fact, surviving to tell the tales of the “Apache threat” was part of constructing army journeys as struggles that tested officers, enlisted men, and dependents. By casting the local Indians as murderous savages swarming the desert, army personnel validated the army’s mission of conquest, established the Apaches’ inferiority to the army, and made themselves appear heroic and brave. Army travelers constructed the Southwest, particularly between the Colorado River and Tucson or Prescott, as an “empty” region with few inhabitants, except those dangerous Indians. “After passing Fort Yuma,” Julia Davis wrote, “we were in the Indian country and had quite left all civilization behind.” Writing on the same region, Martha Summerhayes felt “as though we were saying good-bye to the world and civilization.” Still others remarked that they had entered total emptiness. One wife, Ellen Biddle, declared, “As far as the eye could reach not a sign of life could be seen; we seemed to be the only living people on the planet.”66 Only a few isolated ranches, many of which functioned as rest stops for the army travelers, dotted this “Indian country,” and these were “only low adobe dwellings,” not proper civilized homes. Some of the rest stops proved “primitive to the extreme,” with apparently unsanitary washing conditions and inadequate eating facilities. “Wretched, forbidding-looking places they were! Never a tree or a bush to give shade, never any sign of comfort or home,” Summerhayes claimed. One soldier was stunned and appalled when, in the 110 degree heat, he dined under a brush shelter, harassed by myriads of hungry flies and waited on by a Yuma Indian woman naked from the waist up.67 According to army texts, travel conditions for those journeying east were generally at least as bad after the Colorado River as before it. One officer described the principal road from Yuma toward New Mexico as “a dreary, sandy waste of quite four hundred Journey to the “Outside”
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miles.” Another complained that “the heat of the trip up the Gila River was quite as bad as it had been over the desert, and the dust and flies added made it almost unbearable. . . . The worst feature was that the nights were so hot that it was impossible to sleep, and we would get up in the morning almost as tired as when we went to bed.” Adding to the suffering was the continuing uncertainty of water sources. Many travelers also had to pay for water hauled up from deep wells. Yet the water was barely drinkable and was strongly impregnated with sulfur and alkali.68 For some army travelers, the surroundings became almost too much to endure. According to one army wife, “From the cold, bracing climate of Oregon we found ourselves in a few weeks on the arid deserts of Arizona, breathing and almost stifling in the dust that was thrown into the ambulance by the wind that always seemed to blow in the wrong direction.”69 In several army writings the journey was represented as a battle against a “hostile” environment. The civilized army travelers, authors contended, were at the mercy of an uncontrollable nature, plagued not only by the “terrible” Apaches but by an arsenal of natural dangers and hardships. In addition to the crushing heat and chronic shortage of water, “dreadful” sandstorms terrified, “blinded and choked the men and mules,” and made “traveling impossible.”70 Even rain, although rare, was presented as dangerous. Torrents soaked the travelers, destroyed their belongings, and washed out the roads. Quicksand and whirlpools in the Colorado River awaited any soldier unlucky to fall overboard. Furthermore, all vegetation and animals seemed armed with thorns and prongs. One private wrote that the terrain from Yuma to Tucson was “just one stream of snakes” and claimed the soldiers killed between five and thirty per day.71 Also adding to the travelers’ misery were mirages; heavenly but false images of ships at sea, bustling towns, and cool lakes that only, according to Julia Davis, “made the heat hotter, and the desert drier, and the sand more choking than ever.”72 After weeks of traveling on desert trails and roads, there awaited one final disappointment for Julia Davis. She wrote, “Then came the 56
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exclamation, ‘There it is. This is Camp Mac Dowel. We have reached our destination!’ I looked in vain. I could see nothing! There were the same scorched mountains, the same uncouth rocks, the same dazzling sand, the same glare and drought; but where was the Camp, the dwellings, the home of which I had been dreaming. Those low mounds, which looked only like hillocks, as we drew near were, I discovered, the dwellings.” Devastated by her first impressions of the army fort, Julia Davis must have seriously questioned whether the taxing journey had been worth it.73 There are several similarities between the travel narratives penned by army people and those written by white civilian travelers in the Southwest. Admittedly, some civilian boosters painted the Southwest as a land of milk and honey, while whites who married Hispanic and Native American women generally displayed a greater understanding of local inhabitants. Similarly, a few civilian travelers seemed more willing to praise “the picturesque and romantic” qualities of the southwestern landscapes than the majority of army writers. Many civilians, however, tended to affirm the view of military travelers and considered the region to be profoundly different from the “real” United States. They wrote of barren and inhospitable landscapes and noted that material conditions were miserable in the “mud towns.” Nonmilitary Anglos also cited their prejudices against Mexicans, homogenizing the local population as ignorant, immoral, and uncivilized people. J. Ross Browne, a journalist who resided in Oakland, California, argued that the Southwest was “completely isolated from the civilized world . . . more distant from San Francisco and New York than either of those cities is from China or Norway.” A correspondent covering the U.S.-Apache conflicts for the Chicago Times in 1881 commented on the “repulsivelooking” adobe structures and “very unpleasant” local people he encountered. According to historian Deena González, the “images and accounts” of white travelers and newcomers “exhibited condescension and an implied, if not outspoken, sense of superiority.”74 It seems that many civilians, like army officers, soldiers, and wives, also often sought to explain why U.S. conquest was right. Journey to the “Outside”
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The Railroads
In the 1880s the transcontinental railroad not only made the army trips easier and shorter than overland or sea travel but initiated a profound change in army travelers’ representations of their southwestern journeys. From the west, the Southern Pacific Railroad came to Yuma in 1877 and crossed Arizona and New Mexico in 1881. From the east, the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, branching from the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad and heading west from Albuquerque in 1880, reached the Colorado River near Fort Mojave in 1883. Penetrating New Mexico from the north, the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe connected with the Southern Pacific and the Texas and Pacific near El Paso, at the extreme western corner of Texas, in 1881.75 This alternative form of transportation meant that the army no longer forced all its troops to march most of the way to their destinations. For instance, one company, returning from Fort Huachuca, Arizona, to the Pacific coast in 1882, hiked only 200 of its almost 1,600 travel miles. In 1880 a unit rushing from Indian Territory to join the Victorio campaign in southern New Mexico was able to do most of its journey by rail. The rail trip of 1,081 miles took only five days.76 In 1884 army surgeon William Corbusier journeyed by rail from New York to Bowie Station in southeastern Arizona in only six days. Twelve years earlier his much shorter trip from Nevada to a central Arizona post had lasted fifty-one days.77 The effect of the railroads on travel speed was phenomenal. Still, the initial impact of the railroads on army’s travel was also limited by several factors. First, in troop movements between Arizona and New Mexico, or regarding transfers from Texas, marching continued as a viable option. When in 1883 the Fourth and Sixth Cavalry exchanged places between New Mexico and Arizona, most of the units marched the whole way. One of the troops spent twenty-seven days on the 440 miles from Fort Stanton, New Mexico, to Fort Huachuca.78 In 1885 the units of the Tenth Cavalry marched from Texas to Arizona, following the Southern Pacific rail lines. Only some of the officers and their wives were allowed to make use of 58
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the comforts of train travel.79 Second, most army villages in Arizona and New Mexico were not located in the proximity of the first rail lines. After the Southern Pacific Railroad crossed both territories, Fort Craig, one of the three then active southern New Mexico posts, was along its route, Forts Bayard and Stanton being distant. The military did reoccupy Forts Cummings and Selden, abandoned a few years earlier but now conveniently located near the new rail lines. The situation was similar in Arizona. When the first transcontinental line was built across its terrain, Forts Huachuca, Bowie, Grant, McDowell, Mojave, and Thomas were all within sixty-five miles of the rail lines, but Apache, Verde, and Whipple Barracks, the location of department headquarters, were approximately one hundred miles from rails. Only Fort Yuma had a railroad stop, and Fort Lowell was within a very short distance of one in Tucson.80 Thus, in army travels, marching, riding, or wagon transportation never became totally irrelevant during the period of U.S.-indigenous wars, although railroads by the early 1880s had made the journeys much faster and brought convenient stops within Arizona and New Mexico for those army travelers able to utilize the trains. Historian David M. Wrobel has written that in their texts many civilian emigrants drew a stark juxtaposition between travel by wagon and by Pullman Palace Car. Travelers contrasted the demands of the past with the luxuries of the present.81 The same happened with army travelers. One army wife wrote that “remembering the days, weeks, and even months spent in traveling on the river, or marching through the deserts, I could not make the Pullman cars seem a reality.” An officer shared her sentiment: “When I hear others carelessly mention a trip by rail . . . as a journey of few days . . . a momentary feeling akin to envy or anger comes over me, and it is difficult to realize that it has been possible for even steam and the locomotive to accomplish such results — to have apparently annihilated the absolute waste and desolation through which we passed so wearily.”82 To officers, enlisted men, and their dependents, railroads symbolized the power of progress and civilization and the taming of dangerous Journey to the “Outside”
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lands. The railroads divorced army personnel from the “inhospitable and inferior terrain” they so eagerly wrote about. Traveling by train made journeys in the Southwest comfortable, easy, and pleasant; they were no longer a “struggle.” In trains, officers and their wives had a better chance to rest, relax, and enjoy pleasant socializing and leisure. Dust, heat, or lack of water did not regularly disturb travelers, and they were less likely to be exhausted or frustrated. Officers and families could avoid contact with lowerclass passengers and residents on trains. Furthermore, army people no longer had to obtain or decorate wagons or worry about their food supplies or the safe arrival of their material belongings. As a result, the significance and meaning army travelers assigned to their journeys was radically altered. Southwestern journeys lost most of their exoticism and “shock value,” and travel to the borderlands became “normal” and “uninteresting.” Journeys became largely irrelevant as a source for colonizer empowerment. In fact few army-related authors wrote in length about their journeys to the Southwest during the railroad era.
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Travel and Colonial Power
Before the advent of the transcontinental railroad, the journeys army personnel took to reach their stations in the Southwest were characterized by a sense of frustration and struggle and the construction of difference. First, revealing the fractions inside the army community, the travel experiences of officers and their wives differed considerably from those of enlisted men. Most officers and their wives shared a desire to differentiate themselves from the enlisted men, to ensure that their journeys would fulfill certain class standards, and to display their collective status and level of refinement. Uncertain about what to expect, many first-time travelers hoped to enjoy their time on the road and, to this end, sought to secure good travel accommodations, an abundant supply of material comforts, and the help of lower-class servants. In contrast, the army’s underclass, the enlisted men, traveled almost empty-handed and consumed a poor 60
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diet. They resented marching over rugged terrain, occupying inferior facilities on boats and trains, and being reduced to servant status by their officers and the officers’ wives. To the enlisted men the journeys offered a glimpse of their position as second-class members in the army community. Daily life in the army villages would further strengthen their perception that it was arduous marching and manual labor that defined the common soldier’s existence. Sooner or later many soldiers would seek to escape the middle-class control practiced by officers and wives, temporarily through leisure or permanently by deserting. From a position of limited self-rule and social inferiority, white enlisted men negotiated their place within the army and in the colony. Their position, described in the next chapter, would encourage the soldiers to create stronger bonds toward the place facing colonialism but would not prevent them from claiming colonial authority — alongside officers and wives — as liberators. Second, officers’ and wives’ ambitions often went unfulfilled. Time and time again in the borderlands officers and wives would have to learn that their power, like the power of all colonizers, was incomplete, and their ability to carve the lives they desired in the colonies limited. Officers and wives were disappointed to travel in a level of style and comfort far below the standard they considered appropriate for their class position. The gap between travelers’ expectations and the realities of travel conditions and methods in the Southwest caused them to feel disgust toward their surroundings and even to resent the whole journey. Arduous weeks and months spent on the road took their toll. Upholding high standards of personal appearance and engaging in social activities befitting their class became difficult as travelers grew frustrated and fatigued. Even first-class accommodations in boats and decorated wagons inadequately sheltered officers and dependents from the heat and dust. Material wealth and servants were paltry compensation when the food was judged poor and the water supply was uncertain, when resting places were miserable, when traveling in the “barren” desert surrounded by seemingly dangerous Apaches and vicious rattlesnakes, or when one was Journey to the “Outside”
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seasick and stuck for days in a boat hit by crushing heat. Also, officers and wives could not haul all the luxury items they would have wanted, which made them more bitter and miserable. Third, journeys functioned as vehicles for displaying the colonizers’ strength — even if limited — and for establishing their privilege. Army discourses constructed prerailroad journeys as a transition from the known world to the unknown, a descent into a region outside the nation and civilization in its contemporary condition. By representing the journey not as an unjust penetration of other peoples’ lands but as a struggle and a rite of passage that tested the travelers’ resolve and made them (successfully) face the “savage Indian danger” and “dangerous environment,” officers and their wives celebrated their character and perseverance as a superior group who pushed through all the colonial obstacles. These agents of empire were unwanted and irrelevant to society in the metropole. Thus, they sought to make themselves important by penetrating “dangerous” and “unwelcoming” regions and opening them to civilization. This was just one of many discursive avenues the army people used in their search for colonial power. They also accrued colonial authority and constructed their identity by elaborating on the difference between themselves and the environment, settlements, and peoples they encountered. The army’s “imperial eyes” deemed the sections traveled through foreign, inferior, and undeveloped — the antithesis of civilization. In that state, the travel region offered little to army travelers except uncivilized societies and untamed and unused nature, hot, sandy, dusty, arid, depraved, stagnant, and empty. Although it initially appears that critical white army travelers dismissed, or at least seriously questioned, the potential of the southwestern terrain they witnessed during their prerailroad journeys for white settlement and industry, there is, however, another side to this army discourse of the borderlands. As lands devoid of proper civilization, these places were also considered ripe for the taking and readily available for liberation and regeneration by civilized forces. By portraying the area from the California deserts to central 62
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Arizona as a land of inferior societies and empty places in their writings, army travelers justified U.S. conquest as right and just and even preferable to leaving these areas to their local Hispanic and indigenous inhabitants. As their long journeys ended, officers, dependents, and soldiers faced life in Arizona and New Mexico. Naturally, army personnel sought to establish U.S. control in their destination and engaged in military campaigns, but they also built their life there, no matter how temporarily. Their journeys did not promise much as far as living in the colony was concerned. But their destination was not the California deserts or the Colorado River area. White army colonizers had reached the “outside,” the heart of Apacheria, and would assess the natural geography, peoples, and settlements of their colonial home and carve a social connection to the place facing colonialism.
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Arizona is a poor place to live — anyone that has ever been here can testify and everyone seems to be looking forward to a time when they will leave. Tis as out of the way and as far from a railroad and civilization a person can get in the United States. —henry port er, surgeon, U.S. Army The melancholy howl of the coyote, aforetime heard in the echoing darkness, and rattle of stage coach . . . are sounds now banished by the chime of church bells, whistle of locomotives and rumble of Pullman coaches over the greatest railroads on the continent.
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—alice bl ack wood baldw in, officer’s wife
Reaching Clifton, an Arizona mining town, after a hard day’s march, Lt. John Bigelow pondered whether he should go without supper when his only choice to get one was to eat in what to him was “a typical mining town amusement hall.” The establishment, Bigelow described, was filled with Mexicans, Americans, Irish, Germans, and others gathered principally around the bar, playing billiards, engaged in heated conversations, or enjoying the square and round dances with themselves or in the company of lewd women. “I took in the animated scene,” he wrote anxiously and “questioned to myself
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the propriety of my being where I was.” Contemplating a quick exit, Bigelow was shortly introduced to “a couple of well-dressed gentlemen,” of which one proved to be the governor of the territory. That eased his nervousness, the restaurant having customers from the respectable white middle class Bigelow saw himself representing. “I had no further concern as to the propriety of my situation,” he concluded, being now able to enjoy his evening in the company of respectable men.1 A short distance away, Anton Mazzanovich, an Austrian-born enlisted man, entered the Southern Pacific Railroad whistle stop and cattle shipping center Willcox, Arizona. Much like Clifton, Willcox was filled with gambling joints, saloons, and dance halls that were regularly packed with Chinese, white cowboys, Mexicans, Indians, and soldiers. Mazzanovich enjoyed the atmosphere and freely indulged himself in the activities the town offered. “Here was the real thing,” he wrote. Although many Southwest settlements looked suspicious to officers, enlisted men found in them gambling and “tarantula juice,” enjoyed free from the restraints of middle-class control so pervasive inside the army villages. 2 The experiences and attitudes of Bigelow and Mazzanovich — alongside the statements made by Henry Porter, who wrote in 1873, and Alice Baldwin, who described Arizona in the mid-1880s — reveal much about the complex and changing dynamics between white army people and the Southwest. Most army posts in the region were concentrated in the Apache heartlands, the area bordered roughly by Prescott and the Mogollon Rim in the north, the junction of Gila and Salt Rivers in the west, and the Rio Grande in the east. Army personnel visited the settlements of this area, met its multicultural mix of peoples, socialized with some of them and fought others, and traversed crisscross its varied landscapes. Much like they had done during their journeys to the Southwest, officers, wives, and soldiers again categorized the world around them. They assessed the social makeup and natural geography of this Apache heartland with the needs of the colonizers in mind and against their norms The Place Facing Colonialism
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and standards of what a proper society and place ideally looked like. In army minds was also the burning question of white futures: was the area suitable and welcoming for white civilization and incorporation to the nation? All white army people never built exactly the same relationships or discourses, and the boundaries of exclusion were seldom fixed, but proved flexible and fluid. When ranking peoples, the question of racial mixing took a major role in army views of Hispanic peoples, but with Anglos ethnicity was largely irrelevant and much depended on behavior, morals, and character. Army discourses of the place ranged from those where south-central Arizona and New Mexico were described as backward, perilous, and exotic to visions of a potentially prosperous area. While officers and enlisted soldiers differed in their social connection to the colony, at heart white army people shared a strong belief in civilization and progress. The way many army writings represented the Apache heartlands as decadent, dangerous, and backward and many of its peoples as immoral and inferior before civilized forces had the opportunity to change everything in effect naturalized the establishment of the U.S. regime and Anglo dominance, substantiated claims for social superiority by officers and wives, and made the army look like a liberator that enabled progress and better futures.
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Borderlands Society
In the late 1860s officers, dependents, and enlisted men encountered a multiracial society in south-central Arizona and New Mexico. Most of the land was controlled by the indigenous groups, while Anglos occupied islands of imagined wealth, mainly mines and some ranches, and Hispanics were concentrated around Tucson, Mesilla, and a few other settlements, many of them along the Rio Grande. In the two counties, Arizona and Doña Ana, that constituted much of what remained of Apacheria, there lived approximately 12,700 people, excluding most Apaches, in 1860. Approximately half of them were Hispanics, the others either sedentary Indians, like Akimel O’odham, or Anglo miners, merchants, and soldiers. The larger 66
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centers of Hispanic population in the Southwest, such as Santa Fe and El Paso, were located outside the Apache heartland and the main concentration of army villages. So when white army people wrote about the people of Spanish heritage in the post–Civil War decades they mainly referred to peoples they encountered in the border region between Tucson and Mesilla.3 It was usual among Anglos around the time of the U.S.-Mexican War to regard Mexicans as people who lacked the propensity for democracy and who did not properly develop land to its full potential. The overwhelming American success in the war only intensified these beliefs. According to Charles Montgomery, Anglos “conquered ethnic Mexicans by taking their resources while defining them as racially inferior and properly marginal to white society.”4 What were represented as “natural traits” justified the advance of the seemingly industrious and progressive Anglos. It is hardly surprising that army officers and wives’ representations echoed, at least partially, this prevalent Anglo approach. Many in the army painted an image of a “typical Mexican” as an ignorant person completely distanced from modernity, unfamiliar in the use of money, and inclined to avoid work. The words of an officer’s wife suggest a common army perception: “A long line of idle ancestry,” she wrote, “together with every tendency of climate, surroundings, and viciousness, had so developed indolence in the natives as to utterly incapacitate them for any serious employment.” Mexicans liked to bask in the sun, she added, but all heavier tasks “were left for more energetic hands,” by which she obviously referred to Anglos.5 Like many of the early Anglo settlers, some in the army were able to see beyond the stereotypical “Mexican” and not only recognize class difference among the Hispanics but have ideas of class significantly shape their attitude and representations. One such person was Lt. John Bigelow. When encountering Hispanic farmers in the Gila Valley, Bigelow thought they were “the commonest sort, the sort that sits on a mud floor in preference to sitting on a chair, and is used to the companionship of pigs and chickens.” While Bigelow The Place Facing Colonialism
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proved harsh in his judgment, on another occasion he considered it pleasant to converse with a “Mexican gentleman.” Stationed at the Mowry Mine during the Geronimo campaign, Bigelow frequented a Hispanic household for dinners and the company of, in his words, “good people.” Also, at Lochiel, Bigelow enjoyed his time in what he referred to as a “high-toned baile,” where “gentlemen” were coated and women refrained from smoking or wearing any low-neck dresses.6 Unlike the Bigelow case, the army’s recognition of class difference did not automatically result in a more positive view of the Hispanics. There was little evident class solidarity, for example, in the words of an army officer visiting Tucson in 1872. The elite of Tucson, of whom many were Hispanics, arranged a “grand baile” of approximately one hundred people in his honor, but for the officer, who wrote anonymously of his experiences for the Los Angeles Star, the celebration lacked refinement and style. He remarked how the “señoritas were generally rather gaudily dressed, delighting in bright and varied colors, after window curtain styles.” While their “general behavior was proper,” some, to the disgust of the officer, “smoked their cigaritos very saucily.” The enjoyment seemed altogether too “unrestrained” and the dancing done with “very little grace of person or motion.” In many of the people, the officer commented, “I could not discover anything but dullness, and attempts at finery which seemed to fit their persons about as tidily as if they had run and jumped into them . . . such a commingling of people who here pass for respectable, one might see nowhere else except in Arizona.” The officer evidently did not think that the mainly Hispanic “respectable” element of Tucson could reach proper middle-class standards despite their efforts. Socializing with them had turned out to be not only exotic but distasteful.7 Unlike Bigelow and the unanimous officer, most army representations that discussed local Hispanics in the borderlands barely mentioned class. Instead, army attention was usually firmly fixed on race, and more specifically on racial mixing. Military personnel interpreted the cultural and racial association Hispanics and indigenous 68
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peoples had developed over a long period of time as a proof of contaminated whiteness, a reduction of Spanish culture and character. Army writings not only claimed that Apaches and Mexicans were “cousins” — and thus similar — but argued that when the Spanish and the Indian had amalgamated into the Mexican they had produced a “vicious man.”8 Visiting Tucson, Joseph Widney, an army surgeon, noted that the extensive “intermingling and mixing with Indian blood” had made the countenance of Mexicans heavy and dull. Convinced that the mixture of Spanish-Indian blood had resulted in a “miserable, worn out, degraded, shiftless, and worthless race,” he was decidedly against racial mixing and felt that “even pure Indian blood contained more promise.”9 When army texts generated an image of Mexicans as people who symbolized the stagnation of civilization and racial degradation, an example of Euro-American empire building gone wrong, they also produced a warning of what could happen to newcomers in the Southwest if not vigilant in guarding their whiteness. The need to protect their purportedly “pure” whiteness from contamination was taken seriously by many in the army who regarded racial mixing a recipe for cultural downfall. Thus, it is hardly surprising that white army men sought to keep a certain distance, at least in discourse, toward the local Hispanic women. Despite the fact there were very few Anglo women in the Southwest at the time and many Anglo newcomers had married themselves to the Hispanic elite in places such as Tucson, most writings by white army men, bachelor and married, either failed to register the presence of Hispanic women altogether or resorted to downplaying their sexual attractiveness. The anonymous officer, for example, being mostly critical of the ladies in the Tucson baile, regarded most Hispanic women he met when traversing Arizona army posts as “unattractive” and “ugly.” Even those army voices who tended to view Hispanic women more favorably applied differentiated scales of attractiveness. If a few “señoritas” could be considered pretty or sweet, they were not really as beautiful as white women were, but only so according to the standards The Place Facing Colonialism
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“in this part of the world,” one officer wrote. Whatever the reality regarding interracial affairs or the use of Hispanic prostitutes by white army men, this rhetorical strategy kept the whiteness of army men undamaged.10 Hispanic peoples did not a pose a threat to army authority or white privilege. In fact, Hispanics were seen by army writers to have fallen militarily at the mercy of “their Apache masters,” being unable to protect themselves or their honor but instead living as vassals of the powerful Apaches.11 Also, the image of a dangerous Mexican “bandit,” popular among Anglo civilians, scarcely registered in army texts. Although it is difficult to pinpoint exactly, this confidence did stem from Mexico’s inability to conquer the Apaches but presumably also had something to do with the faith created in the American armed forces by their crushing success in the U.S.-Mexican War. Mexicans seemed militarily trivial and somewhat pitiful, emasculated, captive of racial degeneration, and, in the end, unimportant. Mexicans functioned as “submissive others” in army minds, necessary to forge powerful white identities and masculinities cast in doubt by the military skills of the Apaches — who in turn represented “monstrous others.” Using dogs as allegory, one officer’s wife explained the difference between the white middle class the officers and their wives saw themselves representing and the Hispanics. Shep, “our darling black and brown collie with a white shirt and a white collar,” when approaching Mexican houses would attack their “cur dogs” who barked at him and “bite right and left, scatter the group, and then walk or trot quietly away.”12 While the officers and wives stood for high-status cleanliness of the all-powerful yet graceful collie in this example, the Hispanics were nothing but “cur dogs,” who might bark but never bite or threaten their pureblood superior. Although many white army people had their focus on racial purity when they wrote about the Hispanic peoples, this was not the case when army writers turned their attention to the small Anglo population in south-central Arizona and New Mexico. White 70
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ethnicity — a growing concern in the East over who was white and who was not — proved a worry rarely raised by the army. On the one hand, the army had made it clear that when “becoming Mexicans,” the Spanish had compromised their European heritage of industriousness, progress, and morality in front of “Indian savages.” Spanish meant white, but being a Mexican did not even include adjunct membership in the club of whiteness. On the other hand, being Irish or Jewish did not entail racial mixing or degeneration in army eyes and thus the whiteness of Irish or Jews was not similarly contaminated. Usually army texts failed to mention the ethnic origin of different whites. Writings in fact frequently lumped together the Irish, Germans, Scots, and others simply as “Anglo” or “white.” When ethnicity was mentioned it was not made a major concern or represented as something that could alone place one’s proper whiteness in question. For example, one officer when scouting for Apaches passed through the “oasis” of Solomonsville, where his party was presented with “great meals of meat and vegetables.” “All this through the kindness and hospitality of the Solomon Brothers, Jews, and two of the fairest and squarest men that I have ever met in my wanderings over this earth,” the officer wrote. It is telling that although this officer felt the need to introduce the two brothers by referring to their ethnicity, he did not let that dictate his attitude toward them, but wanted to stress how the brothers were “respectable” men who helped the army.13 As in the case of the Solomon brothers, officers and wives mainly measured and categorized whiteness by social position, behavior, culture, and character. In other words, different white groups were treated and valued differently by officers and dependents, who created hierarchies among whites along class lines while seeking to place themselves at the top of the pecking order. At the bottom belonged a large section of the early Anglo populace, the white prospectors, “outlaw-types,” and gamblers — the kind of people Lieutenant Bigelow at first met in the “amusement hall” in Clifton. Army voices typically cast them as an underclass of whiteness, a sort of “trash” The Place Facing Colonialism
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whiteness, characterized by greed, dishonesty, and bad manners. It has to be remembered that in the border region many of the whites, especially those who came before the railroads, did not arrive with families or to establish major industries and permanent communities, but, in the words of historian Thomas Sheridan, “descended like locusts on one strike after another . . . stripping away the nuggets and surface veins, and leaving behind their sluice boxes and shacks.” This aggressive, extortive settlement pattern left many ghost towns in its wake and also made the American conquest very much an urban spread against popular myths and ideals that like to cast it as an agrarian expansion.14 It was no wonder that the officers, who as a rule valued the independent married farmer highly as a civilizing force and strongly advocated industry and progress, viewed these Anglos with suspicion. Some acknowledged that the prospectors might be sturdy and determined but also dishonest, immoral, common, shabbily dressed, and poor elements of the white race. One officer claimed that certain white men in the borderlands acted “more or less emancipated from the restraints of civilization.”15 For officers and their wives, the prospectors, gamblers, and ruffians represented the surplus of good decent societies who could not act white but had arrived to the Southwest in search of refuge when unable to make it in the “normal” society in the East or in Europe. They are nothing but “miserable vagabonds who have come here to escape from the hands of Justice,” one officer argued. The most critical of army opinions implied that some of the lower-class whites would risk losing what was left of their whiteness when acting no less barbarous than the Apaches.16 Officers and wives knew that peopling and developing the new territory would secure U.S. claim to the land as much, if not more, as winning the wars against the Apaches. They probably felt they had a genuine reason for concern: the low numbers and the questionable social standing of most settlers would delay, or possibly even prevent, improvements to the region and make it a permanent refuge for the white underclass, which in turn would endanger the 72
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prospects for “proper” white civilization and even question the U.S. claim. In army thinking Arizona and New Mexico needed an influx of respectable white middle-class people who had the skill, courage, and conviction to make the land prosper. Alarmingly, in the late 1860s and early 1870s the borderlands still had few “decent” white women or doctors, lawyers, teachers, and other professionals, whose presence officers and wives saw essential for good civil society.17 As they waited for the civil society to improve, officers and wives sought ways to cope with the people already there. Despite their critical views of many local whites, officers and wives often adapted and tried to carve active social lives by mingling with the “who’s who” of the civilian society, calling on one another and getting together for picnics, dances, banquets, and other celebrations. In these situations of mutual enjoyment and respect, officers and wives applauded their civilian associates, for example, as “brave, hearty, and generous frontiersmen.”18 It is evident that the categorization of “respectable persons” and the boundaries of respectability proved fluid, as officers and wives adjusted their boundaries of social acceptability to meet the region’s supply of candidates. For example, when Martha Summerhayes lived at Ehrenberg on the Colorado River, she noted that her associates were those “few white men there” who “led respectable lives enough for that country.” She added that “the standard was not high,” implying that she would not regard these men proper associates in her home in New England. While Summerhayes lowered her bar, Joseph Corson, an army surgeon stationed at Fort Yuma who often socialized with the Sisters of Saint Joseph both at the convent and at his home, made his associates respectable by claiming that they were above the local standards. Corson assured in his journal that compared to sisters usually located in “such remote stations” and to others in the surrounding community, the nuns at Saint Joseph represented refined eastern values, being “much superior” in education and birth and thus suitable for socializing.19 Many army narratives displayed sympathy toward those, especially The Place Facing Colonialism
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if they were white families, living in stage stations and isolated farms. The army commonly represented these rural residents as hospitable and hardworking pioneers who bravely faced a dangerous life and “unenviable solitude” in “godforsaken small roadside stations.” Their presence, the army suggested, indicated better futures for the borderlands. For one officer, the hospitality of the ranches and stations made it worthwhile to journey over Arizona’s deserts, forests, and mountains, whereas an army wife thought that the proximity of Anglo ranches made the country instantly more soothing and pleasant. When coming to a valley with a house, some domestic animals, and fields, one soldier felt “a great relief and delight” on seeing these “signs of civilized life” after experiencing “nothing but sand, dust, rocks, cacti, thorns, greasewood, rattlesnakes and the enormous venomous lizards, there called Gila monsters.”20 Being more or less suspicious toward many of the early town dwellers and considering most of the Southwest towns morally corrupt, officers and wives cherished the American ideal of independent farmers and small hardworking families. Perhaps there existed a sense of shared fates, where the army was anxious to distinguish another group of moral and decent white outsiders taking on the challenge of the purportedly inhospitable border area. A further proof of the fluid boundaries of respectability is the case of Corydon Cooley, a white rancher, prospector, and government scout. Despite the fact that Cooley had married an Apache woman, officers described him as an “outstanding figure,” always hospitable and “valuable in that lonely land.” In officers’ texts Cooley lived in “baronial splendor” in a “good and comfortable” ranch. The army identified Cooley’s Apache wife by her Anglo name, “Molly.” Despite her racial otherness — army narratives rarely cited Apache women by name or treated them as individuals — the army cast her much like a proper white housewife, described as a “quiet, well-mannered” woman. Even Cooley’s interracial children the army texts represented as “most attractive.” At times, however, some army wives found it difficult to hide their disapproval. One wife, who 74
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enjoyed Cooley’s hospitality and spent a night at the ranch, was especially troubled by the thought that Cooley might have more than one Apache wife. When her husband refused to dwell on the matter, she had no choice than to keep her thoughts to herself.21 That Cooley had worked in alliance with the military proved a valuable asset in dealings with the Apaches and that he had been a splendid host in a region short on social companions made him an honorable figure in army discourses and outweighed his interracial relationship with the “enemy.” In fact, the army represented Cooley’s connections with the Apaches as a well-thought strategic alliance that only confirmed his energetic and honest character. The case of Corydon Cooley provides just one example of how the attitude white civilians were thought to harbor toward the army proved a matter of great significance in determining the tone and character of army representations. If local whites — regardless of their social background — were suspected of exploiting the army or if they criticized the military for anything, such as for inefficiency against the Apaches, like repeatedly happened, officers and wives quickly forgot any notions of solidarity and altered their representational strategies to defend the army’s image. In fact, the militarycivilian relations in Arizona and New Mexico were often filled with tensions stemming partly from the fact that Arizona, especially before the late 1870s, was completely dependent on government spending. Any cutbacks in troops or suspensions of operations against the Apaches had the potential to wreck many businesses. Recognizing that the army was the lifeline for many merchants in a region short on business opportunities, officers voiced their concerns. One common complaint was that business owners were not truly interested in long-term development, but were just “unsophisticated vultures” whose greed knew no limits as they, in search of quick profits, “preyed on the military” for lucrative contracts. Accusations that merchants knowingly circulated false reports of Indian attacks to induce the soldiers to come in and spend their money in towns or kept up the hostilities with the Indians because it was in the merchants’ economic The Place Facing Colonialism
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interest that the territory was filled with troops whom they could exploit, were not unheard of.22 Some army voices went as far as to state that the people in the Southwest “abused the army in every way imaginable.” One of the main villains in army accounts was the local printed press. Many papers, like the Tombstone Epitaph, Arizona Daily Star, and Clifton Clarion, the officers dubbed as the “censors of the army” or “the organs of thieves.” The press often called for decisive results and thus placed pressure on the army to end the “Apache menace.” This obviously hit the army nerve. According to one officer, “every officer was a coward and every enlisted man a hoodlum and a thief” in these publications.23 Being called a coward was the worst kind of insult, as officers’ sense of self and masculinity were grounded on notions of bravery and high moral character. Seeking to reclaim their sense of manliness and revealing their aspiration to keep civilians out of military matters, officers frequently verbally attacked the character of civilian volunteers. When comparing civilians, who were usually “ranger” units formed ad hoc to combat specific short-term “emergencies,” to the army, army texts made it appear as a rivalry between the gallant, honest, and righteous army men and the cowardly, brutal, and disorderly civilians. A telling incident took place a day following the Battle of Big Dry Wash (at Chevelon’s Fork) in 1882. A group who called themselves the “Globe Rangers,” but whom Lt. Britton Davis referred to as an “organization of barroom Indian fighters,” confronted an army troop, telling them that Apaches had stolen their horses. Trying to claim as their own “every good-looking horse in the herd” confiscated by the soldiers, they even argued that a horse belonging to Capt. Adna Chaffee was theirs. Chaffee, “getting madder every second at their evident lying,” Davis remembered, sent the “Globe Rangers” on their way without any horses. The rangers proved persistent, next seeking to loot some Apache corpses. Again the army stopped their efforts, but after the troops left, the “civilian warriors,” as one soldier called them, robbed and looted the dead Apache bodies, whose scalps they were later seen bartering at Fort Apache. 24 76
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Settlements in the Prerailroad Era
Tucson, the region’s largest settlement, with 3,224 people according to the 1870 census, had a non-Anglo majority after the Civil War. Demographic balance instantly gave Tucson a foreign feel in army eyes and made the town a difficult fit to Anglo ideas of proper settlement. In 1866 an enlisted soldier traveling through Tucson thought it noteworthy that with the exception of soldiers and teamsters in transit, he found less than a dozen white men in the town, and not one white woman. Six years later one officer commented that only approximately three hundred of Tucson’s inhabitants could be labeled as white, the rest being Mexicans and Indians. It is not known whether this officer included in his estimations the soldiers at Fort Lowell, located on the outskirts of Tucson. If he did, then he also saw only a handful of civilians he could identify as white. 25 It was not only the lack of white residents that made Tucson uncivilized in army eyes: the town’s social order appeared twisted and immoral as well. Army texts describe Tucson as a “wide-open, all night, hurrah town” of the Southwest, where bars and prostitutes supposedly constituted the principal business, and gambling counted as a respectable profession. Shocked, army voices recollected that the main street, the prime showcase of public space and the heart of the community, was filled with bars that played “rude music” and entertained “a motley assemblage of Mexicans, Indians, soldiers, and all manner of hard-looking men, smoking, betting at monte, and drinking mescal.” Officers also made remarks of the narrow and crooked streets and the shabby condition of the one-story adobe buildings, “all the same color as the dirt in the streets.” They othered Tucson as a community below Anglo standards when representing it as an insignificant and degenerating “dirty Mexican pueblo” or as a “queer, straggling old Spanish town, built with the proverbial Spanish disregard of straight lines and right angles.” It is hardly surprising that many of the officers and wives wanted to have little to do with this regional center. Tellingly, one officer’s wife felt glad to drive through Tucson without stopping.26 The Place Facing Colonialism
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1. A street view of Tucson, Arizona. Photo courtesy of Sharlot Hall Museum Library and Archives, Prescott, Arizona. citn-223pa. 78
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However, to argue that all officers and wives simply disliked Tucson as it existed in the 1860s and 1870s is somewhat too simplistic. For some, their reaction was more ambivalent. For example, John Bourke, a captain, regarded Tucson of the early 1870s as an important regional center, the most prominent town, alongside Prescott, between Los Angeles and Santa Fe, with progressive merchants and a hospitable society. Still, Bourke also noticed that the streets had no pavement, lamps, or drainage, being filled with filth. Bourke was also puzzled that in Tucson there was no use for addresses or for watches and clocks, as church bells set the rhythm of the day. He also commented that one rarely heard months, days, or weeks mentioned. Tucson did not follow the time discipline that increasingly orchestrated lives in the army villages and in the industrialized sections of the world. For Bourke Tucson was a town caught in a distant and exotic past. The borderlands center, Bourke wrote, was full of “strange scenes and sounds” and thus “as a foreign a town as if it were in Haiti instead of within our own boundaries.”27 Arguably, Tucson epitomized the dark, foreign, and morally corrupt Southwest for the officers and wives who distanced the town to the realm of the exotic and inferior. Tucson was a town built by foreigners for foreign taste and culture and not yet remodeled by the Anglos in the 1860s and 1870s. Prescott, on the other hand, was very much Tucson’s opposite in army eyes. Established in the wake of a mineral discovery during the Civil War, Prescott, with a population of 668 in 1870 and 1,836 in 1880, grew into one of the largest towns in the territory. In 1870 it ranked third behind Tucson and Arizona City and in the 1880 census it was the second largest town behind Tucson and just ahead of Phoenix and the booming silver town of Tombstone. Although a few army voices, such as army surgeon Joseph Corson, considered Prescott a “typical frontier” town, where gambling was a “chief industry,” most army observers painted Prescott in stark contrast to Tucson. They emphasized that Prescott had “a good element from the beginning, and disorderly people were not allowed to remain long.” The town not only possessed an Anglo majority and had little established Hispanic The Place Facing Colonialism
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2. A view overlooking Prescott, Arizona, ca. 1880. Photo courtesy of Sharlot
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Hall Museum Library and Archives, Prescott, Arizona. citn-210pd.
presence, which pleased officers and wives, but even included a society of lawyers, engineers, and other white businessmen and their families. A desirable home for middle-class tastes, Prescott, in the words of Bourke, was not “burdened with the same class of loafers who for so long a time held high carnival” in some of the other Anglo-established places, such as Tombstone or Deming, New Mexico. Bourke, who had considered Tucson foreign, called Prescott a “thoroughly American town.” In addition, army observers delighted that Prescott was also as a “well-built place” of log and brick, not adobe, houses. In sum, many officers and wives made Prescott seem everything that Tucson was not. They were able to value its racial 80
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and class composition, spirit of industry, and building styles, all important markers of decent towns and good society in their minds.28 Army views of Tucson and Prescott demonstrate how officers and wives used race and class as well as the orchestration of public space, including building styles and materials, as vehicles for establishing the value of different settlements. In other words, officers and wives ranked borderlands settlements according to how similar they were with communities in the East. Army views were not that different from those held by other Anglos. According to Keith L. Bryant, many white Americans “rejected the ‘mud towns’ they found in the Southwest” and “wanted buildings and homes of wood or stone, glass windows, wooden floors, and metal ceilings and roofs.”29 In some ways Tucson and Prescott represent the opposite ends of the spectrum, as many towns and villages in the borderlands occupied a place somewhere between the two in army thinking. While small settlements such as Cañada Alamosa, Florence, Rio Mimbres, or Ehrenberg, populated predominantly by Hispanics and lowerclass whites, were represented by the officers and wives similarly as Tucson and usually typecast as inferior villages of “miserable adobe houses,” Silver City, New Mexico, an Anglo-built mining town established in the early 1870s, was more appealing to army tastes.30 Officers and dependents from the nearby Fort Bayard, who often drove to the town for entertainments, wrote that in Silver City there was “every element” present, from the “most cultivated, from the transplanted branches of excellent Eastern families” to the “rudest specimens of frontier life, who had never seen anything else, and were devoid of all education.” The town was compactly built and had one or two brick houses, which pleased the officers and wives, who saw the houses as symbols of progress and “American” character. One officer pointed out that the brick houses were “said to be the only ones in the Territory.”31 Overall, for officers and wives the borderlands society in the 1860s and 1870s was short on “respectable” white residents, proper middle-class social order, time discipline, and familiar elements of public The Place Facing Colonialism
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space, including brick or wood houses, sidewalks, parks, green lawns, and straight and orderly streets resembling the white Protestant towns and villages in the East. With their crooked dirt roads, seemingly primitive adobe housing, prevalence of bars and gambling houses, and high percentage of Hispanics and lower-class whites, settlements such as Tucson were cast as foreign, inferior, and immoral by officers and wives. In many ways, the officers and wives were simply unfamiliar and genuinely surprised by what they witnessed. They could prove critical in their judgments but could also adapt by adjusting the bar regarding the respectability of their associates. Class, as performed in manners and attitude toward the army, made local Anglos either respectable enough or the targets of army scorn. Officers’ and wives’ representations of borderlands settlers and communities clearly reveal their desire to acquire colonial power by establishing difference and their own culture’s superiority. In general, the army represented places (Prescott, Silver City) and peoples (Sisters of St. Joseph) with the strongest middle-class Anglo influence or “eastern values” as superior and those where Hispanic and lower-class whites set the tone of the society (Tucson) as inferior. They also differentiated Anglos who criticized the army (local press), were thought to exploit it (merchants), or interfered in military matters (rangers). Representations of peoples and settlements as inferior naturalized their marginalization and made them legitimate targets for change. For the Southwest to have “civilized” futures new communities were needed and the old ones had to be remade by incoming middle-class whites. In the eyes of officers and dependents Prescott marked a new beginning, a sign of things to come. Every town in the Southwest should be like Prescott and even more so: white, not Hispanic; built of log and brick buildings, not adobe; and a place where lower-class elements did not rule the social scene but were run out of town by “decent” people. Enlisted Men and the Settlements
Many white enlisted men saw things differently than officers and wives. Prescott never was their favorite place. Instead, soldiers often 82
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preferred Tucson and other “rough” communities. What for officers stood out as a nest of vice was a sanctuary for white enlisted men, a haven from the restrictive codes of middle-class propriety so dominant in the army villages. Tucson and smaller communities like it were filled with a mixed cast of colonizers and colonized, interacting and creating common grounds around rough leisure worlds. It seemed impossible, an officer’s wife argued, to keep the soldiers away from these places.32 In enlisted men’s writings Tucson was a town “bubbling with life and motion.” One soldier seemed thrilled that every other building on the business street was a saloon. For him it appeared perfectly acceptable that gambling ran steadily twenty-four hours a day and that the most elegantly dressed men in the town were the faro dealers and saloon keepers. The intermediate buildings on Tucson’s business street, filled, in a soldier’s words, with prostitutes “of every age and every race and color,” also represented a welcomed site for many lonely soldiers. Saloons, packed with a crowd of men of many nationalities, teamsters, bull whackers, soldiers, miners, Mexicans, and Indians, “offered a wonderful variety of humans,” one soldier wrote. They were all “happy-go-lucky people,” another army man added, enjoying all the activities to the fullest. Later in life one soldier felt remorse that those “happy days” had passed into history as the region had, in his words, “matured.”33 Enlisted men were able to carve social freedom and opportunities to enjoy life in the Southwest towns that did not exist inside the military villages. It seems that this applied to both white and black soldiers, although the latter were sometimes targets of racial prejudice by local civilians. In his study of black soldiers in Texas, James Leiker observed that while officers never left their post after dark because they regarded the neighboring town of Santa Angelo filled with “murderers and horse thieves,” black enlisted men frequented the town, finding suitable company and an interesting social scene. Whereas officers shunned the settlements’ standards and composition, black enlisted men, like white soldiers, enjoyed what opportunities they could discover.34 The Place Facing Colonialism
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On the other hand, white enlisted men in Arizona and New Mexico represented a more complicated story of the region’s settlements. Like officers, white soldiers were outsiders too, and not all simply embraced the communities they experienced. For instance, one critical enlisted man regarded Tucson as a “sorry-looking Mexican town,” with narrow and crooked streets; countless dogs, burros, and chicken fights; and Spanish-speaking residents. As did the officers, white soldiers used race and building styles to differentiate the settlements. Another soldier thought that while Tucson was the largest place he had seen since leaving San Francisco, it was still a mere Mexican town made of mud. “I have not seen a house built of wood since I left the Pacific coast,” he regretted in a letter home. “The buildings which deserved the name of houses,” still another, apparently stunned, soldier wrote of Tucson, were of adobe with flat mud or dirt floors and roofs. Those that did not deserve to be labeled “houses,” this soldier continued, were built of mesquite poles and the long wands of candlewood. They had chinks filled with mud plaster, doors of rawhide stretched over rough frames, and windows as simply apertures in the walls. Also, just like it bothered officers, some soldiers held Tucson’s social scene as unsuitable for civilized white men. For one soldier, Tucson had proven a source of amazement and amusement, but, he admitted, it “was surely no town for a young man whose immediate forebears traced straight back to the first Puritans.”35
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Lost in Apacheria
Army life in the borderlands was far from a purely urban experience. Expected to secure the monopoly of violence for the U.S. regime, army men could not just isolate themselves to the army villages or limit their experiences to visits to the region’s settlements but also had to establish colonial power in the “wilderness.” They familiarized themselves with the landscapes on their travels between army posts and local settlements, during leisure outings, and when engaged in patrolling and military campaigns. As outsiders, white 84
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army people felt unease in a new environment and often found themselves mentally, and physically, lost in Apacheria. In 1871 Arizona’s new military commander Lt. Col. George Crook and his party traversed from Camp Apache to Camp Verde. In the Mogollons the group lost the trail, which they had been assured existed. Being unable to keep their focus on the main mountain summit in a country cut up by ridges and canyons, they experienced severe difficulties, most in finding water. Luckily a thunderstorm solved their water problem and eventually the outfit stumbled on a trail. After some further off-road traveling, they found their destination, exhausted and bewildered by the landscapes of their new colonial home.36 Although the route was soon dubbed “Crook’s Trail” as a statement to the army’s symbolic conquest and possession of the wilderness, it was fairly common that situations arose when officers had to acknowledge that “no one knew anything about the country we were in.”37 Of course, not all army patrols were lost all the time, but it is evident that troops frequently could not locate the places they sought. Arguably, this had much to do with the fact that maps either did not exist or were filled with errors. Writing of the situation in the late 1870s and early 1880s, Lt. Thomas Cruse stated that officers were ordered to provide sketch maps of the trails they traveled during military operations to improve the cartographical knowledge of the region. But there still were hundreds of miles “hitherto absolutely unknown,” sections both in Arizona and New Mexico that Cruse dubbed “wild” and “almost terra incognita to any but the Indians. A few important points, such as springs and water holes and peaks, were known . . . but often their situation was conjectural, indefinite.” Sometimes, Cruse added, when enemy movement was reported near some ranch or creek, there was absolutely nothing to show where such places were or how the troops would get there.38 Army discourses did not portray the lack of sufficient cartographical knowledge as the only, or even main, reason for their problems. Instead, army writers frequently cast the blame on the borderlands The Place Facing Colonialism
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environment. According to Gen. Wesley Merritt, the country between San Carlos and the White Mountains in the east and Camps Verde and McDowell in the west was a place of “many varieties in climate.” It contained, Merritt noted, “burning, sandy wastes” in the valleys of the Gila and Salt Rivers, as well as “rocky mountain peaks, deep canyons, heavily wooded mountain streams, and dark pine forests. Here and there beautiful little valleys or parks are found, each an isolated oasis.” Traveling “along the zigzag trail,” Merritt continued, in this “most wild mountain region” meant the prospect of a “interminable, heart-breaking, rock-climbing struggle” where “one passes from one extreme to the other but would prefer to remain in the worst than encounter the torture of a journey over miles on miles of confused and jumbled masses of rocky mountain peaks to reach the better.”39 Wesley Merritt was just one among a plethora of army writers who sought to make sense of the landscapes in Apacheria. Others wrote that they endured “woods and thickets” and “prickly shrubs,” “wild, jagged, and precipitous” canyons, or lava beds and volcanic rock with sharp edges. Still others explained that they had to negotiate “crumbling alkali flats,” where clouds of choking dust surrounded everyone “foolish enough to enter.” There were those who struggled through “almost impassable” trails among “numberless” buttes and “rugged” mountain crags, and some who were forced to climb up and down dangerous high mesas, hills, and mountains for several nights, battered, bruised, and thirsty. One officer explained that due to natural geography the cavalry in the borderlands was reduced to a corps “in which you walk, have the privilege of helping your horse, he in turn carrying your saddle.” Another thought that “cavalry in those regions was as useless as gunboats.” Some wrote that the troops “cursed the land” as they traversed forward.40 While these descriptions testify that army writings recognize rich variety in the borderlands environment, they also reveal that for the army the different terrains seemed to offer extremely challenging and wild country. Much like during their journeys to the Southwest, 86
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white army men and women again made movement a struggle and described the colonial terrain as perilous and challenging. Army discourses did not emphasize motivational problems in the troops, the lack of physical stamina, too much manual labor, little time for military training, poor maps, or unfamiliarity with the natural surroundings. Instead, military movement was portrayed as an arduous test of strength, endurance, and character because the terrain was so inhospitable, wild, and dangerous that, by implication, it offered only challenges and hardships for the civilized campaigner. Army texts even claimed that a civilized person could not understand the roughness of the borderlands without personal experience. “Those who have never traveled through this region, with its high mountain ranges, deep rocky canyons, and wide sandy plains, will fail to comprehend the trials, hardships, and annoyances which the troops are required to undergo,” an officer wrote. Another army writer felt certain that people “in the states” could not believe that such mountains as there were in the border region even existed or that they were in any way passable.41 When analyzing army representations of borderlands landscapes it is possible to detect multiple layers and meanings. For one, army stories show the very real hardships the troops experienced and the frustrations that resulted. Army had to go through the most demanding sections of the region and this often proved very taxing both physically and emotionally. While many in the army acknowledged the difficulties, they usually pitted the soldiers in a struggle against wild landscapes, as it was easier to blame the landscapes than to analyze one’s own shortcomings. Scrutinizing one’s own vulnerability would have jeopardized the idea of innate Anglo superiority, on which colonizer power rested. White army people must have realized that it was potentially embarrassing for a colonial power to claim dominance when its armed forces had difficulties in just moving about. Thus, rather than center the discussion on their own limitations, white army people resorted to masking their unfamiliarity.42 Second, when the landscapes were approached in terms of struggle The Place Facing Colonialism
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and positioned as challenges, army movement in itself — the fact that army patrols did not give up nor did the army withdraw from the Southwest — signified civilization’s triumph over colonial wilderness. In army discourses it was civilization pitted against dangerous periphery, the civilized army campaigner facing the perils of colonial landscapes only to overcome them and establish the proposed superiority of white culture. Third, representations of the landscapes as rough, dangerous, and unused — the typical army discourse — made the borderlands inferior in comparison to civilized regions in a manner similar to army representations of settlements as foreign, immoral, and decadent. The army message seems to be that as a living space the border region, in its present “natural” condition, was no match for the civilized places of the world, such as the eastern United States and western Europe. In conjunction, army discourses also related the impression that the landscapes looked rather doubtful for white futures. After all, rugged canyons, steep mountains, lava beds, and sandy deserts did not exactly offer an inviting image. While there were some army observers, like General Merritt, who noticed the inviting fertile valleys, these “oases” were always few and far between and concentrated in specific subregions, most notably in and around Fort Apache and the White Mountains. Much of the borderlands was dominated, in army words, by the “inferior cacti, low mesquite bushes, and similar shrubs,” the only things “hard enough to survive.”43 Also, while there was plenty of sunshine in the borderlands, army voices painted the heat of the sun as too scorching for farming endeavors.44 Furthermore, when writing about wildlife many army texts mentioned good hunting grounds with elks, bears, and turkeys, for instance, in passing but still carved an image of the Southwest as the domain of the tarantula, scorpions, centipedes, Gila monsters, and rattlesnakes. It was common for army texts to include episodes of insects and reptiles threatening army people’s personal spheres, entering their blankets when at camp or attacking their bodies, or their horses and mules, suddenly and without warning. Rattlesnakes 88
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especially the army represented as symbols of the treacherousness of the colonial environment.45 Nowhere was this nature-as-a-challenge thinking more evident than in army writings concerning water. No water equaled no civilization in army minds. Although army observers pointed out that some sections could prove suitable for farming if irrigated, much of the flat land in army eyes was still mere sand plains plagued by “terrible sandstorms” and almost destitute of water.46 The low rainfall in many places and the infrequent aggressive cloudbursts and storms formed circumstances far from ideal for farming. Army texts also implied that irrigation could prove difficult as the region’s rivers were, depending on the season, either empty dried stretches of sand, and thus of no use, or uncontrollable “raging torrents,” with swift currents and rapidly rising surfaces.47 Many army voices saw the water supply as undependable and insufficient because of their personal experiences in the field. On most army marches water was never far from a soldier’s mind. They worried about finding some that would prove drinkable, and not, like often happened, filled with alkali and sulfur. Many a times finding water proved such as problem that the troops had to go on random, potentially desperate, searches, dig for water, buy from civilians, or go without any as best they could. At times thirsty soldiers offered a month’s pay or all they had for just one swallow. Also, it was not unusual that the necessity of finding water, rather than the most accessible routes or signs of enemy activity, actually directed military movement. There also were, an army surgeon wrote, “terrible marches where men maddened with thirst would open their own veins and drink their own blood.”48 At one time a column traversing the edge of the Florida Mountains in New Mexico in search of Apaches was forced to skip a rest stop after coming upon an empty water source. Continuing onward, the troop examined every ravine and canyon but found nothing. After a while things began to get bad. Men’s lips cracked and blood oozed out, and some soldiers became unable to articulate, turning delirious and throwing The Place Facing Colonialism
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themselves on the ground. There were those who tried to find shade by sticking their heads under small bushes. The men in best condition traveled ahead in search of water but returned empty-handed. Discipline and order was gone, as men started to collapse and wander out on their own. Luckily, one soldier managed to find water and saved the column.49 When it came to military movement and the colonial landscapes, officers, wives, and white enlisted soldiers paid attention to similar issues and constructed representations that were not determined by one’s class position. Their writings emphasized certain aspects of the colonial environment and paid less attention to others. The army produced a colonial discourse where a select set of key characteristics — most notably rough and treacherous canyons, broken and almost impassable mountain chains, deadly desert plains of sandy waste, crushing heat, dangerous wildlife, and shortage of water — were used to describe the natural environment of the colony. Writing in his diary during the early 1870s, Capt. John Bourke witnessed “with varying sensations of pleasure or discomfort . . . much scenery, good, bad and indifferent, plain, mountain, fruitful field and arid desert, bubbling spring of crystal freshness and stagnant pool of slime and alkali.” Still, even Bourke fell back to the prevalent army summary of borderlands landscapes as “asperous mountains,” “profound canyons,” and parched flanks filled with thorny and leafless vegetation. In white army eyes the landscapes were seldom promising in their present state, almost never normal, and usually inferior to those in civilized regions. 50
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Far Country
Place mattered for the officers and their wives. It was just when they considered the peoples, society, and natural geography in the eastern United States or in western Europe to be the norm that they experienced difficulties in identifying with the border region. When referring to the Arizona–New Mexico borderlands as a whole, army narratives resorted to such unflattering descriptions as the “gloomy 90
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region,” “wretched Territory,” “distant and dreary desert,” “far frontier,” “extreme frontier” or “that far-away country.”51 Clearly, distance from the imperial center held an important function in defining the colony as a whole. Distance was both symbolical and practical. It meant that the Southwest, its peoples, settlements, and nature, differed and were inferior in relation to the “civilized world.” It also meant that the region in very real terms was cut off, with poor connections to the imperial center and the rest of the world. The feeling of exclusion from the “real world” was a common and painful army mentality. Some complained in their letters that they felt they were as far away from home as imaginable.52 Distance made living standards low, the supply of available commodities weak, and the price of available items shockingly expensive.53 Distance also kept the white middle class away, which in turn made the area undeveloped and, in army words, an “inhospitable wasteland” or a “difficult and dangerous region.”54 Even many enlisted soldiers, who usually felt a strong connection to the borderlands in its contemporary state, something the officers and dependents never did, named the area, for example, as a “wild country,” a “miserable place,” or the “most godforsaken country that can be made.”55 Furthermore, in army logic, distance contributed to the high level of violence and lawlessness. Army statements such as “this whole land is red with murder and massacre” or “hostility appeared to be the normal condition of everybody and everything, animate and inanimate” linked sinister imagery to the borderlands, as did the characterization of the Southwest as a “dark and bloody ground.”56 As a living space few army people found similarities between the borderlands and eastern United States, Ireland, or Germany, the regions they originated from. The only suitable comparison many could come up with was the Middle East, for most whites a distant and exotic place. When officers, dependents, and enlisted men compared borderlands’ landscapes and peoples to those in the Bible, it only further cemented the “otherness” of Arizona and New Mexico. For instance, army people imagined that Mexican customs “recalled The Place Facing Colonialism
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those of the Israelites as described in the Bible,” and their villages were thought similar to those in Palestine. 57 Tucson “reminded me forcibly of the small hamlets I had seen in the Holy Land, the more so as the women, all half-breeds, wore about the same dress as the Palestine women and carried upon their heads water-jars of the exact pattern in use in the Orient,” one army man wrote. This soldier also wrote that camels, the remnants of the army’s pre–Civil War experiment, in the Arizona desert looked as natural as those near the pyramids of Egypt.58 Applying biblical imagery, some army texts made comparisons between Southwest and hell. “One part of the desert,” an army paymaster wrote, “is called ‘The Devil’s Garden,’ from its denser growth of all thorny varieties of the cactus and other prickly shrubs, making it difficult to pass. We begin to think the name might be applied with much propriety to almost the whole territory.” In an army that in general downplayed religion, Christian imagery was surprisingly often resorted to in descriptions of the borderlands. Describing the environment, an officer’s wife remarked that the land “was as silent as the sentinel. There was something appalling in the grandeur of the scenery . . . a sea of mighty mountains. . . . Every thing was of a somber hue. It seemed as if the Creator had cursed the country. Even the lizards and horned toads, the only living creatures, were like the country, gray and bloodless.” Another observer considered the region “a ‘hell of a country’ in the truest sense of the word,” while an army surgeon’s wife was convinced that “the Almighty made” Arizona “last and didn’t have much material left.”59 Unsurprisingly, officers and dependents viewed the Southwest as a good place to get away from. Relocating to Angel Island outside San Francisco, Martha Summerhayes felt that she and her husband could only now “began to live, to truly live; for we felt that the years spent at those desert posts under the scorching suns of Arizona had cheated us out of all but a bare existence upon earth.” Even shorter breaks, such as detached service and leaves, were welcomed enthusiastically. One officer considered recruiting duty a lucky break. After a few days rest in San Diego, “the long nightmare of three years 92
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service in Arizona was partially dispelled, if not entirely removed,” he wrote. Some army people even labeled duty in the East as “light duty” while time in Arizona they classified as “hard duty.”60 Furthermore, practically none of the officers returned to the Southwest permanently when retiring from the army. Lt. George Eaton counts as a typical case if there ever was one. Born in Maine, he was assigned to Arizona in 1873 and spent three years in the region, after which he left for the northern plains. When Eaton finally retired, he did all kinds of things, except return to the Southwest. Eaton bought a cattle ranch and worked as a mining engineer in Montana before relocating to New York and eventually to Florida, where he died. Another officer, Maj. David Perry spent almost a decade in the Southwest in the 1880s but declined to return after retiring. He died in Washington dc. A random sampling demonstrates that officers who served in Arizona passed away in places such as New York, Atlantic City, Vancouver, Milwaukee, or Los Angeles, but not in Arizona or New Mexico. In fact, the vast majority of these officers lived their senior years east of the Mississippi River.61 Furthermore, even those who died while stationed in the Southwest often had their final resting place somewhere else. For example, when Capt. Frederick Ogilby died of pneumonia at Fort Apache in 1877, his remains were removed from the post cemetery in 1878 and relocated to New York City, and those of Lt. Col. George Schofield, who committed suicide at Fort Apache in 1882, were disinterred in 1884. Of course, these samples are far from exhaustive, but they nevertheless demonstrate that in relation to the Southwest, officers stayed outsiders to the very end. They did not regard the region a suitable living environment — or burial place — for themselves. Even the rare returnees were usually temporary. One of those who came back was Capt. Mason M. Maxon, who took part in the Southwest campaigns of the 1880s. He retired in 1891 and worked as a professor of military science at the University of Arizona, Tucson, in 1903–4. However, he stayed for that one year only. In 1934 Maxon died in Cincinnati, Ohio.62 Whereas officers retired for civilian life outside Arizona and New The Place Facing Colonialism
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Mexico, many enlisted men stayed in the region. Those who died in service were almost always buried in Southwest soil. The sample from the burial records of Forts Apache, Bayard, McDowell, and Verde shows that the majority of occupants in post cemeteries consist of common soldiers.63 Of the living, one officer noted that in Arizona “one cannot travel far in uniform without being spoken to by someone who has worn the army blue.”64 Following their discharge soldiers tried a great variety of occupations. They opened stores and bars, ran ranches, provided services for travelers, or drove the stagecoach carrying mail and passengers. After his discharge one man carried mail for the government and went into the cattle business, selling most of the beef to the troops. Another private purchased a half interest in a ranch and livestock near Camp Crittenden and tried to make a living hauling wood and forage to the military post. He stayed in the Southwest for several years.65 In fact, many enlisted men made the Southwest more or less their permanent homes. For example, George J. Henry from Akron, Ohio, who had worked in the military in the 1880s in Arizona, first retired to civilian life in Tombstone. After reenlisting for service in Cuba and the Philippines by the end of the century, he again chose to come back to Arizona and to remain there. He operated as the caretaker at Fort Apache and was also in charge of a fire station at a ranger station before dying in 1940.66 In colonial situations there at times existed a serious concern that a prolonged stay in a distant colony would expose the colonizers to imperial contamination, damaging their character and reducing them to the level of their surroundings. In Arizona and New Mexico, officers felt, circumstances had reduced the Spanish to Mexicans and seemed to have an impact on enlisted men. Not only did the soldiers enjoy their time in the supposedly immoral activities offered by the region’s settlements, but their appearance was at times far from what the officers expected from representatives of a “civilized nation.” To the readers of his journal back East, John Bigelow explained the situation he was forced to confront: 94
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Our column would be a curious sight for a European officer. Most of the men ride in their blue flannel shirts, their blouses strapped to their saddles; one big sergeant wears a bright red shirt, and looks not unlike a mounted fireman; some of the men take off their blue shirts and ride in their gray knit undershirts. There are all sorts of hats worn, of Mexican and American make. . . . Some of the men wear over their blue army trousers the brown canvas overalls, intended to be worn only on fatigue; some wear civilian overalls. There are few trousers not torn or badly worn. . . . Here is a man with a single spur; here one without any. The carbines are variously carried; some according to regulations. . . .
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The men’s feet are some in shoes and some in boots.67
According to Bigelow’s portrayal, imperial contamination was already taking its toll among common soldiers. “It would be most unreasonable to expect of our troops, campaigning on the frontier, the trim appearance preserved by European troops on a campaign,” Bigelow laconically added, as if accepting the inevitable.68 Enlisted men themselves appeared more carefree about the effect the Southwest might have. Many soldiers enjoyed their time and saw no need for alarm; acting like other people in the region was acceptable. Looking back later in life one soldier was convinced that Arizona was the place “where I spent my happiest and most adventurous years,” engaged in the “defense of my adopted country.” Another soldier equaled his time in Arizona as “unalloyed happiness.”69 Only rarely did a soldier voice his concern. “I don’t know how I should act in the society of ladies now, as I have not been seen but one unmarried white woman since I came into the territory nearly 3 years [ago],” one soldier pondered while waiting for his discharge and return home to the East.70 Arguably, concern over the enlisted men’s standards never was the main issue for the officers and their wives. They prioritized their own lives and middle-class sensibilities, and the enlisted men represented in some ways predictable lower-class casualties. Some harbored an underlying worry over decivilization, of falling below acceptable The Place Facing Colonialism
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standards and becoming a brutish commoner like so many of the region’s residents. For example, when being invited to a dinner after a long campaign, one officer was more than little anxious that his “blouse, the back of my blue shirt (the only one I had left) was missing, my long hair reached almost to my shoulders, my beard, untrimmed for three months, fell on my breast, and I had on my head a soft wool hat, the crown of which was missing entirely and the brim had also been torn off.” He felt he could not attend a “civilized” dinner in such a state and was determined to refuse the invitation, although he had not eaten a decent meal in ages. In another case, an officer’s wife returning from New York by train broke down and cried at the bearded and dusted appearance of her husband at the station. He “looked like a tramp,” the wife wrote. The shameful husband agreed that he was in a “disreputable condition.” As in the previous example, the circumstances had managed to gain a temporary upper hand, marking the officer almost unrecognizable in front of his wife.71 Worried, some wrote that living in the colony could make one “look like an Indian.” In the end, it did not take much to cross the line of propriety. For example, after killing a hawk and placing the tail feathers in his hat, one army man “concluded I looked too much like an ‘Injun,’ & took them out.”72 However, in the thinking of officers and their wives, it was always something more than physical appearance alone that was at stake; contamination threatened one’s character and would make one unfit to return to civilized middle-class life outside the Southwest. One captain wrote that he had learned “by experience that residence in New Mexico and Arizona, if too prolonged, produces the champion breed of liars.” Shortly before his departure back home, Joseph Widney feared that his stay in Arizona had made him unrecognizable. “You must not disown me if you find me grown part-savage with this frontier life. It is not calculated to add much polish to manners,” he wrote to his family. Widney also worried that the “real world” back home had moved on and he, having spent so much time out of touch with civilization, would 96
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have difficulties fitting in.73 After returning to New England from the Southwest, Martha Summerhayes acknowledged that “I could not break away from my Arizona habits.” She smoked cigarettes, slept all afternoon, and wore only white dresses “partly because,” she wrote, “I had become imbued with a profound indifference to dress.” Her aunt, who regarded all foreigners with contempt, worried that everybody would think she had become a Mexican. “I was in the bondage of tropical customs, and I had lapsed back into a state of what my aunt called semi-barbarism.” Defying her aunt and the “whirlpool of advanced civilization,” Summerhayes did not seriously challenge the rigid ideals of middle-class standards but only teased her family by her “Arizona habits.” In private she turned her experiences into manifestations of personal strength, being proud that she had endured all the hardships of colonial circumstances and managed, at least in her own mind, to keep her middle-class mindset intact.74
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A New Dawn for the Southwest
Writing of Arizona in the early 1870s, one officer suggested that there was no “use in the government sending troops here to protect so miserable a country at such an enormous expense — better let the Indians have it.” Even the commanding general of the army at the time, William T. Sherman, agreed that whites should withdraw and either force Mexico to take Arizona back or leave it to the indigenous inhabitants.75 Despite these heated opinions, white army personnel in general did not want Indians or Mexicans to keep the Southwest but wanted to incorporate the border region into the nation. Arguably, the fact that many army texts defined Arizona and New Mexico mainly as an “inferior society,” “challenging landscapes,” and “faraway location” proves that the writers of those texts did not wish to identify with the borderlands as it existed. Not only does it show their genuine frustration and unfamiliarity with local conditions, but it also displays a concern that the area might be too different from the true “Anglo-Saxon” United States to have a white future. On the other hand, however, the army people’s strategy to The Place Facing Colonialism
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represent the region as somehow “empty of civilization” also meant the area appeared readily available for the takeover of civilized forces that could make the land prosper. Indeed, in the army’s discourse of the borderlands, the backward and threatening images represent just one side of the coin. There were many in the military who understood the present condition of the borderlands just as a prelude to a more prosperous, industrious, and civilized future. In their minds Arizona and New Mexico were targets for massive change. Somehow the Southwest was really not the “outside” after all, but rather “our outside,” a dark ground perhaps, but increasingly penetrated by the light of the United States. The army answer for future “betterment” was the arrival of technology, which would break the harmful grip of distance, and of large-scale colonization of Arizona and New Mexico by middleclass whites. While the Southwest had no railroads in the mid-1870s, by 1882 Arizona alone had 576 miles of track. In a matter of a few years the borderlands was efficiently linked to the rest of the nation and the world economy and subjected to the invasion of industrial capitalism. “The progress in building railroads . . . has been one of the wonders of this western country,” one officer argued. Others felt that the railroads represented not only the best, speediest, and least costly mode to “protect the inhabitants” but would allow a total turnaround when bringing in large numbers of “respectable citizens,” which in turn would lead to the development of “proper” society, infrastructure, and industry; lure investments to develop the mines; and allow speedy exportation of the region’s riches.76 However, not all in the army were convinced. With the railroads, they worried, would arrive mixed groups of outlaws, “vultures” who would then plunder “honest settlers” or, worse, keep the “respectable” classes from coming.77 Many officers and wives believed that the white middle class meant the same as progress. For instance, one officer was certain that whereas an area in the Southwest void of the white American touch was dreary and unpleasant, barren and desolate; showed few 98
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signs of human occupancy; and lacked roads, houses, and settlements, any section where there were white Americans suggested a “prosperous and growing population.” According to another officer, “there can be little doubt that when the Territory shall receive an immigration of thrifty farmers, it will become one of the most prosperous countries in the Pacific slope.”78 Although they valued independent small farmers as the backbone of a prosperous society, officers nevertheless more often represented mining as the most probable candidate for becoming the engine of economic improvement in the Southwest. Already in the early 1870s some officers acknowledged in their official reports that the region “is full of the precious metals” and that what was needed for the Southwest to become “one of the most productive regions of precious metals” was better transportation facilities and peace. In an official report written in 1880, the turn of the decade was painted as a time of “marvelous developments,” with mineral discoveries in Tombstone and increased activity in other places. The report stated that “the vast growth of the mining interests in the southern part of this Territory [Arizona] . . . can hardly be appreciated without being seen. Towns have sprung up as if by magic. The sound of mills is heard all over this section, and the flow of bullion is large and increasing every day.” All this brought in large number of settlers who lived on the whims of the miner, along with large herds of cattle and horses.79 White army people argued that Arizona and New Mexico of the 1880s was booming in more ways than one. The previously “neglected” land was beginning to be used the right way. Not only did sheep and cattle raising “forge ahead,” but the more optimistic army opinions thought that, finally, farming also thrived, releasing the “natural bounty” of the region and changing the value and appearance of the landscapes for the better. In some army minds, the development of farming had always been necessary to establish the status of Arizona and New Mexico as a civilized place. Now, these people wrote, the borderlands witnessed monumental change. “Wonderful growth,” in the words of an army wife, had made the deserts over The Place Facing Colonialism
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which she used to travel “productive and beautiful.” Others wrote that irrigation made the region’s productive soil “blossom.” One officer was enthusiastic that farms near Roswell, New Mexico, produced “marvelous crops of melons, alfalfa, fruits, and vegetables.”80 Clearly these writings made it seem that whites were finally taking control of the wild colonial landscapes, taming and subduing them. Army texts also represent that the region’s settlements had begun to change. Even Tucson, with a population closing in on the ten thousand marker, was now seen as more respectable. It had changed, in the words of an officer, “the most appreciably of any town in the Southwest; American energy and American capital had effected a wonderful transformation.” Tucson was becoming an American city, with “delightful” Spanish and American society.81 For its part, Silver City, still having some Mexican shanties as a reminder of old days, had many more frame houses, of which most were fitted out “in grand style,” somebody, the army wrote, even having brought “a piano to these wild regions.” It was arguably “the principal city of the district,” as one soldier noted, on its way for a prosperous white future.82 In Willcox the advance of “civilization” was washing away the rough colonial town Anton Mazzanovich enjoyed. “The lonely adobe stage station and telegraph office was gone. In its place I found a wide-awake little city with broad, well-shaded streets; comfortable homes, prosperous-looking business blocks, electric lights, city water, and other evidences of civilization,” one enlisted soldier wrote.83 As discussed, the officers or their wives did not regard the Southwest as a place where they personally wanted to live after retirement. Many nevertheless showed their faith by investing in the area’s industries. Officers became involved in mining, real estate, and ranching endeavors. Already in 1879 Lt. Thomas Cruse, fresh from West Point, had “heard of incredibly rich veins, of huge nuggets, of fortunes made overnight” at the “marvelous mines at Globe and Tombstone.” Others also openly declared that Arizona had an abundance of gold only waiting for discovery by the whites. Usually officers who invested their money failed to strike it rich, yet they shared a sense of 100
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optimism about the new value of the region. In the mid-1880s Cruse was still “so full of faith in the country” that he invested his money in town lots at Roswell.84 Some men, such as Gen. Benjamin H. Grierson, acquired land just for speculation or invested more money than they could afford and suffered heavy setbacks when their schemes failed to pay off. However, there were those who made rather lucrative transactions. For example, one major sold three lots in El Paso for $2,500, which equaled his annual salary.85 Enlisted men usually had no money to invest. Instead, they tried to strike it rich through their own initiative and toil. In the field, soldiers sometimes searched for riches with more enthusiasm than they did for Indians. Some men carried large horn spoons with which they washed the soil here and there, wishing to discover gold. In one case, a sergeant discovered silver when scouting in the Mogollon Mountains. After his discharge he organized mining enterprises, but his efforts were cut short when he lost his life in a fight with the Apaches.86 In another instance, soldiers camped near Knight’s Ranch, southwest of Silver City, entered the mining game in a peculiar fashion. They “ran over the mountains in search of minerals,” Corp. Emil A. Bode wrote, or “secretly worked with pick and shovel in lonely places, expecting to strike it rich and become millionaires in [a] short time.”87 These activities not only reveal where the true interest of some enlisted men was during the military campaigns but also demonstrate their faith in the region. In many texts, Arizona and New Mexico landscapes were represented as changing from threatening wastelands to productive entities, but also to timeless places of escape suitable as destinations of recreational wilderness for bourgeois visitors. Some army people felt that the region would prove ideal for outings, gazing at the otherworldly wonders of the exotic and “uncivilized” in a subjugated, controlled, and named form. By the 1880s officers and their wives increasingly began to bring relatives for visits to enjoy “the fine weather, the new and interesting scenes and colorful natives.” As an example of the nostalgia that quickly took over, one visitor in The Place Facing Colonialism
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the early 1880s arrived with the intention to discover “exotic western gunmen” before they were gone.88 Besides mythic gunfighters, the army found visitor potential in nature, in areas such as the White Sands in New Mexico, or the Grand Canyon and the Petrified Forest in Arizona. Some saw the Southwest as a future health resort and spoke highly of the effects of the climate and springs. They felt excited when, for instance, bathhouses and a hotel were constructed near Hot Springs, New Mexico.89 When officers and their families organized leisure outings to indigenous and Spanish ruins, some noted that these sites were just waiting to be discovered by eastern visitors seeking monuments of “ancient civilizations.” The old towns, missions, cliff dwellings, and canals also allowed officers, wives, and soldiers to construct a history for the region by explaining the past and making it subservient to the needs of the army. Although the builders of indigenous cities and canals remained a mystery for the army, the ruins supposedly told one thing: “They possessed a far superior civilization to the blood-thirsty races that now occupy their places,” one officer argued. The army imagined a time in the past when “ancient” civilizations had flourished in the Southwest, but then had succumbed by the time the Americans “discovered” the region. One officer, convinced that a wonderful and powerful people had once occupied the area, puzzled whether the Apaches had caused the decline.90 In this history the army constructed the past was dead: the Apaches most probably had destroyed it and the Mexicans had been too lazy and weak to rebuild it. The United States, on the other hand, received the role of a civilizing force that initiated a new dawn in a region reduced to barbarism. In general, progress was imagined as all-powerful in many army minds. Gen. Nelson Miles, commanding Arizona from 1886, triumphantly declared that “our progress knew no bounds.” The place formerly known as the land of cacti, deserts, and implacable Apaches was quickly gaining sovereignty and taking its place with “the States of the Nation,” an officer wrote. The “whistle of the locomotive,” 102
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people, and wealth were taking over.91 The Tonto Basin, a region unknown to soldiers in the late 1860s, was a rich cattle country, one officer wrote, in the mid-1880s. Progress, army texts represent, had made the region completely anew in a short time. For one army wife, the Arizona she had known in the early 1870s “had vanished from the face of the earth” after being overwhelmed by the forces of progress. In 1891 an officer felt that Arizona had been thoroughly transformed in a little more than a decade.92 However, there were those who did not share this narrative but harbored reservations and doubts. One woman wrote that Arizona was “an unknown country then [1870s and 1880s] to the majority of people, as indeed it now [1907] is to many. . . . None knows what the development of this wonderful country will be.”93 A few still found the commitment and effort of the white populace lacking. Whites allegedly arrived only to make their fortunes but not their permanent homes. This accusation is full of unintended irony when one remembers that virtually none of the officers and wives wanted to stay permanently in the region. Nevertheless, some army texts blame the whites disregarding permanent improvements. For example, John Bigelow criticized the lack of trees planted as a neglect due foremost to “the failure to appreciate the influence of timber upon climate and agriculture” and the “hard utilitarianism of our frontier populations, the lack of aesthetic sense and consequent blindness and indifference to the improving effect of timber upon the landscape.”94 Still, in general there were very few among the officers and wives who in any way regretted that the Southwest was becoming more like the rest of the country.95 Liberators
When white army men and women produced Arizona and New Mexico as a distant periphery ripe for regeneration by people representing a superior civilization, they reserved a special role for themselves as “liberators,” as a group that made progress possible. When parading the army’s excellence, officers, dependents, and the white The Place Facing Colonialism
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enlisted men represented the army as a white collective where class disharmony was downplayed. One discursive strategy white army people applied was to represent the army as “always in the vanguard of civilization,” leading its thrust into the “most isolated parts” of the world. According to an officer’s wife, the Southwest was the most “barbarous country where the foot of the white man had never trod” before officers entered it with their soldiers. The army, she continued, not only “made it possible for the great railways to be built across the continent,” but the “army post made it practicable for the pioneer and early settler to take up ground, raise cattle and till the soil, for he, too, was protected by the soldier.”96 In these self-triumphant texts, the army, as the first line of white civilization, went to places where other whites did not dare. Writing in the early 1900s, one enlisted man explained that the soldiers, whom he called the “winners of the west,” had made the ultimate sacrifice. He wrote that many men were “buried in unknown graves” when they “gave up their lives at the burning stake, surrounded by yelling savages . . . in order that the great West might be redeemed. . . . All this that the sturdy pioneer might have the chance to build a home for those of present generation.”97 The army’s identity rested on notions of bravery and heroism. For one thing, army men and wives were prone to claim that the army faced discouraging odds. “It was a small Army with large tasks,” was a favorite cry among many. This was logical in a sense that the army had to cover a wide range of territory in the trans-Mississippi region, but it was also quite a preposterous statement, as the U.S.-indigenous wars pitted against each other small and scattered groups of indigenous peoples with limited manufacturing capabilities and power on the one hand and a surging industrial giant with a population in the millions on the other.98 Furthermore, officers again downplayed the local settlers when writing that compared to white civilians in the Southwest, who were “terror-stricken,” prone to a “state of constant terror,” or “depressed by the raids and the wide path of destruction made by the elusive savages,” the 104
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army was courageous and did not falter but “encouraged” the civilians and made the Southwest “safe for the incoming pioneers and prospectors.” Like in the case of the “rangers,” army texts sought to make clear the difference between the settlers in the Southwest and the army by painting a vision of reality that served army notions of masculinity and their need to feel powerful.99 According to one officer, “It is to the credit of the United States army that a body of men in the Southwest, so few in number and belonging to races not trained to endure such hardships, furnished so much protection to settlers scattered over so vast a region. Many a life and ranch, and even hamlet, were saved by the timely appearance of a detachment of Uncle Sam’s rough riders.” Displaying their sense of racial superiority, one soldier proudly wrote that he and his comrades in the Southwest showed “the redskins that the white man was there to stay.”100 The army increased its importance by emphasizing the role it played in improving the region. For the sake of progress, the army built roads and telegraph lines, planted hundreds of trees, and constructed small dams, sewage, and irrigation systems in an effort to utilize and control the precarious water supply. Some officers, for instance, claimed that the telegraph line the army constructed “will facilitate commercial business and promote further development of the Territory,” or that the line “has done much to ameliorate the conditions of persons in public and private life whose lot has been cast in this remote portion of the territory of the United States.”101 In their imperial rhetoric, army people did not consider themselves as enforcers of unjust or unnecessary violence, but rather painted the army’s mission as a brave defense of civilization, where the army’s actions were humane, honorable, justifiable, and necessary.102 While one officer referred to the army’s actions as “humanitarian work,” others wrote that the army offered “a thin line of protection for civilization” along the Southwestern “Indian frontier,” tried to settle the “Indian business,” or participated in “the history of Apaches troubles in Arizona.”103 What in reality was a violent conquest of other people’s land was represented by the army much The Place Facing Colonialism
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like a road leading to peace and progress. Army people made themselves peace bringers and peacekeepers who allowed “the peaceful settlement of the country under military protection,” as one officer wrote. “Our duty was to end wars and establish peace,” another declared.104 In this way, the army people tried to secure moral superiority. Theirs was the righteous cause and their goal peace and prosperity. Some even saw that the army was not just any peace bringer, but the body who succeeded, where the Spanish had not, in ending centuries of bloodshed.105 Being, in general, extremely patriotic and seeing themselves as faithful and unselfish servants of their country, officers and wives wanted more recognition both at the local and national level. In the aftermath of the U.S.-indigenous war many army people grew frustrated over the nationwide reluctance in recognizing Indian war veterans as national heroes. According to one officer, the nation that had proven so appreciative of Civil War soldiers or veterans of the Spanish-American War and the Pacific Islands conflicts always overlooked the Indian wars. The people in the East would give “but nothing, absolutely nothing, for our brave boys” who fought against the Indians in the West. This officer felt compelled to ask, “Are not our Indian War Veterans worthy of respect?” One officer’s wife, who insisted that “the army has not been given the credit it deserves,” wrote that although the Southwest was now “thickly settled and worth millions of dollars for the government, people are still unappreciative, knowing nothing of the great work done by the army in securing the West.”106 Thinking of themselves as the cornerstone of the republic and American democracy, white army people lusted for national prominence. They believed they had made progress possible through sacrifices and suffering and thus deserved the status of national heroes.
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.
Borderlands Dreams and Realities
According to Samuel Truett, “the U.S.-Mexico borderlands represented the meeting place of two opposing narratives: the history of 106
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Spanish and Mexican decline and a prophecy of U.S. expansion.” In early U.S. accounts, the border region, Truett continues, was approached not only as an inventory of resources and dreamed of as an isolated “unbroken waste” stripped of human occupancy but also as a land of forgotten treasure, a potential paradise hidden in the ruins of former glory. Many saw it being populated by “savages,” not real citizens, which justified its annexation.107 Army people constructed a white mythology, a vision of reality where the borderlands became dynamic through the arrival of Anglo civilization. The army projected an “ancient” past for the region that could be contrasted with the contemporary decay and danger and future improvement and happiness. According to the army’s imperial rhetoric, the borderlands had a glorious, but now dead, past and was on its way from an uncivilized and predominantly Hispanic-indigenous present to a brighter, more industrious, and increasingly Anglo future. While there were few who doubted the impending change, many nevertheless represented that the right kind (class) of white people and the arrival of technology could dramatically improve the area. The army’s white mythology made the Spanish subject to imperial contamination, which had turned them into the lazy and submissive Mexicans who failed to create progress and make the land blossom. Especially in the 1860s and early 1870s, the army texts represent, these inferior Mexicans and a mix of Anglos, the latter’s respectability often in doubt and always fragile, played a too-prominent part in the society, making it foreign and rough. In settlements such as prerailroad Tucson a twisted moral code, a depraved social order, and inferior mud construction defined life. The landscape itself, according to this mythology, was filled with a variety of challenges and dangers for the civilized campaigner, who, naturally, did prevail and conquer savage wilderness in the end. This periphery of danger, the mythology continued, needed the white middle class and technology, the “forces of civilization,” to save it and to remake it to better suit the national model. Thus, the region that was worth little before the arrival of the Anglo civilization gained in value as a The Place Facing Colonialism
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result of colonial conquest. In this white mythology they produced, the army personnel received for themselves the part of heroic nation makers and liberators of the Southwest, whose input and sacrifice made change and civilization possible. In all, they produced this vision of a dark colony penetrated by the light that was the United States. Judging local residents, adjusting their social standards, or investing their dollars, the officers and their wives constructed a relationship toward the place facing colonialism that manifested their not-belonging. They showed little inclination to value the borderlands as they existed during the prerailroad times. Living in an environment they painted as dangerous and unpromising and in a society they represented as different from the legacies and preferences of white middle-class Americans, officers and wives protected and distanced themselves mentally from the local way of life and viewed the region as an unsuitable living space for themselves. Their texts also implied that in their view nobody in the Southwest was equal or above them and that as representatives of the refined white middle class they constituted for much of the time an anomaly in the backward and un-American border society. By rejecting the colonial present, officers and their wives increased their authority and collective importance. This they also did by claiming that they saved the region, brought peace, and steered the place toward a better white futures. Overall, their sense of superiority gave officers and wives the possibility to imagine that they had constructed the truth about the region’s past, present, and future. They seemingly never questioned what qualifications they might have for representing the “truth” about the region, but instead took their expertise for granted, as part of their privileged status as members of a purportedly superior culture. White enlisted men approached the colonial terrain from a somewhat different perspective. Although they, much like the officers and their wives, also saw the landscapes in terms of confrontation, thought that the region was wild and remote, and imagined themselves as the heroic vanguard of civilization, enlisted soldiers did not 108
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share a similar need to distance themselves from the colonial society. Compared to officers and wives, their identity rested less on being set apart from their surroundings. They enjoyed the more relaxed social scene found in many of the settlements and displayed little fear of imperial contamination, although many felt that there was something troubling in a society that was so different from what they were used to. While officers and their wives rejected the colonial present, white enlisted soldiers negotiated that very present as a potential living space for themselves, yet believed in civilization too.
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The territories of Arizona and New Mexico have been raided by bands of hostile Apaches. . . . To the old settlers the terrible atrocities committed by these red demons are not new, as Cochise, Victorio . . . and Geronimo have in years past broken from their reservations and, defying the troops, have murdered, robbed, and mutilated the miners and settlers who ventured unprotected in this region.
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—ja mes s. pet tit, lieutenant, U.S. Army
During a late spring evening in 1885 in Cloverdale, near the Mexican border, a group of army officers had the opportunity to indulge themselves in a banquet of fine dining, Cuban cigars, and costly liquids, compliments of a large cattle company. They exchanged “blood-curdling tales of Indian warfare,” one reporter in attendance remembered, when a sudden and alarming commotion occurred. Rifle shots and the “heart-chilling war whoop” made one officer jump for his saber and yell “Apaches, by God!” The order “to arms” was shouted from a dozen different throats, and in few minutes time the troops advanced “against the enemy.” What they found were frantic U.S. Army indigenous soldiers. After coming across bears these soldiers had fired the shots and made the noises, and now they tried to “convey the intelligence to the officers” that “their exertions were
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unnecessary,” the reporter wrote. Discovering their error, the disappointed officers slowly and silently returned. Having anticipated a fight with the Apaches, they felt so upset and perhaps ashamed that all “exacted a promise of absolute silence in the matter.” Although the reporter considered it just a “ludicrous incident” of army life, this episode in fact appropriately highlights the white army mentality toward the Apaches. Not only does it demonstrate how white army men regarded Apaches as their enemy, but it also shows how their mindset was occupied by fear, frustration, embarrassment, and the desire to use force.1 White army people singled out one group of all the peoples they met in the border region: the Apaches. While officers’ wives gave more attention in their texts to such things as housing, domestic life, and leisure, for most officers and enlisted men the Apaches proved their most popular topic. 2 No other Southwest indigenous group came close to receiving such attention, nor did the Anglo or Hispanic residents. As could be expected, officers and soldiers, who saw themselves as liberators and whose principal mission was to acquire the monopoly of violence in Arizona and New Mexico for the U.S. regime, were as a group concerned about matters relating to conquest and war. Apaches represented competition and stood in the way of American aspirations. Officers and soldiers saw that the Apaches constituted the most powerful group in the borderlands and that they had already stalled the advance of one European regime, the Spanish, and now possessed the potential to deter another empire.3 White army people were determined to strip the Apaches of all their power — not only through military subjugation, a topic so many historians have written about, but also by constructing categories of difference that undermined everything about the Apaches: their rule, methods of warfare, personal character, culture, and way of life.4 Making the Apaches monstrous others, officers, dependents, and white soldiers produced discourses of a bloodthirsty warrior race that represented the antithesis of white civilization and constituted the main enemy of the U.S. regime. By othering the Apaches it became possible and justifiable to use violence and any means to Apaches in White Army Minds
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subjugate or destroy them. In other words, when demonizing the Apaches white army people made colonial aggression and government appear more justifiable and intelligible, and less disgraceful and vicious than it actually was. Thus army discourses of Apaches were essentially efforts to establish the Apaches otherness to increase the army’s power and the army people’s sense of superiority and to make the stealing of Apache lands right and acceptable. The military did not invent the Apaches anew; the borderlands already had a long tradition of antagonism toward them. Aggressive politics of trading and raiding had made the indigenous and Hispanic peoples not only dependent on each other but also suspicious and hateful. Competition for livestock, crops, captives, and markets caused many of the Hispanics, Pueblos, Akimel O’odham, and Tohono O’odham to view the powerful Apaches as their enemy.5 However, it is difficult to assess if army people in the post–Civil War era knew much about these traditions, circulated by non-English-speaking peoples. Undoubtedly, they had at least a basic understanding of the history of animosity that marred the relationships between particular Apache groups and other borderlands residents. During the 1860s and 1870s white civilians also began to increasingly advocate the subjugation or removal of Apaches.6 Although army men and women recognized the settlers’ general attitude, they, as discussed earlier, often regarded many of the local Anglo population either as greedy profiteers or as uncivilized white trash and thus did not necessarily hold their opinion of Apaches in high value. Overall, when examining army representations it is important to keep in mind that the Apaches’ status as the most powerful of the region’s inhabitants had for long caused others to fear and hate them. It is this tradition that the white army people, consciously or not, continued and rewrote. War
Although, as historians have noted, indigenous peoples never posed a serious threat to national security and the United States never needed 112
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to mount a full-scale war by calling up millions of volunteers, the situation looked much more frustrating for white Americans at the local level in the West.7 Not all Apaches resorted to violence under Anglo pressure, as many sought non violent ways to adjust to the changing situation. Those who raised their arms against the whites did it usually to maintain their freedom and self-rule. They fought to obtain food, livestock, weapons, ammunition, and other supplies and equipment necessary for survival. Often Apache groups just wanted to be left alone to live their lives, and many a times their strategy was to keep out of reach when whites chased them. On a raid, or when at war, Apaches usually operated in relatively small yet highly mobile units and made quick strikes at isolated targets. Their knowledge of the terrain and the flora and fauna was often superior to Anglos, and therefore movement was generally easier for the Apaches than for the white officers and soldiers who came unprepared for warfare in the deserts and mountains of the Southwest. Officers trained in the military academy at West Point knew little of the field army, the West, and even less about fighting indigenous tribes. Training at the academy had a technical base, with some liberal arts, but very little tactics or strategy and practically nothing on indigenous warfare. Officers were expected to learn their trade in the field.8 It was the same with common soldiers, who usually received scarce basic training after recruiting and whose life at the army villages consisted of too much manual labor and not enough military training. Habitually, especially in the 1880s, army operations against the Apaches consisted of offensive units responsible for chasing and fighting the Apaches and defensive units whose task it was to prevent Apache access to strategic water holes, mountain passes, and other locations. The latter assignments usually entailed a dismal succession of inglorious and monotonous days in some isolated station where, one historian remarks, whiskey, not the Apaches, formed the most formidable enemy.9 Troops that engaged in offensive operations time and time again, one enlisted soldier explained, found out that Apaches in White Army Minds
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the Apaches “lead us a merry chase for two weeks or more, doubling and twisting along the backbone of the various mountains, occasionally descending into valleys to make a killing of some defenseless Mexican miner or rancher, and to kill a beef and to steal fresh horses.” The soldier continued that “at times we were so close to them that we found their camp fires still burning; again they would lead us by a considerable number of miles. There was no way of heading them, as their direction and destination were unknown; all we had to do was to patiently follow on the signs they left in their wake.” Warfare in Apacheria, another soldier remarked, turned out to be “like hunting for the proverbial ‘needle in a haystack.’”10 Many officers and soldiers who regarded the massive battles of the Civil War or the Napoleonic Wars as the standard were certain that standing battles would easily destroy the enemy. However, the army was unable to force the Apaches to stand and fight, except on few occasions, such as at Big Dry Wash in 1882. When the army caught the Apaches they usually struck surprised villages, seeking to slay and capture its habitants and destroy horses and all material property. Even then there was a great possibility that soldiers either ran into an ambush or would prove powerless to prevent the Apaches from escaping. The majority of actual engagements were quick skirmishes, which according to one captain, consisted of “a few seconds of hot, blasting, exciting work, rapid shots and shouts, a rush of terrified squaws, a whiz of two or three wildly aimed arrows, a dash through the huts and a firing chase into the ravine beyond, in which we were soon left hopelessly behind, shots of pursuers and pursued gradually dying away.”11 The day-to-day realities of warfare in Apacheria proved physically and emotionally exhausting and revealed the shortcomings of white troops. Admiring the campaigns and armies of the Civil War, officers felt that the chasing, hiding, and ambushing were degrading and mere brutal banditry. That the borderlands conflict lacked “civilized” rules, front lines, clear divisions between combatants and noncombatants, standing battles, and Civil War–style tactics and 114
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strategies made it something other than “normal” or “real war” in army eyes. Othering the conflict they engaged in, one enlisted soldier categorized the campaigns against the Apaches as an uncivilized war, and for an experienced officer it all was a “wild, vigorous experience — less like soldiering than any service I ever encountered.” Many in the army would have agreed with an enlisted man who stated that “it was not a war to be proud of. Neither officers or men were very happy over it.”12 This perception, of course, mainly applied to the character of day-to-day campaigning, not to the general outcome of the war, which the army, as described in the previous chapter, applauded as a liberation of a region caught in darkness. What made the conflict so disagreeable for the typical army man was his adversary. The enemy seemed to be always fleeing and never fighting. “When they [Apaches] fought, they struck and ran, hid and struck and ran again. The band closely pursued scattered like quail, and like quail they had only to drop to the ground to disappear,” an officer wrote.13 Some in the army admired Apache skills in tracking and concealment and regarded Apache tactics as unorthodox yet practical, but for most Apache conduct was far from honorable or courageous. The Apaches, in army words, “are very cowardly until brought to bay where they fight with the utmost desperation, knowing no such thing as quarter.” Not preferring to fight “bravely” in the open, because it was disadvantageous for them, the Apaches annoyingly “would prefer to skulk like the coyote for hours and then kill his enemy, or capture his herd.” Army people represented that Apache “mode of warfare was peculiarly his own. . . . His creed was ‘fight and run away, live to fight another day.’ To fight soldiers merely in defense of his country, he considered the height of folly; and he never committed that folly if he could avoid it.”14 What the army writings in the end suggest is that the Apaches lacked honorable war aims and that their way of fighting amounted to an unmanly practice. As a symptom of their frustration, some officers and soldiers became indifferent about field service and did not expend much effort Apaches in White Army Minds
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in catching any Apaches.15 “We are out on what is supposed to be a scouting expedition, but as we haven’t lost any Indians we are not going to put ourselves out of the way much to hunt for them,” one enlisted man wrote. An officer who failed to find any signs of Apaches dryly noted that “I was so little surprised at the result of our search that I was scarcely annoyed at it.”16 While many in the army admitted that usually “the advantages were all with the Apaches,” who “knew every foot of the country,” a few even openly questioned the competence of white soldiers in colonial warfare. The troops “do not seem to be accomplishing anything,” Alice Grierson, an officer’s wife, wrote, while George Crook was certain that in “his mode of warfare” the Apache “is more than equal of the white man, and it would be practically impossible with white soldiers to subdue the Chiricahuas in their own haunts.”17 This kind of thinking had the potential to question white privilege, on which colonial power depended on. Unsurprisingly, most white army people did not go this far. Instead, they claimed that statements questioning the competence of white manliness in colonial warfare were mere “bad rumors,” as civilized men white soldiers and officers would in the end compel the “inferior” Apaches to submit. “As for Apaches or other Indians out-shooting, out-marching, or out-stripping our men in the long race, I do not believe it,” Nelson Miles wrote.18
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Representational Violence
White army people, determined to win the war but frustrated by the day-to-day realities of the conflict, demonized their foe. While some white army members admired the Apaches’ fighting abilities or sympathized with their plight, the army as a group manufactured images of a rootless, backward, and oppressive Apache society; depicted their appearance as uncivilized; painted their character as lowly and predatory; and claimed their reign as illegitimate and destructive. Although they were critical toward local business owners for instigating some of the conflicts, army people still wanted to make certain that the taking of Apache lands would be seen 116
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as right and that the U.S.-Apache wars in general would be regarded as the Apaches’, not the army’s, fault. Conquest usually demands that the invaders pay some attention to the enemy society. In the Apache case, most white army people often had limited opportunities to observe the life of free Apaches. Frequently only those stationed in or near reservations could gain some firsthand knowledge of the Apache society in its captive state. Others relied on a combination of rumors, hearsay, and imagination. When white army people sought to stress how uncivilized and backward the Apache society was and how it differed from white standards and ideals, one strategy was to represent Apaches as nomads and vagabonds who aimlessly wandered the borderlands. Army texts, for example, regularly used phrases such as “roamed around” to describe Apache existence or referred to Apaches as gypsies of the Southwest, “Arabs of Arizona,” and “the vagrants among Indians.”19 When stressing nomadism army people built on an established Euro-American colonial tradition. By the 1800s, John Noyes writes, labeling peoples as nomads functioned as a global vehicle for differentiation, for creating, managing, dislocating, and dispossessing indigenous peoples and legitimizing control over space. As nomadism signified unmediated response to land by people occupying a barbaric outskirt of civilization, characterizing Apaches as nomads made them uncivilized people whose rights for their land could be simply ignored because they did not use the land “properly.”20 To qualify as nomads Apaches were not supposed to farm, establish “proper homes,” or show signs of attachment to any particular place. Thus, for example, Apache farming is strongly deemphasized and often silenced in military narratives, even in cases when officers personally stumbled on or destroyed Apache fields.21 In army minds Apaches might have “favorite haunts,” but no particular area they would call home. Furthermore, in army texts Apache villages amounted to nothing but rude and disorderly congregations of brush shelters covered with leaves and grass. Called “wickyups,” these dwellings were not counted by the army as real homes. To prove their Apaches in White Army Minds
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point that Apache life was rootless and crude, some even wrote that the Apaches lived like wild animals in their “holes in the ground.”22 In reality, many Apaches, though not all, combined farming with hunting and gathering. Some even raised a surplus of corn and wheat, which they traded with the Yavapais, who did not farm. 23 Apache homes, both the circular dome-shaped “wickyups” and the more rare conical tepees were often practical and well-built centers of Apache life, suited for the climate and terrain and serving the needs of their occupants. Apaches, living in small kin-based groups, spent most of their time in specific areas moving relatively short distances according to seasonal food sources and temperature changes in the lowlands and the mountains. They left their home areas usually for larger meetings and some ceremonies, trading, and raiding or war. Emotionally, Apaches were strongly connected to their home areas, where specific locations often held spiritual and cultural meaning for them. They were no restless wanderers and the image of aimless nomadism should be understood as a product of army imagination, a tool the army used to establish the Apaches otherness. 24 While nomadism symbolized the Apaches undeveloped connection to the land in army eyes, personal appearance was interpreted to reveal their primitive state. For instance, one army wife dubbed the Apaches as “horrible” men, “painted to look uglier than nature made them, with their dreadful sheaves of arrows on their cruel faces,” while an army surgeon wrote that “I hate them already, they are a mean vicious set, I know by their looks they are not to be trusted.”25 Apache clothing styles, which defied Euro-American conventions, confused and repulsed many. For example, when Apache men combined necklaces of bright beads or silver coins and little shells with shawls wrapped around their heads like turbans, skins, moccasins, cast-off military drawers, and oversized shirts hanging loose and secured by a belt, it all proved too weird a mix for white army people. Moreover, “Apache nakedness,” which usually meant a limited use of Euro-American type of clothing, signified primitiveness and danger in troubled army minds. 26 118
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Depictions of Apache gender roles also served to justify U.S. conquest. In a typical army view, Apache society relied on women’s constant labor because the men were supposedly naturally inclined to avoid “real work.” Army people made the Apache gender roles very much the opposite of Victorian-era white middle-class ideals, which valued men’s work outside the home and narrowed women’s life to the domestic sphere. In army discourses, Apache men, in possession of “tyrannical” powers, forced their women to build and maintain camps, chop and carry wood, get water, cook, tan hides, take care of the children, and to produce textiles, while men themselves only “loafed around.” According to one officer, every day for an Apache woman “is a life of toil and drudgery, and woe to the woman who refuses to perform her appointed task,” as she will meet the fury of her husband.27 Furthermore, the army claimed that Apache men subjected the women to the “unnatural” practice of polygamy and degraded women as commodities that they could purchase for the price of few horses. 28 In reality, Apache society was matrilineal, and women owned the homes, controlled much of the property, and held great influence in the household. When a man married he often moved to live with the family of his wife and was expected to be respectful and work hard for his new in-laws. Lazy men were not tolerated. Also, polygamy was the exception, oftentimes resorted to by men of high status or forced by warfare, which caused a shortage of men. Even then the men usually could not choose their brides but had to marry their first wife’s sister. 29 Although army men portrayed Apache women as victims who yearned, perhaps unconsciously, for civilization to rescue them, army men were also careful to protect their own status and whiteness by keeping Apache women at arm’s length. In a region short on white women, and army villages abounding with bachelors, most enlisted men and officers remained silent on the sexual attractiveness of Apache women. It was obviously a taboo subject. Those who discussed the matter resorted to various representational strategies for establishing the sexual undesirability or unavailability of Apache Apaches in White Army Minds
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women. Some wrote them off as born murderers who hated the whites and thus could not be approached or trusted, while others emphasized Apache women’s unavailability by writing of their chastity and the absence of prostitution and adultery in Apache society.30 Still others represented all Apache women as hideous creatures. For instance, one officer noted that the vast majority of Apache women he met did not make “a second look necessary or desirable.” Some of them, this officer continued, might present a little attraction to “a backwoodsman, a Mexican greaser,” or a post cattle herder, but never to a civilized middle-class man. 31 Like in many colonial settings, in the case of army men and Apache women the true nature of intimate relations remains difficult to uncover. What is known is that some Apache women served the officers and their wives as housekeepers or nursemaids and that sometimes officers and soldiers mingled with Apache women in dances and other social events. According to one officer’s wife, in these events young lieutenants could express interest in the “prettiest” Apache women, trying to offer them trinkets, beads, mirrors, and boxes of soap to “gain their favors.” She thought the women cared more for Apache men, although they accepted the presents given by the officers.32 Also, at places where the government had concentrated Apaches both Apache men and women visited the nearby army villages and, sometimes, even the officers’ households. One officer told that the army villages seem to present never-ending attraction for Apaches, who “hang about all day, picking up anything that is thrown to them, will shovel snow, bring wood, or hay, or any such work, a whole day for a pint of corn, and seem perfectly satisfied with that.” Obviously, if poverty drove Apaches to perform all these odd jobs for a small amount of corn, the possibility that some white army men exploited Apache women by offering them money, food, or other rewards in exchange for sex should not be excluded. In some places, all Apaches were required to vacate the army villages and stay outside their limits from dusk till dawn. 33 Perhaps this was a safety measure, but it could also have the purpose of preventing 120
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sexual encounters. Whatever the reason, the opportunity for sexual encounters existed between army people and the Apaches, although army discourses liked to paint Apaches as unsuitable partners for “civilized” white people. “What part of the country was not occupied by the reptiles and cactus seemed to be . . . well held down by the ubiquitous and perniciously active Apache,” one officer wrote in the late 1860s. 34 In army narratives southern Arizona and New Mexico was an “Apache paradise,” but Apache rule amounted to a “reign of terror” that had lasted for centuries, ruining every interest for the development of the country. Apaches had built no monuments to celebrate their control, nor kept any records “except those written in the blood of many people,” an officer wrote. When white soldiers, officers, and wives represented Apache rule as a destructive form of government, they also cast Apache men as colonial villains; the main reason for the vicious character of Apache rule. In army narratives common Apache men were rarely individuals or rational actors but a uniform mass of “savages,” “murderers,” “red-handed thugs, marauders, and assassins.” The army also depicted them as “cruel, crafty, and wary,” “absolutely wild,” famous for “treachery and cruelty,” or as men who delighted “in lying and deception.”35 While army narratives at times acknowledged that unscrupulous whites, starvation, and broken promises drove Apaches to armed conflict, they also argued that the Apaches’ love of strife and bloodshed was both inborn and hereditary, an essential part of their nature and of their culture, passed on from one generation to the next. In army minds, Apache men were unable to control their wild nature. They also felt that Apache society regarded as heroes men who committed brutal acts of violence. One officer argued that the Apaches were “devoted to the sport of killing others” and would “kill every human being” they came across, engaging in the “most inhuman tortures which savage ingenuity can invent.” Distancing the Apaches to the lowest rungs in the colonial hierarchies, white officers and soldiers painted Apache men as monstrous others, the antithesis Apaches in White Army Minds
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of rational, just, and brave white manliness. In fact, Apaches were thought to constitute a racial enemy, “the natural and hereditary enemies of the whites,” like one officer claimed. 36 Furthermore, some army people that were amazed at the tracking skills and athletic qualities of Apache men also distanced them to the realm of nature.37 Officers and soldiers argued that the Apaches had incredible inhuman endurance and that could, for instance, sneak, hide, and vanish from the face of the earth, or turn indistinguishable from the color of the rocks. Some compared Apaches to snakes, both being supposedly always ready to strike; argued that the Apaches could detect danger by scent; or claimed the Apaches were unaffected by change from snow-covered mountains to parched sand deserts. According to one officer, Apaches “knew, as the wolves and the rattlesnakes knew, the way of that country.” Army texts also referred to Apache men as “bucks” or “wolves.”38 While some of these writings display genuine admiration toward the physical abilities of the Apaches, ultimately army texts seek to demonstrate how the Apaches had lowered themselves to the level of their surroundings. Whites, on the contrary, saw themselves above nature, seeking to control and use it. What this meant was that Apache rule in some ways equaled that of wolves or bison. It could be nullified for the sake of a higher civilization and a superior white race. In their writings the army ensured difference between the Apaches and themselves by adopting a select racialized terminology. In army texts the Apaches engaged in “murderous raids,” “left a trail of blood,” had “outbreaks,” or went on the “warpath,” while the army, on the other hand, always conducted more neutral “expeditions,” “operations,” “pursuits,” or “campaigns.” The army also “hurried to the field,” “took the trail,” set out “guard” or to lent “protection” to some specific place and went “to capture” Apaches.39 The message is easily detectable: Apaches equaled danger and savage aggression, and the army was in the right. To mask their role as invaders and aggressors, the army people never spoke of U.S.Apache wars but instead wrote of the “Apache problem” or “Apache 122
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troubles.”40 Furthermore, Apaches supposedly posed such a threat that the army categorized all not living under U.S. supervision as “hostiles.” Apaches were apparently so threatening and uncontrollable from the army’s perspective that even infants or the elderly were labeled “hostile.” By calling free Apaches “hostiles” white army people criminalized an entire people, ensuring that the wars would be seen as the Apaches’ fault and obscuring the true horror of colonialism. For armies wanting to distribute guilt, validate their own actions, and establish their innocence, categorizing indigenous enemies as hostile proved a useful vehicle throughout the trans-Mississippi theater of military operations.41 While army texts usually represented Apache men as a mass of wily guerrillas and bloody savages, there existed more nuances in army descriptions of Apache leadership. For example, for some Cochise represented a wise leader, for others the ultimate savage. He was portrayed both as a man of high class, “every inch a man,” and “very much like any statesman” and as a “wily, cruel, and bloodthirsty” murderer, a wild and desperate warrior who had “waged a relentless war upon all whites.”42 After Cochise, who died on his reservation in 1874, Victorio and Geronimo, both also Chiricahuas, received the most attention in army writings. Like Cochise, Victorio was represented as a murdering statesman. He allegedly “ran a bloody trail across” Arizona and New Mexico, and “treachery, cunning, and cruelty seemed stamped upon his face.” Then again, some army men described Victorio as “a good man who was troubled for his people,” a man of great personal courage, and a superb tactician in war.43 Geronimo, for his part, personified the Apache warlord for a number of army people. Geronimo was hated by officers, who painted him as a “ruthless marauder” guided by “warlike instinct.” Geronimo supposedly saw all whites as enemies and “left a trail of blood behind” him wherever he went. Although he died an old man in captivity in 1909, for many Geronimo remained a cruel beast to the end. “Until death stilled the heart of that savage breast, his black, beady eyes still flashed hatred for the white people,” one soldier claimed.44 Apaches in White Army Minds
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Wanting to see class divisions within the Apache society, army writers gave certain status to men such as Cochise, Victorio, and Geronimo and elevated them above the Apache masses. Army texts helped in making these men household names in the western world, but they also marked the leaders as the parties most responsible for the nature of Apache rule.45 Apache leaders were cast in the role of main villains in the play that was U.S. colonialism. For example, the army blamed Cochise personally for a decade of warfare in the 1860s and early 1870s, whereas thousands of soldiers projected all their anger and bitterness toward Geronimo in the mid-1880s while chasing him and his small group across the borderlands. Moreover, although it is logical that army men would write of those Apache leaders whom they fought against, the lives of men such as Cochise, Victorio, and Geronimo, and thus the whole Apache leadership the army cared to register, often seemed to have any meaning only when set against U.S. expansion.
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The Akimel O’odham
The army did not portray all indigenous peoples of Arizona or New Mexico as monstrous others. In fact, most army texts do not even mention any of the area’s other indigenous groups, probably regarding them as too trivial to merit discussion or failing to correctly recognize their identity. For example, the four Yavapai bands are repeatedly referred to as Apaches in the army texts.46 For the army, the Apaches were clearly special because of their status as the most powerful group in the region. A short discussion of army representations of another major Arizona tribe, the Akimel O’odham, a group known to nineteenth-century white colonizers as the Pimas, demonstrates what in fact was special in the army’s manufacturing of Apaches as monstrous others. Army writings of the Pimas, which amount to a mere fraction of the volume of text produced of the Apaches, constructed the Pima relationship with the whites through the medium of friendship and submission — not hostility, power, and savage brutality as was the 124
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Apache case. Army texts made Pimas a “non-hostile” and “friendly” tribe, who represented no competition or fear for the U.S. regime. With no frustrating war experiences to poison their discourses, the army was able to approach the Pimas as “our firm and trusty friends.” Other army voices characterized the Pimas as the most respectable, intelligent, and hospitable people ready to assist anyone wearing the army uniform. An often repeated military narrative even claimed that the Pimas were most proud of the fact that they had never killed any whites. Whether true or not this comforting message was what defined the Pimas in the eyes of white army people.47 Unlike the Apaches, the Pimas were represented as “semi-civilized.” They not only lived in “adequate” houses and were “agriculturalists” practicing sedentary farming but were also “well dressed,” “fine looking,” honest, and well-behaving. It was also important for the army narratives to portray Apaches and Pimas as “hereditary enemies.” This strategy was not meant to indicate any similarity between the whites and the Pimas but to cement the universally wicked composition of the Apaches. It can be argued that on the hierarchies of racial and cultural difference army people viewed the Pimas as having a position somewhere between themselves and the Apaches. The army often represented the Pimas as unimportant, harmless, and simple savages, easily controllable and permanently inferior to whites. As submissive others the Pimas were perhaps capable of integrating themselves into the lower levels of colonial society, but more likely, army people felt, they would vanish. As one army man put it, “Pima wants are simple, their hopes and ambition limited. Having practically reached their stage of advancement, passively waiting for the preordained degree, which will obliterate them from the country, from which they have done almost nothing to develop, and in which they will leave no trace, or even rude monument as a record of their existence.”48 In the end, the Pimas served the army’s imagination for two main purposes. As anti-Apaches, Pimas offered an example of Indians “welcoming” the Anglos, recognizing their superiority, and thus Apaches in White Army Minds
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never resorting to violence, instead keeping out of the way. As enemies of the Apaches, Pimas increased the sense of authority and righteousness in the army’s othering of the Apaches.
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Fear
One scholar of colonial culture and history has observed that colonial rule was frequently haunted by a sense of insecurity, terrified by the obscurity of native mentality, and overwhelmed by indigenous societies’ apparent intractability in the face of government. Colonizers felt their power to be severely limited and inadequate, and thus fear and paranoia often guided their representations.49 In the writings penned by officers, dependents, and soldiers the Apaches come out as highly dangerous and threatening. This was in part a rhetorical strategy that made the use of violence against the Apaches appear justifiable, but it was probably also an expression of genuine fear and partial admission of the limitations of colonizers’ power. The Apaches were the only group in the region the army people as a group appeared wary of. This fear materialized in numerous ways, some obvious and others subtle. Nervous troops in the field, for example, could start shooting at random against anything thought to be an Apache. Officers mistakenly shot at their indigenous soldiers, units sometimes fired at one another, and some troops gunned wildlife or shadows and echoes in canyons, thinking it was the Apaches.50 Some soldiers and officers frankly admitted that they dreaded confronting the Apaches, whom they regarded as an invisible danger. “If you saw the Indian, you were probably in no great danger, whereas if you did not see them, you might be in the greatest danger,” one officer thought.51 What especially startled many was the prospect of encountering large numbers of Apaches alone. For example, one soldier who drove a supply wagon between a field camp and a military post admitted that “I was terribly afraid to die.” He felt very much alone, especially at night, fearing that the Apaches would attack him. Visible Apaches were oftentimes no less dangerous in army 126
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minds. Almost any duty that included close supervision of Apaches was labeled as highly dangerous, as the Apaches — the army reasoned — could not be trusted to control their “wild nature.”52 Moreover, Apache men were imagined as a serious threat for white army women. The army represented that sexual slavery, “fates worse than death,” awaited white women captured by Apache men. As a precaution some wives, when outside the army villages, carried weapons for self-defense and to prevent the possibility of captivity. If their husbands were out in the field some wives at the posts panicked at the thought that the Apaches would kill their husbands and then come for them.53 Interestingly, army men and women expressed concern for their safety even inside the army villages. They worried that Apache groups were planning large-scale uprisings that would bring together all the Apaches and perhaps also other groups, such as the Navajos. 54 Although any general uprising was a real possibility only in feverish army minds, in their discourses army people placed themselves on fragile ground, isolated, outnumbered, under siege, and destined for possible annihilation. Touring the region in 1871, one officer considered all army villages vulnerable. The situation seemed especially serious at Camp Grant, where, an officer stated, “one small company” of infantry, about twenty-five men, was surrounded by nine hundred Indians “full of treachery” and liable to “massacre the garrison at any moment.” There was little doubt: Camp Grant was “at the mercy of the Apaches.”55 It was not uncommon, an army man wrote, that people did not dare “to go away from the Post half a mile” because “the Indians are all around and are liable to pop out from behind a stump or rock and shoot you at any moment. At some of the posts here they have a guard accompany the officers to the water closet [outhouse].” An enlisted man remembered that he and others in his company took “no chances with the Indians” and slept with their six guns fastened to their belts and carbines under their heads. They were so cautious that they even wore revolvers when going to the privy. According to an officer’s wife, “there might at any Apaches in White Army Minds
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time be Indians lurking around, and it was not safe. . . . Oh, those dreadful Indians. You know they were always lying-in-wait.” Later she confessed that “we never were attacked really, though we had more than one alarm. We were too cautious for them.” In reality, although at times Apaches, or rustlers thought to be Apaches, stole cattle near posts or harassed mail carriers, they almost never actually attacked. Probably the only assault happened during the 1881 Cibecue clashes against Fort Apache. So there were in fact few precedents or facts to support this level of army anxiety.56 It is plausible that army people exaggerated the danger to emphasize the lowly character of Apaches and their own courage when facing “stressful” and “dangerous” circumstances. Producing discourses of fear would make not only the army people seem exceptionally brave but the Apaches that much more horrendous, thus making their “punishment” more legitimate. On the other hand, we should not discount genuine feelings of fear. Their stories of monstrous others, combined with Apache reputation, could have made officers, dependents, and soldiers feel insecure in what to them was an unfamiliar and distant land. The army images of Apaches as dangerous others brought the fractured army community closer together. The common Apache enemy functioned as a vehicle for cohesion among white army people divided along class lines. It is revealing that both the officers and white enlisted men liked to claim that the Apaches considered all whites, regardless of class, ethnicity, and gender, as their enemies. Many army members believed that the Apaches were filled with such vicious racial hatred toward whites that they wanted to kill everyone they came across. The army argued, “Once having shed the blood of a white man” the Apaches developed “an unquenchable desire” for murder and “wild craving for the blood of the whites.”57 Physical Violence
“Our officers are zealous and ambitious, and our men willing and courageous. It is only a question of time; the result is certain. Many 128
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times in the history of the world have small, determined bodies of men defied great nations, as did the pirates of the Mediterranean in the great Roman Empire, but all have met the same fate, and let us hope that in the end there may not be a single Chiricahua left in Arizona to perpetuate the memories of these bloody tragedies, or to incite other tribes to the butchery of the citizens who bring their lives and fortunes to swell the growth and prosperity of our great West.”58 This passage, written by Lt. James Pettit, demonstrates that army men not only believed in the use of force and in their own superiority or claimed that victory was certain in the end. When comparing Apaches to pirates, Pettit wanted to assure everybody that Apaches, who in their allegedly deep hatred of all white people foolishly defied a “great nation,” represented the forces of evil. The army “truth” of Apache society as backward and oppressive toward women, Apache character as treacherous and cruel, Apache rule as brutal terror and way of war as uncivilized made it possible for white army people to feel free to use any amount of force against the Apaches, whereas the army’s frustrating field experiences and fear of the colonized fed the discourses and “proved” the Apaches’ ferocious nature. In other words, colonial discourses, produced to serve new rule and rulers, enabled and justified violence against the colonized, while experiences in colonial warfare further intensified and seemingly verified the vicious discourses. Army constructed a white mythology where the Apaches stood for the aggressors who had brought violence on themselves. The invading white colonizers the army usually, if not always, cast as victims, as the army played the role of liberators. Explaining that the Apaches had turned the borderlands into a “burying-ground” and a “huge cemetery” for white men and women “killed by Indians,” army writers frequently claimed that the Apaches had to be militarily subjugated before any thoughts could be given to civilizing them. Furthermore, life and property in the borderlands, the army claimed, would never be safe or peace possible as long as an Apache remained free, while the Apaches would never accept peace if not compelled by military force. Thus, in army Apaches in White Army Minds
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thinking Apaches needed to learn to respect the strength and superiority of the whites, and colonial violence was the only route to peace and future prosperity.59 Blinded by the imagery they had produced, white army men proved able to criticize themselves for not killing enough Apaches. Some also claimed that the destruction of a few Apaches was a great success and the annihilation of whole Apache groups a cause for general rejoicing. At least part of the army corps approached the Apaches not as fully human but as free game. Lt. Thomas Cruse, for instance, was excited that an Apache “band simply ceased to exist” after his troop had completely “smashed” them. Hearing that a command had killed twenty-five Apaches, Capt. John Bourke wrote in his diary that “such good news served to enliven us all.”60 In his official report one general “encouraged the troops to capture and root out the Apache by every means, and to hunt them as they would wild animals.” Thinking that a warring Apache was nothing but “madness personified,” Lt. Britton Davis, still blaming the Apaches, wrote that “exasperated, our senses blunted by Indian atrocities, we hunted them and killed them as we hunted and killed wolves.”61 In a peculiar manner some army writings turned violence into a good-spirited sport. Many enlisted men wrote as if “hunting Apaches” was a grand adventure, not the reality of frustrating chasing and bloody skirmishing it often was. Emil A. Bode, a corporal, remarked that his troop was “prepared for a little fun with the redskins, everybody being in anguish for an engagement.” Will Barnes wrote that his “soul was thrilled at the prospect” of fighting the Apaches: “What were a few Indians as against the white man. . . . Here’s the real adventure at last.”62 Some officers and enlisted soldiers collected or purchased Apache scalps as souvenirs to be mailed back east or made into decorative articles such as lamp covers.63 Some even went after dead Apache bodies, seeing them as market commodities or as collectibles. One enlisted soldier told that when three Apache soldiers were hanged for taking part in a “mutiny” at Cibecue Creek in 1881, he and two 130
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of his comrades tried to obtain their bodies, but found the graves empty. Two years later a post doctor revealed to this soldier the three skeletons he had missed. All were “neatly mounted” in the doctor’s cabinet. The doctor also confessed that he had paid three soldiers twenty-five dollars each for digging the graves. “We enjoyed a good laugh over the incident after I recounted my part of the story,” the soldier wrote.64 Moreover, another soldier who had found a skeleton of an Indian in a cave some miles from a post kept the skull in the telegraph office as a trophy, whereas a sergeant delivered the body of a dead Apache to a mercantile business in Prescott. While he received sixty dollars, which for him equaled several months’ wages, the corpse was placed on display in the store window.65 Sometimes the soldiers directed their frustrations at whomever they could catch as long as they could be thought to fit the category of “Apache.” Often they caught nobody, but at times some unsuspecting Apache fell victim to army aggression. For example, at one time a lonely Apache woman tending her stock was seized by a group of enlisted men. After two dismounted men “attacked her, front and rear” but were unable to capture her, another soldier threw a rope around the woman and dragged her behind his horse, shouting in his frenzy that “I’ll kill this one.” A noncommissioned officer who interfered and saved the woman’s life wrote that “the men were furious at the interruption to their sport. She was nearly dead. Her face was gashed; her arms were full of cuts, and her body was terribly bruised.” The woman was taken to the nearest post as a prisoner, her condition “explained as due to a fall.”66 Apaches told Eve Ball a story of a Mescalero man who went into Fort Stanton on a promise of security. He was caught by the soldiers butchering hogs. Having a big kettle of boiling water, the soldiers threw the Apache into it. Apache narratives also recount stories where the soldiers directed their hatred toward Apache babies by taking them by the heels and crashing the babies’ heads against wagon wheels.67 Troops attacked villages, targeting horses, material property, fields, and other food resources, and noncombatants and combatants alike. For example, the 1872–74 operations against Western Apaches in White Army Minds
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Apaches and Yavapais in and around the Tonto Basin country held the characteristics of a total war. Historian Timothy Braatz notes that the Tonto Basin campaigns “were one-sided, murderous onslaughts, carried out by well-armed and organized soldiers against scattered bands of malnourished and poorly armed families; the expeditions were not heroic, romantic, or admirable.”68 Murder and destruction measured the success of these “killing expeditions,” as one army surgeon admitted they were. Another participant remembered that “as we entered Tonto Basin . . . night marches were made to surprise the occupants about the break of day, when the killings were usually made. Women could not be distinguished from men at long range and especially when they had bow and arrow to take part in the fight.”69 In his diary one officer wrote of the “extermination of hostile Apaches.” While being “afraid” to “miss much of the fun” if other commands found the enemy “earlier than we,” this officer hoped “to inflict upon the hitherto incorrigible Apaches a chastisement from the effects of which they can never recover.” Looking forward to “big killings,” he explained that “by sneaking upon them in the night we can, by good luck, make our attacks at day-dawn and kill their warriors whilst asleep.”70 The most (in)famous episode of the Tonto Basin operations saw a group of Yavapai men, women, and children, mistaken by the army as Apaches, caught defenseless in a cave, where they fell victim to an indiscriminate slaughter by the troops. “Never have I seen such a hellish spot as was the narrow little space in which the hostile Indians were now crowded . . . the bullets striking against the mouth of the cave seemed like drops of rain pattering upon the surface of a lake,” an officer wrote at the scene. He estimated that approximately seventy-six Yavapais were killed in this episode, which is now known as the Salt River Cave Massacre. The army showed little remorse but celebrated the massacre as an “important contribution” and as “the most signal blow ever received by the Apaches in Arizona.”71 As in other occasions, the army refused to take the blame and made the killing of Apaches (and Yavapais) during the Tonto Basin operations the fault of the Apaches: “Not one of the Apaches had 132
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been killed except through his own folly; they had refused to . . . come in [to the reservation]; and consequently there had been nothing else to do but to go out and kill them until they changed their minds.”72 In reality, many Apaches and Yavapais never knew they were supposed to move to the reservations prior to a certain deadline. Those who did considered the move life threatening or wondered why they as free people should obey American ultimatums and leave their homes. Army rhetoric claimed that the indigenous groups had received only “prompt chastisement” or that they had been “forced to submit to authority,” thus becoming “lately-hostile Apaches.” The army’s actions supposedly had made “the condition of Arizona . . . more hopeful than at any former period.”73 Showing the extremes of colonial violence, the army coerced some indigenous bands during the Tonto Basin operations into delivering their leaders’ heads as proof of “peaceful intentions.” If they did not cooperate, the indigenous groups would be declared outlaws by the military and hunted down. Several decapitated heads were delivered to the military, for which it paid a bounty and placed the heads on display as trophies. Officers justified their actions by asserting that they had wanted to avoid turning reservations into “a refuge for criminals” and thus had in fact acted to further the cause of peace and justice.74 While officers and soldiers rarely admitted that their actions caused unjustified suffering to the Apaches, several still pointed out that white greed, “the almighty dollar,” and desire for land or reservation mismanagement by civilian agents had contributed to the level of violence. Others accused white civilians of blaming crimes committed by whites or Mexicans on the Apaches. “All the murders that occurred were attributed to the Apaches. A man could wear moccasins, kill his neighbor, and succeed in laying the blame on the dreaded Apaches.”75 Voicing a rare critical view, Sgt. Neil Erickson questioned the army’s actions. He saw that the “Indians got a raw deal” from the government, who hunted them down and starved them on reservations. He protested that he should “have deserted the United States army and gone with the Apaches.”76 Apaches in White Army Minds
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There is little doubt that some Apache bands had contributed to the escalation of the conflict by raiding and killing, but many Apaches and Yavapais caught in the fury of colonial conquest merely wanted to live in peace as free people. Their efforts of peaceful adaptation proved difficult when threatened by starvation and by whites who sought to subjugate them.77 Even the army’s own statistics demonstrate that the government killed 1,965 Indians (mostly Apaches and Yavapais) in Arizona and New Mexico between 1866 and 1886. In comparison, only 127 enlisted men, some of them indigenous soldiers, and 10 officers were killed by the indigenous forces. According to data collected from local newspapers, between 1866 and 1878 altogether 1,759 Apaches were killed in Arizona compared to 493 non-Apaches.78 While the numbers are imprecise, they reveal a “big picture” that does not flatter the colonizers. Relatively few soldiers died in the hands of the Apaches or other indigenous groups, whereas the Apaches, who probably numbered approximately 10,000 people in the mid-1800s, experienced massive devastation at the hands of the colonizers. The same happened to the Yavapais. In twelve years between 1863 and 1875 they lost all their territory in central Arizona and half of their total population.79 It is no wonder that some Apaches felt the intention of whites was genocide. Normal life for Apaches became filled with constant fear of attacks and killings. According to one Mescalero Apache, “Apache mothers quieted their children by telling them that the soldiers would find and kill them if they were noisy.” In these circumstances, “even babies dared not cry.” A close reading of army texts also shows how the alerted and suspicious free Apaches typically wanted to avoid all contacts with the white troops. They had good reason to suspect that the troops would want to hurt them.80 Redemption
Some army personnel thought they as representatives of a purportedly superior civilization would save the Apaches. In their minds, Apaches, after being “tamed” by the American military, could, with 134
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the help and guidance of whites, redeem themselves and rise from their barbaric racial status and become clones of white peoples. But it was not just a question of helping the Apaches. These army people displayed a desire to justify conquest and colonization — they sought to redeem their own acts of violence — by seeing it as a civilizing mission offering backward peoples the benefits of the dynamic American culture. The basis of Apache “liberation” and “regeneration” — like the basis of colonial power — was the premise that white American culture superseded all others and possessed inherent privilege. As army people sought to determine what was to be the normative life for the colonized Apaches, they often saw the Apache present as the (distant) white past. The question was how could the Apaches somehow gain momentum and reach the white present. All this makes the concept of time a vehicle of power, and Apache “liberation” a procession toward modernity. The army divided Apache life into a native sphere, which consisted of Apaches’ “own” customs and practices and was something that should be erased once and for all, and a civilized sphere, where rationality and practices introduced by the white colonizers replaced the indigenous order and directed Apache lives toward whiter futures. Although most army writings contain ample descriptions of Apache character and acts of war, the majority of white army men and women did not show all that much interest in Apache futures. A practical explanation is that the majority of the white army community simply lost their interest of the Apaches after they ceased to be seen as a military threat. When stripped of their freedom and power, the Apaches were seen to belong to the Southwest’s inglorious and uncivilized past. Probably many in the army also shared the common American view of the vanishing Indian, where the indigenous peoples were presumed to be heading toward inevitable extinction as the white man’s civilization took over the continent. From their point of view, civilizing Apaches would prove useless, a waste of government money.81 As a segregated space, the reservation functioned as the primary Apaches in White Army Minds
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setting for Apache regeneration. Although reservation administration usually rested on the civilian agents of the Department of the Interior, army officers still controlled Apache reservations from time to time and thus had opportunities to turn their visions into reality. As a rule, army personnel reserved the capacity for rational action for themselves and regarded Apaches unfit for self-government. One officer wrote that because the Apaches had never been “domesticated” like the blacks and do not speak “our language” and are “ignorant of our manner of life,” they must be segregated and taught so that their interests become identical with the whites. After that, the officer continued, they should get land in severalty and eventually the ballot, so that they might become politically equal.82 Most did not think that far ahead. They rather were concerned that the Apaches immediately needed firm rules and rulers who would dismantle their existing power hierarchies and cultivate a new spirit that would make regeneration possible. In general, the officers knew nothing more suitable for strengthening the Apaches’ moral fiber and backbone than manual labor. According to one officer, “idleness was the source of all evils, and work was the only cure.”83 Even if officers themselves disliked manual labor, they viewed it necessary for men of lower classes and inferior races to learn their rightful place in the society. The big plan was to recast the Apache gender roles and division of labor by placing men into farm work and women into the domestic sphere, in accordance with the late nineteenth-century white middle-class ideals, and to encourage Apache participation in the market with their new produce. Officers were absolute that Apache men “must be made to work” to become “industrious” and “hard working” individuals. According to one officer, work will ensure that Apache men “will drop from the list of worthless idlers and relieve the Government from the responsibility of caring for” them. The best way to get Apache men interested, officers imagined, was to offer them money and opportunities to spend it so they could see the benefits of their efforts.84 Although some Apaches had experience in raising 136
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crops, white military people ignored that knowledge as backward and obsolete when making farming a vehicle for their colonial vision. Officers thought they owned the Apaches’ time. They tried to regularize and reorder the everyday by deciding when Apaches were to work, when they would receive rations, and how their public and private life would be orchestrated. In addition to acquiring industrious habits, army people decided that the Apaches were to be taught reading and reason, to wear proper clothes, and to keep themselves clean. The Apache village was to be transformed from “chaotic and rude” to “orderly” by providing Apaches houses and beds to sleep in.85 On the San Carlos reservation in the 1870s the Apaches lived in villages with regular streets. Every morning at seven, these villages were policed with the greatest care. The streets “were cleanly swept,” and every Sunday there was an inspection to see that no garbage had accumulated and that the elevated beds and blankets were clean. Apaches were ordered to work each morning, laboring in the fields or making adobe. Among other things the Apaches “planted fifty acres of land and made an irrigating ditch five miles long to bring the water to their fields.” An officer wrote that the Apaches worked under best discipline, were “very happy and well behaved.” He was especially proud that Apaches even learned to “always uncover the head when saluting a stranger.” He was also certain that the Apaches wanted nothing so much than to work like the whites.86 To make this reorganization of Apache time and life function smoothly each Apache man at San Carlos was numbered and had to carry with him, day and night, his metal check, with the number and designation of his tribe stamped thereon. The officer in charge then had a corresponding record with the number of members in each family and a personal description of every man. This was the way the army controlled what every Apache did or did not do.87 Besides work, army narratives focused heavily on two Apache customs that purportedly demonstrated the backward nature of Apaches’ ways: the practice of cutting the noses of adulterous wives and the brewing of indigenous “beer” called “tiswin.” In army texts, the Apaches in White Army Minds
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nose cutting was ferociously attacked as a mutilation, inhuman custom, and as a “shocking mode of punishment.” The military was “determined to put an end to” it by sentencing the perpetrators to the guardhouse. For army people nose cutting symbolized the supposedly despotic powers of Apache men over women. The army hoped to curtail male domestic authority and win over the sympathies of Apache women, to convert the latter for the colonizers’ cause. What the army men ended up doing was getting themselves mixed in Apaches domestic disputes and insulting and infuriating Apache men who could not stand to be treated like children.88 The army also forbade tiswin manufacture, and detachments of troops repeatedly searched Apache camps and destroyed the supply, once again maddening many Apache men. The effort to terminate tiswin brewing was tightly connected to white prejudices against the indigenous consumption of alcohol. Army people widely believed that the Apaches would turn troublesome and uncontrollable the moment they touched anything stronger than water. “Indians when sober may be managed, but with Indians drunk no one can predict the consequences,” an officer stated.89 In reality tiswin is a something of a mildly intoxicating beer, but in army discourses it was a “villainous compound” or “regular lighting,” which supposedly produced “a drunk from which they scarcely recover in less than five days.” The army imagined that if allowed, the Apaches would “part with everything he may possess” to get tiswin and organize “drunken orgies” that would only result in fights and killings. Clearly, army men did not trust the Apaches to exercise selfcontrol.90 Being oftentimes heavy drinkers themselves, army men forced temperance on the Apaches and thought it necessary for the Apaches to refrain from drinking so that they might be able to rise in the hierarchies of civilization. Rationing, much like the reorganizing of village space and the regulation of labor and cultural practices, functioned as another colonial instrument designed to alter Apache behavior. As Tim Rowse has suggested in his study of colonialism in Australia, rationing was 138
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a vehicle for surveying and controlling colonized peoples. The different goods and the ways they were distributed, Rowse writes, formed the relationship through which the forging of social regularities and routines often took place.91 As a rule, it was the Apaches who had to make the effort and arrive at the agency to receive the white man’s food. Apaches had to live close to the points of distribution to make the symbolic crossing to the military, wait where told, proceed in an order dictated by whites, and receive with gratitude what was given, after which they were allowed to disperse in the proximity of the rationing place. For example, rationing at Fort Apache in the early 1870s started in the morning as the Apaches gathered near the post from all sections, each band seating themselves separately, men generally distinct from the women. Their appearance was still of their own choosing, perhaps reflecting conscious resistance to this colonial ordering. Officers counted each band and then distributed ration tickets, after which the 1,500 people present were admitted, in a line, to a small stockade where they received “their ration of corn in their blankets as it was scooped out to them” and a piece of beef. Each Apache seemingly protested with remarks of the “most obscene character” that they wanted more, and snatched any morsel they could put their hands on. In three hours all was over, and the people dispersed, the next rationing taking place in five days. Frank Upham, an officer, remembered that he was “to watch, feed, and regularly muster and count” the Apaches at intervals of four days. Thus, the Apaches were closely watched and made to perform the same rituals in intervals of a few days. It was all ideally very official and rigid, which probably made it even more irritating an ordeal for the Apaches. Upham added that his “duty was conscientiously performed and duly certified to by official witnesses.“92 Officers also strove to control how the Apaches used their rations. They suspected, for instance, that the Apaches used all their corn to make alcohol. Others felt that when reservation Apaches received “government bounty,” or, in other words, were fed by the expense of whites, they should show gratitude and obedience.93 Apaches were Apaches in White Army Minds
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also forced to use a ration card, which functioned both as a form of surveillance and a symbol of status, because one could not get food without it. The card was in fact the key to survival in the colonial world. When the Chiricahua leader Victorio was refused rations after patiently waiting in line, he confronted the reservation agent who had promised him food but failed to mention that he needed a ration card. The agent was persistent that the card was required and that it would take a month to process it. When Victorio complained that a month is a long time without food, the agent refused to continue the conversation and ignored the Apache leader.94 Often the officers learned that their powers were limited and things did not go as planned. Crops failed, rations fell short of need, and the Apaches remained suspicious and unhappy. Many in the military saw that civilian agents who often ran the reservations were at least partially to blame. Army people characterized the best of the agents as ignorant men who did not understand their work or the Apaches and quickly grew disheartened, while the worst purportedly cheated, stole, abused, and starved the Apaches and thus damaged all military efforts. For years the army tried to gain full authority in Indian affairs from the Department of the Interior, but Congress would not come to an agreement. So the agents stayed. Still, officers also contemplated that reservation problems did not result merely from the robbery and mismanagement of the agents, but, one officer wrote, from the Apaches “innate desire to slay, pillage, steal, and create havoc generally.”95 As in other, more recent, imperial missions, American invaders in the Southwest had difficulties in comprehending that someone would refuse to be “liberated.” When the Apaches did not openly embrace the forced change and white tutelage, officers saw that it was their “worthless” character that most hindered the Apaches progress, making stealing and war more congenial to their natural instincts than farming or living in peace.96 The officers’ remedy for what they labeled as “Apache stubbornness” included tighter discipline, increased industry, and swift punishment for any Apache thought to resist white authority. 140
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Those Apaches who did not follow suit faced time in the guardhouse or something worse, like imprisonment outside the Southwest. For instance, Kaytennae, a Chihenne (Chiricahua) Apache, refused to accept the new reservation order and was sentenced to Alcatraz, a federal penitentiary outside San Francisco. Released less than two years later, the officers represented Kaytennae’s “reformation” as ideal. According to General Crook, Kaytennae, “who less than two years ago was the worst Chiricahua of the whole lot, is now perfectly subdued . . . thoroughly reconstructed, [and] has rendered valuable assistance. . . . His stay at Alcatraz has worked a complete reformation in his character. I have not a doubt that similar treatment will produce the same results with the whole band.”97 Another, more personal, method for Apache “regeneration” was the abduction of Apache children. In a region where captivity raiding, exchange, and adoption had shaped cross-cultural interactions for centuries, the army reinvented an established tradition.98 Although never large-scale, army people captured a number of Apache children. For instance, following a battle in 1868, Maj. Andrew Alexander took a teenage Apache girl to Camp McDowell. “She was a pretty little squaw so I sent down to the guard house and had her brought up, and she looked so intelligent that I concluded to keep her,” the major’s wife, Eveline Alexander, wrote. Immediately, Eveline started vigorously “civilizing” the frightened and confused girl, whose life had been turned upside down. She was taught basic English and to eat with knife and fork, to sew, and her hair was shingled to “improve her appearance.” She was trained to become a nurse for the Alexanders’ infant baby. Writing to her parents, who earlier had expressed great concern about the infant “falling into the hands of the Apaches,” Eveline informed them that now the baby was “being rocked to sleep by a bona fide wild Apachee, who a week ago was roaming the mountains, guiltless of any other covering but her ‘maiden modesty.’” Eveline renamed the girl Patty, a “short for Apachee,” she explained. Harsh discipline kept the girl in line. She “must learn to obey me,” Eveline insisted, contemplating at one time Apaches in White Army Minds
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the possibility of starving her to submission but eventually resorting to threats about sending her into the guardhouse. Apparently, the girl both accepted her new part in the colonial world and harbored silent resistance, as she later not only accompanied the Alexanders as “part of the family” to their estate in Willowbrook, New York, but rebelled against her captors by running off to marry a black soldier, much to Eveline’s dismay.99 Sometimes Apache children captured at skirmishes were made army troop’s “pets,” like John Bourke called them. Bourke wrote that the nine- and ten-year-old Apache youngsters that had been “adopted” by the troops at one army village were “never given any dinner until they had each first shot an arrow into the neck of an olive-bottle inserted into one of the adobe walls of the quartermaster’s corral.”100 In another case, an Apache boy first lived with the soldiers of the Sixth Cavalry, before at the age of fourteen he became a valet for two bachelor lieutenants. After they left the region, his new “owner” was Maj. James Biddle and his wife Ellen. The Biddles dressed the boy in white man’s clothes and made him work as the family’s house servant, until he enlisted as a “scout.” To the Biddles’ disappointment, the boy soon ran away but made one final appearance at the family’s quarters, this time his face painted, hair matted with mud, and a blanket around his shoulders. “He was just as much Indian as the others, who had never lived in a house or been with civilized people. . . . There are too many generations of Indians back of them, and the few years of civilization are soon forgotten,” Ellen bitterly wrote.101 In the end, officers and wives had a hard time understanding that the “liberation” they planned and tried to execute was damaging to Apache lives. Officers refused to listen to others, including the Apaches, and would have everybody believe that they knew best what the Apaches needed. For their part, the Apaches did much more than just survive colonial regeneration or liberation. Like the Biddle’s Apache boy or Eveline Alexander’s servant girl, they orchestrated a multifaceted and viable resistance, refusing to transform themselves into 142
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clones of whites. They carved space in the limited opportunities of the reservation, adapted to counter white intrusions into their private lives, and reinvented their sociocultural practices. On the reservations, Apaches could, for example, avoid work imposed on them, work slowly or carelessly, refuse to follow the behavioral norms imposed during the rationing process and otherwise, or drink tiswin in secret. The many modes of colonial resistance went largely unnoticed by whites. They saw only the cutting of noses of adulterous wives, tiswin drunks, and open vocal defiance to white authority.102
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Colonial Knowledge and Apache History
In late 1970s, almost one hundred years after the military panicked at Cloverdale, a noted historian Donald E. Worcester wrote the following: “Rugged mountains and endless desert, this was Apacheland, and the Apache were truly products of their brutal environment . . . completely at home in any part of that tortured land: they suffered hunger and thirst and extremes of heat and cold without complaint. They saw an enemy in every stranger; they trusted no one outside the band. . . . A warrior people, Apaches were born and reared for combat.”103 Admittedly, Worcester’s words echo the knowledge the colonizers produced in the 1800s. Far from exceptional, description of Apaches as a brutal warrior race has been fairly commonplace, especially in older historical studies. For example, a history of New Mexico written also in the 1970s insists that “nomadism was in their blood, and once they acquired the horse and a new mobility, soft words of missionaries or the feeble efforts of Spain’s scant soldierly could do little to check their predatory ways.”104 In a classic study of the Southwest, Apaches are referred to as a “permanent, hostile Indian population,” an “Indian problem,” “natural raiders,” and “a constant terror to white colonists.”105 The eminent historian of U.S.-Apache wars, Dan L. Thrapp, who usually avoided judging the Apaches although his texts indicate that he admired the military, wrote in the 1960s that “the tribes of Apacheria were a product of their habitat, harsh, cruel, and pitiless.” Even in a more Apaches in White Army Minds
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recent work one can still find the odd remark, such as “the Apaches were a warlike and nomadic people who roamed the Southwest.”106 The evident impact of colonial knowledge does not suggest that most historians have shared the army’s mentality regarding the Apaches. Nor does it mean that these studies lack in value. Traditionally, histories of the U.S.-Apache wars have, in general, been strong on descriptive chronology of battles and military campaigns but rather top-heavy and favorable towards U.S. Army actions and therefore short on critical analysis. There is little question that the works of Worcester, Thrapp, and Edwin Sweeney, for example, have produced a wealth of invaluable information concerning the U.S.-Apache conflicts. Rather, the evidence shows the scholars’ tendency to rely on army writings as the truth and use army vocabulary to describe events and Apache activities. One can detect a general approach to the U.S.-Apache wars from the perspective of the colonizers. Both army writings and historical studies have repeatedly portrayed the Apaches as aimlessly “roaming” nomads naturally inclined to war and violence. Certainly, many scholars have recognized white greed and the rivalries between federal branches as contributing factors to the conflict, but they still have made Apaches the aggressors by their choice of words. Historians have made it seem that the U.S. Army’s mission constituted a “defense” of a western frontier and indicated the army was aiming for a “lasting peace” and “taming” or “pacifying the country.”107 Less often have military historians argued that the army actually waged a ruthless war that contributed to the creation of a race-based colonial regime. Also, scholarship does not recognize any U.S.-Apache wars, but the prevalent term used is “Apache wars,” which denies and downplays U.S. aggression and in fact hides its whole participation.108 The often subtle influence of colonial knowledge is also detectable when historians have adopted portions of the army’s racialized vocabulary, by referring to the “Apache problem” or the “Apache threat” when discussing the U.S. conquest of the Southwest.109 However, there is no “army problem” or “Anglo problem” in these studies. 144
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Scholars have also written that the Apaches “pillaged and murdered,” “terrorized,” and “rampaged” or that they “were elusive and cunning,” “vicious,” and “a menace” “spreading terror and destruction.” Some claim that the Apaches “engaged in wild and tenacious rebellion.” In many studies the Apaches also go “on the warpath.”110 The same studies treat the army very differently. They write that the army “made campaigns,” “went into action,” or “achieved triumphant military success.” The army also had “punitive commands,” “expeditions,” “efforts,” and “exhausting chases,” where it “hunted the renegades,” or “operated” against the Apaches.111 It is also regrettable that the term “hostile,” applied by white army people to describe all Apaches not under U.S. control, has been frequently used in historical scholarship with identical meaning. Some of the older studies especially regularly resort to “hostiles” when referring to free Apaches, but the term appears in some newer works as well. For example, Sweeney’s informative biography of Cochise repeatedly refers to Cochise and his group as “hostiles.” Sweeney also divides the Apaches into the “incorrigible,” “unpacified,” and “wild” and the “tame” and “friendly.”112 The impact of colonial knowledge is not just in the choice of words but also in the much broader question of perspective and lack of critique toward the colonizers.113 For example, the U.S. Army’s invasion of Mexico and the Sierra Madre in 1883 is portrayed in some studies as a heroic endeavor or as a “most dangerous expedition” that “solved” the “problem of the enemy nest in the Sierra Madre.”114 For its part, the brutal and unnecessary Tonto Basin campaigns of 1872–74 are frequently described as a great success, a swift and humane operation that broke Apache resistance. One study, for example, categorizes these campaigns as a “success” that “managed to bring peace to the territory” for the first time, while another calls them “a complete triumph” that ended “the depredations of an extremely resourceful and elusive enemy.” Studies such as these tend to see the conflict through army eyes and represent as a fact such an unfounded claim that there existed united and widespread Apache Apaches in White Army Minds
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“resistance.”115 There is some truth in the observation made by Timothy Braatz that “when the military historians are critical of the soldiering, it is often for not being brutal enough.”116 In many historical studies, the indigenous peoples, whose homelands were being invaded and their ways crushed, have remained the aggressors. While newer works in general have applied more balanced perspectives and nuanced analysis than some of the older studies, it is still necessary to more fully assess the destructive effects of colonialism and question what rights the army had in an area where indigenous peoples lived and ruled. Indigenous peoples must be taken seriously as legitimate “owners” of the Southwest, thus recognizing the fact that the army was an intruder on other people’s lands — in search of geopolitical and colonial power and engaged in a ruthless offensive. Too often the army’s offensive character as part of the colonial conquest has been belittled, masked, and almost denied. Military histories should take note that in recent years several revisionist studies on U.S.-indigenous conflicts in the Southwest have treated indigenous peoples as fully human rational actors, while criticizing Anglo actions and the production of history.117 These works include indigenous perspectives and seek to recover the subaltern voice. They have stopped recycling the knowledge and terminology produced by the colonizers and have instead placed the colonizers’ texts under scrutiny. Indigenous peoples of the Southwest have been treated as active decision makers who came from a rich and complex culture, cared deeply for their homes and families, and envisioned geopolitical and economic strategies while trying to maintain their power and survive in the face of U.S. invasion. To make truly critical and multivocal histories, students of the army should understand the U.S. invasion of the Southwest, in the words of Braatz, “as the imperialist conquest that it was.”118 The Racial Other
The army’s making of the Apaches can be viewed as part of the global process of pushing indigenous peoples to the margins so that western 146
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capitalistic dominance of the world can be established. More specifically, army representations and actions provide an example of how enemy imagery was constructed and how demonized enemies were dealt with when setting up colonial regimes. They also show how a group of colonizers hammered out their visions of humanity in a particular colonial setting and what strategies they resorted to when establishing and categorizing difference between themselves and those people they regarded as competition and the enemy. On one level officers, dependents, and soldiers seemed confident that Apaches represented an inferior uncivilized foe destined to lose the conflict. On the other hand, however, white army people often viewed the Apaches as a dangerous threat. They not only feared the Apaches but recognized their potential to question the privilege of whiteness by prolonging the conflict and by making white officers and soldiers seem militarily impotent. Their lack of dominance in the field — the day-to-day experiences of colonial warfare — increased the frustration, hatred, and fear white officers and soldiers felt, not only contributing to the Apache imagery they produced but substantiating their discourses about colonial violence and the regeneration of Apaches. “The most crucial development” of conquest, according to historian David G. Gutierrez, was the “construction of an elaborate set of rationales which are designed to explain why one group has conquered another.”119 In the Apache case, the army texts were about strengthening the privilege of whiteness and Anglo civilization by making it appear that because of the nature of Apache rule and the character of the Apaches and their society, the U.S. invasion was neither unjust or harmful but honorable and right. In army discourses colonial aggression and dominance was in fact liberation, where the whole region, eventually even the Apache survivors, were saved from a destructive Apache rule. When depicting the Apaches as racial others, the army did not usually honor Apache notions of masculinity. In fact, they painted Apache men as monstrous others, as bloody murderers and domestic tyrants, thereby seeking not only to make Apaches legitimate targets Apaches in White Army Minds
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of colonial violence but to strip the Apache men of their honor and prestige. They also wanted to crush Apache manhood in combat by claiming that the Apaches “needed a lesson” and to make submissive inferiors of those they had compelled to settle down and farm by demanding a gender reversal. As individual farmers, the army imagined, Apaches could escape their racial bondage by giving up their old habits and social organization and become clones of the whites, submissive others who knew their place in the new colonial order and would never again threaten their superiors. In the end, the validation of army actions, whether armed violence or reservation regeneration, rested on the artificial distinctiveness of Apaches that the army’s subjective discourses had produced. Scholars studying colonialism have shown a direct linkage between the acquisition of knowledge about colonized peoples and the imposition of authority over them. Often knowledge and authority evolved in a symbiotic relationship, feeding each other. The experiences and practices in governing fueled certain types of representations, whereas colonizers’ stories showed what was imaginable in terms of colonial policy, what actions were seen as necessary, and what was seen as impossible. In reality, the colonial knowledge army men and women produced of the Apaches amounted to little more than colonial fiction from fevered imaginations, woven together to rationalize the colonization of free Apaches and their lands. In retrospect, the Apache case seems to regrettably confirm that the knowledge produced by the colonizers continues to exhibit some influence even today. The Apaches, perhaps more than any other indigenous group in North America, still symbolize the “wildness,” “fierceness,” and “cunning” of indigenous peoples. For the army community the Apache enemy proved important in terms of identity production. By representing Apaches as their racial other, white army people hoped to strengthen their own position and the status of whiteness in the colonial hierarchies, reducing the Apaches to the lowest rungs and making whiteness signify superiority and privilege. A common enemy also brought cohesion 148
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and unity inside the often fractured army community. As they all chose to single out the Apaches as a distinct race, white army people emphasized their collective agreement and forged a cross-class alliance that downplayed difference. In a sense their common bond, although real, gave a false sense of harmony. Instead, the reality of life inside the army villages often revealed a divided community.
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My residence [was] a two-roomed adobe hut, with mud walls and floor, open to the thatch of brush, and without any article of furniture. This was our refuge. For this I had left civilization, and comfort, and security!
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—juli a dav is, officer’s wife
In the summer of 1871 Lt. Frederick Phelps arrived to Fort Bayard with his wife. The post was located ten miles east of Silver City near the Santa Rita Mountains, in the midst of the mining district in southwest New Mexico. Coming from an established Ohio family where college-level education was the rule, his father and grandfather having served as teachers, lawyers, state supreme court judges, and farmers, Phelps had difficulty adjusting to his new home. Although he appreciated the companionship of fellow officers and their wives and felt that the locality was somewhat “picturesque,” the army village itself represented for him a “lonely, isolated post six hundred miles” from the nearest symbol of civilization, the railroad. There was nothing to eat, Phelps explained, except meager government rations consisting mainly of beef, coffee, bacon, sugar, rice, pepper, salt, vinegar, and a few extra cans of vegetables. Also, if not for a bachelor officer who let them have his house, the Phelpses’
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home would have been a tent. The house, originally built as a stable, had a most peculiar parlor with one wall of stones, one of adobe, one of pine logs set on end, and one of slabs from the sawmill, Phelps described. The floor was rough boards, ceiling canvas, roof mud, the door made of two boards on wooden hinges with a wooden latch, and the only window had an immovable sash. The smaller room had no window and the floor was of hard smooth mud. The Phelpses’ home also included two tents, one used as a dining room and the other as a kitchen. Although Phelps represented the house as a highly unusual and improper dwelling that did not provide much security against the elements but was instead regularly occupied by a number of dangerous tarantulas and centipedes, he also wanted to give an impression that officers and their wives, as civilized people, were capable to endure and overcome such “hardships.” Following improvements the house became “quite cosy and comfortable,” Phelps assured.1 The army made its occupation of indigenous peoples’ homelands known by establishing posts. They functioned as bastions of U.S. power, or, in the words of Durwood Ball, “armed national islands,” providing business opportunities, aid, security, and escorts for settlers and offering the troops bases from which to conduct their attacks. The scale of conquest led to a situation that after the Civil War the army was scattered in more than two hundred posts from the Mexican border to the Canadian.2 More than anything else army posts were villages, living spaces where army personnel were able to try to put into practice their visions of proper life and social order, while simultaneously constructing specific identities and status for themselves. Culturally and socially army villages functioned as sites through which the values, norms, and practices of the imperial center were funneled to the colonized region. Posts were also segregated spaces, where the main social division separated officers and their dependents from the enlisted ranks. 3 As discussed in previous chapters, officers and wives built their authority by promoting the difference between their culture and Army Village as Middle-Class Living Space
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the colony they occupied. They produced a collective self-image of powerful liberators who penetrated challenging and peripheral colonial spaces and saved these areas from savage darkness. For expressing their worth and building their identities and power in their own community and also in relation to the colony, it was necessary for officers and wives to produce visible statements of superiority in everyday lives. As a small group officers and wives could not rely on numbers when making claims for high social status. In 1878, for example, there were 1,228 enlisted soldiers and 97 commissioned officers living in ten army villages in Arizona. Garrison strength varied from 15 soldiers and 6 officers at Camp Lowell and 38 soldiers and 3 officers at Camp Mojave to 221 soldiers and 13 officers at Camp Apache and 189 soldiers and 15 officers at Camp Grant.4 For their part census records from 1870 show that Camp Crittenden had 143 white soldiers and 6 officers and Fort Bowie — which, according to army surgeon Joseph Widney, had only 2 officers in the late 1860s — had 6 officers with approximately 300 soldiers. There were even fewer officers’ wives. In Bowie in 1870 lived 4, while none stayed at Crittenden. Two years later the two posts had 1 wife each. Even at Whipple Barracks, the department headquarters, there lived close to 20 officers but only 2 wives in 1871.5 The records indicate that officers and wives had to adjust to a situation where they represented a tiny minority living far away from home and “their own kind,” surrounded by large masses of immigrant and working-class enlisted men in the army villages and by thousands of indigenous peoples, Hispanics, and Anglos in the surrounding colony. In an effort to find ways for stating their social value on the everyday arena, officers would not only turn to military matters, but also to housing, culture, and domesticity. Naturally, army officers’ sense of self-worth was in some ways always linked to war success and rank. But the day-to-day realities of colonial warfare in the border region, as discussed earlier, revealed an often unpleasant scenario with little honor and glory. Campaigning — fruitless, tedious, and hard — included few moments 152
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of magnificent success and brought little respect from the seemingly ungrateful locals and the uninterested nation. In all, although the army won the war and the officers cast themselves as liberators of the Southwest, the daily act of military campaigning and combat itself, as it unfolded in Apacheria, functioned as unsatisfactory venues for making claims of superiority in everyday lives. Also, while rank determined the institutional value of each officer, it did not always form a good basis for building a sense of common bond among the officers and wives nor did rank in itself necessarily say much about the character and quality of the inner man. In fact, rank could have a rather disruptive influence. While officers and wives felt a sense of camaraderie and shared destiny, some of them also were, like historians have noted, individualistic people hungry for promotion. Rank and the desire to advance were among the principal reasons that fractured the officers’ corps and led to disharmony, confrontations, jealousy, and the forming of cliques.6 The socially shattering nature of rank was also evident when petty tyrannical officers “bullied” their subordinates, who in turn judged their superiors to disabuse their position. Rank also injured social unity in those cases when an officer hid behind his rank, not taking responsibility for his actions or showing honorable character.7 Furthermore, the average officer and wife had to face the fact that not everyone could become a general and that promotion, based usually on seniority and not on merit, was not only terribly slow but something they actually had little influence over.8 What they could try to control, and what, in addition to rank and military glory, functioned as a measure of their worth, was the collective self-image officers and wives built of themselves as refined and civilized people. When building this collective self-image in day-to-day life, much depended on proper living space and the domestic realm, as well as on leisure and avoidance of manual labor. In colonial situations, as Ann Laura Stoler and others have demonstrated, living conditions, domestic arrangements, and lifestyles were far from insignificant as sites in the production of colonizer identity and power.9 Together, Army Village as Middle-Class Living Space
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the capacity to command and discipline their subordinates and the orchestration and representation of living space and domesticity, in addition to leisure and the power to not work, provided important building blocks, as the officers and their wives constructed and displayed their identity and authority. In housing and domestic life they attempted to emulate middle-class practices and standards of their era and make their villages and homes represent “islands of civilization,” exemplary sites of white middle-class life in the Southwest that were better than colonial settlements such as Arizona City or Tucson. Often, however, it seemed that the success of their efforts was less than satisfactory. Some, eager to prove their worth, refused to give up on their efforts; others appeared pleased with what they managed to achieve; still others became frustrated. In the end, officers and dependents produced “islands of civilization” that mimicked eastern practices and ideals but in fact represented a hybrid of colonizer dreams and colonial realities.
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Village Locations
As instruments in conquest, most army villages were temporary establishments, seldom intended or designed for long-term use. According to one officer, “the ever-changing location of Indians” determined village locations.10 In reality, the situation was only slightly more complex than that. Established near reservations, transportation routes, supply centers, major settlements, and other strategic locations, army villages were meant to help successful conquest by their mere presence alone. For example, Fort Stanton was to keep on eye on the Mescalero Reservation, while Forts Apache, Thomas, McDowell, and even Verde were near the borders of the White Mountain Reservation, and Camp San Carlos was located within the reservation. Fort Cummings, standing at the eastern entrance of Cook’s Canyon, and Fort Bowie, guarding Apache Pass, were located on strategic points and near important springs, the only sources of water for miles, on the Mesilla-Tucson road, a byway from California to the east. Camp Date Creek was set to protect traffic 154
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on the Prescott–La Paz road and Forts Craig, McRae, and Selden watched the barren Jornada del Muerte (Journey of Death) travel route. Fort Yuma was on the junction of two major rivers, the Colorado and the Gila, while Fort Bayard was to guarantee the successful operation of mining interests in southwestern New Mexico, and Fort Verde was established to protect the Prescott mining district in central Arizona. In the late 1870s Fort Huachuca was built near the booming Tombstone mining area. Whipple Barracks and Forts Lowell and Marcy were situated in or near the major population centers of Prescott, Tucson, and Santa Fe respectively.11 Army men and women often complained that in determining village locations, considerations for human comfort were given little weight. One repeatedly voiced concern was that the villages were either diseased or situated in the warmest spots found in the region. According to one informant, Fort Thomas, established in 1876, was “next to Yuma, the hottest post in the republic and the most sickly, excepting none.” Located on a very low and hot valley, squeezed in by mountains thousands of feet higher than the valley and only six or eight miles apart, the village received very little rain. What rain there was either fell on the mountains or was absorbed by the arid atmosphere before it reached the valley. This must have felt like an insult to the village residents, to whom the location, especially during summer, resembled an oven. In addition, a malignant fever troubled the occupants, resulting in several deaths among the soldiers.12 Army personnel described many a village location in the same way as they did Fort Thomas. In New Mexico, a resident dubbed Fort Craig as “one of the most desolate posts on the frontier” because of its location on the edge of an almost perfectly level plain, covered only with gravel and scarcely a bush. Another post, Fort Selden, also held supposedly nothing but “sandy and sterile soil, resting on volcanic rocks,” one officer wrote.13 During the late 1860s and early 1870s Camps Crittenden, Goodwin, Date Creek, and Grant were all judged unhealthy and “extremely malarious.” According to one army wife, 80 percent of the men at Date Creek suffered from Army Village as Middle-Class Living Space
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malarial fever, whereas another army informant wrote that Goodwin was “cursed” with malaria so that not only was everyone regularly sick but it was almost impossible for the soldiers to get well there. Goodwin was abandoned in 1871, Crittenden two years later, and Date Creek in 1874. Grant was relocated to a healthier site in 1873.14 Reading these descriptions, one can quickly see that they in some ways correspond with the army views of southern Arizona and New Mexico landscapes in general. Both discourses display a tendency to distance the colony as a difficult and taxing environment in its contemporary state. However, as it was with the army representations of the colonial terrain, not all army people were critical toward everything they saw. In fact, while some village locations drew mixed reviews, a few stood out as clear army favorites. One of those places with mixed descriptions was Camp McDowell. “Stuck down in a plateau, surrounded with mountains, where no breath of air can reach it,” an army paymaster explained, McDowell was “intolerably hot in the summer.” Others described it as “fearfully hot” with 116 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade, and for one resident it represented “the most unhappy post at which we ever served.” Eveline Alexander, however, thought that the climate at McDowell, especially during the fall, was “the most charming imaginable” and in Martha Summerhayes’s mind winters were “superb,” with no rain and warm pleasant weather. But as summer approached, the heat became “intense” for the Summerhayes, making sleeping, even in the open, difficult, and people became exhausted.15 Among the most agreeable post sites appear to have been Forts Apache and Stanton. Upon arrival at Apache, one lieutenant, for example, wrote that he “was charmed” by the cool trout streams and the snow-capped White Mountains, with their foothills covered in cedars and pines. The downside was the snow in the winters that lay so deep it practically isolated the post by blocking the trails. Like Apache, Stanton was also located on a higher elevation, with an abundance of streams nearby, alive with fish and game of almost every kind found in the vicinity. Also the climate was supposedly just perfect, not too 156
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3. Fort McDowell, Arizona, 1877. Photo courtesy of Sharlot Hall
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Museum Library and Archives, Prescott, Arizona. mil-156p.
warm or too cold. “To breathe was like drinking new wine,” one army wife wrote of her stay at Stanton.16 All the while the more common message in army writings nevertheless was that the village locations offered challenging surroundings for the creation of successful and proper white settlements. This did not mean that the army men and women would not try. Once again, they just gave the impression that in their efforts they faced an uphill struggle against colonial elements. This narrative strategy was meant to make their efforts much more heroic, and any success a proof of their superiority as a group who managed to enlarge the domain of white civilization even in the midst of unfavorable natural surroundings. Public Space
Before the early 1900s army villages differed in their design and use of building materials. Although the quartermaster general’s office in Washington dc suggested designs for housing, the officers at the local level usually produced the villages trusting their own Army Village as Middle-Class Living Space
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preferences and using the materials at hand. Thus, at least in theory the villages reflected the officers’ perceptions of how an American settlement should look like. Usually, as Alison Hoagland writes, the army village consisted of a dozen or more buildings organized around an open space, much like a village green, while lesser buildings, arranged in a disorderly fashion, occupied space away from the center. The buildings, Hoagland continues, represented a mixture of style and materials, as if they had been built by private citizens over several decades. Trees, porches, sidewalks, and gardens contributed to the domestic atmosphere.17 As a rule army villages displayed a hierarchical and segregated layout in housing, combined with common public areas and buildings. Like in many civilian villages and towns, the bourgeois domestic world of the officers and wives was set apart from the working-class neighborhood of common soldiers’ quarters. Except as servants and masters, the two classes met only in the public areas, of which none probably mattered more to army people than the parade ground, which functioned both as the village heart and as the main segregator of social space. The parade ground physically divided village space to the officers’ realm, the enlisted section, and the common part. Fort Bowie, for instance, in the mid-1870s had three sets of officers’ quarters on the south side of the parade. East side had another set of officers’ quarters adjoining the adjutant’s office, and a building containing the post library, schoolroom, the post bakery, and a set of company quarters located at the opposite end from the officers’ homes. Another set of company quarters and two large storehouses were located on the north side and thus separated from the officers houses by the full length of the parade ground. Behind the company quarters were the mess hall, kitchen, a bathroom, and lavatory used by enlisted men. The west side was reserved for the post hospital. A short distance in the rear of the south end of the hospital was the guardhouse. Married soldiers’ quarters were located some distance away at the old post site, while the shops, stables, and corral were to the north. The post garden was a quarter of a mile distant from the village proper.18 158
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The layout, although rarely, if ever, identical, was similar in most villages. Usually at least one side of the parade was exclusively reserved for officers’ homes, and the soldiers’ neighborhood, as a rule, occupied the opposite side, distanced from elite eyes. In between and around the two neighborhoods was the shared public space, which included administrative, commercial, and other public buildings. In some places a roadway encircled the parade ground. Whipple Barracks, for instance, had the soldier’s quarters, kitchen, and bakery on one side, and the officers’ quarters on the opposite; the storerooms were on another side, with the guardhouse, adjutant’s office, and laundresses’ quarters opposite. At Fort Verde the west side of the parade ground had the enlisted men’s “world” with the company quarters and the guardhouse, the east side the officers’ quarters, and the south side “the shared public space,” including an administrative building with offices for the adjutant, quartermaster, and commissary; a schoolroom; and a “lower class” section with three sets of laundresses’ quarters and another building used by married soldiers. Outside the main circle were the hospital, the magazine, and bakery, while the gardens were about a mile and half above the village, and the post cemetery two miles northeast.19 A “typical fort,” Robert Utley remarks, “looked more like a village than a fort,” as only a handful displayed stockades or other defenses.20 Compared to the villages and small towns in the East the army villages looked both similar and different. Sutler’s buildings acted as stores, and kitchens, canteens (in the 1880s), and mess halls imitated bars, restaurants, and clubs. Army villages had hospital buildings but no small practices and the guardhouse stood for the local jail. Villages had bakeries and blacksmiths, and sometimes carpenters and other skilled laborers offered their services somewhat like in the “normal” villages. However, the army posts, for one thing, lacked banks, communal meetinghouses, and churches, although they did have cemeteries. Religion in general was very much downplayed in the army. Also, army villages did not have any factories or other signs of the burgeoning industrial revolution. But they did Army Village as Middle-Class Living Space
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have corrals, stables, and plenty of animals, most obviously horses and mules, but also chickens, cows, and dogs, in a manner resembling civilian settlements. Furthermore, the army’s administrative offices poorly resembled the elegant structures of many town halls, and while some army villages had a reading room or a library, they were often poorly stacked and in shabby condition. The schoolhouses, in the few places that had them, seemed to enjoy only minimal usage. 21 Furthermore, the parade ground oftentimes, but not always, looked less than ideal “village green.” While the Fort Lowell parade ground was “as clean as a swept floor,” at Fort Apache it was “long and grassy” — yet still clearly something to be proud of. But at Camp Date Creek the village center was all rock, without any grass on it, and at Fort Yuma there was also but “a stony lawn — the rocky hill roughly dressed and made smooth by filling in with fine stone.”22 Moreover, the army villages had no high houses, and the buildings at this time were, as a rule, only one or one and a half story structures, which increased a village-like feel. The houses, unlike in the East, were usually not only poorly built but made mostly of adobe — which many Americans saw as a foreign influence connected to the Hispanic culture. In the mid-1870s, forts in New Mexico such as McRae and Selden were entirely of adobe, Stanton of stone, and Bayard a combination of adobe, stone, and log. In Arizona Forts Bowie, Lowell, and McDowell were adobe constructions, while Fort Apache again stood out, as it was built of wood, mostly of roughhewn pine logs. Seven years later the situation was still much the same. Forts Bowie, Craig, Lowell, McDowell, Mojave, Stanton, and Verde were made of adobe, Whipple of frame, and Yuma of brick.23 Army villages were never completed, but instead objects of constant improvements. In an effort to make public space more like eastern villages, the army attempted landscaping. According to one officer, Fort Yuma was transformed into a “real garden” by directing water through ditches from the Colorado River. The village gained an ample garden of vegetables and rows of planted trees. “Everything 160
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is green and beautiful, but only because here water has been brought to land which was once called the American desert,” one army person wrote. It was a joy to see “the green leaves within the enclosure,” as Yuma had the reformed appearance of an oasis in the desert. That was the goal also at Whipple Barracks, which in 1876 had “a good stream of water running through the garrison and some small willows and cottonwood trees” planted. At Fort Stanton the army placed trees around the parade ground and to facilitate their growth dug a ditch with water constantly running on it that kept the trees always moist. 24 Sometimes the projects did not produce the results anticipated. At Camp McDowell a line of cottonwood saplings were planted after 1865 at short intervals along the sides of the parade ground for ornaments and shade. Watered “assiduously” for two years, the trees reportedly flourished, but after this showed signs of decline in spite of attention paid to them and eventually came to be neglected. In 1869 one army wife, judging McDowell unsuitable for gardening, wrote that there was “not a green thing to be seen” in the village. Although another wife felt differently, arguing that “anyone can have a garden here if he chooses to take the trouble,” a decade later the attempts to construct a post garden and to make the desert bloom had failed, the garden being neglected and overgrown with weeds. 25 The army’s projects turned more ambitious in the 1880s, as it ran water to, for instance, Forts Mojave, Apache, and Lowell through elaborate systems of iron pipes, reservoirs, tanks, and steam pumps. The purpose was not only to secure water for necessities or to ensure post survival but also to make possible more luxurious accommodations and comfortable living. By 1885 officers’ quarters had bathrooms with indoor plumbing and hot and cold water, for example, at Whipple Barracks. 26 To battle chronic water shortage at Fort Grant, the army channeled water from the mountains above to a newly built reservoir, from which it was driven onward through a system of pipelines. Grant got a sprinkler system and a sewage system that made possible bathrooms inside the houses and water closets Army Village as Middle-Class Living Space
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4. One of the army’s more ambitious projects was the building of Lake Constance for recreation in the arid Fort Grant, Arizona. The cement-walled “lake” is pictured here in the 1890s. Photo courtesy of
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outside. Although scarce and of poor quality in the past, now water was deemed so plentiful that the army built six fountains. Also, water was used to irrigate cottonwood trees every day and for increased gardening. The ultimate monument of progress and an example of the army’s mastering of nature, however, was the large cement-walled pond, named Lake Constance, on the parade ground. As this project was completed, army people wrote that the precarious uncertainty of water at Grant was a thing of the past. The post “certainly looked at its best, all beautifully green, the lake full of clear water, the fine mountains playing and the sun shining through them.” It was not only ironic, but a telling reminder of the overconfidence of the army that, according to historian Constance Wynn Altshuler, Grant was abandoned because of a water shortage in 1905.27 Housing
Although officers, their wives, and the enlisted men were aliens under the same sky and held residence in the same villages, they did 162
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not live like a united community of equals. Not only were the officers’ quarters physically separated from the enlisted buildings, but the houses themselves differed considerably, symbolizing a class hierarchy. Enlisted men lived densely in large barracks, where there was no privacy and little comforts or space per person. For instance, at Camp Grant soldiers lived in four large shingle-roofed adobe barracks, 120 by 20 feet, warmed with fireplaces and stoves. As a rule two men were forced to share a bunk before 1871–72, when enlisted men began to get their own separate beds. Aside from the bunks, there was not much furniture. At Fort Apache soldiers occupied overcrowded barracks of rough-hewn logs, chinked with mud and roofed with boards. They had neither floors nor ceilings, with only one door in the front and a small window in the rear. A number of two-story bunks and a few benches and tables, all manufactured by the soldiers, constituted the furniture. Reportedly, the men preferred to sleep in the open air during the summers to avoid “the persecutions of the numberless bed-bugs which infest the quarters.”28 Sometimes the enlisted men did not even have any barracks. In the early 1870s soldiers at Camp Date Creek had to occupy a storage house. 29 Usually, however, soldiers lived in tents. For example, in 1869 at Camp McDowell four companies of enlisted soldiers slept in tents, while one troop occupied an adobe barracks. Officers, however, had houses. In addition, the post included buildings for the blacksmith, a hospital, the guardhouse, sutler’s store, and commissary and bakery. Even the laundresses appear to have lived in some sort of houses. By 1874 the situation had improved somewhat, as apparently all soldiers lived in adobe dormitories of 150 by 20 feet, lighted by twenty windows and heated by stoves and fireplaces.30 Still, it would seem safe to say that the construction of enlisted men’s barracks was never the first priority. Fort Lowell was relocated on March 1873, but almost two years later the soldiers still lived in old and worn-out tents, two men per tent. The tents offered no protection from the heat of the sun in the summer or from the cold of winter. Lowell, however, already had two sets of officers’ Army Village as Middle-Class Living Space
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quarters, a storehouse, and “a very fine guard-house,” a report read. Under these circumstances an enlisted soldier opting for better quality housing had to arrange to have himself locked up. When the soldiers eventually received funding to erect barracks at Lowell, it was not because the army saw that adobe lodgings were better than tent canvas, but because they proved cheaper. 31 In stark contrast to enlisted men, officers and wives did not have to endure communal housing; they did not reside in overcrowded and stuffy barracks or in shabby tents. Instead, according to rank, either they had their own home or two families shared a divided house. While colonels were officially supposed to get five rooms, second lieutenants were allocated only one. In reality, officers’ quarters varied from post to post and over time, as they were constantly reconstructed or repaired. At times the post commanders’ houses were quite grand. At Fort Grant in 1874 the commanding officer lived in a building 50 by 90 feet, traversed by a hall from front to rear, and by one from side to side, cutting the house into four portions, each containing two rooms. In the rear, under the same roof, was a portion containing a dining room and a kitchen. There were also rooms in the attic for the use of servants and for storage. The whole structure was surrounded by a veranda. Other officers at Grant lived in duplexes, 50 by 68 feet, containing, for each officer, three rooms plus a detached kitchen and dining room, as well as attic space and a veranda. The buildings were all constructed with stone walls and shingled roofs. 32 In the mid-1870s Fort Bayard had new quarters under construction that were set to replace the “old log huts.” The new adobe houses, with shingled roofs, consisted each of a hall, bedroom, kitchen, and dining room, with pantry attached and cellar underneath. The rooms were 16 by 16 feet, and 14 feet high. A yard with adobe or stone walls was attached to each house. The yard had a wood shed, water closet, bathroom, chicken coop, and a servant’s room. A covered porch was set to extend in front of each building to increase the village-like feel. 33 Officers and their wives generally disliked living in tents 164
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permanently and dreaded the possibility, although when such was the case their tents were much more spacious and luxurious than the ones given to common soldiers.34 Private houses meant stability and a certain standard of civilization. In reality, however, many had to come to the painful realization that the quality of the houses in the army villages often failed to meet their demands and expectations. For instance, at Camp Date Creek, Fanny Corbusier, the wife of army surgeon William Corbusier, wrote that they were forced to occupy a two-room adobe house with a ceiling of shelter tents sewed together and floors of pounded earth. In the wet season the dirt roof leaked so that pools of water made the floor muddy. The Corbusiers placed bowls to catch the water, but still, for example, the stove got so wet it was hard to keep the fire going. Much to their distress the Corbusiers also found numerous rattlesnakes, Gila monsters, scorpions, tarantulas, and centipedes in the ceiling, on the floor, on their furniture, and outside their front door — in other words, everywhere.35 Also describing her life at Camp Date Creek in the 1870s, Frances Boyd, an officer’s wife, wrote that the far-from-adequate adobe house she occupied consisted of “one long room, with a door at either end, and two windows on each side.” The room had to be divided by a canvas curtain to have a sitting room and a bedroom. “We felt very happy on account of having a floor other than the ground,” although it was only rough planks, which had shrunk so that they had wide spaces between them. The adjoining vacant house was used as a dining room, and a separate kitchen stood far away in the opposite direction. Being left unfinished, the walls of rough brown adobe crumbled in the dry atmosphere, and large holes formed, in which vermin, especially centipedes, found hiding places. “I never dared place our bed within at least two feet of” the walls because the centipedes “were so plentiful that I have frequently counted a dozen or more crawling in and out of the interstices,” Boyd noted. “Scorpions and rattlesnakes also took up their abode with us, and one snake of a more harmless nature used almost daily to thrust Army Village as Middle-Class Living Space
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his head through a hole in the door. Altogether we had plenty of such visitors.” She admitted that they killed so many snakes they obtained a plentiful collection of rattles. In all, Boyd felt that “for surely no one ever lived more queerly.”36 For her the housing conditions proved far from normal, or acceptable, and below her status. Army wives’ representations of housing at Camp Date Creek constitute rather a typical case. The situation was often just as “queer” in most of the villages, although the exact nature of what some of the officers and wives termed as “oddities” varied from village to village and from house to house. What troubled many was that the houses did not provide much security against the elements. Not only snakes and other wildlife, but fire damaged the army homes. A random sample from the official record shows that, for instance, in 1876 a fire destroyed all officers’ quarters at Fort Mojave, whereas in 1881 and 1882 major fires destroyed the officers’ quarters at Verde and at Apache.37 Then there was the sand, which during storms invaded the houses, especially those that had no windows. Martha Summerhayes remembered that at Ehrenberg “the desert literally blew into the house,” leaving “a deep layer of sand on everything on the room, and on our perspiring bodies.” One storm was “so bad,” Summerhayes noted, that her servant “had to use a shovel to remove the sand from the floors.” There was also water damage. In 1866 flooding partly destroyed the first Camp Grant, while at McDowell almost all roofs leaked and walls cracked and washed away. Another example, this time from Fort Lowell, shows that in 1879 the roofs in the officers’ quarters and barracks leaked to such an extent that new roofs were needed. 38 At Fort Bayard, sudden storms washed right through the log hut of Frances Boyd, which was located on a hillside and had no floor. The back and front doors had to be opened, or otherwise the flooding would have uprooted the whole structure. During heavy rains, the ladies, Boyd claimed, mounted chairs or tables to escape mud baths inside the houses and took refuge under umbrellas until after the storms subsided. While some bachelor officers at Bayard saw their roof give in on several occasions as a result 166
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of violent storms, one fresh army bride witnessed a powerful flood that soaked her fancy eastern carpet with mud, streaked and discolored her white curtains, and turned her pictures and ornaments unrecognizable. “I never saw a more dismayed and discouraged woman,” Boyd wrote of the bride.39
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Domestic Space
Ideally, home represented a space where officers and wives could display their level of refinement and emulate eastern middle-class domesticity. Home was not just any place, but an important symbol that reflected one’s status and showed one’s worth. It was also one of the sites where colonial authority and privilege were established. In the minds of officers and wives, a proper home was one of things that distinguished them from the Apaches, Akimel O’odham, Mexicans, lower-class Anglos, and enlisted men. Good and sophisticated people lived in elegant and stylish homes, while commoners and racial others lived more or less like wild beasts. However, there was a problem when, as seen, army homes typically offered less than ideal surroundings for fulfilling the ambitions of their inhabitants. The solution the army came up with was to try even harder. Officers and their wives, with their vigorous belief in progress and with their equally strong desire to make themselves important, wanted to be a group of people who could make civilization happen. Their identity and place at the top of colonial hierarchies called for a “proper” home, and thus domestic spaces in the army villages, much like the public spaces, became targets for endless improvement. Officers and especially their wives shared a sense of duty when it came to “beautifying” their homes and approached the task with energy and zeal. Reflecting middle-class ideals in the Victorian era, domestic space was the army wives’ primary domain. Being considered mere camp followers with no official position deeply irritated some of the wives, but it did not diminish their attempts to portray themselves as a civilizing force whose loyalty was to their husbands and the army and who exercised their influence through the domestic sphere. Many of Army Village as Middle-Class Living Space
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5. Officers and wives gathered on the porch at Fort Verde, ca. 1880. Photo courtesy of Sharlot Hall Museum Library and Archives,
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Prescott, Arizona. mil-252p.
the officers valued the wives as homemakers who displayed “sweet goodness and devotion” and whose presence made the army villages instantly more “home-like” and comfortable.40 One energetic wife was Julia Davis at Camp McDowell. She was determined to make her house a civilized home. “Thankful I was now for all the baggage I had carried. The bed was put up; the pretty lace curtains arranged both for it and for the window; and I had beautiful linen, part of my wedding out-fit,” she wrote. The walls, she felt, had to be improved. “I had no idea of sitting down on a packing-case and gazing on mud walls, if I could do better. Happy was I when I succeeded in having those mud walls whitened, when I hung up my pictures, arranged my photographs, and placed my books on the shelves improvised from a packing-case.” It seems that McDowell lacked lumber to make furniture. However, Davis was 168
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seemingly untroubled by the shortage of materials at her disposal. Proud of her resourcefulness and confident that she could overcome all obstacles, she improvised: “packing cases made everything — toilet-table, seats, book case, sofa, wardrobe, all the necessities of life.” When tables and chairs proved “things unknown,” Davis had rough boxes and chests to serve the purpose. Also, “our own trunks and boxes covered with gaudy chintz . . . and with their tops well stuffed with hay, supplied as seats and lounges.” Chintz and muslin and “a little skilful arrangement did wonders.” In addition, she had a chimney contrived and a hearth, and the blacksmith made her a pair of iron dogs. “When we had a fire it was just as nice as it could be,” she explained. In the end, Davis was pleased with her home and felt that armed with energy and ideas she had made the best of the situation: “It was the cunningest little house when it was all fixed up, and the wonder of everybody who saw it.”41 Many army wives shared Julia Davis’s optimism and resourcefulness. One of them spread curtains to hide the adobe walls, arranged curtains as festoons over and around the front door, which was part glass, and covered the hard and dry mud floors with a carpet. Satisfied with the results, she noted “how much good a little fixing up does.” In their house the Corbusiers placed matting to cover the floor and had a “comfortable couch” made from a rough-board frame, hospital bed-springs, and a mattress covered with cretonne. Another resourceful wife made adornments for her house by sewing window curtains and upholstering a lounge and two chairs “in pretty light blue cretonne with apple blossoms on it.”42 The desire to improve their homes was not limited to army wives or families. One bachelor army surgeon at Fort Bowie, for example, had the windows of his home made larger and inserted with glass. He also had new writing tables, bookcases, chimneys and fireplaces built. The goal, in his words, was to turn the accommodation into a “civilized apartment.”43 Despite all their efforts, several army texts indicate that people had to settle for less than ideal solutions and that homes never Army Village as Middle-Class Living Space
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became quite respectable enough. Some army writers were irritated that there was no room for the material abundance they had hauled with them to the Southwest. Although wives could arrive with more than a dozen large trunks, they were “glad to find simply storage,” while the “pretty contents never saw the light,” Boyd wrote. When the time for unpacking all the chests and trunks came, Martha Summerhayes asserted, “there was no closet, there were no hooks on the bare walls, no place to hang things or lay things, and what to do I did not know. I was in despair.” She continued that I was “born and brought up in a spacious house, with plenty of bedrooms, closets, and an immense old-time garret,” and the “small space of one room and a hall” and the “forlorn makeshifts for closets, and the absence of all conveniences, annoyed me.”44 Others also had enough of the makeshift furniture. For example, one couple who had an improvised construction of a chest with cushions on top and covered with the carriage blanket “doing duty” as a divan implied that this “divan” with two tables and three chairs, being all they had, was not sufficient for furnishing the parlor properly. The same couple also ironically remarked that their bedroom was “being luxuriously” filled with a bedstead and a washstand, and that their dining room was “amply furnished with one table.”45 Some discovered that their hard efforts could prove useless because of a loophole in army regulations. It was possible for a superior officer arriving to a post to choose his new home from those that belonged to officers below his rank. Upon arrival a superior officer could thus just make his intentions known and automatically expel Copyright © 2012. Nebraska. All rights reserved.
his inferiors them from their quarters. There was really nothing they could do but to obey. “Up come the carpets. And down come the curtains. You must obey orders. And must not complain; But while you are moving, You take an oath, mental, Never to have so much Trouble again,” one wife described the feelings of those forced to vacate their homes. Subordinates had to relocate to whatever was available, which sometimes was not much.46 170
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Domestic Life
When officers and their wives moved out of a village many of their belongings were sold in auctions. These events proved a practical way to get rid of the baggage officers and dependents did not need or could not carry with them. Many appreciated the money they obtained to cover the often expensive moves. Auctions were also valued gatherings that allowed an opportunity for social evaluation. Prior to departure, Lydia Spencer Lane, an officer’s wife, hired a man to scrub their house until everything shone, being aware of how articles would be examined by other military ladies looking for spots and specks. She managed to secure rather lofty sums, selling, for instance, eleven white china soup plates for twenty-two dollars, a cook stove for eighty dollars, and a sewing machine and a piano for a hundred dollars apiece.47 Highly conscious of their appearance, some even sold their clothes. As officers and wives, one army voice told, “had generally been in the Territory some years . . . the civilian clothes brought in would not do very well after getting back to the States.” Apparently the clothes they had arrived with were no longer fashionable in the “real world.” Ellen Biddle, an officer’s wife, was told by her husband not to go to the auctions as they had already so much stuff that they would never get rid of it. On the day of their own auction at Whipple Barracks the house and grounds were crowded with people and the Biddles made many times more money than they expected. Still they had several wagonloads of furniture and boxes, in addition to dogs and horses, to transport.48 The auctions offer a window into the material abundance and level of well-being that marked the lives of officers and wives. A typical couple, for instance, clearly had enough money for making purchases at not so modest prices. For example, the one hundred dollars Lydia Lane received just for her sewing machine equaled almost eight month’s wages for a first-year private. Also, while they sold plenty of what they considered excess furniture, clothes, and other articles, officers and wives were still left with wagonloads of materials. When enlisted men relocated to another village, they usually Army Village as Middle-Class Living Space
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had nothing to sell and little to carry with them. Proper domesticity for officers and wives in part centered on owning a wide selection of material belongings and on the capacity to be able to keep a certain standard of living, although both often proved difficult and costly in the colonial terrain. In everyday life, one army surgeon acknowledged, it was expected that an army officer “lived well.” “It is wrong” or unbecoming for an officer “to be too economical,” he admitted.49 Several officers struggled to uphold an acceptable lifestyle, although their pay was ten to thirty times that of enlisted soldiers. 50 While more than a few fell in debt, officers and wives remained determined to compensate the shortcomings of colonial life by ordering as much as they could from the outside. At one village, a couple sent for doors and whitewashed moldings from San Francisco, while one army wife was ready to order a seventy-five-dollar pipe for her husband. Several sent east for their wardrobe, ordering pants, suits, and other articles, which sometimes took as long as fourteen months to reach them.51 There was also little guarantee of what, if anything, would actually arrive. Frances Boyd, who once spent forty-two dollars for a hat she never actually wore because it was the wrong kind, wrote that many of the officers and dependents were annoyed when unable to ease their situation and buy luxuries or soothing comforts. In her opinion ordering objects from the East resulted only in weary waiting and taxing disappointments.52 Furthermore, no matter how much money they spent, officers and wives commonly experienced difficulties in obtaining the sort of food they would have preferred. “For once, money seemed to have lost its power. It could neither be eaten nor exchanged for that which the human system craved,” Camillo C. C. Carr, a lieutenant, described the situation in Arizona in the late 1860s. He added that “it was black coffee, dry bread, poor beef or poorer pork, with rice and beans, month after month for a year and a half.” To eastern tastes the local selection, where, John Bourke explained, “chile colorado entered into the composition of every dish,” appeared strange and severely limited. Bourke noted that beef and potatoes was hard 172
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to come by in Tucson in the early 1870s, whereas Carr missed vegetables, especially potatoes and onions, and Julia Davis complained about the lack of fresh meat, milk, and eggs. She disliked living on canned food, declaring that “I have hated canned food ever since.” The lack of appropriate dishes proved a challenge especially when visitors arrived and expected to be treated to a more festive meal. Many officer and wife adjusted to the shortage of delicacies and valued highly the items they managed to purchase. For example, one wife thought chocolate, macaroni, prunes, raisins, and currants as almost too much of a luxury for her to enjoy in the Southwest.53 Also, many tried to ease the situation by raising their own food. They not only cultivated small garden patches, but filled their backyards and sheds with cows and chickens. A few even earned extra income by making butter and raising chickens and turkeys for sale. One wife wrote that she not only had all the chicken, eggs, and turkey her family could consume, but plenty to give away to close friends and also more than two hundred chickens and fourteen turkeys for sale.54 The available supply apparently varied from village to village. For instance, at Whipple Barracks the commissary was described as “excellently supplied” and officers managed to obtain a wide selection of articles. Furthermore, in the early 1880s the railroads made importing various products easier and the selection in the army villages became considerably more diverse and elegant. A typical dinner could now include “soup, fish, claret, meat, vegetables, olives, champagne, pudding and coffee.”55 At Whipple Barracks the railroad introduced much-coveted fresh lobsters and oysters. “Such a sight had never before been seen there. Fine fresh fat oysters brought in ice all the way,” one almost ecstatic army wife wrote. She felt “they were delicious,” even with the price of seven dollars apiece. The commissary ledgers from Fort Apache between 1880–83 show that officers could now regularly purchase cigars, tobacco, pipes, salmon, lobster, shrimp, clams, oysters, tomatoes, peaches, jam, pears, apples, milk, tea, sugar, and so on.56 Proper domestic life also included a connection to the world back Army Village as Middle-Class Living Space
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East. In addition to the rare leave, when officers and wives enjoyed a chance to visit their homes and loved ones, staying in touch with national events and with friends and families was done through extensive correspondence in letters and by reading eastern papers and magazines. “Among us here we take nearly all the papers and journals,” one officer explained the appetite he and his comrades had for eastern news. 57 Often officers and wives still felt that the connection was arduous to maintain, mainly because of the slow and irregular mail service. In the 1860s mail arrived perhaps only once a month and many felt they missed out on what was going in the “real world.” “We are so distant from civilization that our papers from San Francisco are always a month old and our letters from that to an indefinite time,” one army member regretted. Letters proved the “most unreliable things imaginable here,” another pointed out. They travel “for months and often you still do not get them.” Sometimes army people were forced to get by without the much-appreciated letters and papers for long periods, which severely dampened their spirits. 58 Mail service improved considerably over the years but still varied significantly from village to village. While in 1874 some locations received mail once a week if lucky, Forts Bowie and Lowell, having post offices, received mail six and five days a week, respectively. During the same year, it took approximately three to four weeks for a letter from Washington dc to reach Fort Apache, fourteen days to Fort Bayard, and only seven to nine days to Fort Union, New Mexico.59 Eastern letters and papers not only played an important function as sources of news or as symbols of civilization, breaking the feeling of disconnectedness from the imperial center, but were an integral part of daily life. The arrival of the mail carrier drew the army community together in nervous anticipation. It was common that the road over which the mail rider arrived was closely watched by all. “If overdue, nothing else could be thought or talked of until he arrived, and we received our news from beyond the border,” one officer’s wife wrote.60 When the letters and papers came the hours 174
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seemed much more pleasant, while time passed extremely slowly, an officer felt, if being chronically short on news. Letters and papers were kept and stored and read over and over again, sometimes out loud, often in privacy. Some resorted to rationing the meager news supply. One wife gave her husband a paper at a time, placing it on the breakfast table so that the husband could imagine he was reading the news of the day.61 Officers’ households had to run smoothly and efficiently to serve the needs of their resident families and their visitors and to reach the norms of proper domesticity. For this purpose civilian servants, as well as soldier laborers, were needed. House servants, personal aids, and wet nurses formed a racially diverse group. In addition to soldiers, they included Hispanic, Anglo, African American, and indigenous women and Hispanic, African American, indigenous, and Chinese men.62 Officers’ wives preferred the role of household manager and supervisor, not doer but planner, observer, and matron. Many of these “ladies,” as they called themselves, came from backgrounds that expected lower-class people to perform those tasks they deemed too exhausting or unsuitable for themselves. When, in the absence of paid workers, it happened that officers’ wives were forced to take care of their households by themselves, some proved resourceful but many not only complained about the situation but hesitated to get to work. As a result of their upbringing many army wives simply did not know how to do some “basic” household chores, such as cooking or washing.63 Importantly, many wives also believed it was improper for a “lady” to get her hands dirty. The category “lady” in itself was a claim for privilege, refined character, and social importance. It was also a handy device in making clear the difference between officers’ families and other women in the army villages. No servant, laundress, or enlisted man’s wife qualified as a “lady.” For instance, when Eveline Alexander, married to a major, wrote that in 1868 Camp McDowell had “about half a dozen soldiers’ wives,” but only one lady besides herself, she marked the class boundary between ladies and others. Army Village as Middle-Class Living Space
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Similarly, Julia Davis remarked upon her arrival at McDowell that “there was . . . one other lady in the camp, and now the female society would be doubled.” Like Davis, many times officers’ wives remained silent on the presence and numbers of lower-class women. When defining “female society” Julia Davis had omitted not only her own female nurse but the several laundresses living in the village of approximately four hundred soldiers. Another lady overlooked even the civilian women in the countryside when she noted that “I was the only woman within at least fifty miles.”64 Officers and wives experienced problems in finding suitable servants and keeping them in service. For one, the hiring process could prove arduous. One army wife complained that a cook could not be gotten for less than fifty dollars per month, and for a housemaid one had to pay twenty-five dollars, and when sending to San Francisco for a nurse for an infant the price asked was one hundred dollars a month. In another case, a mother with a newborn was ready to pay fifty dollars a week to anyone who would care for herself and her child but found no help.65 Several wives had small children, and, surprisingly, many gave birth in the army villages instead of traveling back home for the occasion; it is hardly surprising that one of the most common causes for concern for the “ladies” was the hardships associated with delivering a baby and caring for the newborn. Ideally, nurses took care of the small children, and the older ones, following the middle-class practices of the era, were usually sent to eastern boarding schools or other private institutions to receive a proper education.66 As nurses and adult servants in general proved difficult to come by, some in the army resorted to hiring children. A pregnant wife living at Fort Grant in 1885 explained that “I have no one to help me but a little girl, 12 years old.” While some managed to bring their servants from the East, others did the recruiting en route to the Southwest. Frances Boyd and her husband, for instance, found only a twelve-year-old Chinese boy, as no woman in California could be induced to go to Arizona. Even the boy, when he heard wild stories 176
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of Indians, began to have second thoughts. Fearful of losing their only servant, the Boyds locked him up for the duration of their stay in Los Angeles. Upon reaching Camp Date Creek, the boy, Boyd wrote, “proved a treasure,” being skilled enough to wash and iron.67 All were not as pleased with what they managed to find. While some army wives represented their servants as reliable and devoted, others argued that they could only find incompetent, untrustworthy, and ignorant workers. For example, Martha Summerhayes, who praised her soldier-servant Bowen, was convinced that her Hispanic servant girl was “very ignorant and stupid.” She even called her a “creature” with an “impervious brain.” Lydia Lane had hired a couple she categorized as “worthless.” The man was an ex-soldier discharged for theft, and the woman, although “amicable,” was also supposedly violating “more than one of the commandments.”68 When officers and wives managed to hire someone they quickly realized that in the borderlands there were many ways to lose one’s servants. Some of the more disappointing or troublesome workers had to be let go quickly. More than a few potential workers changed their minds en route, wishing to avoid living in a place so remote, whereas white servant women often married shortly after their arrival. According to Boyd, “women were so scarce, and men so plenty, that no matter how old or ugly, a woman was not neglected” but “had scores of suitors for her hand.”69 Then there were those who became homesick. Eveline Alexander brought her maid from the East. Initially, the maid seemed very content and happy, having plenty of attention from the enlisted ranks, but less than a year later she left for back East. “I think she felt weary of life in Arizona,” Alexander wrote.70 Imperfect Islands of Civilization
In general, officers and their wives liked to portray the army villages as islands of civilization in the midst of what was largely a peripheral and uncivilized colony. One army surgeon categorized Whipple Barracks as a “civilized place” in the midst of wilderness. An officer Army Village as Middle-Class Living Space
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entering another army post wrote that he had come upon a pretty village: “It was always like coming into civilization for a campaigner to find and visit an army post.” He continued that “here again we met brotherly greetings, generous hospitality, and home comforts . . . quarters appeared elegant, the grass plot greener than ever, and even the deep-cut river close at hand seemed to murmur sounds of peace and good will.”71 As living environments army villages represented experiments in modernity where eastern middle-class ideas and ideals of public space and domesticity as envisioned and transplanted by officers and their wives were played out. The army post, its village-like layout, imagined mastery over nature — exemplified by the urge for landscaping and other improvements — and hierarchical housing, where the masses lived in inferior dwellings and the elite in individual homes of refinement and taste, was to offer an example of a respectable American settlement. Refined homes and lifestyles were meant to symbolize the high position of officers and wives in the colony. In reality, the villages remained far from perfect, as living spaces and officers’ homes seldom lived up to expectations. Unfavorable village locations, odd building styles, improvised furniture, and the vulnerability of domestic space to rain, sand, fire, snakes, spiders, and scorpions made it difficult to match officers’ households and lifestyles to their ambitions and damaged attempts of proper domesticity. What also proved a detriment in their pursuit of a middle-class lifestyle was the lack of selection in foodstuffs and other luxury items, irregular contacts with the “real world” in the East, and difficulties in getting servants, all more or less symptoms, in army minds, of the distant location of the colony from the imperial center. Even money did not solve all their problems. Some food items, “respectable” furniture, faster mail service, and good servants, for instance, did not materialize, no matter how much they spent. That there often existed a wide gap between a desirable level of refinement and reality resulted in stress and frustration when officers and wives tried to bridge the gap. Still, some maintained that no matter how bad the situation supposedly was, 178
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they as a “civilizing force” of resourceful and energetic people could make it better. Many in the army did not let the less than perfect living spaces bring them down or reduce their sense of self-worth. But a few became convinced, Frances Boyd wrote, that in the army villages “ordinary modes” of domestic life would always fail to prevail. Boyd claimed that life often was something of a shared misery. None could envy the other, as all lived “with no comforts whatever,” in villages where “disappointments were well nigh endless,” she claimed. Misery, on the flip side, built cohesion among officers and wives. “One reason that made our army life endurable was the constant exchange of grievances, and our real sympathy one for the other,” Boyd also noted.72 Thus, in the end, army villages proved sites “imperfect” as islands of civilization, demonstrating that the success of colonizers’ efforts was often partial.
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Practically the posts, and especially the small posts, are garrisoned by enlisted laborers rather than soldiers. . . . The larger part of the actual labor, as well as the building required at the posts, must now be done by enlisted men.
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—john pope, general, U.S. Army
“This morning at breakfast,” Mary (May) Banks Stacey told her mother in a letter, “[my husband wanted to know] if I would go to Graham Mountain, which is 10,500 feet above the sea.” For Capt. Humphreys Stacey, his wife, and their three children, the trip upon which they embarked from Fort Thomas in August 1879 represented primarily a leisure outing, a change to escape the heat of the army village and enjoy fresh mountain air, but for the nine soldiers ordered to participate it meant six days of cutting and hauling timber for building construction. To guarantee their comfort, the Staceys took along refreshments that included watermelons, Rhine wine, whiskey, turtle soup, pickles, oysters, peaches, pears, and other fineries. Personal servants, an additional soldier cook, and a driver made up the party. While the soldiers struggled forward in the August heat, May Banks traveled under a sheltering canvas in the army ambulance. Yet she did
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
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not enjoy the transport: “Nothing I hate worse than bumping in an Ambulance, excepting riding in a hot car, or a rocking ship. What kind of vehicle I would like I can’t tell, might like a balloon.” At camp, her mood improved. “Our tents up, carpeted with canvas, my cot with a good hair mattress, clean white sheets and pillows with heavy white mission blankets bordered with blue, looked very inviting. Brussells [sic] carpet, camp chairs, trunk, and a dressing case with hanging glass looked quite like living and very cosy [sic],” she wrote. It is safe to say that the enlisted men prepared all this and that their camp life was significantly different. They probably slept two men per small shelter tent or under the stars, and they ate a simple ration of hardtack, beans, and coffee, which they cooked themselves. Captain Stacey placed a sergeant in charge of the work detail, which freed him from their supervision. While soldiers labored, the Staceys made social calls at Fort Grant, located near the combined leisure/work site, hiked the mountains to catch the scenery, marveled at beautiful flowers, practiced some target shooting, and studied. While improving her skills in French, May Banks had a custom of sitting in the ambulance and watching her children, who were looked after by their nanny, play “as busy as bees.” When returning to Fort Thomas, May Banks and the children were too tired, and sick, to attend a dinner prepared for their arrival by the wife of another officer. After a bath, they went to bed while Captain Stacey gathered his energy to dine with the other officer and his wife. The army’s social etiquette left him little choice but to accept the invitation. No fine meal, or even a bath, awaited the enlisted men. Probably they dragged themselves straight to bed and back to work the next morning as construction workers, using the very timber they had hauled in.1 Labor and leisure not only took much of the occupants’ time in the army villages but formed important venues for building and expressing culture and identity. Labor and leisure also had significant function as tools for social differentiation, marking the boundaries between the army elite and the enlisted ranks. Manual labor often Manual Labor and Leisure
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dominated the daily life of a common soldier and many, feeling misguided and bitter, reacted to their situation by deserting, working badly, or establishing a rough leisure regime. For their part, officers and wives focused much of their energies on creating a leisure regime of their own. Proper leisure would enable them to display their sophistication as a civilizing class. Leisure made it possible for officers and dependents to make a visible statement that they were better than others in the army and in the border region and also to try to set an example for proper middle-class leisure life.
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Officers and Labor
In the army villages the division between management and labor was clear. Officers did not do manual work, and they and their wives preferred to have servants perform domestic chores if possible. Although the demands for labor were plentiful, it is practically impossible to find references of officers participating from their personal writings or from the official records. Usually officers did not write detailed accounts of how they spent their days. “Thinking” and “supervision of general things” was what some gave as the answer. What this meant exactly is difficult to ascertain. We should presume that planning the various labor projects consumed some of their time. One officer’s wife wrote that “my husband was the busiest man imaginable. He had not only to command his company, but was also in charge of all stores and buildings.”2 Even this statement does not really tell how much effort or time this all actually demanded. There were a few officers who let it slip that they often in fact did not have enough to do or who admitted that writing consumed most of their time. Lt. John Bigelow, also “commanding a company,” explained that the average “officer has little enough to do.” In addition to writing muster rolls, his tasks included inspecting the troops once a week. This took fifteen minutes of his time. 3 It was not unusual that officers delegated, like Stacey did at Mount Graham, the supervision of labor parties, military training, and inspections to noncommissioned officers. It was also not rare that 182
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most administrative duties or clerical work, including the task of “being in charge of buildings,” fell to some unlucky junior officer or to clerks, either civilians or enlisted men.4 As officers focused on planning, administration, and supervision, or, as we shall see, on leisure, they still realized that it was labor that kept the army villages going and made public spaces and army households more closely resemble those much-coveted eastern middle-class standards. There was no question about it: army villages needed a lot of work and workers. In the Southwest hiring large numbers of civilians was often impractical due to the shortage of funds and because the supply of applicants appeared poor to middle-class Anglo eyes. Soldiers, on the other hand, were readily available, cheap, already under long five-year contracts, and subject to the authority of officers, and thus unable to refuse any order or labor task. Also, the army had a long history of using enlisted men in its various labor projects. Thus, there existed a culture of enlisted labor in the institution. All considering, it was only logical that officers and wives would view enlisted men as a pool of potential laborers and as a rule trusted, in army words, “the labor of troops” for the work in the army villages.5 Still, it was not only institutional culture or practical necessity that made officers and wives perceive enlisted men as group of workers but also notions of class. Perceptions of class difference were so strong that they even overshadowed any uncertainties officers and their wives might have felt regarding the ethnicity of white troopers. During the post–Civil War years many native-born whites in the United States felt the need to differentiate themselves from the large immigrant element, to construct boundaries against a threatening Irish, German, and eastern European presence.6 It was as if the native-born needed to convince themselves that only they were thoroughly American. One would imagine that the mostly native-born officers and their wives certainly had an immediate reason to share this fear when approximately half or more of the residents in any army village occupied by white troops were immigrants. A sample Manual Labor and Leisure
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from the 1870 federal census shows that, for instance, Fort Bowie housed altogether 340 white males, of whom 192 were foreign-born. Of the 196 white males living at Camp Crittenden 105 were foreignborn, while at Camp Goodwin the figures stood at 175 and 102 and at Camp Grant at 313 and 177. Thus, each of these villages in 1870 had a foreign-born majority. The immigrant element was also predominantly lower class. Of the 21 officers living in these four villages only 4 were foreign-born.7 But even when the army was clearly divided into immigrant-heavy enlisted ranks and mostly native-born officers, the officers and their wives did not target the immigrant issue in their discourses. They did not fear that “immigrant hordes” would overpower them in the army villages or that the few immigrant officers would somehow contaminate the officers’ corps. Instead officers and wives usually remained silent on white ethnicity. It was very unusual that an officer in the Southwest would go so far, as one army surgeon did, as to argue that “thoroughbred” Americans with unmixed blood of many generations — not the meltingpot kind — were the hope of the country.8 Arguably, the lack of anti-immigrant discourses resulted in part from the fact that officers were able to control as subordinates in the army hierarchy most immigrants they had to meet on a daily basis. Officers and dependents saw white soldiers not as immigrants first also because white ethnicities never formed an overwhelming majority among white enlisted men, but the enlisted balance in any village was only slightly tilted toward the foreign-born. For instance, Camp Crittenden had sixty-five native-born and seventy-eight foreign-born white enlisted men in the 1870 census.9 Thus, simply labeling white soldiers as immigrants as a whole would have been inaccurate. In the eyes of officers and wives, white soldiers did not represent competition or cultural or social threats. For officers and wives the difference between them and the enlisted men was not primarily about white ethnicity, or even military rank in itself, but of human character resulting from and displayed in class status. Of those officers who voiced their opinions about the army’s social 184
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composition directly — and not all did — some implied that the intelligence and competence of the common soldier was poor.10 Others were not as direct but sought to represent the elite officer–enlisted man relationship as a form of patriarchal devotion between two sets of peoples. In these texts the enlisted men represented simple and intellectually shallow, yet devoted and self-sacrificing, common people who understood to respect their superiors, whereas officers and their wives displayed a caring compassion and strict control toward the soldiers, much like parents did in regard to their children. Most officers and wives did not object to the notion that white enlisted men represented an inferior class and were unfit for self-government, needing discipline and some activity (manual labor, active campaigning, or training) to keep them busy, or otherwise they would become unruly and difficult to manage.11 On one level the fact that the officers and their wives did not make much noise of white soldiers’ ethnicity is a sign of a much larger silencing of white enlisted men. Compared to, for instance, how much they had to say about the Apaches, officers remained practically silent on the white regulars and many often failed to acknowledge the enlisted presence altogether. Some officers and wives even wrote more about their pet dogs or favorite horses than of the soldiers.12 Their silence implied that soldiers were unimportant and too socially inferior to merit discussion. Silencing also made soldiers less visible in the historical record. From some texts one could get the impression that the army community consisted only of officers and their dependents. One symptom of this silencing was that the officers and wives often failed to acknowledge the identity of laborers or to discuss the actual labor processes. While a few army wives referred to some of their soldier servants by name, in most cases workers remained unidentified and things just got done somehow. In army texts it is very common to come across remarks like “new quarters were to be erected as hastily as possible” or that “much was accomplished towards the erection of quarters in a brief time.”13 This narrative strategy made the laborers invisible drudges and not Manual Labor and Leisure
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only showed the disregard officers and wives felt toward work and workers but insinuated that everything was done for them, not by them. Arguably, the identity of officers and wives as middle-class people called for personal avoidance of manual labor and the power to get others to work for them.
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Soldiers’ Labor Tasks
When not engaged in military campaigning or patrolling, labor of some kind permeated enlisted men’s lives from early morning to early evening. They built and maintained the army villages, worked in road and telegraph construction, or performed as domestics or personal servants in the homes of officers and their families. Army villages required labor for many reasons. For one, the army established new villages or changed the sites of old ones quite frequently when unhealthy positions or the military situation and operational strategy required it. Thus, many camps and forts proved either short-lived or had their locations moved, some several times. Altogether, during the two decades after the Civil War, in addition to several temporary camp sites, there were twenty more or less “permanent” army posts in Arizona and another fourteen in New Mexico. When the U.S.-Apache conflict ended in 1886, only four of the posts in Arizona and one in New Mexico remained in operation at the sites where they had been originally established, having been neither removed or abandoned at any point.14 Labor, however, resulted not only from the abandonment of old post sites and the construction of new ones, but from the never-ending rebuilding and improvement of existing ones. This was to no small part caused by the numerous demands of officers and their wives to make public and domestic space more comfortable by rebuilding the world they had left behind in the East. According to a critical army voice, “large sums of money are expended for constructing and altering buildings to make them conform to the ideas of affectedly-fastidious ladies.”15 It would appear that villages were made anew every few years. For example, Whipple Barracks, or Fort Whipple as it was then known, was established 186
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in 1863 and relocated and rebuilt in 1864. The post’s buildings were torn down and rebuilt also in 1869, while a report from 1875 drafted by the surgeon general’s office indicates that all present buildings except the guardhouse were constructed during or since 1872. Camp McDowell was established in 1865 and had the “first set” of principal buildings finished in 1866. However, the roofs leaked almost from their first exposure, and the walls cracked and washed away, until, in spite of constant repairs, many of the houses became almost untenable. In the early 1870s McDowell was rebuilt: adobe dormitories for soldiers, officers’ quarters in 1872 and 1873, three storehouses and a new bakery in 1872, and the hospital in 1874.16 The need for rebuilding and repairs declined little over the years. In 1879 there were seven sets of officers quarters at Fort Lowell and all needed new roofs, as did the four sets of enlisted barracks, the adjutant’s office, the quartermaster’s building and commissary, the storerooms, the guardhouse, the bakery, and the post hospital. Filled with too much of the wrong kind of dirt, the roofs leaked, which damaged parts of the adobe walls. Owing, the army claimed, to the dryness of the climate, doors and windows were warped and rickety. In addition, many rooms needed flooring and several places could also use a good coat of paint.17 Two years later one officer wrote that the posts in New Mexico are of the “frailest and least substantial character, and require constant repairs. . . . In a few years hardly a remnant of the original materials is left, and still the buildings are as worthless as ever.”18 In circumstances like these the soldiers had their hands full, as most villages, like Camps Apache, Reno, and Thomas for instance, were built entirely by enlisted labor. One soldier stationed at Fort Craig wrote that men of the Fourth Cavalry were kept busy building new quarters all summer, fall, and winter in 1882. They made adobe and brought pine timber for the rafters to the quarters by mules and wagons from the San Mateo Mountains. After the Sixth Cavalry replaced the Fourth in New Mexico in 1883, it also immediately assumed the task of “building quarters, putting in water-works, and Manual Labor and Leisure
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improving the posts generally.” Troopers continued as construction laborers until the spring of 1885, when warfare with the Chiricahua Apaches forced them to abandon their shovels and axes temporarily and take to the field as soldiers.19 It seems that at times soldiers lived like migrant workers, traversing from one building project to the next. After doing repairs to old post buildings at Camp Bowie, a troop of soldiers was sent to establish Camp Wallen. According to one of the men, the new military village came into existence through “all this unpaid labor, carried from day to day, from month to month, by men enlisted for military service.” Dissatisfaction created by this work detail resulted in several desertions. Those who stayed, however, continued laboring at a new location, Fort Lowell, the following year. 20 If not working in construction, soldiers found themselves hauling water and wood or keeping the villages clean and tidy. An officer forced one soldier to act, in the soldier’s own words, “as a sprinkling wagon.” He was ordered to carry water from a ditch and water the camino in front of the officers’ quarters to reduce the amount of dust that rose into the air.21 Furthermore, gardening or farming formed a part of the enlisted men’s labor repertoire. It was common to appoint one man from each company as gardener, and others were ordered to dig irrigation ditches, hoe weeds, cultivate crops, and assist in planting and harvesting. In places such as Forts Bayard, Yuma, Union, Verde, and Whipple soldiers raised “large quantities of vegetables” including pumpkins, peas, peppers, onions, and carrots. At Union they even constructed a hothouse to ensure production during the coldest winter months.22 In some locations men avoided farm work simply because local circumstances did not permit any planting. For instance, Fort Mojave did not even have a garden, whereas, according to one officer, the men at Fort Craig never succeeded in raising anything. 23 Farm work also includes one of the grimmest stories of soldier labor in the Southwest. In the excessive summer heat at Camp McDowell in the late 1860s, following the initiative of the regional commander stationed in San Francisco, four companies 188
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constructed a farm designed to produce grain as forage. Exhausted and half-famished, the soldiers suffered eleven hours a day tending the farm in the broiling sun, first digging an irrigation ditch several miles in length and clearing the land of dense growth of mesquite trees, bull brush, and cactus. It is possible that as many as fifteen soldiers died as victims of insufficient food and overwork. 24 It was not unusual that soldiers had to work regardless of the weather. Sweating in a heat of more than one hundred degrees Fahrenheit, they suffered from sunburns and exhaustion. If one refused or was too exhausted to continue he was sent to the guardhouse or subjected to some other form of punishment. For instance, one soldier was tied up by his wrists so that he could not touch the ground. He passed out as a result. 25 Work also functioned as a form of punishment. One group of prisoners, for example, had to cut wood for officers all day under the hot sun. On another occasion approximately sixty military prisoners served their sentences at Fort Bayard, quarrying stone for the new buildings. Of all the chores he had done one soldier thought the most disagreeable was guarding fellow enlisted men when they were subjected to this kind of punishment. In army logic, tight discipline was meant to keep the men in line and make them obedient workers. There exists ample evidence to show that discipline was indeed rigidly enforced. Many soldiers spent time in the guardhouse during their enlistments, and it was not unheard of that as much as one-third of a company could be in confinement at the same time. Post returns from various army villages show that as a rule at least one or two soldiers were in arrest or confinement during the final day of each month. Furthermore, as many as half of the enlisted men in the army faced court-martial charges in a given year, and few of them were acquitted. 26 The soldiers also performed various extra duty labors in the quartermaster service. For example, the Annual Report for 1878 shows that Arizona had 227 enlisted men on extra duty at that time, ranging from as many as 51 at Fort Apache to as few as 9 at Fort Mojave and Whipple Barracks, and none at Fort Lowell. Most often soldiers Manual Labor and Leisure
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functioned as laborers, teamsters, and carpenters, but also as clerks, herders, packers, tinsmiths, saddlers, painters, messengers, and blacksmiths. Work as ferry operators, butchers, packers, and mail-carriers appeared in the records more rarely.27 The soldiers’ extra duty pay was usually approximately $0.20 to $0.35 a day. The sum did not necessarily even cover expenses, such as worn-out clothing caused by some of the work details. Furthermore, the soldiers’ pay in general compared poorly with salaries of civilians on the army payroll. For instance, teamsters received $35.00 to $45.00 per month and mule packers from $50.00 per month. Even the lowest-paid civilian positions, usually occupied by Hispanics, at Fort Union and the Union Depot earned $30.00 a month in the late 1860s. When the monthly pay for a first-year private was $16.00, before it was reduced to $13.00 in 1871, the disadvantaged position of enlisted soldiers becomes apparent.28 In fact, almost any worker in the Southwest earned more than the common soldier. For example, the members of the Texas Rangers, a state-run paramilitary police force heavily involved in colonial conquest, reportedly got $33.00 a month. Ordinary cowboys received from $25.00 to $40.00 a month, while miners at Tombstone silver mines earned $4.00 a day. Even Chinese laborers who built the Southern Pacific Railroad made more than the soldiers, receiving a dollar a day, $0.50 less than white railroad workers demanded. In Santa Fe, male day laborers in 1870 got $1.60 a day if Anglo and $1.10 if Hispanic. Even Anglo female domestics in Santa Fe made more than the soldiers, earning $1.75 a day. Hispanic female domestics, however, received only $0.55 a day, and if working six days a week and twenty-four days a month, they pretty much equaled the wages of a first-year private who did not perform extra duty. 29 Outside the posts, soldiers improved transportation and communication networks and guarded government property. Roads held an obvious significance, allowing more rapid and increasingly massive penetration of colonial spaces. The United States needed an effective system to link the colonies with each other and with the imperial 190
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center. While soldiers often protected railroad crews, in road building and maintenance they were expected to do the hard work themselves. Soldiers, for instance, replaced an old route from Fort Verde to the territorial capital Prescott with a fine-graded road and built a road from Fort Apache to the Zuni villages in New Mexico, a distance of approximately a hundred miles. When the military established Camp Reno about eighty-five miles northeast of Camp McDowell, the new site proved inaccessible to wagons, and soldiers had to construct a trail from McDowell to Reno and improve it into a wagon road before starting construction on the post itself.30 The most extensive military telegraph system in the nation was in the Southwest. In 1872 the army in Arizona had no telegraphic communication, but the following year a line reached from California to Prescott and Tucson via Fort Yuma and Maricopa Wells. Not surprisingly, a great part of the work was done by enlisted men, who reportedly constructed 540 miles of telegraph line in ninety-seven days. But that was just the beginning. Extending lines to different military villages and maintenance of the existing lines, which immediately followed the initial construction, kept men busy from California to Texas. “A number of men were killed in the performance of this lonely and thankless duty,” one officer observed. He added that “the magnitude of this work can only be appreciated by an examination of the map and a knowledge of the country over which the material had to be shipped.”31 During 1875 the Arizona lines were extended to Forts Lowell and Verde, and troops were still in the process of building them to San Carlos, Forts Grant and Apache, and toward the New Mexico border. Meanwhile, on the New Mexico side telegraph communications descended from Santa Fe, where telegraph from the states had reached in 1868, down the Rio Grande and on to Arizona.32 Although in 1876 no line reached Forts Apache or Bowie, or had connection with New Mexico, the next year lines went to both Bowie and New Mexico. Still, in 1877 the workload of soldiers, if anything, just increased. Troops not only extended lines, now nearing Manual Labor and Leisure
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completion at Forts Apache and Thomas, but executed extensive reconstructions and repairs on the original line. The telegraph needed constant attention, much like the army villages. Also like in the army villages the quality of work proved less than satisfactory, and lines were down as often as they were up. Even the poles were no good. According to one soldier, “one pole out of fifty, perhaps, could be called straight. The rest were as crooked as a ram’s horn.” In 1882 seemingly little had changed. The lines had been finally extended to San Carlos and also to Forts McDowell and Huachuca, with recurring repairs by enlisted laborers continuing.33 Besides fort construction and maintenance and the various offfort projects, much of soldier labor took place in the homes of officers and their families. As civilian servants were often expensive and difficult to hire and keep in service, officers and their wives regularly used enlisted men as domestic laborers. It was customary to make soldiers perform as foragers of supplies, personal aides, babysitters, and as all-around repairers who fixed verandas, floors, and ceilings, laid down carpet, and moved furniture at the officers’ quarters. While some soldiers had to tame wild horses for the use of officers or tend to officers’ horses, others found themselves milking cows to satisfy the army elite’s craving for fresh milk.34 One common domestic duty for soldiers was cooking. Although some soldiers proved excellent cooks, it seems that equally often the products of soldier-cooks failed to live up to expectations. Indeed, as with the army buildings and the telegraph, a gap existed between the wishes and expectations of officers and wives and the quality of enlisted work. According to one officer’s wife, “We had a soldier, an ex-French soldier named Blot, to cook for us. He was an indifferent cook and very erratic, so we didn’t keep him long. Our next incumbent was a big Swede named Sorensen, who prided himself on having cooked at the sailor’s home in San Francisco. He treated us to raisin soup and other strange dishes.”35 What was perplexing in the practice of using enlisted soldiers as domestic workers was its illegality. From 1870 military regulations, or “hateful laws,” like 192
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one officer’s wife dubbed them, forbid the practice. The strong opposition from officers and wives, sparked by concern for their own comfort, however, made sure that the law was ignored in practice. 36
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“A Slave in Uncle Sam’s Service”
While soldiers had received a taste of the army’s class hierarchy during their journeys, in the army villages reality hit them hard. Free men before enlisting, soldiers found that in the army their lot was to function as full-time multitask servants and laborers. “The man who enters the United States Army,” Will Barnes wrote, “will find that he works as hard as any day laborer who ever lived, and often harder.” Army villages were in fact commonly known by the enlisted ranks as “government workhouses,” where every available soldier was “from morning till night employed as an adobe maker, an adobe turner, an adobe layer, a plasterer, carpenter, or builder of some sort,” John Spring, a sergeant, explained. 37 Soldiers were expected to place themselves under the unchallenged control of officers and, frequently, officers’ wives. Duane Greene, a critical exofficer, saw that officers and wives often look upon the soldier “as a machine,” “extort a slavish obedience,” and treat him as a “menial serf.” John Bigelow, feeling sorry for the men, questioned why in the soldier’s life, consisting, he wrote, “almost wholly” of guard duty, inspection, and manual labor, “every pleasant and attractive feature” had been “purposely effaced and excluded . . . and nothing left but irksomeness and drudgery.” Still, Bigelow was a firm disciplinarian who considered free time dangerous for enlisted men. The majority of officers and wives abstained from criticizing the situation. Their conscience was clear and the situation simple: an enlisted man, Col. George Forsyth explained, just has to “quietly accept the fact that no matter what he thinks about an order, he must unquestionably, unhesitatingly, and promptly obey it.”38 Enlisted men living the life of manual laborers learned few skills suitable for a soldier. The Annual Report for 1880 stated the obvious: “It is an incontrovertible fact that when soldiers are required to Manual Labor and Leisure
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work as common laborers eight hours a day they are in great measure unfitted for their proper duties.”39 Manual labor deprived the soldiers of military training, though not that there necessarily was much going on. In the 1860s and 1870s target practice, riding lessons, or drills, in other words actual military training, was often unavailable, and many, although not all, officers considered training men unnecessary. There were soldiers who in three years of service had never drilled. Drilling in general “is considered highly improper,” an officer noted. The lack of enthusiasm officers showed toward military training, Thomas Smith notes, is perhaps explained by the education many of them had received at the West Point military academy, where the curriculum tended to yield little time to instruction in military tactics and drills. Officers were expected to learn their trade in the field, and it seems they applied the same principle to the enlisted men under their command in the western posts. Also, officers during the immediate post–Civil War years displayed quite moderate interest in professional development. In the 1880s their attitude toward training slowly shifted as calls for increased drills and especially target practice became something of a recurring theme in the official reports. But, field maneuvers, for instance, were introduced in the Southwest only in the late 1880s.40 The army questioned the racial privilege of white soldiers by having them work together with men and women of color. White soldiers who served with black troops soon found out that they were treated much the same. For the army it seemed to matter little whether a soldier was white or black — he was always a potential laborer first. When black infantry men served in New Mexico from 1866 to 1869 and cavalry troopers from 1875 to 1881, they spent many of their days laboring at the same tasks as white soldiers: rebuilding, repairs, road work, gardening, and so on.41 In the households of officers, white soldiers were under the command of not only the officers but also the officers’ wives, which probably hurt the masculine pride of at least some of the soldiers. In officers’ homes they also had to compete and work side by side with black, Hispanic, and 194
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indigenous men and women, white women, and Chinese men. However, they had no competition from white men. Few self-respecting independent white men in the Southwest wanted to become domestic laborers, a job regarded more suited for women and people of color. Moreover, as discussed earlier, civilian domestic workers, regardless of their race, received as a rule higher wages than the white soldiers. Thus, the army failed to compensate menial work tasks with good wages or enjoyable working conditions. Pay was far below civilian standards, and labor was performed with little regard for personal comfort and accompanied by fear of punishment. While the pragmatic reasons behind enlistments varied, many soldiers had wanted to land an honorable vocation, something nourishing their self-esteem as brave men in service of the nation. This becomes evident in the way they represented themselves — as liberators — and their mission in the Southwest. Finding themselves performing something for which they had not signed on, many soldiers felt cheated and trapped. William Bladen Jett, an enlisted man, had first thought “what a fine thing it would be to go west at Uncle Sam’s expense” and be “settled in employment for five years.” In a short time he came to a realization: “I was a slave in Uncle Sam’s service.”42 The identity and privilege of white men such as Jett was under attack. Uprooted from their home regions, these men had volunteered for military service in distant lands, but they were instead more frequently made to perform manual labor under conditions that seemed substandard for white men. There existed many ways to show one’s disapproval during the working hours. As the new work day began, many resorted to feigning sickness. Even if after inspection the military doctor refused admittance to the sick list and marked a man fit for duty, soldiers managed to delay work, which alone made the effort worthwhile. Working slowly was a popular form of resistance. William Jett admitted that “it usually took four or five soldiers to do what one good citizen would have done. They [soldiers] worked as slowly as possible.” Emil A. Bode, a corporal, wrote that when at work soldiers Manual Labor and Leisure
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“would contemplate how to work without doing anything.”43 Some men hid to keep out of work, while other forms of resistance included expressing their grievances in local newspapers. However, freedom of speech in the military was in short supply, and writing in civilian papers was a risky endeavor, which could lead to imprisonment.44 There were also those who protested their lot by selling government property they had stolen during their work details.45 Officers and their wives often regarded soldiers as an unskilled and incompetent labor force that produced poor-quality work.46 However, it is possible that the terrible cooking and the questionable quality of construction in the army villages and on the telegraph line did not result mainly from enlisted incompetence, or even from tight budgets, cheap materials, and unfamiliarity with local weather and building materials. It could have also been a conscious act of resistance, soldiers doing their work as badly as they could without getting caught. If the poor quality of work was indeed the result of a deliberate act, then it functioned as a powerful sign of workingclass resistance against the army’s social order, demonstrating the determination and the resourcefulness of the enlisted men. Officers apparently never made the connection between poor construction and soldier resistance. Desertion, however, they did see and compared to a “plague.” Desertion functioned as the most radical form of resistance but represented the most selfish act, since it meant the abandonment not only of manual labor and jobs but of the comradeship of fellow enlisted men. Yet because it functioned as a major expression of free will, desertion also was an important representation of enlisted empowerment. Desertion, if successful, allowed the soldier to regain his freedom and capacity for self-government. Although a radical act, desertion was still also limited, because the soldiers never deserted to join the enemy, just to leave the army. Some did not even make it to the Southwest before realizing that they had enough. One troop transferring from the East by ship experienced its first desertion during the trip across the Isthmus of 196
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Panama. Upon reaching San Francisco, the whole regiment, which started with ninety men per company, was thinned to about fifty through desertion.47 Many men had possibly joined the military to get free passage to California, but on the other hand some of them had probably already seen enough of the army’s social order and decided to get away as soon as possible. Because of better transportation connections and economic opportunities and the larger white populace, California was an easier place than Arizona or New Mexico to run away for those who changed their mind soon after enlistment. The highest number of desertions took place during the first year of service. Probably this was due to the shock of facing the realities of military life. Those who adjusted to the army observed the situation around them. “Men came, enlisted and deserted, and still I was there, apparently to stay,” one soldier wrote.48 To compensate for the exploitation of their labor, men often fled with a good horse, rifle, and other government property, which they sold to civilians. John Bigelow wrote that nowhere had he seen more military materials on civilians than in Arizona. Many more would have probably left, but in the sparsely populated border region there were few settlements at which assistance or concealment could be obtained in the late 1860s and early 1870s. Furthermore, the overland roads were dotted by army posts, the interior was held by the Apaches, and safety for an Anglo deserter was uncertain in Mexico. Those who deserted obviously hoped to vanish from the radar of the federal government. Despite the danger, they headed for California or Salt Lake City, and some went to Mexico. A few supposedly joined the many cattle rustlers’ gangs throughout the Southwest. One corporal, who fled to Mexico, ended up in the local army as a captain fighting French-backed troops. During a leave in San Francisco he was caught and sentenced to Alcatraz for three years because of deserting the U.S. Army.49 To ensure that not all white enlisted men left the army, the army held a portion of the soldiers’ salary “in trust” until they were discharged, organized pursuits and ambushes, and paid a bounty for Manual Labor and Leisure
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captured deserters. Officers also made enlisted men hunt down their deserted comrades. In the late 1860s the reward for bringing back a deserter stood at thirty dollars and rose to fifty dollars during the next decade. Some officers proposed that one hundred dollars was not too much.50 As a first-year private earned only thirteen dollars a month, the army proved willing to pay many times that amount to get the man back. The goal was to punish as many as possible and to make them examples for others. For desertion, the usual prison sentence was from three to five years. Other forms of punishment were also applied. One soldier, for example, was sentenced to hard labor, clearing the parade ground for a full year. Another trooper, who after being sentenced to five years hard labor for desertion tried to escape, was confined to a cell, where his shackles and handcuffs were connected by an iron rod so that he could not reach his feet with his hands. Still, occasionally officers were lenient. Once a soldier was allowed back to duty without trial on the condition that he make up the time he lost by desertion. But there were other risks in deserting beside capture. Some men perished in the desert, while others were presumably killed by the Indians.51 Regardless of the risks, desertion did not stop during the two post–Civil War decades. The Department of California, to which Arizona then belonged, lost 694 men in 1868 and 163 during the first nine months in 1869. Some army villages almost emptied, because so many men left. For instance, one Southwest post reported that 54 of its 86 men had recently deserted. The pay cut in 1871 caused a mass exodus from the army, as desertion rates jumped from 9.4 percent of the enlisted strength to 32.6 percent, which meant approximately 10,000 men. The desertion rates gradually declined, being 4,606 men in 1874 and approximately 2,000 men per year during the second half of the decade. Still, in the 1880s more than 3,000 men, or approximately 15 percent of the current army strength, continued to desert every year. In Arizona 204 men fled in 1883, which was pretty close to the army average.52 The bounties, energy placed on pursuing deserters, and the severe punishments indicate that officers saw desertion as a major problem. 198
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Some recognized that excessive manual labor contributed to desertion and thought that the man who signed up as a soldier had been tricked into service under false pretenses. John Bourke, for instance, recognized that the enlistment contract or recruitment posters never mentioned manual labor. He also questioned why the government did not try harder to attract civilian laborers.53 Others contemplated that better-paying civilian jobs or bad living conditions in the army villages played a role in desertion. Some questioned the motive of the soldiers, claiming they had only wanted free transportation to the West. Still others thought that the low quality of soldiers themselves was the underlying cause for desertion. They dismissed soldiers’ complaints of harsh treatment and the rigid work routine as unjustified grumbling. “I firmly believe that harsh treatment of soldiers by officers . . . is at this time a very rare exception to the general rule, and the error, if there be any, is in the opposite direction,” a general wrote. As a solution for quelling desertion, officers suggested many remedies. Some thought that improved living conditions would help, while others voiced the need for finding betterquality recruits and getting rid of the bad elements: urban laborers and recent immigrants. One cure was more hard work, another increased military training. Both would keep the soldiers obedient and busy. 54 If there just was enough to do — the officers’ logic went — then there would be no time for soldiers to regret their situation or entertain ideas of regaining personal freedom, and thus less chance of desertions.
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Leisure and Class Consciousness
For better or worse, those enlisted men who stayed in service faced life in the army villages, far away from their friends, relatives, and homes in eastern cities or in Europe. For many, the army village was their only home, and there was nothing to look back to, nowhere special to go, and nobody to miss. Enlisted men pursued amusements, William Dobak writes, “to maintain relative emotional and psychological equilibrium” in the face of an unpleasant and often Manual Labor and Leisure
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dangerous life.55 Many soldiers considered leisure important and a counterbalance to the rest of army life, with its backbreaking labor, exhausting campaigning, poor housing, and meager pay. As a refuge and an avenue for displaying the enlisted men’s self-expression and free will, leisure developed into a manifestation against the prevalent social order. Perhaps less radical than desertion, leisure still was the only time that the enlisted men in the army enjoyed even a fleeting control of their own lives. Enlisted men’s leisure world was almost exclusively male, as an overwhelming majority of soldiers had no families. This, the men’s backgrounds, the army’s arduous labor routine, and the frustrations of colonial warfare explain why partying and drinking had such an important role and why leisure was generally rough. Leisure signified a time to let go, escape everyday burdens to enjoy life to the fullest, and to be spontaneous and reckless, sometimes regardless of consequences. White soldiers visited bars in nearby villages and towns, bought alcohol from civilians camped outside the army camps, or made purchases at the post sutler. Soldiers easily found social companions and good times in the Southwest settlements such as Willcox or Tucson, where they enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere free from middle-class constraints. Often they did not even have to go to “real towns,” because just outside the post boundaries lay a set of more or less movable saloons and brothels, tempting the soldiers to pass their free time there. For instance, a mile south of Fort Bayard was Central City, described in an army report as a “Mexican village . . . inhabited by gamblers, saloonkeepers, and prostitutes, all of whom prey upon the soldiers,” while three miles from Fort Grant was Bonita, consisting of “several saloons, a store or two, and a dance hall.” Fort Thomas had a nearby Maxey, “a typical army off-shoot,” in the words of Cynthia Wood, also full of dance halls and prostitutes. Sometimes these establishments even followed the troops to temporary camps in the field.56 Not all soldiers drank alcohol, but many did. A soldier could drink for joy or out of frustration, and at times he drank a lot 200
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when his finances allowed. Come payday — usually only once in two months — the soldiers would release their energies and angst and get “blazingly, gloriously drunk,” like one officer recalled. 57 Payday drinking did not involve soldiers and officers joining together. Rather, the soldiers kept to themselves or sneaked off to nearby towns when off duty. Officers did not supervise the soldiers rigidly, but most knew what payday meant for the enlisted men. “Payday was one of the greatest events in a soldier’s life,” Edward Coffman writes. It was a feast surrounded by days of famine. Some men built up debts (to other soldiers, the post sutler, or to the owners of saloons and brothels) so that much of their pay was already spent when the paymaster arrived. On a typical payday they probably paid their debts and immediately started making new ones. When money ran out soldiers resorted to other methods. One soldier remembered that men short on money made something they called “Indian fire water” from mescal. A soldier who drank it once “was tied up for two days and never drank again.”58 Closely linked to drinking was gambling. One newspaper reporter who visited an army camp wrote that soldiers gambled recklessly, considering their narrow means. Bets of ten, twenty, or even fifty dollars were made in the games following pay day. If one had the money, finding opportunities for gambling was easy enough in the Southwest, where many settlements had flourishing collections of gambling houses. Enlisted men’s weakness for gambling was so well known that small-town gamblers sent telegrams of imaginary “Indian troubles” to lure in detachments of soldiers to spend their money.59 Leisure drinking could be joyous, but just as often it was painful and desperate. Some soldiers grew too fond of alcohol. In a period when only the most serious cases were diagnosed, as much as 6 percent of soldiers were treated for alcoholism in Arizona in 1885. Some soldiers reached such a state that they could lie, steal, and sell anything to get a drink. For example, one soldier stole the shoes from his sleeping comrade, while another sold ten packages of cartridges, which were government property, to obtain six bottles of Manual Labor and Leisure
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beer.60 William Jett, who in his own words “never got drunk,” saw drunken soldiers “deadly sick and rolling around and doing most unseemly and idiotic things and descending to the lowest level a human being is capable of.” He also recognized the threat of random violence. One night the soldier Jett was sharing a tent with grabbed him and “wanted to know what I was doing in the bed with him anyway, and threatened to shoot me if I did not get out.” This bedfellow, known to be fond of drink, obviously had become somewhat paranoid. Another enlisted man, Jett writes, was called “Booze” by his comrades because “he spent all his money for drink and drank all any other would give him.” One day Booze was designated as a room orderly and went up and down the bunks sniffing and searching for hidden liquor. He apparently found plenty, drinking till he “not only could not walk but until he could hardly sniff.” This Booze also “drew a pistol on me once because I refused his offered drink,” Jett remembered.61 Thinking that uncontrolled drinking, gambling, and prostitution threatened middle-class privilege inside the army communities, the officers tried to tame soldiers’ leisure. One way was to drive off whiskey peddlers and prostitutes from the proximity of army villages. Another was to make sure that the post sutler kept the price of alcohol high, so that poorly paid enlisted men could not afford but a few drinks. For example, when the products of Anheuser-Busch were valued at one dollar a bottle, a soldier could spend his monthly salary on just thirteen beers.62 Also, officers again believed in the positive effects of work in keeping the men away from improper activities. Soldiers kept busy had less time to think about entertainments. For example, in the midst of the Geronimo campaign, when a cavalry company was camped near Solomonville, and later at Bowie Station, the officer in charge, Capt. Gustavus Cheyney Doane, was determined to keep his men from the free-flowing whiskey and other entertainments available at the nearby traveling bordellos and saloons. Doane made the men build floors for tents and an adobe oven for making fresh bread. He also organized fishing and 202
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hunting parties and had the soldiers execute dozens of other camp chores.63 Officers also prosecuted the men for drinking. After payday, many soldiers faced court-martial charges. Fines that could surpass a month’s pay took away their drinking money, whereas several days in the guardhouse were supposed to make men fearful and obedient. Again the success of these control measures remained incomplete. Many soldiers faced the possible punishments rather than submit under pressure. Drinking and gambling continued not only in the army villages but also in the field. It happened fairly often that men found alcohol and got drunk during military campaigns. Even the men under Doane’s command slipped away from camp to visit saloons and brothels.64 Often enlisted men’s leisure culture showed little variation from post to post. Usually men spent their time before paydays discussing how much money they would have for gambling, buying liquor, and spending at the “demi-monde.”65 It seems that military campaigns and constant laboring reduced opportunities for those leisure activities that required extensive planning and organization. However, if time, finances, and circumstances allowed, enlisted men practiced sports and organized theater activities or dances. Reading was also a preferred pastime by some, although often library facilities were poor or seldom used.66 While limited time and finances directed enlisted leisure, so did desires to avoid copycatting the styles and patterns of officers and wives or to limit activities to those the officers considered appropriate. Enlisted leisure excluded the officers but included all common soldiers. A man who refused the company of his peers on a regular basis could find himself isolated, driven out of the social sphere by the majority of his fellows. When the situation became unbearable, some men deserted, while others kept on struggling. Jett sought to avoid fights with his fellow enlisted men even though they provoked him, and he joined their parties, acting as “one of the boys” by offering drinks when it was his turn to do so.67 Although men could be socially ostracized for deviant behavior, in regard to nationality and Manual Labor and Leisure
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6. A group of Sixth Cavalry soldiers posing for a picture near laundry row at Fort Grant, Arizona, 1883. Photo courtesy of the
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Arizona Historical Society, Tucson. ahs-1225.
white ethnicity the white enlisted man was a cosmopolite, recognizing difference, but thinking it secondary to class solidarity. “In no other army were members of so many countries together as in that of the United States. In a single post, or in a single company, the nations of the civilized world were represented,” an officer observed and was not far off. The army not only had many Germans and Irish, but also Russians, Austrians, Swiss, Dutch, Belgians, French, Scots, Welsh, English, Danes, Norwegians, Swedes, and Italians, among others. Still, no ethnic pecking order or cliques existed in leisure, as soldiers emphasized solidarity, like one historian has noted.68 White soldiers shared a similar leisure life with black troops, although the latter were not quite as prone to drinking. Even though racism existed, those white and black soldiers who served together presumably found at least some common ground in leisure, as drinking, gambling, and visiting prostitutes constituted the principal activities for both groups. The first two were also common recreations 204
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among Apache soldiers. Thus, it seems that it was not race so much that shaped the contents of enlisted men’s leisure lives, but their status as the army’s underclass.69
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Leisure as Middle-Class Privilege
For officers and their wives, leisure represented a cherished and preferred part of their lives, toward which they concentrated much of their energies. It is even possible to claim, like one officer did, that entertainments and the demands to keep the “social machinery in motion” took precedence over all other concerns and duties.70 The leisure activities of officers and wives were meant to display certain class-based notions of refined taste. They wanted to, for example, host superior dances and balls, elegant concerts, stylish hunting excursions, and intellectually refined expeditions to ruins and other sites. When enlisted men’s leisure was a form of resistance, for officers and wives leisure proved a measure of character, something that made visible acceptable behavior and manners and something that enabled them to imagine their superiority in relation to others. Leisure was to funnel social power toward the officers and their wives to such a degree that they would think they had acquired a superior monopoly because of it. An elaborate series of army parties took place when Gen. George Crook relinquished his command of the Department of Arizona and departed on March 1875. Crook was the guest of honor in no less than three high-volume and high-class send offs. First, the people of Prescott held a complimentary reception for him in the town’s new brick building. The building in itself was a valuable symbol of whiteness and progress and stood in contrast to the Hispanic adobes so prevalent in the region. Thus, the location was more than suitable for white middle-class gatherings. Capt. John G. Bourke, Crook’s aide, wrote that when all the invited guests arrived “for a short time the hum and rattle of wheels bore a faint resemblance to Broadway.” After Crook had recovered from this congregation of speeches, feasting, music, and dancing, he took part in the farewell ball organized Manual Labor and Leisure
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at Whipple Barracks, the headquarters of the Department of Arizona, the next evening. Dozens of guests invited from the notables of the garrison, town, and from beyond flocked to Whipple, and the club room was decorated with festoons of evergreens hanging from the walls, ceilings adorned with stars and wreaths of the same material. Over the corners of each window hung “guidons and sabers and the regimental standards . . . bearing the fecund record of noble service.” Preparations and guests made it “one of the finest affairs ever known on the Pacific Coast,” Bourke added, again judging the event in relation to outside standards. The supper was supreme, the band played marvelously, champagne flowed, and dances whirled. Bourke added that it was an affair “beyond criticism and beyond description.” Next morning after breakfast a final grand farewell was organized at a rendezvous on the road to Fort Mojave. Ladies, officers, and citizens gathered for a few more glasses of champagne and a few more speeches. Over 125 people were present. After this last display of class elegance and refinement, Crook and his entourage were on their way.71 Crook’s farewell parties, perhaps more than any other single episode, reveal the kind of leisure life officers and their wives wished for themselves in the Southwest borderlands. These parties set the bar, the level of elegance and style achievable even in the colonies. At best leisure could be almost comparable to Broadway and eastern festivities, and at least it was the best on the western half of the continent, as Bourke wrote. Crook’s massive send-offs also demonstrated what the officers and wives thought they as a class stood for. The parties made them feel celebrated and important, almost like royalty, raising hopes of a social order where the officers and wives were privileged and celebrated as the highest element in the society. The various hops, dinners, parties, and gatherings at the army villages were meant to serve the same purpose as Crook’s farewell parties, but on a somewhat more modest scale. Following the fashions of genteel people of their era, officers and wives arranged masquerades and costume balls with different themes, including “Indian-costume.” 206
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One person at a calico-themed masquerade at Whipple Barracks dressed in a black mask and a domino, in a dark blue bicycle suit with a red calico sash over one shoulder and around the waist, decorated with a number of stars, crescents, bows, and so on. Some came as black women — in black face and acting out stereotypes. Although officers and wives had fun and often appeared pleased with what they managed to arrange, celebrations seemed controlled, limited, and restrained when compared to the behavior of enlisted soldiers. Officers and wives regarded showing too much emotion as unbecoming and improper and losing control of oneself as a social embarrassment.72 Christmas and the Fourth of July constituted special celebrations, and eastern “home” surroundings and traditions were imitated. At Fort Apache the traditional Christmas hunt was a necessity much like evergreen decorations. A five-day outing in 1879 produced twenty-five deer and forty or fifty turkeys. These, added to the eggnog, champagne, and “other trimmings,” made the holidays an expansive celebration, isolating officers and their wives from colonial realities and nourishing their ideas of self-importance.73 Music played a key role in these celebrations. While enlisted soldiers gathered at saloons, officers and wives not only had musicians play at their parties but assembled together to listen to the piano or some other instrument in their homes. Their ears, one officer wrote, were desperate for music, when the only thing in the borderlands resembling a melody was the howl of the coyotes.74 Home gatherings were intimate events, where music symbolized sophisticated high status and civilization and functioned as a link to home and Euro-American culture. In the concerts given by the regimental band, music equally often expressed might and power, honor and bravery. Some regimental bands toured the posts, but many army villages, much to the regret of their residents, spent most of their time without a band, which was usually stationed at the regimental headquarters. The arrival of a band was always greatly anticipated in the army villages. For instance, at Fort Grant a band was well received and it did not disappoint but “gave frequent open-air Manual Labor and Leisure
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concerts,” one occupant recalled, and the band members serenaded an officer and family when they arrived at the post.75 In the army villages leisure ideally surrounded the officers and especially their wives. A typical day for an officer’s wife could include riding or driving in the morning, sewing part of the day, and preferably visits and socializing.76 The wives had no official duties and their lives revolved around the domestic sphere and leisure. With servants performing most domestic chores, the wives spent their time supervising the households, managing and planning constant improvements, and planning leisure activities. Apart from hunting and gambling, leisure was also often very couple-oriented, as activities such as social calls, concerts, dances, dinners, riding, picnics, and excursions to ruin sites included both men and women. When organizing leisure activities, officers and wives usually relied on their own imagination, as only rarely was it possible to visit shows offered by circus or theatrical companies. Men concentrated on their club rooms, if they had one, and on hunting excursions, while the wives often devoted time to costumes and took the lead in planning the transfer of barren rooms and hallways into elaborate ballrooms, decorated with canvases and flags, and stacked with bayonets and swords.77 Those officers and wives who recently arrived and those who already lived in the army villages were expected to show an understanding of the leisure regime from the moment of contact. As soon as possible, the new arrival was to call on the commanding officer, and officers of lower rank were to make a call on him right away as well. Also, if an officer’s wife arrived at the post unaccompanied it was expected that other officers and their wives call on her. The exact timetable or the order might have had variations, but when the whole business of calling got underway there ideally was no end in sight. One officer’s wife remembered her initiation at Whipple Barracks: “Such a welcome as we had! I had hardly gotten the dust from my face and hands when General and Mrs. [August] Kautz were announced, and soon after all of the staff officers and their wives and many others.” Right away “champagne was opened and our health 208
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and hearty welcome drunk.”78 Even when an officer or his family temporarily visited a post, the resident officers and wives were expected to entertain the new arrivals. While the hosts offered food, shelter, and entertainments, the visitors were to show proper gratitude. This act built cohesion and guaranteed suitable comfort for those moving about.79 If the arrivals received nothing, it was a potential social catastrophe for the hosts. When one traveling party slept on a dirt floor with nothing but army blankets and sheepskins, resident officers and wives later offered numerous apologies for not being alert enough to provide a suitable reception. The post surgeon, among others, tried to convince the visitors that if he had known of people coming he would have at least sent over hospital cots to provide better sleeping arrangements.80 On the flip side, officers and their wives valued their social protocols so highly that it was an insult and close to an impossibility to turn down offers of hospitality. When in 1871 Col. George Stoneman, the military commander of Arizona, was removed from his position and judged to have failed in bringing Arizona under U.S. control, a mandatory dinner was arranged with his replacement, Lt. Col. George Crook. “I had to accept out of politeness, but never passed through such an ordeal,” Crook wrote. His host, Mrs. Stoneman, “while trying to be polite, could not help showing in every action that she would like to tear me to pieces, and there I had to sit and sit, and if she only knew how I hated to go to Arizona, she might feel differently.”81 Exhaustion was also no excuse. After a fatiguing journey with a sick infant Martha Summerhayes arrived to a “resting” stop, Fort Verde. However, “there was not much rest,” she wrote, “for we had to sort and rearrange our things and dress ourselves properly. . . . Jack [her lieutenant husband] put on his best uniform, and there was no end of visiting.” Tired and worried, she had to endure it all. In the end, she was still not bitter but accepted the social rules. “The day would have been pleasant enough but for my wretched condition,” she remembered.82 As officers and wives indulged in a wide range of activities, they Manual Labor and Leisure
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7. Officers and families enjoying a picnic near Fort McDowell, Arizona, May 1878. Photo courtesy of Sharlot Hall Museum
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Library and Archives, Prescott, Arizona. mil-151pc.
tried to maintain a certain level of refinement and class not only in dances and parties but in everything they did. In literary activities they not only ordered numerous periodicals and newspapers but penned articles and letters to journals and papers and studied foreign languages, literature, history, and constitutional and international law. Some officers, such as Capt. John Bourke, became famous for their ethnographic work. While more than a few, probably interested in proving their long line of American lineage, practiced genealogy, others were curious about mineralogy, and still others studied and collected local birds, lizards, snakes, or other reptiles.83 Leisure trips included refreshing picnics and nature watching, but also “semi-scientific” expeditions to old indigenous cliff dwellings, abandoned canals, and town sites found in the Southwest. Officers and wives performed as part-time historians, archaeologists, 210
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and curious tourists, writing notes, making sketches, and collecting materials. One officer remarked that “we felt all the excitement of explorers of an unknown land and enjoyed in anticipation the surprises in store for us whenever we moved” from one ruin to another. Another enthusiastically recalled that “we collected at least a wagon load of stone implements . . . and many pieces of pottery, from which could have been almost the complete vessels.”84 Officers and wives also found some monuments from the Spanish era as suitable sites for leisure visits; especially San Xavier del Bac — a Spanish mission church outside Tucson — captured their imagination. Dubbed by one wife as a “splendid monument of civilization,” the mission church, in army minds, was a relic of past glory, a reminder of times before Spanish blood had been contaminated by mixing with Indians. Many simply enjoyed the scenery and atmosphere at San Xavier, while some were so inspired that they spent hours painting at the mission.85 Outdoors, riding and hunting also proved popular activities. Rides on horseback offered a sense of freedom and adventure, and for one army wife, they composed “the chief charm of army life.” While some army wives found tennis to their liking, hunting represented the most important leisure sport for officers.86 The officers’ corps included many enthusiasts who would go hunting anytime and anywhere. Some did not even leave their quarters but engaged in shooting game from their verandas, while others organized hunting trips that lasted several days or weeks. Sometimes, a supply of horses and dogs were used, copycatting European aristocratic practices.87 Hunting was organized as a refined event and a sport where behaving right and honorably was very important for officers, who wanted to produce an image of themselves as masculine gentlemen. The hunt allowed officers a perception that they as superior men mastered nature. Some even canceled their hunt when they deemed it “too easy,” as the thrill of the chase was missing. Officers preferred to kill deer and even bears, and often the perceived value of the animal hunted mattered more than the necessity of bringing food to Manual Labor and Leisure
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the table. “I did not see a deer or anything else that a sportsman would fire at, unless it were a cotton-tail rabbit. Most sportsmen disdain such game,” one officer related his experience. He continued, “I cannot call it a hunt, having seen nothing worthy of a shot.”88 As hunting was approached as a sport where one’s manliness was tested, unsuccessful hunts hurt the officers’ self-esteem and could bring painful ridicule from their comrades. For example, when Lt. Peter Vroom, described by one army wife as “a good shot and fond of hunting,” returned to Fort Wingate one day, wet and “duckless,” he was heavily ridiculed. The spring he had fallen into was “ever afterward known” in the army as “Vroom’s folly.”89 Lack of success in hunting was not the only source of frustration the officers experienced. Ideally, leisure followed certain conventions and remained within boundaries of propriety. Not only was it important what one did, but it was equally essential how one did it. This was evident in dances, music, outings, hunting, and other leisure activities. Style, elegance, etiquette, sophisticated manners, and honorable conduct were all crucial elements. But once more colonial realities did not always conform to ambitions and desires. Officers and wives had to adjust their expectations. A proper leisure life depended a great deal on the size and location of the army village. At Whipple Barracks and Fort Lowell, located near Prescott and Tucson, the activities were usually at their most numerous and varied, and the leisure scene of the army village and the town often mixed.90 In smaller and more isolated locations leisure life inevitably shrunk. While some officers and wives living in such places complained about the shortage of things to do and struggled to maintain any leisure activity, others kept themselves occupied. Joseph Widney, who lived at a two-officer post, studied and read to render his time endurable. Frank Upham remembered that although he and his wife were mainly dependent on each other and the few bachelor officers for society, they still managed to arrange trips into the surrounding countryside, to its hills, rivers, and Indian camps, where they found plenty of interest.91 The number 212
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8. Officers’ hunting party (First Cavalry Hunt Club) at Fort Grant, Arizona.
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Photo courtesy of the Arizona Historical Society, Tucson. ahs-51218.
of officers’ wives was important in determining the nature and frequency of activities. In places where no wives lived, the number of dances and parties was reduced. Still, it did not take many wives to arrange more refined events. For example, at Camp McDowell in 1869 Eveline Alexander demonstrated that with the help of just one other “lady” she was able to organize a wedding anniversary party.92 In small army villages located in the proximity of busy travel routes, officers and wives confronted a different problem altogether. For instance, at Camp Date Creek, on the well-traveled Prescott road, the two army wives who lived there were forced to organize, in army words, “constant parties” for all those who visited the place. These women had to stretch their imagination and the resources available to them, badly exhausting themselves in process.93 Even though they disliked acknowledging it, officers were no strangers to vice. While enlisted men drank excessively at times, the officers were supposed to behave like gentlemen, never losing control of their own minds and bodies by becoming too intoxicated or brawly. In reality, heavy gambling losses and equally heavy drinking were known to have happened. When officers could gamble Manual Labor and Leisure
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hundreds of dollars in just one night it comes as no surprise that gambling was a touchy issue among officers and their wives. While some officers gambled openly, others could barely confess that they enjoyed the atmosphere of playing and had to quickly assure others that they had no inclination to participate. Still others favored a total ban on gambling in the whole army.94 As for drinking, there was nothing wrong with enjoying good whiskey and cigars, but if one was a suspected drunk, he could be socially ostracized. Dismissal was a matter of personal disgrace, a falling out of class. For example, Lt. Pendleton Hunter was categorized by his subordinate officer Frederick Phelps as a pleasant and jovial man, but unfortunately a drunk. When army size was reduced in 1871, and “an order was issued to get rid of worthless officers,” Hunter was let go. Four years later Phelps encountered Hunter as a barkeeper. “I spoke to him, but he looked me straight in the eye and told me that I was mistaken.” Phelps was certain that he recognized Hunter. “He was evidently ‘down at the heel,’ but still had pride enough not to wish to be recognized, so I said nothing, and have never seen or heard of him since.”95 Some did not cope as well as Hunter. One officer was sent out of Arizona to San Francisco because he had made a publicly embarrassing display during a dress parade. Isolated, without any assignment and forgotten by the military, although never officially discharged, he killed himself. A fellow officer, who had met this man earlier, gave whiskey as the probable reason.96
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Two Worlds
In the mid-1880s officers from Fort Grant had a retreat built for themselves up in the nearby Mount Graham to escape the heat at the fort during the summer. To this “favorite resort,” as one of them named the place, officers, their families, and visitors, with the necessary servants, went to enjoy the “beautiful grassy flat bordering a small stream of cold water and surrounded by pines, aspen, and other trees.” Not surprisingly, enlisted men were ordered to cut trees and construct log cabins for the officers’ use. Much as had happened 214
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on the Staceys’ combined leisure outing and wood-cutting expedition from Fort Thomas almost a decade earlier, here again enlisted men worked while officers and dependents relaxed. Naturally, living spaces were also segregated. Soldiers’ tents were located lower down the creek on the opposite side from the officers. While the soldiers labored, officers and their guests often ascended the summit of Mount Graham to catch the grand views of mountain ranges and long broad valleys that reached Mexico. The evenings they spent around campfires talking and singing, two soldier-cooks preparing lofty meals. The cooks were “very necessary adjuncts when one considers the numerous and healthy appetites,” one army wife wrote. A special pack train operated between the mountain resort and the fort, keeping the leisure seekers, in their own words, supplied with “whatever was necessary to make us comfortable.”97 As this leisure/labor camp on Mount Graham affirms, the social order in the army villages was constructed on a fundamental divide between the army elite of officers and wives and the commoners, the enlisted men. Although soldiers and officers had found common ground when manufacturing Apaches as their enemy, when producing ideas and representations of the army’s mission in the Southwest, or when struggling against the colonial environment, they also represented a divided body of colonizers. Army journeys and differing perceptions of colonial settlements revealed glimpses of this division, and the layout of public spaces and the difference in housing offered further proof of separation, but it was in the realm of labor and leisure where a hierarchical boundary segregating the two classes was most evident. While the use of enlisted labor was in some ways a practical choice, it was also a visible manifestation of class difference. By not working, by treating soldiers as laborers incapable of self-rule, and by producing representations in which everything was done for them, officers and wives drew a line of exclusion within the army community. Soldiers struck back. They had not enlisted to become common laborers, but brave Indian fighters and nation builders, and Manual Labor and Leisure
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they felt cheated as poorly paid and unfree multitask workers and servants living in fear of rigid discipline and punishment. They did not leave the ranks of white colonizers and join the indigenous enemy, but deserted and thus abandoned their community and negotiated radically new identities motivated by the desire for freedom in place of servitude. Those who stayed produced work of questionable quality or vented their frustrations through a rough leisure world. In leisure, enlisted men on the one hand and officers and dependents on the other constructed their separate realities with differing ideas of acceptable practices and behavior. In many ways, the army community was divided into two worlds: a disgruntled lower-class world dominated by manual labor and the effort to regain personal freedom with white privilege and an upper-class world devoted to displaying genteel leisure activities, gaining the top rank in the colonial social hierarchy, and rebuilding the world left behind in the East. This world of two classes was disrupted and complicated by the hiring of indigenous soldiers. When the white army people’s enemy joined their ranks — when the colonized temporarily occupied the ranks of the colonizers — the army community was forced to renegotiate the meanings of difference and the boundaries of inclusion.
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A day or two after this, the [Apache] scouts again struck the trail of the enemy [Apaches], and had a sharp brush with them, killing several and capturing three.
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—john g. bour k e, captain, U.S. Army
“A whole bunch of us went . . . to San Carlos to try to enlist,” Tlodilhil (“Black Rope,” also known as John Rope) said as he remembered his journey in the mid-1870s. As part of a large gathering of Yavapais, Tonto Apaches, San Carlos Apaches, and White Mountain Apaches, Rope and his brother rode double on the only horse they managed to obtain to reach the agency on the White Mountain Reservation. In his early twenties, Rope did not hurry for any social celebration or to join a raiding or war party but, tired of reservation poverty, he came to find work in the United States Army. At San Carlos, Rope lined up with the rest of the men. Following a physical examination, white officers, who acted as employment agents, hired forty men. Many hopefuls were left out, but Rope proved lucky. Leaving the reservation the next day as part of the multiracial army workforce was the start in his nearly decade-long periodic employment as colonized labor.1 The army community in the Southwest consisted not only of white
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officers, wives, white soldiers, or black troops. Like so many indigenous peoples in the Dutch, British, and French Empires, Apaches and other indigenous peoples were hired as soldiers because the colonial power needed their expertise to gain the monopoly of violence and secure control over the colonial terrain.2 When it comes to the diversity of tasks, the length of the experiment, and army’s dependence on indigenous laborers’ performance, the Apaches represent the most prominent example of this kind of labor recruiting during the Southwest U.S.-indigenous wars. Apaches temporarily occupied the ranks of the colonizers by working as soldiers alongside white and black troops and under the command of white officers, although never institutionally incorporated nor accepted by white army personnel as full members of the army community. Labeled “scouts” in army discourses, Apaches performed much the same labor tasks as white or black soldiers but were also used for special labor roles. They received equal wages, but as a racialized workforce, their job security was uncertain at best. Their only alternatives besides army work were reservation captivity or war against the U.S. regime. Yet Apaches proved able to use the fluid and even paradoxical labor system for negotiating the impact of colonialism on their lives. Army work brought economic security and temporary freedom, a certain latitude to pursue goals that would have otherwise been impossible because of colonizer control. Some managed to build rather considerable army careers; others did not prefer long-term employment outside their indigenous communities. Work could, however, also create strife and divisions within the indigenous groups. In sum, Apache soldiers were colonized labor, participants in a complex web, with constant tension and negotiation between integration and exclusion, between valuing and othering, and between indigenous freedom and colonial control. Army Work as Colonial Resistance
Like whites and blacks, Apaches became soldiers voluntarily. If others joined to find some meaning in their lives or for secure employment 218
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or adventure, or, in the case of immigrants, to familiarize themselves with the new country and language, indigenous men were compelled to enlist by circumstances arising from colonial conquest. In the mid-1870s the federal government thought it would gain a better control of Chiricahua and Western Apaches by moving all of them to one reservation. The government chose San Carlos as the designated place. Not all Apaches disliked San Carlos, but the White Mountain, Cibecue, and Chiricahua Apaches, who did not regard the San Carlos area as their home, grew to dislike the overcrowded and barren place immensely. One Chiricahua, for instance, thought that it was “the worst place in all the great territory stolen from the Apaches.”3 Life in San Carlos was often marked by poverty, disease, and quarrels. Groups who disliked one another had to live in proximity. Agents subjected the Apaches to the government’s civilization policies, while some even embezzled rations and funds. Reservations were supposed to be places for Apache regeneration, brought about by limiting Apache self-rule and freedom of thought and action. Hunting was limited, all raiding and warfare were obviously forbidden, and free movement outside reservation boundaries was not allowed. Both the army and the civilian agents wanted, in the long run, Apache men to embrace the American ideal of self-reliant and enterprising farmers. From the start, however, sedentary farming was hampered by an inferior supply of arable land and inadequate seeds and tools. Many Apaches must have realized the limited opportunities for success that farming at San Carlos offered. Many Apaches also regarded farming as women’s job. In all, reservation life seemed to offer very little for most Apache men. Jason Betzinez, a Chiricahua, was certain that if the Apaches on the reservation “had been set at some activity in which they were interested or experienced they would have been happy and would have exhibited great exertion. This is shown by the zeal in which some of our Apaches enlisted . . . they were as happy as bird dogs turned loose in a field full of quail.” Another Apache also thought that army work “was a relief from the dreary, monotonous existence Colonized Labor
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on the reservation. To Apaches a reservation is a prison.”4 Clearly, Apaches not only preferred to work as soldiers rather than farmers but recognized army work as a way to escape colonial control on the reservation. When the federal government treated all Apaches living outside U.S. control as “outlaws” or “hostiles,” Apaches quickly realized that their options were threefold: life as free men in war against the United States (and Mexico), captivity and farming on the reservations, or military work. The latter held the most potential not only for self-rule and freedom but for a safer and more prosperous life. “It better to be a scout now because you be all right if you are a scout,” one Mescalero said. “We can’t do nothing like in old days. . . . It better to be at peace now.” The son of one Chiricahua soldier explained that the famous leader Geronimo had asked his father to go against the Americans, but his father had refused, preferring to make friends with whites and work for the army, thinking that it was the best option he had.5 Apaches used army work for fulfilling a variety of personal ambitions and group objectives. For instance, when the reservation Western Apaches were struck by Chiricahua raiders in search of ammunition, horses, and women, they did not trust that white soldiers would protect them or advance their interests. Western Apaches wanted to fight back and retrieve captured relatives themselves. However, their options were limited. If they were to act on their own, they would face the risk of being labeled “hostiles” by the whites. The logical way left open was to join the army. Even when formal enlistment was unavailable, there are instances when Apaches nevertheless attached themselves to army troops in the field as “volunteers.” Army work also held the potential for bringing an end to the chronic warfare that had lasted for decades. Peace, Apaches hoped, would take the federal government off their backs and make normal life possible. John Rope stated that he worked in the military “to help the whites against the Chiricahuas because they had killed a lot of people.”6 Some did not want to harm the enemy but, recognizing 220
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the futility of armed conflict, used army work to enable their relatives who were then fighting the Americans to surrender unharmed. “The scouts saw that the outlaws didn’t have any show, so they tried to save as many of them as possible,” one Apache later confessed.7 For many Apache soldiers the motive for joining the army seems to have included the possibility for peace and the return to normal life. On the other hand, cultural reasons shaped many Apache choices. Born into a world where competition with indigenous enemies and Euro-Americans had contributed to a strong military culture, Apaches could recognize and respect what working in the army offered, and they used it to suit their own notions of manliness. It is one of colonial paradoxes that while the discourses penned by white army people attacked Apache notions of manliness — as discussed earlier — army work allowed the Apache men to strengthen their sense of manhood. Apache men were trained from childhood to be responsible for hunting, defensive and offensive warfare, and the manufacture or acquisition of weapons.8 Hunting, raiding, and warfare — blocked by reservation confinement — formed the nucleus of Apache male identity; these activities constituted the primary avenues for men to gain status and wealth. Defense of their own people and offensive moves against their enemies was how men were measured. “Ours was a race of fighting men — war was our occupation,” one Apache man even declared.9 The army attracted both youngsters and adults. For young men army work represented an avenue on which they could to continue their training to respectable manhood. During his first enlistment John Rope acted as an “apprentice” to his older cousin, as was the custom for Apache youngsters learning their way. “You have done lots of work for me, getting wood, water, building fires, and cooking. You have done the right way,” the cousin commended him. Rope himself explained that “when we young men joined up as scouts, our old male relatives would tell us to do whatever the older scouts wanted us to do. If we didn’t work hard as we should that would be no good.” For older men, army work provided an opportunity to Colonized Labor
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increase their status, or even to rise to leadership within their own communities. According to one Chiricahua Apache, “being chosen as scouts was a recognition of a warrior’s ability to fight. . . . Scouts were admired and envied by other men.”10 Army work was all the more attractive because it offered a source of income for the worker and his family in times of chronic poverty and starvation. Historian Eve Ball wrote, “I’ve learned that Apache scouts knew which side of their bread was buttered and acted accordingly.”11 The army gave Apache soldiers the same pay as white and black enlisted cavalry men, at least thirteen dollars per month. Indigenous workers also received food, clothing, guns, ammunition, and other equipment, such as blankets and canteens. They even got additional compensation if they provided their own horses or did not need army uniforms. Also, at least some Apache soldiers were successful in drawing military pensions, thus proving that economic benefits were not necessarily limited to the period of employment itself. Most spent their earnings immediately on necessities such as food, clothing, utensils, and stock for their families. Some sent for sheep and horses all the way from California. “We could never save our pay because we had our families to care for,” Rope acknowledged. Part of their earnings was also used for leisure, most notably gambling. It seems that the army realized that it was the welfare of people close to them that motivated Apache workers and distributed extra rations of food, blankets, or other equipment to the soldiers’ families. Furthermore, Apache soldiers often had the opportunity to confiscate enemy property in the field — an important addition to their earnings. Horses especially were valued and useful commodities. Enemy property proved such an attraction that some Apache men occasionally volunteered without pay if they could just obtain the plunder.12 Although their situation was such that many Apaches were perfectly willing to work for the army, if the Apaches for some reason proved reluctant, the officers could severely limit their options. A meeting held in October 1882 sheds light on this coercive underside 222
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of colonized labor. Shortly after being reinstated as Arizona’s military commander, Gen. George Crook sought to get a grip of the military situation in the aftermath of the tumultuous events at Cibecue Creek by arranging a series of meetings with reservation Indians. In the course of one of those meetings at San Carlos, Crook cornered a congregation of Western Apaches and told them that “You can’t have any rest here until those Chiricahuas [currently outside the reservation] are brought in, and you must bring them in. You must do this at once.” Apaches leaders present protested that the Chiricahuas “never belonged to us. They are Mexican Indians, and have always raised trouble.” Crook bluntly responded, “That makes no difference, you get the credit of it, and you’ve now got to go work and bring them in here as I tell you. They are intermarried with you, and you will get the blame of all the mischief they do. It depends on yourselves whether or not you shall go to your own lands to plant.” Crook warned that the Western Apaches would be prevented from leaving the proximity of the agency and counted every day until the Chiricahuas were brought back. Believing they had a better chance of success than white troops, Crook’s goal was to get the Apaches to work, and in this he succeeded, because many enlisted despite the voices of dissent at the meeting. The Apaches had very limited choices, as life near the agency would bring only trouble and hunger. They knew it was better to do as the officers wanted. For its part the army valued the Apaches effort and as a reward for enlistment almost two hundred Western Apaches received permission to relocate from the hated San Carlos to their homes in the Cibecue and Carrizo Creek area near Fort Apache.13 As this case demonstrates, colonized labor did not mean the same as self-rule. Compared to life in reservation captivity or to the insecurities and hardships that fighting against overwhelming odds entailed, work in the military did offer a reasonably attractive option, with economic inducements, a chance to advance personal or group interests, and an opening for demonstrating one’s manliness in a manner culturally valued and familiar. Work could and did Colonized Labor
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bring one favors and privileges in a world terribly short on any. In a way, it is easy to see why so many volunteered. Still, colonized labor from the Apache perspective was at best a compromise — a choice in a time when options were few — that involved constant negotiation and tension between freedom and colonial control. This the Apache volunteers learned the first day of work at the latest.
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Apaches at Work
While American armed forces had employed Akimel O’odham, Maricopas, Tohono O’odham, and “Manso” Apaches during and immediately after the Civil War, it was not until 1871 that Crook, during his first spell as the military commander of Arizona, initiated a more systematic hiring of Apache workers, which culminated in 1886. Usually anywhere from one hundred to two hundred Apaches were employed at any given time, but during crises the numbers peaked at four hundred men. On average the Apaches made up an approximate 5–10 percent of the army’s strength in the Southwest.14 They were either attached to units of white or black soldiers or organized into racially segregated companies of indigenous soldiers. Commanded by white regular army officers, the composition of Apache units varied from those where the workers came from one particular band or group to mixed outfits. For example, John Rope recalled that at one time his company included eight White Mountain, twelve San Carlos, and five Chiricahua Apaches.15 Like other soldiers, Apache troops changed stations from one army village to the next or to the temporary army camps on the reservations. For example, in 1878 Apache Company A lived at Fort Apache, B at Verde, C at Thomas, and D in a new camp near old Camp Wallen, close to the Mexican border. The next year Company A was still at Apache, but B now operated from McDowell, C from both Bowie and Lowell, and D from Thomas and the newly established Camp Huachuca. By the mid-1880s at least two Apache companies were regularly assigned to the San Carlos reservation.16 Apache soldiers engaged in wide variety of work duties. They 224
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patrolled reservation boundaries and the international border, apprehending trespassers or chasing small groups. They also played significant roles in most major military campaigns. For instance, in the 1872–74 offensives against Western Apaches and Yavapais, small company-size units of white cavalry were accompanied by detachments of indigenous soldiers. Although the idea at first was that indigenous soldiers would lead white soldiers to the enemy, they in fact both located the enemy and participated in the actual fighting, proving indispensable for the success of the army. For their success the army awarded several Apache soldiers with the Medal of Honor and gave Crook, responsible for the offensive, an almost unprecedented two-grade promotion from lieutenant colonel to brigadier general.17 When in 1879–80 the military launched its hunt for the group led by Victorio, Apache companies from Arizona took part in full combat roles in the campaign that traversed New Mexico, Texas, and Mexico.18 In the 1880s, as the army went after the Chiricahua Apaches, the importance of Apache soldiers only increased. A pool of laborers from different Western Apache and Chiricahua Apache groups often handled the army’s main offensive responsibilities, while white and black troops took defensive roles, guarding ranches, waterholes, and trails. When, in 1883, the army invaded the Sierra Madre, the expedition was composed of 193 Apache soldiers and only 42 white enlisted men.19 During the 1885–86 Geronimo campaign, almost every column included a detachment of Apache soldiers, and the main offensive thrust against the Chiricahuas consisted of two separate groups of approximately 100 Apache soldiers and around 40 to 50 white troopers. According to some estimates, the Geronimo campaign saw more than 500 hundred Apaches in the army. Thus, there were many more Apaches in the U.S. Army than with Geronimo.20 Besides field operations, Apache soldiers worked on a plethora of tasks, some similar to the work white and black soldiers performed. Because of their skills, officers assigned Apaches as hunters whose work was to provide game for white troops. This might explain Colonized Labor
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why John Rope claimed that he “just hunted deer” when staying for a month at Fort Bowie. It seems that Apache soldiers more rarely performed manual labor that occupied so much of white and black troops’ time. Still, when white soldiers tended post gardens, Apaches herded cattle, cultivated the soil, and arranged and weighed hay sold to the military by reservation Indians.21 Some Apaches also gained experience as strikers, or personal servants, for officers. At times, like when indigenous troops represented the sole garrison force at Fort Huachuca, they had to perform at least guard duty and other necessities or attend regular inspections and musters. 22 Military training in general proved uncommon among Apache soldiers, as it did among white and black troops. Only occasionally did Apache soldiers practice shooting, for example. 23 If reservations were under army supervision, Apache soldiers, together or without white troops, often took on the duties of the police, upholding the general order and apprehending “outlaws.” At one time, for instance, a large dance was organized on a reservation to lure in one Apache man who had escaped after killing several people. A company of Apache soldiers concealed themselves near the dancing ground while special spies mingled with the crowds. When the wanted man made his appearance, Apache soldiers quickly seized him. 24 Rope preferred campaigning in the field and disliked work in the Apache communities. There were several killings among the reservation Apaches, and it was the Apache soldiers who had to go after the suspects and sort out matters under the double pressure of white officers and Apache kin and family. 25 Apaches also worked in assignments not common among other troops. They proved a valuable diplomatic asset when opening contacts, participating in public discussions, and circling amid camps during negotiations with free Apaches. In addition, some went on reconnaissance missions across the international border. Others, like Lt. Charles Elliott noted, acted as “home guards” or as special military spies scattered among the various camps of Apaches in the reservation. Their duty, Lt. Britton Davis explained, “was to report to 226
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9. A group of Apache soldiers, ca. 1880. Photo courtesy of Sharlot Hall
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Museum Library and Archives, Prescott, Arizona. ina-171pa.
us every indication of discontent or hostility that might arise among the Indians on the reservation. They took no part in campaigns, but were employed solely to keep us posted on symptoms of unrest or agitations that might lead to serious difficulties in or between the various tribes, or even to outbreaks.” For this purpose, women were also recruited. The identity of these Apache spies was hidden even from one another, and they communicated with the officers individually and at night using intermediaries as interpreters and contacts. 26 The army tried to exercise full control over worker selection, deciding when indigenous soldiers were hired, where they worked, and in what capacity. When it came to operating in the field, however, the army never sought to regularize the behavior of Apache soldiers or to turn them into copies of white troops. Not only was the army only superfluously interested in integrating its Apache workforce, but leading officers in the region felt that better short-term results were gained by letting the Apaches to work as best suited them. Orders from Crook to officers in command of Apache soldiers dated August 14, 1885, shed light on the situation: Apache soldiers “understand thoroughly what is expected of them, and know best how Colonized Labor
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to do their work. They understand this business better than we do. . . . [The] only directions that can be given to them is to explain what you expect of them, and let them to do their work in their own way. We cannot expect them to act automatically as drilled soldiers do. Their best quality is their individuality, and as soon as this is destroyed or impaired their efficiency goes with it.” Officers, the orders continue, should never direct Apaches in details, because they will not like it and will only become loafing time servers.27 Furthermore, the Apaches “efficiency,” writes another officer, was “not spoiled by attempts to make them look like regulars.” Not having to dress like other soldiers, the usual costume of an Apache enlistee included the soldier’s blouse, a pair of cotton drawers, a waist cloth, moccasins, and a red headband used so that whites could identify Apache soldiers from those who fought against the Americans. 28 Being allowed to perform field service or to dress as they pleased were arguably markers of difference in a workplace that held regularity in high value. While Apache soldiers enjoyed unquestionable freedom of action and appearance, officers in the field sought to establish authority over the indigenous workforce under their command. They often resorted to a combination of diplomacy and tolerance of Apache customs on the one hand and discipline and threat of severe punishments on the other. Apache subordinates could be trusted with a great deal of responsibility and their personal quirks tolerated and even encouraged, but they could also be sent to the guardhouse or discharged for such seemingly minor reasons as not being able to find water on the trail or refusing to hand over the game they had hunted for their own use to the white soldiers. When an Apache soldier called “Dutchy” refused to fight a close relative, he was placed in irons and sent away to Fort Bowie to be confined in the guardhouse. Facing charges of mutiny, with the potential death sentence, Dutchy found himself at the mercy of the officer, Capt. Emmett Crawford, who had ordered him arrested. Luckily for Dutchy, Crawford, perhaps intent on teaching Dutchy a “lesson” all along, opted to release and 228
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reenlist him. 29 When in service the Apache soldiers’ choices, like Dutchy’s, were limited. Obviously, they could work poorly or even threaten to quit if one of them was too severely punished, but the punishment could also be something much more severe than a mere discharge or a short time in the guardhouse. Leisure was a realm that colonial control did not penetrate. While in army service Apache soldiers were able to arrange horse races, gamble, or play games such as hoop and pole. They also organized various social, victory, and war dances despite the fact that many officers privately regarded these acts as weird and monotonous, or simply barbarous. Occasionally, the army even encouraged the dances, and officers were made to join in. For example, before departing to the Sierra Madre in 1883, Crook asked the Apache soldiers to perform their war dance, which would bring protection and power to their upcoming endeavors.30 Like other enlisted men, some Apache soldiers used alcohol for leisure. Of course not all drank, but minor incidents when Apache soldiers “tanked up” in some village or trading post and became temporarily unable to perform their duties were known to happen. Sometimes excessive alcohol consumption led to potentially explosive scenes. Once, for instance, a whiskeydrinking Tonto Apache soldier shouted, shot in the air, and cursed the Chiricahuas of his company, daring them to send their best man to fight him. The officer in command ordered the Tonto disarmed and had him tied to a tree to sober up.31 All along, the army retained certain privileges for white and black soldiers. Unlike many other minorities or immigrants in U.S. history, Apaches did not gain any rights in American society through army work. Whereas white and black soldiers were free men before and after their work periods, white authorities saw Apaches as dependent tribal subjects and made them return to the reservation after the work terms expired. Furthermore, Apache soldiers were cut off from lines of mobility beyond the noncommissioned ranks, whereas white soldiers had, at least in theory, the opportunity to get promoted from the ranks. White and black soldiers also had a Colonized Labor
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reliable job for five years at a time, after which it was possible to reenlist. Apache work contracts, on the other hand, often ran only six months and had no fixed length.32 Reenlistment, in general, was possible only if officers came hiring again. In an army that could claim job stability as one of its rare merits when compared to civilian working-class life, Apache job security in general was poor. On the other hand, the Apaches were in a privileged position because the army preferred them over men from other indigenous groups. After all, most of the potential indigenous labor force in the Southwest remained unemployed most of the time. Although, for instance, some Navajos and Yavapais worked in the army, the officers frequently questioned their trailing and fighting abilities, courage to engage the enemy, and motivation to stay in service.33 The Hualapais from northern Arizona enlisted in the early 1870s after suffering devastating defeats in clashes with the colonizers. When the Apaches began to provide a steady supply of workers, the army no longer needed the Hualapais, and they faced almost continuous unemployment and poverty, as well as relocation to a Colorado River reservation.34 Some Akimel O’odham, Maricopas, and Tohono O’odham were also hired because whites considered them the enemies of Apaches. Still, officers regarded their impact in the field inferior compared to Apache soldiers. Although numbers of non-Apaches continued to find army employment throughout the 1880s, they were often second-tier replacements filling the companies or hired when enlistment of Apaches proved difficult. Like one officer explained, the “Indians of other tribes . . . were not believed to possess the skill and endurance necessary to surprise the vigilant Chiricahuas.”35 It seems that most Apaches did not even desire permanent employment outside their indigenous communities and that shorter work periods suited them perfectly. John Rope, for instance, did not want to work all the time, but opted to stay at home, fulfilling his domestic duties, for months between enlistments. One officer saw the Apaches as eager to join the army, but reluctant to stay for 230
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long periods on the account of their strong “domestic instincts.”36 Although work remained periodic, some managed to build rather extensive careers. One Chiricahua man allegedly first worked in the army in the 1860s in and around the Bosque Redondo Reservation in New Mexico, then joined against the Comanches on the southern plains, before working for a spell with some Navajo soldiers. After marrying and starting a family he again enlisted during the Geronimo campaign. In the end, his work periods in the army extended over three decades. Others worked even longer. For instance, Apache private DeKlay, who first enlisted on June 14, 1885, was discharged for the last time on May 31, 1929, and Askeldelinny, a sergeant, first came to service on June 2, 1879, and quit for the last time on May 1, 1925.37
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A Perilous Labor Experiment
While both colonial control and Apache privilege remained partial, the line between colonizer and colonized also became blurred and potentially dangerous. For one thing, Apache soldiers had to balance between the army world and their indigenous communities. While the Apaches did not imagine that they formed one community or people, army work nevertheless divided some Apache groups and raised bitter feelings.38 The fear of animosity and even retribution might in part explain why shorter work periods suited many, and why men like Rope disliked working in their own reservation communities. The situation was especially heated among the Chiricahuas. In 1885 an estimated forty-three Chiricahua men left San Carlos, and more than fifty enlisted in the army, while another eighty stayed on the reservation. Of the latter approximately half enlisted during the later phases of the Geronimo campaign. Some Chiricahuas considered those who worked in the army as traitors and cowards who in a time of crisis abandoned their own kin. They even identified the red headband Apache soldiers wore as a symbol of servitude.39 For others, those warring against the Americans only brought problems. “Instead of coming and getting his rations and settling down and Colonized Labor
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trying to be civilized, he would be out there like a wild animal, killing and raiding,” one Chiricahua remembered Geronimo. For him, Geronimo “caused Apache to fight Apache and all sorts of trouble to break among our people.”40 Second, as semi-incorporated workers the Apaches found room for “changing sides” between the army, the reservation, and the Apache groups that fought the United States. The army actively contributed to this situation by hiring Apaches who just had surrendered and by ignoring suspicions of past offenses if Apaches showed a willingness to work. For example, when, in 1883–84, a company of indigenous soldiers was reorganized, the long-serving Western Apaches had to make room for the recently surrendered Chiricahuas from the Sierra Madre. Clearly not aiming for permanence, or wanting to build lasting loyalties and careers, the army interest was in getting results fast.41 This policy led to a somewhat paradoxical situation where, as one officer accurately noted, “the scouts of one year would be turning the Territory topsy-turvy the next, & the officer commanding a company of scouts would be pursuing a party of exscouts with an assortment of ex-hostiles.”42 The actions of Massai, a Chiricahua, illustrate this fluid space some of the Apaches operated in. Enlisting into the army in 1880, Massai deserted two years later to join Geronimo’s group, who had captured his family from the reservation and brought them to the Sierra Madre. His family secured, Massai returned to San Carlos, only to break out with Geronimo and others in 1885. Weary of war, Massai opted to go back to the reservation. The army did not arrest him but allowed him to reenlist. In 1886 when the army made all Chiricahuas prisoners and sent them to Florida, Massai jumped off the train en route, found his way back to his home region, and continued to live outside American and Mexican control. He captured a Mescalero Apache wife and had several children. While his family later returned to the reservation, Massai never did. He was apparently killed. All along, the well-being of his family combined with bitterness toward colonial control and realization of the destructive 232
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futility of war drove Massai. Although he enjoyed considerable leverage in negotiating his position between the Apache and white worlds, in the end his options narrowed, and he was forced to live in personal exile as a “dangerous outlaw.”43 Over time Apache workers learned that nothing was certain in their dealings with the army and the federal government. Two Cibecue Apache groups led by Miguel and by Pedro wanted to live in cooperation with the whites and contributed a steady supply of men from the time the army started enlisting Apaches. A special relationship between these groups and the army developed as army personnel from Fort Apache visited their camps for hunting, dancing, and feasting, and vice versa. According to one historian, Miguel firmly believed that a close alliance with the whites was necessary for his group to remain on their own land.44 He proved wrong. It took only a few questionable reports of stolen cattle in 1874 for the distrustful army to order the two groups to relocate closer to Fort Apache. This relocation caused dissatisfaction, as it forced Miguel’s and Pedro’s groups to abandon their homes and relocate into areas where some of the White Mountain Apaches they had recently fought against in the army resided. Shortly thereafter, when the federal government envisioned a policy of concentration, the Office of Indian Affairs orchestrated a second move, this time to San Carlos. A local army commander insisted that some indigenous soldiers were needed near Fort Apache, and this saved Pedro’s people at the last moment, but Miguel’s group had to go. Miguel himself had been killed after the first move in a quarrel that had grown more intense. Now Diablo, Miguel’s successor and a sergeant in the army, pleaded their case. He promised that his group would not need any help from the whites but could provide men for the army if just left alone. Diablo was bluntly discharged two months prior to the expiration of his term of service and ordered to move his people. Years of laboring in the military benefited his group little. Frustrated and bitter, Diablo raised trouble against Fort Apache and Pedro’s group. Some officers even claimed that he was instigating a revolt among the Apache Colonized Labor
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soldiers. But there was nothing Diablo really could do, and his betrayed group had to go to San Carlos.45 A seemingly close alliance shattered by forced removals and violent clashes — and the last minute rescue of Pedro’s people by the army — show the complex tensions between inclusion and exclusion, and friendship and betrayal, and the ever-present threat of violence that was characteristic of colonized labor. The fate of Apache soldiers and a shaman called Noch-ay-del-klinne during the 1881 Cibecue “incident” offers further evidence of how uncertain a position the Apaches soldiers actually occupied. Noch-ay-del-klinne had been one of those Apaches who were the first to enlist in the early 1870s. Later he faced the bitter removals, but his work record had been good. In a report made during the mid-1870s, one officer described him as an honest, generous, and sober man.46 However, this was quickly forgotten when Noch-ay-del-klinne started to preach a controversial Ghost Dance doctrine that promised unity and better times for the Apaches. White officials, interpreting the dance as a call to arms, got anxious enough to order the army to arrest Nochay-del-klinne in his village at Cibecue Creek. Following the arrest an armed confrontation broke out between the troops, which included some Apache soldiers and Noch-ay-del-klinne’s followers, during which not only the shaman and some white soldiers were killed but Apache soldiers were blamed for desertion and mutiny. Eyewitness accounts of the events vary considerably. In a later interview, Apache soldiers expressed their loyalty to the army and their desire to avoid fighting the white soldiers, whom they regarded as their friends. They claimed that the clash had been unexpected and that they ran away to get out of the range of fire when the shooting started. To contradict this version, many white participants believed that Noch-ay-del-klinne’s teachings had influenced the Apache soldiers to such an extent that it was the Apache soldiers who had opened fire against the whites and, in fact, had planned the clash beforehand.47 During the weeks that followed, some Apache soldiers surrendered as the army, fearing a general war, poured troops into Arizona. The army considered Cibecue a mutiny, a strike from within, 234
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making it a terrible showcase for colonizer vulnerability and an insult thrown at the face of white power and prestige. Some Apache soldiers were killed by the San Carlos police and by the troops, while many remained out of the military’s reach. Eventually two Apache soldiers received prison terms, while three were sentenced to death by hanging. However, this is not the whole story. One of the Apaches hanged had actually been reemployed by the army when he surrendered after the Cibecue clash, but then arrested and sentenced. Also, one of the men sent to Alcatraz worked in the army a few years later, while several others were never punished but were instead hired back by the army, because Arizona’s new military commander, General Crook, considered them too valuable as soldiers to be brought to trial.48 These cases demonstrate how Apache soldiers found themselves between inclusion and exclusion, in a potentially unstable and precarious situation. In some ways dependency went both ways, and the use of indigenous soldiers could prove risky also for white officers too vocal in their faith in indigenous troops. At the time many high-ranking generals and policy makers saw the employment of indigenous soldiers, especially in some sort of visible combat role, as a direct insult to the racial pride of white troops.49 Commanding Arizona from 1871 to 1875 and again from 1882 to 1886, Gen. George Crook was an eccentric in his own army in part because he advocated a bigger role for the indigenous workforce. Crook voiced his opinions loudly in published reports. “In operating against them [Apaches] the only hope of success lies in using their own methods, and their own people,” Crook wrote. “There never has been any success in operations against these Indians, unless Indian scouts were used. . . . Regular troops have always failed on our side of the boundary line.”50 Decisive results in Arizona in the 1870s, amicable relations with influential superiors, including President Rutherford B. Hayes, and an understanding of the value of good publicity kept an officer with so unorthodox views in an active leadership position. However, after negotiations failed with Geronimo’s Chiricahuas on March 1886, Crook found himself in disfavor. Commanding Colonized Labor
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general Phil Sheridan directly attacked Crook’s use of Apache soldiers, questioning the Apaches’ loyalty and demanding a change. Trusting and valuing the Apache soldiers, Crook tested his mandate by asking to be relieved of his command.51 His request was swiftly approved, and his replacement Gen. Nelson Miles received orders of “the necessity of making active and prominent use of the regular troops of your command.” In other words, Miles was ordered to place white soldiers in the spotlight. Thereafter, the contributions of those Apache soldiers who were hired were belittled and omitted in official statements and reports.52 Never comfortable with the kind of role the Apaches had been given by Crook, high-ranking officials in Washington wanted clearer boundaries between white and Apache soldiers. Apaches should be employed as assistants to white troops with little or no publicity, never compromising the honor of whites. In September 1886 Chiricahua Apache soldiers witnessed an abrupt end to their army service. Before that, however, the army still needed their skills. Martine, a Nednhi Apache, who was said to want only a quiet life at San Carlos so that his family would be spared from the trials of war, joined the army when asked by General Miles to locate Geronimo’s group and persuade them to surrender. “We got relatives up there. . . . We want to take our people back so they won’t suffer. We tell Geronimo we came to help him and his people. If he kills us that’s alright. We got to do something to help our people,” Martine explained. For his success Martine was promised money and a new home on the reservation, but after accomplishing his mission in September 1886 was instead made a prisoner of war and sent to Florida with Geronimo.53 At the same time, the army also lured the reservation Chiricahuas into the agency and lined them up. Surrounded by white soldiers, they were disarmed, transported to the railroad, and also sent to Florida. Most of the Chiricahuas had recently worked in the army. Some who were still employed were even refused their pay when made prisoners. Now guarded by white soldiers, the very men they had worked with just shortly before, Chiricahua lives fell apart. “They thought they were all at home at Fort Apache,” one of the Chiricahuas later recollected while telling about the confusion 236
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he and others felt that day. “After these Indians had gone through all these hardships for the good of the people of these two states, they did this to them. . . . Many of these scouts and most of the other Indians were farming.” The Chiricahua continued that some “had sheep, some had goats, some had mule teams, wagons, harnesses; some of them had horses and fine saddles.” He also confessed that “We didn’t know where we were to be taken. . . . Some thought we were going to be taken to the ocean and thrown in. Some thought we were going to be killed in some other way.”54 The U.S. Empire rewarded its indigenous soldiers with imprisonment and removal when it no longer needed them. The army had in fact entertained the idea of removing all Chiricahuas several times. During the winter of 1885–86 the plan had been abandoned because of fears of what it might do to those Apache soldiers then scattered throughout the border region in active service. 55 The army reasoned that the reservations could not contain the Chiricahuas and that if reservation Chiricahuas were sent away then those fighting against the Americans would have no place to go back to and no connection left that would tie them to the Southwest. For the army command the only way to end the U.S.-Apache wars was the removal of all Chiricahuas as far away from Arizona as possible. In a way, the reasons for removal were the same as the reasons why the army hired Apache workers in the first place: their military skills in the Southwest environment. By sending the Chiricahuas into a totally alien environment, the army made sure that they would cease to trouble the United States.56 It is a sad and bitter irony that when the Chiricahuas were removed, large numbers of the only group in the army community who were born and raised in the Southwest ended up deported. White Army Personnel and the Search for Authority over the Colonized Workforce
The nature of colonized labor is further revealed by a closer look at white army personnel’s discourses concerning the Apache soldiers. Colonized Labor
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In all, white army personnel and dependents resorted to a wide range of representational strategies and offered a multitude of opinions regarding the Apache soldiers. First of all, there were those who chose simply to forget Apache presence altogether. Silence was not accidental, but a useful strategy. By not writing of Apache soldiers white army voices displayed their dislike of having Apaches as members of their community and in practice made them invisible. It was as if the Apache soldiers were never there.57 This silencing of Apache workers can be seen as part of a much larger army phenomenon, where officers and wives silenced people they regarded as inferiors. After all, often only fellow officers and wives, a few prominent civilians, and Apache leaders were referred to by their name or discussed in any detail in the texts penned by officers and wives. Helping to make Apache leaders such as Cochise, Geronimo, and Victorio prominent names in the western world, officers and wives chose not to identify common soldiers. In the eyes of officers and wives they all represented inferiors who were incapable of self-government and undeserving of lengthy discussion. On the other hand, all soldiers were not represented as equally inferior. If white enlisted men held a second-class status in the army community, Apache soldiers were a racialized workforce distanced in many discourses from the army proper. For one thing, it was typical among white officers, wives, and soldiers to refer to Apache soldiers as “scouts,” while blacks and whites reserved the right to be identified as “soldiers.” “Scouts” was the term under which indigenous troops were officially hired and therefore its use was in many ways natural. On another level, however, being called “scouts” in everyday interactions and in private unofficial correspondence meant that the Apaches were in fact set apart from the army in a very concrete manner. A scout was not a soldier, but something else entirely. At best it indicated adjunct membership but more often it meant being cast as the other or the outsider. In a peculiar practice white army men sometimes renamed Apache soldiers. The alteration of names was not yet permanent as it was 238
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in boarding schools and did not mark any upward rise in status. Names did not resemble proper Christian names but were rather loosely devised structures. Nicknames whites gave to indigenous soldiers included Nosey, Washington Charlie, Indian Chicken, Slim Jim, Rowdy, Yuma Bill, Jacko, Popcorn, Whiskey, Dutchy, Peaches, and Deadshot.58 Although renaming can be seen to indicate goodhumored and informal social relations between white and indigenous soldiers, the practice had multiple significances. Being a practical necessity for daily identification, new names relocated Apache soldiers to a sphere of understandability. According to one officer, “any American who would attempt to burden himself or his memory with a number of Indian names would soon be hopelessly lost.”59 Also, much like when naming landscapes, in renaming Apache soldiers whites took possession of them and asserted their own superiority. One soldier wrote that when giving names whites “made pets” of the Apache troopers, thus effectively reducing them in the colonial hierarchies and also questioning their manliness. From the Apache standpoint, new names given by the military might have marked shifting subjectivities, or overlapping identities, but more likely they proved a necessary evil, perhaps even an insult, or at best harmless fun. In Apache society, a person’s own name was something very important and often additional names were invented and used to protect the real one, to save it from too much exposure or possibly embarrassing usage by other people. It would be interesting to know what kind of names Apache soldiers used to describe white army men. Some evidence, although undoubtedly romanticized by patriarchal white officers, does exist. These names include “Long Nose,” “Big Foot,” and “Tall Captain.” One lieutenant, however, the Apache soldiers dubbed as “Nantan Greenhorn” for his ignorance about Apaches.60 It was white shortcomings in colonial war that opened the way for Apaches to join the army payroll. Indigenous recruits brought much needed local expertise to an army that otherwise represented a congregation of outsiders in the Southwest. While the Apaches Colonized Labor
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were trained for military work in the Southwest environment from childhood and felt comfortable and at home in the terrain, most white army people could not relate to the landscapes and regarded movement as a struggle. As Apache soldiers took over the offensive duties, most white and black troops, being often unable to engage the enemy or even keep up with the indigenous soldiers, were forced to occupy defensive roles guarding mines, ranches, and waterholes. Many probably never saw any military action and disliked every minute of their days.61 In an army that equated offensive action with military glory, it looked from the white soldiers’ perspective that Apache soldiers were stealing what little military prestige and honor there was in this colonial war. This situation undoubtedly fueled racial prejudice and jealousy and, combined with the general army view of Apaches as a race of vicious murderers and colonial villains, made many white army members place the Apache soldiers at the bottom of the army social ladder. There were many white officers and soldiers, who, in their belief in white superiority, saw Apaches as a single race and could not comprehend why any had enlisted. In their view, Apache soldiers had either betrayed their own race, and as race traitors had no place among “civilized” soldiers, or, alternatively, had remained true to their people all along and would thus prove to be nothing but liars who would never “fight for real” against their own. Either way, hiring Apaches as soldiers was no good. One officer was convinced that “the Apache is a savage of the lowest type. . . . He can be bought for a small figure to kill his father or mother or any of his relations.” An enlisted soldier saw Apache soldiers as highly undependable, being uncertain as to whether the army “had any use for these Apache scouts, as they are treacherous and could not be depended on in an emergency.” General Miles was unsure what the Apache soldiers were all about but still wrote that “I had no confidence in the Indian scouts. If they were true to the military they were false to their own people. . . . [There’s] no use for men who would hire at the rate of $13 per month to trail their friends and relatives for delivery to their enemy.”62 240
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Fueled by the perceived treachery of Apache troops at Cibecue in 1881, wild tales repeatedly circulated among the troops in the field that Apache soldiers had turned on their white comrades. Lt. John Bigelow caught one of those rumors with the arrival of the army paymaster to his camp in the field on January 1886. According to Bigelow, the paymaster told him that “a detachment of Indian scouts out with soldiers . . . [had] killed two of the soldiers and made off, undoubtedly to join the hostiles.” No such thing had taken place, but that Bigelow did not discredit the story right away tells something of the army mentality, where the loyalty of Apache soldiers was constantly doubted.63 Aside from the confusion at Cibecue, Apache disloyalty proved a persistent and distressing myth, nothing more. In an army plagued by the desertion of white soldiers, desertion rates for Apache soldiers were never near as high.64 Despite the atmosphere of doubt and racial prejudice, General Crook was not alone in thinking that Apache soldiers were needed to secure the Southwest for the Americans. The army included several who valued the Apache soldiers as fighters indispensable for the success of the army. According to one officer, “it was the opinion of those most experienced in Apache warfare, that, if the government had failed to take advantage of tribal animosities, Arizona would have remained as undeveloped to-day as it was when acquired by the United States.”65 Most notably those who personally commanded the Apache units and came to know the Apache soldiers better were impressed by the Apache soldiers’ physical endurance and knowledge of terrain. But as one reads these texts closely it becomes evident that even these white army people could rarely admit Apache soldiers as equals or superiors as such but instead resorted to casting them as animal-like predators. The Apache was not only, in army words, “the perfect, the ideal, scout of the whole world,” but had “incredible powers of endurance,” required no rest or even water, and had a “vision as keen as a hawk’s, [and] tread as untiring and as stealthy as the panther’s.”66 Apache soldiers were even dubbed by their white comrades as “beings from another world,” Colonized Labor
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“greyhounds,” and “bloodhounds.”67 In this way the Apache trooper was not counted among the civilized soldiers, but instead cast as the other. In sum, the Apache soldiers were never equals in the army community. Establishing the Apaches’ difference, white army discourses silenced them, cast them as anonymous “scouts,” renamed them, described them as unreliable barbarians, or made them animallike, superior military instruments at the officers’ disposal. Erasing or altering the names of indigenous soldiers from historical record illustrates their low status. They were made a faceless mob. In many ways the army’s othering of the Apache soldiers was a question of military honor and racial hierarchy, designated to secure the privilege of whiteness and an attempt to draw attention away from the white soldiers’ oftentimes poor performance in the U.S.-Apache wars. Giving Apache soldiers too much praise or admitting them as full members of the army community would have been dangerous, as it had meant placing the fragile covers of whiteness in jeopardy, questioning the privilege and power of the whites, and undermining the purported superiority of their culture. Silencing, distancing, or downgrading Apache soldiers proved yet another way for white army people to establish their own superiority and colonial authority.
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A Race-Based Labor System
After the armed conflict in the Southwest ended in September 1886, it came apparent that large numbers of Apache workers were no longer regularly needed by the victorious U.S. regime. Still, a handful of “scouts” found work until the 1940s, and the army did experiment with “full” formal integration of indigenous soldiers in the 1890s. Four Apache companies were then hired into white regiments, but according to historian Michael Tate, the enterprise collapsed within six years because of white prejudice and lack of indigenous interest in permanent employment outside their own communities.68 Frederick Cooper, a historian of colonialism, has noted that when the need for colonial soldiers rose empires needed to soften 242
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differentiation and enhance incorporation.69 Colonial power was never total, and to strengthen their position empires needed to partially incorporate the colonized by opening the door for participation in colonial institutions. This inclusion, often temporary and dangerous, allowed for opportunities for the colonized. The Apache case reveals how an uncertain, even perilous, but also liberating and interdependent, labor experiment was created when this partial integration was resorted to in the Southwest. From the Apaches perspective, army work was about taking charge of one’s own destiny in a time when self-government was severely threatened. Whereas reservation life meant captivity, cultural onslaught, and poverty, and warfare against the U.S. signified destruction and suffering, army work offered a promise of security, a chance to end war, save relatives, retrieve captives, exact revenge, confirm ideas of manhood, achieve status, and ease poverty and starvation. In other words, wage labor in the army allowed Apaches to survive amid the intrusions brought in their lives by colonialism. As colonized labor, freedom was still temporary, restricted, and potentially dangerous. Work for the colonizers brought no rights in the colonial society, nor did it save some workers from forced removal. The possibility to actively pursue army careers was severely limited. The army tried to control the Apache workforce by giving Apaches certain privileges but retaining others for the white and black soldiers. The army made the rules, but Apaches not only used the work for their own aims but created space for movement unintended by colonizers. Individual Apaches were able to move from the army to the reservation and to the factions fighting the Americans, but this was dangerous and Apaches could end up in personal exile or hanged. The experience of Apache soldiers demonstrates how the U.S. conquest of the Southwest was in part carried on the shoulders of the indigenous inhabitants and how the U.S. regime achieved its power by using the labor of colonized peoples in building the systems that oppressed them. Apache soldiers offer a vivid example of how Colonized Labor
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the colonial drawing of boundaries, learning of place, and establishing colonial relations of reciprocity were managed in the West. In many ways the position of Apaches on the margins of the new colonial order was reinforced and maintained through their labor. Work made Apaches members of an organization and community that did not really want them but still needed their expertise to cement the organization’s own power. The army was as willing to favor Apache workers over candidates from other indigenous groups, praise their military skills, and offer them a wide range of important work tasks and equal compensation as it was to controlling and limiting their work periods and mobility, coercing them to service, and othering them in discourses. The army offered a semi-incorporated status for the Apache workers, but nothing permanent or stable. By denying full institutional integration and by othering them as a racialized workforce, the army made the exclusion of its Apache soldiers logical, even inevitable. Valued by some but othered by many, partially included but often excluded, the Apaches were always kept on the margins of the army community as a subaltern workforce, randomly employed and easily exploitable and expendable. The army had the power to treat indigenous workers as unequals because in the last half of the nineteenth-century, Apaches were a falling power with rapidly disappearing geopolitical influence, whereas the United States presented a rising force, a continental and global superpower in the making.
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In the American view of the past, the United States was not a classical imperial power, but a righter of wrongs around the world, in pursuit of tyranny, in defense of freedom no matter the place or cost.
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—edwa r d w. sa id, Culture and Imperialism
The conquest of the trans–Mississippi West forms one theater of operations in the transnational process of settler and extractive colonialism that brought much of the world under the domination of western powers and market capitalism during the age of empire. It also makes for an important phase in the building of a global superpower, the U.S. Empire. In 1898, just twelve years after having militarily secured its continental empire with the surrender of Geronimo and the removal of the Chiricahua Apaches, the United States took the next step, this time overseas, by challenging Spain for dominance in Cuba and the Philippines. Much like what had happened in Apacheria, in the Philippines — and more recently in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq — white Americans were caught in a prolonged conflict and surrounded by an unfamiliar culture and natural environment in a “distant” land where most of the natives did not view the Americans as the liberators they proclaimed to be. Furthermore, as in Apacheria earlier, white American colonizers found
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themselves fighting an “unorthodox” and “savage” guerrilla war in the Philippines against an enemy whose motives, tactics, and skills they had difficulties comprehending. As the Philippine conflict offered little masculine honor, American military demonized their foe as racial others, destroying villages and forcing survivors into oppressive camps. White Americans again built their right to rule on racial difference, negotiated boundaries of inclusion and exclusion, transplanted their cultural values and lifestyles, and grew frustrated as their ambitions and projects fell short of satisfaction.1 Although the United States is often reluctant to recognize it, empire had, in the words of William Appleman Williams, become a way of life during the nineteenth century and would continue as the country spread its influence in East Asia, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Latin America. The two world wars would make the United States a true global powerhouse, as it surpassed Europe and competed for nothing less than world dominance against the Soviets during the cold war. With the collapse of the communist world, the United States achieved unprecedented cultural, political, and military dominance, and presently it seeks to reassert and reaffirm its influence all over the world, most notably in the hot spots of the tumultuous burial ground of empires, the Middle East. Dubbing the United States a “superempire,” Bernard Porter writes that the country exceeds any previous empires in the spread of cultural and economic influence, military dominance, and in the extent of its ambition to remodel the world in its own image.2 If we accept the fact that empire is central to U.S. history and that conquest and control of other people and their lands and resources represent the prevalent themes in the nation’s history from preindependence to the War on Terrorism, what characteristics have been central to this empire? Naturally, on the surface at least, civilizations change, and the U.S. Empire is not the same today as it was in, say, 1886, 1898, or 1945. But historians should still be able to develop meaningful theories concerning the principles, common threads, and prevalent mentalities of this U.S. form of power. 246
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Students of empire, such as the historian Niall Ferguson, have often considered the United States an empire in denial. 3 Although in many ways the army’s mission in the Southwest represented a classical imperial project of rule over others, officers, wives, and the white enlisted men never seemed to acknowledge their mission as a harmful conquest of other peoples’ lands. Instead, they contributed to the myth of a nonviolent nation that did not intentionally do wrong to anyone. A widely accepted belief holds that the United States has never been an aggressor, writes Marilyn B. Young, because, supposedly, it does not commit aggression. Also, according to this logic, the hostility of others cannot be a response to American actions, because the United States does not invite hostility but only reacts to it.4 Waging an often aggressive war against indigenous peoples, officers and soldiers in Apacheria denied that their actions were excessive or destructive and claimed they only reacted to the horrendous violence caused by others. Furthermore, denial in the United States frequently includes some sort of a special rhetoric serving to camouflage empire, to validate its actions, and to gain moral authority for its cause. In the nineteenth century, army people made all free Apaches “hostiles” and claimed the Americans brought civilization and progress, which is not that different from the current version that has the United States restoring order, protecting the American way of life, and spreading or securing freedom and democracy. The United States frequently demonizes its imagined foes and claims it confronts evil dictators or states or menaces, whether they be the Japanese during World War II, cold war communists, Saddam Hussein, Islamic fundamentalists, or Apaches during the conquest of the Southwest. As officers, wives, and white soldiers, believing in the superiority of their race and Anglo civilization, masked colonial aggression and conquest to appear less racist and violent than it in reality was, they also wrote they worked to improve an inferior area that suffered under the vicious Apache rule. Thus they made the establishment of the U.S. regime signify the liberation of an uncivilized and Conclusion
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dangerous periphery. In other words, they made conquest seem justified. Fred Anderson and Andrew Cayton state that “Americans continue to fight wars according to the just-war ideology first worked out in the War of 1812 — the notion that to be justified wars must either protect of expand the sphere of liberty — and that they have applied, in one form or another, ever since.” The United States has been dedicated to using force not only to impose stability on “disorderly regions” but to create the conditions for liberty as Americans understand them.5 “Confident in their ambition and desire, and sure of their own goodwill,” Thomas Bender points out, Americans have proven “strangers to self-reflection.”6 White army people displayed symptoms of an incapacity to comprehend the other side’s point of view. They, for one, did not recognize that their journey to a region practically empty of Anglo residents and claimed as a prize of an aggressive one-sided war against Mexico — who as another offspring state of a European power, had at best a shaky claim to Apacheria — could be interpreted as an unjust entry. Nor did they question what right they had to operate in Apacheria, judge and measure the land and its peoples in relation to their own norms and agendas, or participate in the process of remaking the area into their own image. Army people did not see that Apacheria had value as it was or appreciate that the area was a cherished homeland and the center of the world for its indigenous and Hispanic residents. Furthermore, army personnel could not understand that someone would refuse “liberation.” From the indigenous and Hispanic perspective, the United States subjugated, marginalized, and harassed them and their homelands and cultures in the name of civilization, market economy, and progress. According to Thomas Bender, “an essential part of American national identity is based on difference,” on a desire to define America as distinct from those peoples the Americans have called “uncivilized” or “savage.” Americans have “presumed a position of superiority to those people whose land they coveted or whose trade they sought.”7 White army people knew that their status depended on 248
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claims of difference between themselves and others in the colony and between their culture and the place facing colonialism. Officers, wives, and white soldiers produced varying degrees of segregation and separateness in discourse and social interaction, and their boundaries of exclusion were rarely fixed but instead fluid and negotiable. They struggled against a purportedly dangerous colonial environment and produced images of an inferior colony that was no match in comparison to civilized regions. Officers and their wives represented the colonial social order as a hierarchical domain of difference, where they occupied the top position. Euro-American notions of “civilized,” “honorable,” “brave,” “refined,” and “respectable” were the foundational concepts on which officers and wives anchored their sense of self, their views of others, their faith in their superiority, and their justification to rule the West. They accrued colonial authority by not only proclaiming superiority or differentiating themselves mentally from the colony and local way of life but also producing statements of their worth in everyday lives and performing dramas of status and respectability in leisure, housing, domesticity, and travel. For officers and wives, white privilege was crucial, but whiteness was never a question of white ethnicity. Instead, it was something that was acted on an everyday basis and that rested on character and a form of intelligence made visible in taste, manners, and behavior. Using their concepts of proper whiteness as measurements, officers and dependents cast many local whites on a fragile ground of respectability. Below them in the colonial hierarchies were persons who did not qualify as white. Mexicans and some of the indigenous groups, like the Akimel O’odham, were submissive others in army minds, while Apaches signified monstrous others at the bottom of the colonial social order. The army represented Apaches as an alien enemy who posed a threat to the American way of life and the pursuit of happiness. Army people’s racism often minimized the humanity of those people they hated and feared or viewed as competition. Still, the difference of the colony or its peoples was seldom Conclusion
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fixed. White middle-class civilization and technology could transform the colony, the army claimed. The boundaries of social acceptability proved adjustable, especially for enlisted men, and racial otherness was occasionally fractured by class. Even monstrous others such as the Apaches could temporarily occupy the ranks of the colonizers or, with the help of the whites, escape their racial status and become “regenerated” clones of whites. Within the army community, officers and dependents on the one hand and enlisted men on the other negotiated boundaries of inclusion. Although they shared common ground when it came, for example, to the Apaches or to the view of army people as liberators, in their villages and during their journeys officers and their wives and the white enlisted soldiers formed a community steeped in difference. Officers and soldiers did not work together, eat at the same table, travel in shared accommodations, establish common leisure worlds, or sleep under the same roof or in similar houses. The status of white soldiers in the colonial social order was dubious and contested. As poorly treated and underpaid servants and laborers, soldiers, with denied self-rule and questioned self-worth, envisioned ways to reclaim their white privilege through multifaceted resistance and by believing in civilization and seeing themselves as liberators. Yet they still did not detach themselves from the colony in a manner similar to officers and wives. As colonized labor, balancing between exclusion and inclusion, the position of Apache soldiers was equally conflicted. Demonstrating how the color line within the working-class segregated the soldiers, they remained a racialized workforce, partially included but also distanced to the margins of the army community with no promise of equality. Basically, a classical colonial project is considered a success when the “rebellious” nature of natives is tamed and when the society of the metropole is transplanted to the colony. But Americans frequently discovered that the power of the colonizers is never total, that it is impossible to transplant the culture of the metropole intact, and that there exists a gap between colonizers’ ambitions and realities. 250
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Even though they gained the monopoly of violence for the U.S. regime in the Southwest and helped to secure control of the area for white settlers and industries, all did not go as white army people planned. Fractured communities and limited power fueled insecurity and frustration. In the army villages the frustration of white soldiers was channeled into desertion and other forms of resistance, while for officers and wives the realities in travel accommodations, housing, domestic life, and leisure seldom matched their ambitions. Colonial warfare and the Apaches caused a crisis of masculinity, while the landscapes, climate, and wildlife made movement and life mentally and physically taxing. Some worried over imperial contamination or felt uneasy about the composition of the colonial society, irritated by the settlers’ critique, and troubled by the perceived ingratitude at the national level. Redundant and irrelevant in the East after the Civil War, white army people had tried to make themselves powerful through colonial conquest. The promotion of national prestige and an intense desire to advance their own position and their vision of America fueled them. They reinvented themselves as indispensable agents of civilization and progress who penetrated “dangerous” regions, saved “peripheral” places, subdued “murdering” colonial villains, policed the boundaries of the self, and introduced “civilized” manners and lifestyles. Officers, dependents, and white soldiers felt they were historically important, because they helped to establish the nation in a peripheral land, spread the sphere of civilization and market economy, and represented the culture of the metropole in the colony. But in the end, they had constructed an empire of denial, difference, and frustration.
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Introduction 1. W. Corbusier, Soldier, xii–xv, 158–60. 2. Throughout the book, I use “white army people” and “white army personnel” when referring to white officers, their wives, and the white enlisted men as a single group. 3. Chatterjee, Nation and Its Fragments, 14–34, esp. 16; Said, Orientalism; Kennedy, “Imperial History,” 19; Cooper, Colonialism in Question, 23, 27; Stoler, Carnal Knowledge. Usually colonialism is defined as the coercive incorporation of people into an expansionist state and invidious distinction, which involves a systematic ranking of peoples, or as the conquest and control of other peoples’ land and goods — including the appropriation of material resources, exploitation of labor, and interference with political and cultural structures. Empire is an expansionist unit that reproduces differentiation and inequality among people it incorporates. The relationship between colonialism and imperialism is sometimes confusing and often interpenetrating. Imperialism can be seen as a global system, or as something that originates from the metropole, whereas colonialism is the takeover of territory and what happens locally in a colony. See Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, 2–7, 20; Cooper, Colonialism in Question, 26–28; R. Young, Postcolonialism, 5–6, 15–43; and Thomas, Colonialism’s Culture, 2–3. 4. R. Young, White Mythologies. For Young “white mythologies” means “the West’s greatest myth — History” (see page 2). Officers, as well as their wives and the common soldiers, produced colonial knowledge in colonial armies around the world. For example, educated and resourceful British officers generated
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colonial knowledge and certain readings of Indian society through their literary, scientific, and artistic activities. Peers, “Colonial Knowledge.” 5. For communities as imagined, see B. Anderson, Imagined Communities. Throughout, I use either “fort” or “camp” when referring to individual army villages. The official designation of each village varied — some were camps and others forts — while the name of many changed over time. For instance, Fort Bowie, Arizona, was originally called a fort after its establishment in 1862, then designated as camp, and again changed to fort in April 1879. Frazer, Forts of the West, 4. 6. Military history today pursues a broad and sophisticated research agenda. In a recent review essay, “Military Histories Old and New,” historian Robert M. Citino divides military historians into three major groupings: traditional operational historians, war and society scholars, and a new cadre of historians who emphasize culture and the history of memory. 7. This study focuses on white officers, their wives, and enlisted men, and pays less attention to black troops, although some comparisons of the social life and status of black and white soldiers are included when applicable. The choice to focus on the white army experience is logical because there already exists several good social histories of black soldiers and because no black troops served in Arizona until 1885, the very end of the period under investigation here. While New Mexico had some black soldiers, their presence in the territory between 1866 and 1886 was rather irregular: some black infantry units were stationed in New Mexico right after the Civil War and one black cavalry regiment served there from 1876 to 1881. For histories of black soldiers, see Kenner, Buffalo Soldiers; Dobak and Phillips, Black Regulars; Billington, New Mexico’s Buffalo Soldiers; and Leiker, Racial Borders. For an older classic, see Leckie, Buffalo Soldiers. 8. Smith, “Lost Soldiers”; Meeks, Border Citizens; Jaehn, Germans in the Southwest. Smith wrote that the army “offers an especially rich source of materials regarding the everyday life of everyday people” and therefore “is a particularly useful laboratory for testing all kinds of theories and for raising questions about social interactions between people of different classes and ethnic groups” (157). 9. Padget, Indian Country, 29–32. Padget’s one army narrative is Lt. James Simpson’s account of his exploration during a military expedition to the Navajo country in 1849. The account is reprinted in Simpson, Navajo Expedition. Of the many histories of overland migration, see, for example, Faragher, Men and Women, and Unruh, Plains Across. For a recent article on European travelers, see Wrobel, “World in the West.” 10. Truett, Fugitive Landscapes. For the tendency of academic history to 254
Notes to pages 5–7
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give the army little, if any, space in its discussions, see also, for example, Wrobel, Promised Lands; Truett and Young, Continental Crossroads; and Wilson, Myth of Santa Fe. 11. For instance, historians writing of army wives’ travels frequently have uncritically described the wives’ “bravery” or “resilience” in the face of “primitive conditions” and “terrible hardships.” They have failed to subject the wives’ writings to critical interrogation as subjective colonial discourses. See, for example, Stallard, Glittering Misery, 16–23; and Eales, Army Wives, 6–8, 16–33. 12. Limerick, Legacy of Conquest, 26–27; Limerick, Something in the Soil, 19. For New Western history, see also White, “It’s Your Misfortune”; and Limerick, Milner, and Rankin, Trails. U.S.-indigenous wars continue to receive scholarly attention. For recent studies, see, for example, West, Last Indian War, and Chalfant, Hancock’s War. Utley, Frontier Regulars, still remains the basic overview on post–Civil War military campaigns. For the army’s role in Indian policy, see Wooster, United States Indian Policy. Of the many biographies of army leaders, Wooster, Nelson A. Miles; Hutton, Phil Sheridan; and C. Robinson, General Crook, stand out. The interest in military commanders is still very much alive and well. See, for example, Hutton and Ball, Soldiers West. 13. Miller, Soldiers and Settlers, and Frazer, Forts and Supplies, are classic studies on the army’s role in regional economy. See also, for example, Flint and Flint, “Fort Union”; Dobak, Fort Riley; and Schubert, Outpost. For the army’s noncombat role, see Tate, Frontier Army, and Meyerson, Nature’s Army. For army architecture, see Hoagland, Army Architecture. 14. Two important works on army explorers are Goetzmann, Army Exploration, and his Exploration and Empire. 15. See, for example, Utley, Frontier Regulars, and Tate, Frontier Army. Tate discusses how the army aided overland migrants, but does not describe how the army itself moved in the West. 16. Dobak and Phillips, Black Regulars; Leiker, Racial Borders; Kenner, Buffalo Soldiers; Billington, New Mexico’s Buffalo Soldiers. 17. K. Adams, Class and Race. Before Adams, Edward Coffman’s insightful Old Army, an overview of the army from its initiation to 1898, was the best social history on white army personnel during the post–Civil War era. Other options, outside post histories, include two informative but somewhat outdated classics by Don Rickey and Patricia Y. Stallard. See Coffman, Old Army; Rickey, Forty Miles; and Stallard, Glittering Misery. See also Myres, “Army Women’s Narratives.” Knight, Life and Manners, offers a social history of officers and dependents but problematically relies on Capt. Charles King’s popular romantic novels as its primary source base. Notes to pages 7–8
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18. In Wages of Whiteness, David R. Roediger claims that class formation and the systematic development of a sense of whiteness went hand in hand for the white laboring classes in the antebellum United States. See also Roediger, Colored White, for a broader discussion on white identity as a problem worth historicizing and investigating. Kolchin, “Whiteness Studies,” offers a thorough description of the field. 19. Jacobson writes that only when whites encountered people they considered alien from themselves in the Mississippi West and overseas their fear of imperial contamination, white poverty, and decline of white power led to a construction of a new nationwide panwhite racial identity. Whiteness, 2–5; see also 203–22. 20. See, for example, Utley, Frontier Regulars, 83–84; Billington, New Mexico’s Buffalo Soldiers, 25; Dobak and Phillips, Black Regulars, 63; Coffman, Old Army; and Rickey, Forty Miles. K. Adams, Class and Race, is an exception. Still, even Adams does not include indigenous soldiers in his analysis of labor. 21. As a rule, histories of labor in the West have overlooked the soldiers. On labor history and the U.S. West, see, for example, Peck, Reinventing Free Labor; Foley, White Scourge; and Mercier, Anaconda. 22. See, for example, K. Adams, Class and Race; Coffman, Old Army; Rickey, Forty Miles; and Utley, Frontier Regulars. 23. Dunlay, Wolves; Smits, “Fighting Fire”; Beck, “Military Officers’ Views”; S. Smith, View from Officers’ Row, 163–81. 24. On Native Americans and labor, see Knack and Littlefield, Native Americans; Hosmer and O’Neill, Native Pathways; Meeks, “Tohono O’odham”; O’Neill, Working the Navajo Way; and W. Bauer, “We Were All.” 25. See, for example, S. Smith, View from Officers’ Row, and Wooster, “Difficult and Forlorn Country.” 26. Said, Orientalism, esp. 1–44 and 73–110; quotes from 94 and 7. See also Said, Culture and Imperialism, esp. 1–15. The classics of postcolonial theory include Chakrabarty, Provincializing Europe; Bhabha, “Of Mimicry and Man,” in Cooper and Stoler, Tensions of Empire; and Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?” For the history of colonial studies and an overview of the key issues and concepts, see Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, and Cooper, Colonialism in Question. 27. Kennedy, “Imperial History,” quote from 16; Cooper, Colonialism in Question. 28. For place in colonial histories, see Mann, “Locating Colonial Histories.” In this intellectual framework New Western history’s concentration on the significance of place is useful. See Limerick, Legacy of Conquest, and Limerick, 256
Notes to pages 8–12
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Milner, and Rankin, Trails. Historians of the U.S. West have relatively rarely applied ideas, approaches, and structures from postcolonial studies. Two notable exceptions are Ostler, Plains Sioux, and Jacobs, White Mother. 29. Stoler, Carnal Knowledge, esp. 6–7, 23–25, and 42–43; quote from 24. See also Cooper and Stoler, Tensions of Empire, and Stoler, Haunted by Empire. 30. Said, Orientalism; Cooper and Stoler, “Between Metropole and Colony,” in Cooper and Stoler, Tensions of Empire; Stoler, Haunted by Empire; Loomba et al., Postcolonial Studies; “AHR Conversation”; Burton, After the Imperial Turn, esp. 1–23; C. Hall, Civilizing Subjects, esp. 8. Some historians question the impact empire had on the majority of people in the metropole; see B. Porter, Absent-Minded Imperialists. For transnational perspectives on the Southwest borderlands, see Truett, Fugitive Landscapes; Truett and Young, Continental Crossroads; and Meeks, Border Citizens. 31. Army people published writings in papers as varied as the Outing Magazine, Altoona Morning Tribune, Los Angeles Star, Overland Monthly, Harper’s Weekly, Milwaukee Sentinel, Great Divide, Cosmopolitan, and Atlantic Monthly. See Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail; Myres, “Arizona Camping Trip,” 56; Splitter, “Tour in Arizona.” See also Upham, “Incidents”; Nickerson, “Apache Raid”; King, “On Campaign”; Gatewood, “Campaigning against Victorio”; Miles, “On the Trail”; and Evans, “Indian Question,” all in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses. 32. According to historian Michel-Rolph Trouillot, history means both the facts of the matter and a narrative of those facts, both “what happened” and “that which is said to have happened.” The production of traces, Trouillot continues, is always also the creation of silences. Some peoples and occurrences are noted from the start; others remain absent in history. Silence means an active and transitive process: one engages in the practice of silencing. Mentions and silences are thus active, dialectical counterparts of which is history is the synthesis. Silences enter the process of historical production at four crucial moments: the moment of fact creation (the making of sources); the moment of fact assembly (the making of archives); the moment of fact retrieval (the making of narratives); and the moment of retrospective significance (the making of history in the final instance). Silencing the Past, esp. 2, 26, 29, 48–49. 1. From Apacheria to American Southwest 1. New Mexico Territory was established in 1850, and in 1863 its western half was separated as Arizona Territory. Both territories had to wait until 1912 for statehood. The principal intention of the Gadsden Purchase, which purchased much of today’s southern Arizona and New Mexico, was to secure Notes to pages 13–17
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a snowfree route for the transcontinental railroad. For overviews of Southwest history, see Lamar, Far Southwest; Lavender, Southwest. Manifest Destiny, a popular belief, held that the United States represented a chosen nation with a divine right to expand and spread “civilization” across the continent; see Stephenson, Manifest Destiny. For different views on the U.S.-Mexican War, see, for example, Foos, Killing Affair; J. Bauer, Mexican War; and DeLay, Thousand Deserts. 2. Apaches (and Navajos) belong to the Athapaskan-language group. Scholars have disagreed when and by what routes the Apaches migrated from northwest Canada to the Great Plains and the Southwest. Estimates of their arrival (or arrivals) vary from sometime after the year 1000 to the early 1600s. The origin of the term “Apache” is uncertain. It could stem from the Zuni or Yuman languages. Apaches call themselves Inde or N’de, meaning basically “The People.” See Haley, Apaches; Forbes, Apache, Navaho, and Spaniard; and Perry, Western Apache Heritage. 3. Only Western Apaches had clans; the Chiricahuas did not. For Apache social organization, see Goodwin, Social Organization, and Opler, Apache Life-Way. 4. For Comanche-Apache wars and captive raiding, see Hämäläinen, Comanche Empire; Barr, Peace Came; Barr, “From Captives to Slaves”; Brooks, Captives and Cousins; and Moorhead, “Spanish Deportation.” 5. The Spanish, in search of riches, new subjects for the crown, and converts for the Catholic Church, first entered New Mexico in the 1500s, imposing themselves on the sedentary Pueblo villages. Suffering from diseases, burdened by tributes in food and labor, and forced to convert to Catholicism, the Pueblos threw the Spanish out in 1680. Thirteen years later the Spanish returned and established stronger ties with the Pueblos by keeping out of their religious matters and lands. For Spanish colonization, see R. Gutierrez, When Jesus Came; Weber, Spanish Frontier; and Kessell, Spain in the Southwest. 6. For the interplay between communities in the borderlands, see Blackhawk, Violence over the Land; T. Hall, Social Change; Hämäläinen, Comanche Empire; Brooks, Captives and Cousins; G. Anderson, Indian Southwest; Calloway, One Vast Winter Count; Forbes, Apache, Navaho, and Spaniard; Moorhead, Apache Frontier; and Spicer, Cycles of Conquest. 7. See Alonso, Thread of Blood, 26–27. 8. In this study the term “Hispanic,” or alternately “Mexican” or “Spanish,” is used to refer to all people of some Spanish descent, while “Anglo” or “white” describes all non-Hispanic whites. 9. See Babcock, “Rethinking Establecimientos”; Griffen, War and Peace; and Sweeney, Mangas Coloradas, 11–17. For the Spanish influence and reach 258
Notes to pages 18–21
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in Sonora, see also Truett, Fugitive Landscapes, 17–28; Radding, Wandering Peoples; and Officer, Hispanic Arizona. 10. The term “Manso” refers to a group of Apaches who had largely integrated themselves into Hispanic society, and whom many whites did not consider “true” Apaches. Sheridan, Arizona, 44–49; Weber, Mexican Frontier, 183–84; Alonso, Thread of Blood, 27–28; Vandervort, Indian Wars, 194–97; Sweeney, Mangas Coloradas. 11. For a recent study that places war and conflict at the center of U.S. history, see Anderson and Cayton, Dominion of War. For the army’s many roles in the West, see Tate, Frontier Army; Smits, “Frontier Army”; Goetzmann, Army Exploration; D. Ball, Army Regulars; Wooster, United States Indian Policy; Wooster, American Military Frontiers; Utley, Frontier Regulars; and Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue. 12. Reséndez, Changing National Identities, 5–6, 93–123. See also Hyslop, Bound for Santa Fe. 13. On U.S.-Apache wars, see D. Roberts, Like the Wind; McChristian, Fort Bowie; Sweeney, From Cochise to Geronimo; Kraft, Gatewood and Geronimo; Vandervort, Indian Wars; Thrapp, Conquest of Apacheria; Worcester, Apaches; Haley, Apaches; and Debo, Geronimo. Older studies include Sonnichsen, Mescalero Apaches, and Lockwood, Apache Indians. 14. Sweeney, Mangas Coloradas, 363–465; Sweeney, Cochise, 142–65. 15. Geographically, the troops were assigned to one of three military divisions: the Atlantic, the Missouri, and the Pacific. The divisions contained various military departments, such as the Department of Arizona, part of the Division of the Pacific. Departments were further divided into districts and subdistricts. New Mexico was a district in the Department of Missouri, which belonged to the division of the same name. See Wooster, United States Indian Policy; Utley, Frontier Regulars; and Altshuler, Chains of Command. 16. Apaches never expected the attack, as they camped near Grant under military protection. The massacre has drawn considerable interest from ethnohistorians. See Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Massacre at Camp Grant; Jacoby, Shadows at Dawn; and Record, Big Sycamore. 17. The Apaches’ western neighbors, the Yavapais, whom many whites categorized as Apaches, are in fact a Yuman-speaking people whose territory formed a rough triangle stretching from the Colorado Plateau and the San Francisco Peaks in the north to the Pinal Mountains in the southeast, and southwest almost to the confluence of the Gila and Colorado Rivers. They consisted of four major groups (from west to east): Tolkepayas, Yavapés, Wipukepas, Kwevkepayas. The two eastern groups had close bonds with the Tonto and San Carlos groups of the Western Apaches. Braatz, Surviving Conquest, esp. 28, Notes to pages 21–25
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43–44; for Yavapais and the 1872–74 campaigns, see 131–43. See also Gates, “Crook’s First Apache Campaign,” and Worcester, Apaches, 115–74. 18. For Apache reservation life, see Perry, Apache Reservation. For Victorio, see Chamberlain, Victorio; Riley, “Apache Chief Victorio,” in Etulain and Riley, Chiefs and Generals; and Thrapp, Victorio. For the Mexican-Apache wars, see Bowen Hatfield, Chasing Shadows, and Alonso, Thread of Blood. 19. For the incident at Cibecue Creek and its aftermath, see Collins, Apache Nightmare. 20. S. Robinson, Apache Voices, 21–22; Thrapp, Conquest of Apacheria, 211–16. 21. E. Ball, Indeh, 57; E. Ball, In the Days, 123. 22. An interesting description of the Sierra Madre campaign is in Thrapp, General Crook. 23. E. Ball, Indeh, 40; see also 37–42; E. Ball, In the Days, 62; see also 28, 180. 24. In the 1990s Arizona’s majority legislators continued to spurn efforts to repatriate Geronimo’s remains. Moses, “Geronimo,” in Etulain and Riley, Chiefs and Generals, 86. Geronimo’s surrender has received extensive scholarly attention. Usually historians emphasize the role of Lt. Charles Gatewood, who is also quite regularly made a victim of the glory-hungry Miles and his protégées. For Geronimo and the Geronimo campaign, see Faulk, Geronimo Campaign; Debo, Geronimo; Kraft, Gatewood and Geronimo; Kane, “Army Politics”; Worcester, Apaches; and D. Roberts, Like the Wind. For Geronimo’s side, see Geronimo, His Own Story. Official army correspondence regarding the surrender is in General Miles. For Chiricahua imprisonment, see Stockel, Shame and Endurance. 25. Sheridan, Arizona, 52–53. 26. Paul, Mining Frontiers, 136; see also 39, 155–60; Sheridan, Arizona, 52–54, 60–65, 70–71, 145–52. For population estimates, see Census Office, Ninth Census, 3–4, 12, 50, 299, 334–35, 340–41; and Montgomery, Spanish Redemption, 7–8. 27. Tate, Frontier Army, 313. The modern metropolis Phoenix came into existence to supply the markets at Camp McDowell. Sheridan, Arizona, 105– 9; Miller, Soldiers and Settlers; Frazer, Forts and Supplies. In 1870 the Weekly Arizonian admitted that many saw “the presence of the military in Arizona” as the “only inducement held out to immigration.” Quoted in Lamar, Far Southwest, 451. 28. For Arizona’s white settlers, see Lamar, Far Southwest, and Sheridan, Arizona, esp. 187–203 for Mormons. 29. González, Refusing the Favor, 3–15; Montgomery, Spanish Redemption, 260
Notes to pages 26–30
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8, 33–48; T. Hall, Social Change, 210–17; Montoya, Translating Property. For Anglo-Hispanic marriages, see Jaehn, Germans in the Southwest; Reséndez, Changing National Identities, 124–45; and Sheridan, Arizona, 109–12. It is revealing of white attitudes that one of the greatest obstacles for New Mexico’s statehood was the Hispanic majority. Statehood would have allowed the Hispanics to use their majority position to occupy most elected offices and thus gain power, whereas territorial status diverted the selection of officials to the federal government. For race and statehood, see T. Hall, Social Change, 216– 17; Lamar, Far Southwest, 486–504; Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny, esp. 239–45; and Montgomery, Spanish Redemption, 72–78. 30. Sheridan, Arizona, 170; Montgomery, Spanish Redemption, 9–10. For the development of the racial divide in other areas the United States took from Mexico, see Almaguer, Racial Fault Lines; Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans; and Foley, White Scourge. 31. Robbins, Colony and Empire, 31–34, 89–90; Montgomery, Spanish Redemption, 44; Sheridan, Arizona, 103–5, 112–23; Lamar, Far Southwest, 169–76, 462–85; Billington, New Mexico’s Buffalo Soldiers, 118. For the increase in population, see Census Reports, 2. For the railroads, see Orsi, Sunset Limited, and Bryant, History of the Atchison. 32. Robbins, Colony and Empire, 62. See also White, “It’s Your Misfortune”; Cronon, Nature’s Metropolis; and T. Hall, Social Change. 33. Human greed, disastrous fire, and problems with water drove the Tombstone mines into decline in the late 1880s. Sheridan, Arizona, 152–60; Truett, Fugitive Landscapes, 62–67. For silver mining, see Spude, “Land of Sunshine.” For the Confederate invasion, see Frazier, Blood and Treasure, and Josephy, Civil War. 34. Gordon, Great Arizona Orphan Abduction, 20–33; Sheridan, Arizona, 161–75; Truett, Fugitive Landscapes, 67–77; Lamar, Far Southwest, 462–67. For immigrants, see Grytz, “Triple Identity,” and Barkan, From All Points. 35. A bust soon followed in the 1890s. The Southwest range could not take the pressure, and owners tried to sell their herds as prices plunged and the market became glutted, forcing the cattle industry to regroup. See Sayre, “Cattle Boom”; Montgomery, Spanish Redemption, 44; Sheridan, Arizona, 125–43; Lamar, Far Southwest, 175; and White, “Animals and Enterprise.” 2. Journey to the “Outside” 1. Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 185–88. 2. S. Mills, Discourses of Difference, 2; Pratt, Imperial Eyes, 5. For travel writings, see Hulme and Youngs, Cambridge Companion. Notes to pages 30–34
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3. Coffman, Old Army, 330; Nationality of Enlisted Men; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1886, 594. 4. After the Civil War, cavalrymen enlisted for five years and those in the infantry for three. This was changed in 1869 so that all white and black volunteers served for five years, after which it was possible to reenlist. Coffman, Old Army, 328–35, 401. Ever since the regular army was reluctantly created by Congress in 1784, its status remained uncertain and contested. Wanting to rely on citizen militia and local volunteers, many influential parties felt the army was highly unnecessary and in fact stood against the principles of the republic. The army purportedly represented a threat to democracy, as many feared professional soldiers without loyalties to local citizenry could easily become politicized. Ignoring the lack of enthusiasm, the federal government nevertheless wanted its own troops to represent federal interests in the West and to handle Indian affairs. See Wooster, American Military Frontiers; Weigley, United States Army; Coffman, Old Army; and Millett and Maslowski, For the Common Defense. 5. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1886, 594; Carter, From Yorktown, 4–6; Chaffee Papers, Arizona State Historical Society (hereafter cited as ashs). For similar examples, see Finley Papers, University of Arizona, Special Collections (hereafter cited as uasc ), and A. Mills, My Story. 6. Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 28–29; A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 1–2; Myres, “Arizona Camping Trip,” 54–55. 7. Biddle, Reminiscences, 209. 8. On quarrels and cliques among the officers and wives, see C. Wood, “Lieutenants”; Hutton, Phil Sheridan; and Wooster, Nelson A. Miles. 9. Miles, Personal Recollections, 62; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 51; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1875, 123; Biddle, Reminiscences, 164, 166–67; see also 203–4. On intermarriages, see Finley Papers, uasc ; Dinges, “Leighton Finley”; Lane, I Married a Soldier, 5, 213; Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 185–86; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 26; A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady; C. Wood, “Lieutenants,” 164; and Altshuler, Cavalry Yellow. For unity, see Biddle, Reminiscences, 176–80, 195. 10. Quote from Coffman, Old Army, 215; see also 219. See also Utley, Frontier Regulars, 65. When the army was reorganized after the Civil War in 1866, Congress fixed its size to fifty-four thousand men. In 1870 it was reduced to little over thirty thousand soldiers and by 1874 the army numbered twenty-five thousand enlisted men and two thousand officers. Utley, Frontier Regulars, 10–11, 15. 11. Jackson, Domesticating the West, 1–2. 12. For the back-looking army, see Hutton, Phil Sheridan, esp. 144–46. 262
Notes to pages 35–38
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13. For unit movements and companies stationed in Arizona and New Mexico, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 52–60, 732–45; 1869, 42–43, 130–31; 1870, 68–71, 86–87; 1871, 90–91, 104–5; 1872, 20–33, 106– 15; 1873, 27–37, 58–69; 1874, 7–18, 70–81; 1875, 36–45, 142–55; 1876, 42– 67; 1877, 16–39; 1878, 12–25, 63–64, 117; 1879, 18–31; 1880, 10–32; 1881, 50–64; 1882, 32–45; 1883, 60–73; 1885, 84–91; 1886, 84–95. For the recommended limit on consecutive service in an “undesirable” area, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1872, 66. For the Sixth Cavalry, see Cruse, Apache Days, 194; and Carter, From Yorktown, 239–41, 256. 14. Robert M. Utley has calculated that each year death, desertion, and discharge claimed from 25 to 40 percent of the enlisted force in the whole army. Frontier Regulars, 23. 15. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1878, 120–21, 125–26. For officers absent and present, see Post Returns, for example rolls 414–15 for Fort Grant or rolls 33–34 for Fort Apache, Returns from U.S. Military Posts, National Archives and Records Administration (hereafter cited as nara). Returns for Fort Lowell are also found in Randall, Hostile Land. For individual officers, see Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 37–56, 109–35, 187–221, 305–27; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 131, 205–6, 226; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona; and A. Mills, My Story. Army paymasters formed a select group of army travelers. Up to 1872 paymasters arrived from San Francisco for their tour of Arizona, demanding in readiness a large number of animals and wagons for their transport. By 1874 paymasters operated from within Arizona, making their headquarters in Prescott and Tucson. They served all army posts except Yuma, which a paymaster from San Francisco handled. In 1878 Arizona paymasters were stationed at Fort Yuma and Fort Lowell. Usually soldiers were paid every two months, so these officers journeyed regularly throughout the region. See U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1872, 76; 1874, 66; 1878, 117. 16. For the number of soldiers, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1870, 68–71, 86–87; 1880, 10–11, 22–23; 1885, 84–85, 88–89. For population estimates, see Census Office, Ninth Census, xvii, 4, 12, 334–35, 340–41; Census Office, Tenth Census, 3, 49, 486–87; Census Office, Vital Statistics, 536; and Montgomery, Spanish Redemption, 7–8. 17. This perception did not necessarily change after the Civil War. The commanding general of the army, William T. Sherman, urged settlers and soldiers to withdraw from the Southwest in 1870. Only the arrival of railroads changed the mind of skeptical Sherman, who recognized the area’s mining potential. For Sumner’s and Sherman’s views on the Southwest, see Wooster, “Difficult and Forlorn Country,” 339, 341, 349–50. For the pre–Civil War army, see D. Ball, Army Regulars; Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue; and Frazer, Forts and Supplies. Notes to pages 38–40
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18. Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 46; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 95; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 40. 19. Cruse, “From Hembrillo Canyon,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 262; Diaries, December 16, 1880, series 3, Barnes Papers, ashs. 20. Crook, His Autobiography, 160; Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 35; Sargent, Following the Flag, 13. 21. Bourke, On the Border, 3. 22. Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 3–32. 23. For narratives of military travels to New Mexico, see, for example, Baldwin, Army Wife, 46–63; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 40–43; and Myres, Cavalry Wife, 58–76. 24. Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 182. For sea voyage, see Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 26–28. 25. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1869, 124–25; 1871, 77; 1872, 153; Tate, Frontier Army, 73–74. In the late 1860s the army tried an alternate route for bringing supplies from California by water to Guaymas, Sonora, and then overland to Tucson. For army journey descriptions to Arizona, see, for example, A. Mills, My Story, 136–43; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 19– 76; and G. Price, Across the Continent, 144–45. 26. Sheridan, Arizona, 119, 130. By 1882 railroads had driven many freighters out of business and only a few routes remained in operation with reduced rates. See U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1878, 355–57, 362; 1882, 356–57, for contracts, rates, and supply routes to New Mexico and Arizona. For New Mexico, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1870, 17; 1872, 47; 1877, 66. Supplying soldiers in Arizona was a huge military expenditure. For example, in 1869 flour, whether delivered from Yuma by land in wagons or purchased and delivered locally, cost five to six times as much in southeastern Arizona than in San Francisco. Rations for a horse were equally expensive in comparison. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 48– 49; 1869, 124; 1871, 66–67. For military supply in the Southwest, see Miller, Soldiers and Settlers. 27. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 56–57; 1869, 122–23; 1870, 15–16; 1871, 77; 1872, 73–75; 1877, 148; 1878, 195. 28. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1882, 352–54; 1883, 536; Notebook 1881–85, Finley Papers, uasc. 29. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 240–41; Bourke, On the Border, 3. 30. Carter, From Yorktown, 175–78; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1875, 36–38, 77, 131–32; 1876, 451; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 241–48. On paper each cavalry regiment consisted of 888 soldiers divided into twelve troops. 264
Notes to pages 40–44
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For regiment size, see, for example, U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1873, 26–39; 1874, 7–19; 1877, 30–43. 31. Upham, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 85; Myres, Cavalry Wife, 37–75. 32. A. Mills, My Story, 137. 33. For servants in the army, see, for example, Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona; A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady; and Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization.” 34. F. Corbusier, Recollections, 27; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 22– 25, 38; Howard, My Life, 125; Letter, June 29, 1867, file 14, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs. 35. A. Mills, My Story, 136–37. See also A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 158–59. 36. Myres, Cavalry Wife, 37–38; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 71; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 26; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 92–93; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 138. 37. Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 188. 38. Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 19–20; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 26; A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 175. 39. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 98; A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 159–60. 40. See, among others, A. Mills, My Story, 139. 41. F. Corbusier, Recollections, 30; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 245. 42. Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 188. 43. Lane, I Married a Soldier, 143; A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 159. For travel clothing, see Letter, July 16, 1880, Worthington Letters, ashs. 44. F. Corbusier, Recollections, 29–30. 45. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 92–93; Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 188; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 54. See also W. Corbusier, Soldier, 71. 46. Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 25, 59; A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 159. 47. See, for example, Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 188–90. 48. Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 24–27, 36–39; Howard, My Life, 125; Corson Reminiscences, uasc. 49. A. Mills, My Story, 138. 50. Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 4; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 70; Neifert, “Trailing Geronimo,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 557; Benton, “Sgt. Neil Erickson,” 123; Dinges, “New York Private,” 55–56. 51. “Gashuntz,” “On the March,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 42. 52. Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 9; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 34–40. According to John Spring, the soldier buried in the desert was set down in official records as “deserted,” and the whole episode hushed up. For Notes to pages 44–50
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the experiences of soldiers on the road, see Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 42; and Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 9. 53. F. Corbusier, Recollections, 28. See also Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 47–49. For the soldiers’ daily rations, see Coffman, Old Army, 340–41. 54. Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 50; see also 53–54, 61; Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 189. For soldiers as servants, see Cochran, Posie, 61– 62; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 29–30; and Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 43. 55. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 99. 56. Many of the army personnel referred to the journey from southern Arizona and New Mexico to the states as “going inside.” Following this logic, the trip to the Southwest becomes a journey to the “outside.” See, for example, Corson Reminiscences, uasc ; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 73, 87; and F. Corbusier, Recollections, 66. 57. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 84, 90–91, 95–97; Crook, His Autobiography, 162. See also A. Mills, My Story, 137–40. 58. Henry, “Cavalry Life,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 97; Crook, His Autobiography, 162; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 102; A. Mills, My Story, 140; Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 20. 59. Biddle, Reminiscences, 146; Corson Reminiscences, uasc ; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 36, 43; Dinges, “New York Private,” 59. 60. See, for example, Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 33; Henry, “Cavalry Life,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 97; Cochran, Posie, 38; and Boyd, Cavalry Life, 107. 61. Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 32. 62. Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 189, 192. 63. Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 41–42, 193; see also 135–75; Biddle, Reminiscences, 150; Henry, “Cavalry Life,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 97; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 28, 39; Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 74–75; Corson Reminiscences, uasc. 64. See, for example, Biddle, Reminiscences, 147–51; A. Mills, My Story, 140–41; and Howard, My Life, 125–30. 65. Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 189–90; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 108, 110–18; A. Mills, My Story, 139–40, 142–44; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 70–73, 109–12. For army travelers’ accounts regarding sites of past cruelties, see Letter, July 14, 1867, file 14, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs ; Dinges, “New York Private,” 56; Upham, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 85; and Howard, My Life, 132–35. 66. Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 190; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 35; Biddle, Reminiscences, 154. 266
Notes to pages 50–55
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67. Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 54; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 10–11. 68. Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 18; Crook, His Autobiography, 163; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 71; Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 36; Corson Reminiscences, uasc. 69. Cochran, Posie, 36. 70. A. Mills, My Story, 141–42; Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 20. 71. Dinges, “New York Private,” 57, 59; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 71; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 27, 29. For travelers’ descriptions of heat, wildlife, dust, and poor water, see Letter, June 18, 1868, file 18, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs ; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 46; Mazzanovich, “Life in Arizona,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 332; and Henry, “Cavalry Life,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 97. 72. Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 190; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 45. See also Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 12–13. 73. Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 190. 74. Browne, Adventures, 258; Finerty, “On Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 237; González, Refusing the Favor, 47; see also 45–55, 69–70; Padget, Indian Country, 17, 32–45. 75. Sheridan, Arizona, 103–5, 112–23. For the importance of railroads on military mobility, see Tate, Frontier Army, 75–79; and U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1883, 295–315. 76. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1882, 117; Bode, Dose of Frontier Soldiering, 130–31, 139–42, 212–13. 77. F. Corbusier, Recollections, 129; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 70–72. 78. Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 9; Elliott, “Indian Reservation,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 405; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1884, 120–21. 79. Bigelow, Historical Sketch, nara ; Notebook 1881–85, Finley Papers, uasc ; Maxon to [his wife] Grace, April 28, 1885, file 1, box 1, Maxon Papers, ashs. 80. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1880, 31–32; see also 209–10; 1881, 65–70. As the transcontinental lines branched out, an increasing number were built near existing posts. For the situation in the late 1880s, see Gen. Benjamin H. Grierson, “Annual Report of 1890,” file 3, box 1, Maxon Papers, ashs, 5–12. 81. Wrobel, Promised Lands, 104–7. 82. Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 220, 238; Upham, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 85. See also Cruse, Apache Days, 140–41; and Biddle, Reminiscences, 207. Notes to pages 55–59
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3. The Place Facing Colonialism 1. Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 74–77. 2. “Trailing Geronimo,” typescript, file 6, Mazzanovich Papers, ashs. 3. Census Office, Ninth Census, 50, 204–6. Of the main villages in southern New Mexico, Mesilla had 2,420 residents; Las Cruces 768; Doña Ana 667; and Socorro 512 in 1860. The population of Tucson at the time was approximately 2,500 people. 4. Montgomery, Spanish Redemption, 9–10. On Anglo perceptions of Mexicans, see, among others, Bender, Nation among Nations, 199–203; Foos, Killing Affair; Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny; Wilson, Myth of Santa Fe; and Sheridan, Arizona. 5. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 215, 223–24; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 48. See also Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 144–46, 169. 6. Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 29–30, 60–61, 74, 92–93, 100–101, 119. See also Bourke, On the Border, for example 76–77. 7. When in Tucson this officer also dined with Governor Anson P. K. Safford, whom he described very differently as “altogether a very genial and sensible gentleman.” Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 81–82. It is possible that the anonymous officer was no other than Gen. John M. Schofield, commander of the Division of the Pacific and future commanding general of the army. Tate, Frontier Army, 270. For another army description of a Tucson “baile,” see Bourke, On the Border, 88–89. 8. Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 203; Cruse, Apache Days, 137. Visiting the small village of Cañada Alamosa in New Mexico, one officer wrote that “the primitive life led by these Mexicans is but little better than that of the surrounding Indians, with whom they associate and mix as if of the same race.” See Sweeney, Making Peace, 38; see also 138. For other army voices linking Apaches and Mexicans, see, for example, U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1883, 174–75; and Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 87. 9. Letter, July 6, 1867, file 14, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs. Making his way from one border village to the next, army surgeon Leonard Wood was certain that it all was “a godforsaken country and godforsaken people live in it. . . . I really do not feel any sympathy when I hear that the Indians have killed a half a dozen or more of the people. I think the Indians better than the Mexicans.” Chasing Geronimo, 49. That the area Wood described was actually in Mexico shows how little difference the border made for officers and wives when it came to discussing the character of Hispanics. See also Davis, Truth about Geronimo, and Elliott, “Geronimo Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, esp. 438–39, 446. 268
Notes to pages 65–69
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10. Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 79, 82; L. Wood, Chasing Geronimo, 65. See also Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 29–30. 11. See U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1880, 97–98; Cochran, Posie, 46; Miles, Personal Recollections, 452, 492. 12. F. Corbusier, Recollections, 138. 13. Cruse, Apache Days, 50–51. For the importance of white ethnicity in the eastern United States, see Jacobson, Whiteness. 14. Sheridan, Arizona, 71; Bryant, American Southwest, 32–66. 15. On officers’ perceptions of lower-class whites, see, for example, Howard, My Life, 155–56, 128; Bourke, Diaries, 141–42; and Cruse, Apache Days, 23, 62–63, 200. See also Letter, September 4, 1867, file 15, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs. 16. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1871, 67; Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 39, 43; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 54–55. See also Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 27. 17. Nickerson, “Major General,” Henry Huntington Library (hereafter cited as hhl), 13; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 150; see also 57; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 77. 18. On social ties officers and wives developed with local civilians, see F. Corbusier, Recollections, 38; Letter 60, May 9, 1877, Kautz Letters, Denver Correspondence, ashs ; A. Mills, My Story, 145–46; A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 168; Biddle, Reminiscences, 170–80; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 62–63; Bourke, Diaries, 133–39; Kenner, Buffalo Soldiers, 196. 19. Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 165; Corson Reminiscences, uasc. 20. Bourke, Diaries, 121; Biddle, Reminiscences, 161; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 46. See also Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 76; Myres, “Arizona Camping Trip,” 61; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 67–68; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 155–56; and Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 68–69. 21. Cruse, Apache Days, 152–53; Bourke, Diaries, 95; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 105–7. 22. Corson Reminiscences, uasc ; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 46–48; 1880, 97–98; Gatewood, “Campaigning against Victorio,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 218; Pettit, “Apache Campaign Notes,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 533. 23. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1880, 97–98; 1883, 165; Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 80; Gatewood, “Campaigning against Victorio,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 218. 24. Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 27–28; Barnes, “Apaches’ Last Stand,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 277–79. In another instance, when a group of cowboys rode into an army camp, these “would-be terrors of the plains,” as one Notes to pages 70–76
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soldier called them, harassed the soldiers and after refusing to be arrested, commenced firing at them. The soldiers fired back and drove the cowboys out of camp “with a shower of lead at their heels.” Diary entry, February 7, 1886, Chrisman Papers, ashs. See also Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 40. 25. Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 46–47; Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 81; Census Office, Ninth Census, 83. See also Howard, My Life, 139, 144. 26. Henry, “Cavalry Life,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 101; Letters, July 6, 1867, and July 21, 1867, file 14, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs ; Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 81–82; Cruse, Apache Days, 25; Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 18; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 151. 27. Bourke, On the Border, 56–65; see also 80–95. 28. Corson Reminiscences, uasc ; Biddle, Reminiscences, 162; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 118; A. Mills, My Story, 145–46; Bourke, On the Border, 56–57, 448. For Prescott, see Sheridan, Arizona, 151. For population, see Census Office, Ninth Census, 83; and Census Office, Tenth Census, 99. Some of the army also liked Phoenix, another new Anglo-established village, regarding it as “a nice, clean town, all green and white, with trees planted on all the streets.” Biddle, Reminiscences, 197. 29. Bryant, American Southwest, 36; see 36–50 for the Anglo remodeling of Southwest towns during the late 1800s and early 1900s. For how the Anglos rebuilt Santa Fe, see Wilson, Myth of Santa Fe. 30. For army views on small villages, see Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 133; Sweeney, Making Peace, 38; Baldwin, Army Wife, 62; Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 78–79; and Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona. 31. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 227–30; Sweeney, Making Peace, 44. The army usually described the bigger New Mexico center of Santa Fe in the north as the “old Mexican city,” with few Americans, trees, or good shops. Still, Santa Fe was not judged as harshly as Tucson by the army. See, for instance, F. Corbusier, Recollections, 50–51; and Myres, Cavalry Wife, 111–13. 32. F. Corbusier, Recollections, 28. See also Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 74–75. 33. Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 46; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 17–19; “My Life in the West,” typescript, Glover Papers, ashs, 33–36; Mazzanovich, “Life in Arizona,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 332–34; “When the Comet Hit Tucson in 1881,” typescript, file 4, Mazzanovich Papers, ashs. 34. A visitor to Bracketville, West Texas, was astonished to enter a town where a mixed group of indigenous peoples, soldiers, Mexicans, and others were in search of recreation and social interactions. This visitor noted that “such an assortment of humans I never saw before.” Quote from Leiker, Racial 270
Notes to pages 77–83
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Borders, 74; see also 71, 73. See also Bode, Dose of Frontier Soldiering, 156– 57; and Dobak and Phillips, Black Regulars. 35. Dinges, “New York Private,” 56–57; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 46–47; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 17–19. Enlisted men’s critical representations were not restricted to Tucson. One soldier painted Albuquerque, New Mexico, as a Mexican village of adobe “mud house[s].” He also wrote that Belin, a village south of Albuquerque, was “a town of ancient looking buildings with a population three hundred years behind present civilization.” See Bode, Dose of Frontier Soldiering, 141–43. For an enlisted man’s description of Tubac, see Dinges, “New York Private,” 65. 36. Crook, His Autobiography, 166–67. 37. Quote from J. Parker, Old Army, 161; see also 173. For similar situations, see Sweeney, Making Peace, 36–38; Gatewood, “Campaigning against Victorio,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 219–23; Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 88–90; Mehren, “Scouting for Mescaleros,” 188; Bigelow, Historical Sketch, nara , 18; Jerome, “Soldiering and Suffering,” 163; Carroll, Papers of the Order, 249; and Eaton, “String for the Bow,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 178– 81. Besides “Crook’s Trail,” the army took control of mountains and springs by naming them. See Letter, January 8, 1868, file 16, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs ; and Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 123. 38. Cruse, Apache Days, 48–49, 71, 91. See also Cruse Papers, ashs. For the lack of maps, see Bourke, Diaries, 30, 32, 41. 39. Merritt, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses. See also Barnes, “In the Apache Country,” 615, and Carr, “Days of the Empire,” 28–30, both in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses. 40. Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 201–2; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 123–24, 218; Bourke, Diaries, 31–33; Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 29–30; Cruse, Apache Days, 89; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 69; Cochran, Posie, 58; L. Wood, Chasing Geronimo, 51–54, 66; Henry, “Cavalry Life,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 104; King, “On Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 162. For men cursing the land, see Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 123–24; and Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 76. 41. Pettit, “Apache Campaign Notes,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 532–33; A. Mills, My Story, 148. See also Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 206–7, 210; Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 44; Mehren, “Scouting for Mescaleros,” esp. 184; and Carter, From Yorktown, 192. 42. Gen. Nelson Miles believed that it was possible to overcome white shortcomings through training. See Personal Recollections, for example 436, 537–38. Gen. George Crook, however, wrote openly about the more permanent racial limitations of white troops in the Southwest environment and was Notes to pages 84–87
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thus exceptional, as he placed the blame on the soldiers, not so much on the landscapes. See Resume of Operations; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1883, 1885. 43. See W. Parker, Annals, 5; Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 34; Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 75; and R. Grierson, “Journal,” 26. In army texts, not only did the trees lack economic potential, but their everyday use was presented as difficult. The mesquite was unconquerable for axes but not to crowbars, whereas “no fire could burn” the palo verde, the army argued. Nickerson, “Major General,” hhl , 14; Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 25. 44. In army texts the sun itself was portrayed as “pitiless,” its heat “frightful” and “insufferable,” and the days “intensively hot,” “boiling hot,” or “frightfully hot.” Dinges, “New York Private,” 63–64; Forsyth, Thrilling Days, 85; see also 86; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 49, 56; see also 111; L. Wood, Chasing Geronimo, 95; Elliott, “Geronimo Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 435; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 219. One soldier wrote that “great swales of heat undulated above the stunted mesquite and sagebrush. Miniature cyclones of sand, like gigantic mushrooms, twirled, and gyrated — a strange and terrible ballet. And over all the molten sun of Arizona glowed within the rim of the mountains.” Wright, “In the Days,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 497. 45. On army struggles with snakes, spiders, and pumas, see Myres, “Arizona Camping Trip,” 60–61; L. Wood, Chasing Geronimo, 68–74; Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 12; Bode, Dose of Frontier Soldiering, 149, 160–62; Letter, August 31, 1924, King Papers, ashs ; Nickerson, “Major General,” hhl , 14; Cruse, Apache Days, 27–28, 85; Bourke, Diaries, 101; Howard, My Life, 185; Elliott, “Geronimo Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 430; and Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 240. 46. Dinges “New York Private,” 57. For sandstorms, see A. Mills, My Story, 189; and R. Grierson, “Journal,” 35. For more optimistic evaluations of the land, see Marion, Notes of Travel, and Henry, “Cavalry Life,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 98. 47. Frances Boyd considered the Rio Grande a strange, treacherous, and fearful river. See Cavalry Life, 160–61. For army views on Southwest rivers, see Carter, From Yorktown, 197–99; L. Wood, Chasing Geronimo, 83; R. Grierson, “Journal,” 12; and F. Corbusier, Recollections, 55–56. Rain was not only scarce but violent. Lt. Frederick Phelps was stunned that the whole cemetery at Fort Union vanished after a cloudburst sent waves of water into the valley where it was located. The water caused a hillside to slide into the valley, and the graves, including the family of Phelps, were buried under twelve feet of sand and rock. Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 187–88. For an incident when an officer’s wife and child were swept away during a storm, see Boyd, Cavalry 272
Notes to pages 88–89
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Life, 197. For aggressive cloudbursts, see Bourke, On the Border, 41–42; Biddle, Reminiscences, 204–5; L. Wood, Chasing Geronimo, 80, 93; and Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 11. 48. W. Parker, Annals, 17. For troops in the field and problems with water, see, among others, Dinges, “New York Private,” 59; Corson Reminiscences, uasc ; Carroll, Papers of the Order, 249; Gatewood, “Campaigning against Victorio,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 219–23; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 55–56, 122–23, 207–8; Bourke, Diaries, 30; Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 42; Howard, My Life, 197–99; Letter, July 21, 1867, file 14, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs ; Cruse, Apache Days, 72–73; Carter, From Yorktown, 201–2; Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 76, 83; Elliott, “Geronimo Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 435; and R. Grierson, “Journal,” 23. 49. Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 124–28. All were not as fortunate, as men sometimes perished from lack of water. For example, while chasing a group of Mescalero Apaches, one lieutenant became lost and wandered for more than forty hours without water. He was found alive but died soon afterward. See Sweeney, Making Peace, 163. 50. Bourke, Diaries, 118; see also 46–47; Bourke, On the Border, 1–2. 51. W. Parker, Annals, 6; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 130; Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 193; Cruse, Apache Days, 20; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1878, 43; Carter, From Yorktown, 239; see also 241; Howard, My Life, 141–42; Howard, Famous Indian Chiefs, 112; Letter, June 23, 1867, file 14, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs. When one officer termed “that great world” outside the Southwest as “God’s Country,” he indicated that in the Southwest he had been forced out of God’s orbit. See Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 21. 52. One officer’s wife explained her feelings in a letter to her family in New York: “We have one great advantage in being here at the end of the earth. We cannot be sent a mile east or west, north or south, without coming nearer home. That is, from any other point we have more ease of access and can get home in a shorter time.” See Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 36. 53. Army personnel pointed out that, for example, a parlor lamp that in San Francisco cost three dollars was twenty-five dollars in Prescott and that the same trend held for soup plates, flour, eggs, and many other commodities. “The price of some things would make your hair stand on end,” one officer’s wife complained in a letter to her relative back east. Quote from A. Mills, My Story, 146. See also Boyd, Cavalry Life, 128–29; and Corson Reminiscences, uasc. 54. Biddle, Reminiscences, 152–54; Cruse, Apache Days, 194. See also A. Mills, My Story, 152; Carter, From Yorktown, 181; and Mattes, Indians, Infants, and Infantry, 249–50. Notes to pages 89–91
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55. Platten, Ten Years, 14; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 21; Dinges “New York Private,” 57; “Early Days,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 144. 56. Letter, July 14, 1867, file 14, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs ; Nickerson, “Major General,” hhl , 13; Letter, September 3, 1924, King Papers, ashs. See also Henry, “Cavalry Life,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 101; Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 75–76; see also 80–81, 83; W. Parker, Annals, 7–8; and Boyd, Cavalry Life, 111, 155. 57. Biddle, Reminiscences, 157; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 52; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 88. See also Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 13. 58. Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 46–47, 115–16. See also Cruse, Apache Days, 196–97. For the army’s camel experiment and linkages to the “Orient” through “Bedouin” and Arabian horses, see Nabhan, “Camel Whisperers.” 59. Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 78; Cochran, Posie, 61; R. Grierson, “Journal,” 32; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 66. 60. Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 231; see also 219–21; Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 34–35; Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 35. Sometimes leaves proved lengthy. For instance, in 1883 John Bourke left Arizona after the Sierra Madre expedition to enjoy a six month honeymoon, during which he toured much of western Europe. J. Porter, Paper Medicine Man, 201–2. For the joy officers and wives felt when getting out of the Southwest, see J. Parker, Old Army, 191; M. Adams, “Arizona Adventure,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses,” 51; Letter, June 18, 1868, file 18, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs ; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 318–24; and A. Mills, My Story, 152. 61. For Eaton, see Altshuler, Cavalry Yellow, 116–17; and Eaton, “String for the Bow,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 177. For Perry, see Altshuler, Cavalry Yellow, 259–60. For the officers’ places of death, see Altshuler, Cavalry Yellow. The random sample was taken from pages 13–14, 68, 99, 158–59, and 192–93. Many officers died in or near Washington dc. See also Myres, Cavalry Wife, 122. 62. For Ogilby and Schofield, see Burial Registers, nara , 1:10–11; 2:182– 83; Altshuler, Cavalry Yellow, 253, 293–94; for Maxon, see Maxon Papers, ashs ; and Altshuler, Cavalry Yellow, 225–26. 63. Post cemeteries also included soldiers’ family members and civilians, presumably those on the army payroll. See Burial Registers, nara , 1:10–11, 28–29, 154–56, 292; 2:95–97, 149–50, 182–83, 184. 64. Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 157. 65. Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 79; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 24; Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 40; Platten, Ten Years, 37; Dinges, “New York Private,” 54–55, 71; Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 59, 89, 94–95. 274
Notes to pages 91–94
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66. Henry Papers, ashs. For others who stayed, see Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, xi–xxiii; Platten, Ten Years, 43; and Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 13–22. 67. Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 197–98. On the unusual clothing of troops, see also King, “On Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 169. 68. Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 201–2. 69. “Personal File” and “When the Comet Hit,” typescripts, files 1 and 4, Mazzanovich Papers, ashs ; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 138. See also Wright, “In the Days,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 499–500. 70. Dinges, “New York Private,” 71. 71. Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 221; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 47; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 87. See also L. Wood, Chasing Geronimo. 72. R. Grierson, “Journal,” 45. See also Biddle, Reminiscences, 189. 73. Elliott, “Geronimo Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 431; Letter, May 20, 1868, file 18, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs. 74. Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 222–23. 75. Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 36, 39. Sherman’s opinion is in Wooster, United States Indian Policy, 53. 76. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1882, 101, 152; 1872, 154; 1883, 295–315; Letter 58, January 30, 1877, Kautz Letters, Denver Correspondence, ashs ; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 291. For the relationship between the army establishment and the railroaders in the West, see Hutton, Phil Sheridan, 39–41, 172–79. 77. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1879, 164; 1880, 215; Bourke, On the Border, 447. 78. Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 34–35; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 47–48. See also F. Corbusier, Recollections, 150. 79. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1872, 154; 1875, 137; 1876, 98; 1878, 193; 1880, 215. 80. A. Mills, My Story, 146–47; Miles, Serving the Republic, 229–31; Cruse, Apache Days, 241–42; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 9–10. 81. Bourke, On the Border, 450–51; Biddle, Reminiscences, 198–99; Census Office, Tenth Census, 99. See also Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 238. The railroads brought, for instance, theatrical companies to perform in Tucson. Cruse, Apache Days, 182. The new era in Santa Fe also offered ample entertainment. It was even possible to go shopping there now, whereas before officers and wives had sent away for most articles. A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 176–82. 82. Bode, Dose of Frontier Soldiering, 156. 83. Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 24. Notes to pages 94–100
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84. Cruse, Apache Days, 23, 242–45; Henry, “Cavalry Life,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 100. For officers and mines, see Corson Reminiscences, uasc ; Letter 58, January 30, 1877, Kautz Letters, Denver Correspondence, ashs ; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 149; A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 181, 186–87; A. Mills, My Story, 186; and Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, for example 41, 77–78, 136; see also 17–18. 85. For the major, see A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 182. For setbacks, see A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 154–55, 184, 188. For Gen. Benjamin Grierson, his family, and their ventures in the Southwest, see Dinges, “Colonel Grierson,” and Leckie and Leckie, Unlikely Warriors. 86. W. Corbusier, Soldier, 80; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 111–12; see also 195 for another enlisted man’s mining ventures. 87. Bode, Dose of Frontier Soldiering, 157. 88. Cruse, Apache Days, 148–49, 192, 237. 89. Bode, Dose of Frontier Soldiering, 155; Cruse, Apache Days, 201–2; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 162–63; Miles, Serving the Republic, 229–31; Andersson Papers, uasc ; Bourke, On the Border, 231–32. The army was not alone. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth century many Anglos promoted the Southwest as a destination for eastern visitors seeking the “exotic” and wanting to escape the speed and stress of the “modern world.” See, for example, Dye, All Aboard; Weigle and Babcock, Great Southwest; and Wilson, Myth of Santa Fe. 90. Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 77; see also 84; Henry, “Cavalry Life,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 100. See also U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1877, 143; Cruse, Apache Days, 47; Carter, From Yorktown, 178. For army visits to “ancient ruins,” see also, among others, F. Corbusier, Recollections, 64; Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 30; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 119, 160; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 151–53; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 241–42; Bourke, On the Border, 97. 91. Miles, Personal Recollections, 320, 341; G. Price, Across the Continent, 153. 92. Upham, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 90; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 291; see also 294–95; Rogers, Average American, 99. 93. Biddle, Reminiscences, 189–90. See also Sieber Papers, ashs. 94. Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 128. 95. Martha Summerhayes thought that modern appliances and luxuries did not seem to belong in Arizona. Vanished Arizona, 238–39. 96. Biddle, Reminiscences, 207–10. See also U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1878, 194; Bigelow, Historical Sketch, nara , 23; and Baldwin, Army Wife, 59. 276
Notes to pages 101–104
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97. “When the Comet Hit” and “The Trail Blazers of Our Western Frontier,” typescripts, files 4 and 12, Mazzanovich Papers, ashs. See also Mazzanovich, “Life in Arizona,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 339. 98. “Early Days,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 144; Sweeney, Making Peace, 31; Bourke, On the Border, 104. 99. Letters, August 31, 1924, and September 3, 1924, King Papers, ashs ; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1886, 165; Crook, Resume of Operations, esp. 1, 21; Carter, From Yorktown, 205. For army statements concerning “terror-stricken” settlers in the border region, see Miles, Personal Recollections, 477; J. Parker, Old Army, 156; Forsyth, Thrilling Days, 93; Merritt, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 159; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1879, 166; and W. Parker, Annals, 10. 100. Gatewood, “Campaigning against Victorio,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 214; Platten, Ten Years, 36. 101. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1873, 51; 1874, 125. For the army building roads, see F. Corbusier, Recollections, 63; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 65, 67; 1876, 103; 1878, 196; 1880, 210; and Cruse, Apache Days, 32. For the building of telegraph lines, see Carter, From Yorktown, 192–93; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1871, 68–69, 78; 1872, 77; 1873, 51; 1874, 65, 124–25; and W. Corbusier, Soldier, 87. For the planting of trees, see Boyd, Cavalry Life, 169; and A. Mills, My Story, 190. For efforts to control water in the mid-1880s with iron pipes, reservoirs, tanks, and steam pumps, see F. Corbusier, Recollections, 147; A. Mills, My Story, 190– 93; and A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 166–67, 172–73. 102. Carter, From Yorktown, 250–52; Bourke, Diaries, 471–72. 103. Henry, “Cavalry Life,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 103; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 3; Carter, From Yorktown, 178, 247; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 46–47; see also 44; 1882, 11; Elliott, “Geronimo Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 427; A. Mills, My Story, 200; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 159–60; and Bourke, Diaries, 61. 104. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1879, 164; Bourke, On the Border, 213. 105. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1874, 66; see also 1879, 166; Nickerson, “Major General,” hhl , 19; Bourke, On the Border, 220. See also Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 33. 106. W. Parker, Annals, 16–17. See also 38–44; Biddle, Reminiscences, 207–10; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 291; Cruse, Apache Days, 86; and Carter, From Yorktown, 193. 107. Truett, Fugitive Landscapes, 13–16, 37–38, 44, quote from 15. Notes to pages 104–107
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4. Apaches in White Army Minds 1. For the Cloverdale episode, see Rice, “Across Apache Land,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 504–6. 2. The titles of articles and memoirs that army people wrote reinforce this sense of preoccupation with the Apaches. For articles, see, for example, Wright, “In the Days”; Pettit, “Apache Campaign Notes”; Miles, “On the Trail”; and Gatewood, “Campaigning against Victorio,” all in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses. For memoirs, see Davis, Truth about Geronimo; Cruse, Apache Days; and Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns. 3. On army recognition of Apache power in the borderlands, see, for example, W. Parker, Annals, 38–39; G. Price, Across the Continent, 147; and U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 48–49; 1883, 174–75. 4. Military histories of the U.S.-Apache wars include Thrapp, Conquest of Apacheria; Worcester, Apaches; Sweeney, Cochise; D. Roberts, Like the Wind; and McChristian, Fort Bowie. 5. On Hispanic views regarding Apaches, see, for example, Alonso, Thread of Blood; Sweeney, Mangas Coloradas; and Weber, Barbaros. 6. On the settlers’ view of Apaches, see, for example, Record, Big Sycamore, esp. 145; and Simmons, Massacre, 93–94. 7. Wooster, United States Indian Policy, 12, 214; T. Smith, “West Point,” 31. 8. T. Smith, “West Point,” 32–33, 43. 9. Scott, “Whiskey.” See also Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail; Diary, Chrisman Papers, ashs ; and Bode, Dose of Frontier Soldiering. 10. Jerome, “Soldiering and Suffering,” 159–61; Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 31–32; see also 33–36. 11. King, “On Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 170. For army experiences in the field, see also Forsyth, Thrilling Days, 87–104, 108–18; J. Parker, Old Army, 157–65; Mehren, “Scouting for Mescaleros”; Diary, Chrisman Papers, ashs ; Field diary, Howard Papers, ashs ; West Journal, uasc ; and U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 63–66; 1880, 86–89, 93–110. For standing battles, see Carter, From Yorktown; Cruse, Apache Days; and Barnes, “Apaches’ Last Stand,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses. 12. Bode, Dose of Frontier Soldiering, 145; King, “On Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 163; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 87. 13. Cruse, Apache Days, 187. See also Evans, “Indian Question,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 605, 608; Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 53, 76; Forsyth, Thrilling Days, 80; L. Wood, Chasing Geronimo, 59; and Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 113. 14. Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 30; Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 74; Carter, 278
Notes to pages 111–115
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From Yorktown, 252–53; Bourke, Apache Campaign, 34–36. Some thought that compared to Apaches even the Plains Indians were “knightly” in their warfare. 15. On officers’ frustrations, see Bourke, Diaries, 81–82; Cruse, Apache Days, 128; Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, esp. 103; Pettit, “Apache Campaign Notes,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 532; Worthington Letters, ashs ; Chaffee Papers, ashs ; and Valputic and Longfellow, “Fight at Chiricahua Pass,” 374; see also 378. 16. Diary entry, October, 23, 1885, Chrisman Papers, ashs ; Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 106–7. 17. Cruse, Apache Days, 186–87; A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 166; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1883, 166; see also 167, 174. 18. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1886, 181; see also 12–16, 72– 73, 164–76. 19. Howard, My Life, 191; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1869, 121; 1876, 450. For nomad references in army texts, see Loring, “Report,” 186; Carr, “Days of the Empire,” 32; both in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses. For Apaches “roaming,” see Howard, My Life, 122, 143; Forsyth, Thrilling Days, 81; Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 77; and King, “On Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 163. 20. Noyes, “Nomadic Landscapes,” esp. 199–200. 21. Bourke, Diaries; Green, “Interesting Scout,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 44. 22. Loring, “Report,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 186–87; Carter, From Yorktown, 180; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 45; Howard, Famous Indian Chiefs, 356; Sweeney, Making Peace, 52, 68. 23. Braatz, Surviving Conquest, 43. 24. See Opler, Apache Life-Way, esp. 22–23, 285–86; Goodwin, Social Organization; Basso, Wisdom Sits in Places; Watt, Don’t Let the Sun; Record, Big Sycamore. 25. Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 193; Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 35. See also Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 78, 86. 26. Howard, Famous Indian Chiefs, 77–78; Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 44; Sweeney, Making Peace, 91, 100–101; Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 19. 27. Loring, “Report,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 186–89; Howard, My Life, 190; Howard, Famous Indian Chiefs, 119; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 47; Platten, Ten Years, 30. 28. Howard, My Life, 148; Loring, “Report,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 188. 29. Opler, Apache Life-Way, esp. 154–81, 316–400, 416–20; Goodwin, Social Organization. 30. Wright, “In the Days,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 499; Loring, “Report,” Notes to pages 116–120
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in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 185, 190–91; Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 86; Howard, My Life, 214; Sweeney, Making Peace, 98–100; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 46. 31. Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 91. For an officer’s opinion on how mixed marriages lowered white men, see Howard, My Life, 524–33. 32. Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 83–84. See also Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 72–73. For officers who had Apache nurses, see Myres, “Evy Alexander,” and Gatewood Collection, ashs. 33. Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 91; see also 78, 80. See also Lane, I Married a Soldier, 65; Letter, January 8, 1868, file 16, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs ; and Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 37. 34. Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 26. 35. See G. Price, Across the Continent, 152; W. Parker, Annals, 7; J. Parker, Old Army, 187; Miles, Serving the Republic, 220; Carter, From Yorktown, 178, 245, 249; Merritt, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 155; Nickerson, “Apache Raid,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 107; Forsyth, Thrilling Days, 80; Cochran, Posie, 39, 55; Cruse, Apache Days, 130, 186; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1886, 7–9, 143; 1868, 48–49; Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 78; see also 80–81; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 307; Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 19; and Loring, “Report,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 185, 195. For Apaches referred to as “savages,” see Merritt, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 156; Carter, From Yorktown, 242; Forsyth, Thrilling Days, 114; and M. Adams, “Arizona Adventure,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 51. 36. Quotes from Evans, “Indian Question,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 605; and U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 48–49. See also, for example, Miles, Personal Recollections; Miles, Serving the Republic, 219– 20; Crook, His Autobiography, 165; Forsyth, Story of the Soldier, 265; and W. Parker, Annals, esp. 37. 37. Some officers wrote, for example, that the Apaches represented a perfect specimen of the “racing type of athlete,” who had no superiors in physical excellence and as mountain climbers. See Davis, Truth about Geronimo, esp. 80; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1886, esp. 165; and Bourke, Apache Campaign. 38. Quote from Cruse, Apache Days, 187. See also Bourke, On the Border, 37; J. Parker, Old Army, 156; Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 19; Merritt, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 156; Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 28; Miles, Serving the Republic, 219–20; Forsyth, Thrilling Days, 80–82; Carter, From Yorktown, 179–81; and U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1883, 166. For Apaches referred to as “bucks,” see, for example, Carter, From Yorktown, 242; Davis, “Difficulties of Indian Warfare,” 280
Notes to pages 120–122
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in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 490–91; Mehren, “Scouting for Mescaleros,” 177; Bourke, Diaries, 33; and Crook, Resume of Operations, 7. For Apaches referred to as wolves, see Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 25. 39. On army terminology for Apache activity, see, among others, Biddle, Reminiscences, 168–69; Carter, From Yorktown, 228, 242, 249; Crook, Resume of Operations, 6; Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 35; Howard, Famous Indian Chiefs, 113–14; Jett, “Engagement in Guadalupe Canyon,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 495; A. Mills, My Story, 190; Bourke, Diaries, 65; Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 26; Benton, “Sgt. Neil Erickson,” 126; Platten, Ten Years, 15; and Dinges, “New York Private,” 56. For the terminology used to describe army doings, see Forsyth, Thrilling Days, 79; Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 26; J. Parker, Old Army, 152; Bourke, Diaries, 55; Carter, From Yorktown, 188, 191, 242–44, 247, 249; and Cruse, Apache Days, 156. 40. See, among others, Crook, “Apache Problem,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 160; and U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1885, 125. 41. The phrase “hostile Apaches” abounds in army writings. Also, it is rather common that army texts leave out the word “Apaches” entirely and speak only of “hostiles” when referring to free Apaches. See, for example, W. Corbusier, Soldier, 77; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 132; Carter, From Yorktown, 188, 203, 243–45; Crook, Resume of Operations, 6; J. Parker, Old Army, 153, 167; L. Wood, Chasing Geronimo, 53; Forsyth, Thrilling Days, 100, 107; Bourke, Diaries, 36, 37, 134; Elliott, “Geronimo Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 430–35; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 87; and “Early Days,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 144. Page numbers referred to here represent only a small fraction of the times the term “hostile” appears in these texts. Another common term for free Apaches in army texts was “renegades.” See Carter, From Yorktown, 199, 242; Crook, Resume of Operations, 6; Bourke, Diaries, 101; Forsyth, Thrilling Days, 79, 82; and King, “On Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 163. 42. Bourke, Diaries, 63–64; Sweeney, Making Peace, 25; see also 63–98; Howard, Famous Indian Chiefs, 136; Howard, My Life, 121, 205; M. Adams, “Arizona Adventure,” 51. See also W. Parker, Annals, 31; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 51; Platten, Ten Years, 38; Cruse, Apache Days, 59–60. 43. Howard, Famous Indian Chiefs, 112; Sweeney, Making Peace, 31; Cruse, Apache Days, 7, 157; Carter, From Yorktown, 199, 208. Interestingly, as Victorio excelled in war some whites claimed he was part white. Rumors of Victorio’s ancestry circulated as his tactical skills seemed ill fitted for a “savage” Apache. 44. Platten, Ten Years, 38; Howard, Famous Indian Chiefs, 356; Miles, Notes to pages 122–123
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Serving the Republic, 228; J. Parker, Old Army, 165; “Trailing Geronimo,” typescript, file 5, Mazzanovich Papers, ashs. 45. If there would have been no Gadsden Purchase following the U.S.-Mexican War, Cochise and Geronimo would have probably remained “Mexican Indians.” Then they would be as unfamiliar for the general western public as are the Yaqui leaders who resisted the Mexican government. For Yaqui resistance, see Vandervort, Indian Wars, and Bowen Hatfield, Chasing Shadows. 46. See, for instance, F. Corbusier, Recollections, 59; Bourke, Diaries; Crook, His Autobiography; and Howard, My Life, 129. On page 147, Howard claims that the Apaches acted as a congregation of the worst indigenous elements in the region, drawing membership from various tribes. Army men with the wildest imaginations argued that almost all Indians in the region were “Apaches” or that Apaches made up the largest Indian nation in the West, extending from California to Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico and numbering sixty thousand warriors. Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 19; Dinges, “New York Private,” 56. 47. Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 21; Cruse, Apache Days, 156–57. 48. U.S. War Department, Office of Quartermaster General, “Report on Fort McDowell,” file 3, box 2, “Military Posts Research Materials,” Schilling Collection, uasc. For military views of Akimel O’odham, see also Boyd, Cavalry Life, 149–50; Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 30–31; Biddle, Reminiscences, 198; Howard, My Life, 135–42; Howard, Famous Indian Chiefs, 54–65; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 80; and Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 76. 49. Thomas, Colonialism’s Culture, for example 15. 50. Platten, Ten Years, 35; R. Grierson, “Journal,” 2, 13, 15; L. Wood, Chasing Geronimo, 70–72. 51. Nickerson, “Major General,” hhl , 8. 52. Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 26–27, 35. For fear of Apaches, see Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 109–12, 119; Dinges, “New York Private,” 56; Platten, Ten Years, 20; and “Trailing Geronimo,” typescript, file 5, Mazzanovich Papers, ashs. For the danger of Apache duty, see also Crook, Resume of Operations, 5; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 97; and Davis, Truth about Geronimo. 53. Biddle, Reminiscences, 159–60, 180–83; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 70–73, 110–12; A. Mills, My Story, 142–44; Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 193. 54. For army discussions on the potential for general Apache “revolt,” see Elliott, “Geronimo Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 428; Carter, From Yorktown, 220–22; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1876, 100; 282
Notes to pages 124–127
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Upham, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 90–91; and Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 47. 55. Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 78, 80, 83–84. For army fears, see Upham, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 90–91; Sanford, Fighting Rebels, 11; Sweeney, Making Peace, 31; Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 26; Baldwin, Army Wife, 67–68; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 55–57; and Cochran, Posie, 49. 56. For the quotes, see Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 37; see also 36; Benton, “Sgt. Neil Erickson,” 122; and Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 193; see also 195–96. For the 1881 attack on Fort Apache, see Cruse, Apache Days; Carter, From Yorktown; and Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns. 57. Forsyth, Thrilling Days, 80–81; Pettit, “Apache Campaign Notes,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 532. See also Howard, Famous Indian Chiefs, 114; and Sweeney, Making Peace, 65. 58. Pettit, “Apache Campaign Notes,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 534. 59. Quote from Boyd, Cavalry Life, 111. For the army mentality regarding peace, violence, and the Apaches, see, among others, U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report; W. Parker, Annals; Carter, From Yorktown; Biddle, Reminiscences; A. Mills, My Story; Merritt, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns; and Wright, “In the Days,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses. 60. Cruse, Apache Days, 170, 173; Bourke, Diaries, 45–46. See also Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 113, 211–12; and Carter, From Yorktown, 207–8. The 1879 Annual Report celebrated when troops wiped out a whole party of Tonto Apaches, saving only one woman. See U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1879, 164, 169. For destructive army attacks against Apache camps, see also Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 30–31; Bourke, On the Border, 31–33; Bourke, Diaries, 43, 52–54; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 114–15, 121; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 101–2; Dinges, “New York Private,” 60; and Green, “Interesting Scout,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 42–47. 61. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1869, 121–22, 127–29; Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 50, 53. For army references of hunting Apaches like wild game, see Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 35; and Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 115–16. 62. Bode, Dose of Frontier Soldiering, 152; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 22, 30–31; see also 60, 110. See also Wright, “In the Days,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 497–99. 63. Barnes, “Apaches’ Last Stand,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 278; Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 42, 45, 47; Bourke, On the Border. Notes to pages 127–130
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64. “Trailing Geronimo,” typescript, file 6, Mazzanovich Papers, ashs. For a similar case, see Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 93–95. 65. Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 102; Platten, Ten Years, 37. 66. Wright, “In the Days,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 498–99. 67. E. Ball, Indeh, 201. 68. Braatz, Surviving Conquest, 137. 69. Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 40; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 79. 70. Bourke, Diaries, 34, 37, 45–46. See also Crook, His Autobiography, 174–83. 71. Bourke, Diaries, 50–51; Nickerson, “Major General,” hhl , 17–18; “Early Days,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 145–46. For historians who have taken the army’s word and misidentified the Yavapais in the cave as Apaches, see J. Porter, Paper Medicine Man, 19; Thrapp, Conquest of Apacheria, 127– 31; Ogle, Federal Control, 113–17; and Lockwood, Apache Indians, 196–99. 72. Bourke, On the Border, 213. 73. G. Price, Across the Continent, 148; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1873, 51–52; see also 1875, 136. 74. In the Annual Report the decapitated Indians were painted as criminals who “after long careers of crime, met the fate they so richly deserved.” The report also assured that “there was no other way but to secure these outlaws at any price.” U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1874, 61–63. For this episode, see also Nickerson, “Major General,” hhl , 15–17; Crook, His Autobiography, 181–82; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 84, 192; Bourke, On the Border, 220; and Merritt, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 161. 75. Gatewood, “Campaigning against Victorio,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 218. See also Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 139; Crook, Resume of Operations; and U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1883, 1885, 1886. 76. Benton, “Sgt. Neil Erickson,” 130. See also Howard, My Life, 130. 77. For indigenous adaptation, see, for example, Braatz, Surviving Conquest; Record, Big Sycamore; and Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Massacre at Camp Grant. 78. Chronological List of Actions; Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Massacre at Camp Grant, 53. 79. Braatz, Surviving Conquest, 177. 80. Quote from E. Ball, Indeh, 200–201. For Apaches who felt that the intention of whites was genocide, see E. Ball, Indeh, 78–81; see also 35, 47. For Apache views on the destructiveness of war, see Howard, Famous Indian Chiefs, 131; E. Ball, In the Days, 3–10; and E. Ball, Indeh, esp. 4–12, 70–74. For Apaches trying to avoid encountering white troops, see Sweeney, Making Peace, 70–71, 84–87; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 56; Howard, Famous Indian Chiefs, 135, 357; Howard, My Life, 209–11, 216–19; Crook, 284
Notes to pages 131–134
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His Autobiography, 164–65; E. Ball, Indeh, 41, 108; E. Ball, In the Days, 71; and Bourke, Diaries, 60. 81. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1875, 122; 1881, 118; Miles, Personal Recollections, 351. For the common perception of Indians as a dying race, see, for example, Dippie, Vanishing American. 82. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1883, 167–68. 83. Bourke, On the Border, 214. 84. For the quote, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1884, 131– 32. For army opinions, see Howard, My Life, 167, 179; Bourke, Diaries, 92; Crook, Resume of Operations, 2–5; Green, “Interesting Scout,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 44–45; and Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 94–97. For work in the reservations, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1874, 61–64; 1883, 181–82; 1884, 131–36; Crook, His Autobiography, 183; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 84; Bourke, On the Border, 215–29; Bourke, “Crook’s Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 142; and J. Parker, Old Army, 150–51. Some officers favored making the Apaches into pastoral rather than agricultural people, while others thought that practical artisans and mechanics should be sent to the Apaches. See Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 102; and Loring, “Report,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 201. 85. Loring, “Report,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 201. 86. Bourke, Diaries, 88–91; Bourke, “Crook’s Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 142. 87. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1874, 61. For army management of reservations, see Elliott, “Indian Reservation,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses; and Davis, Truth about Geronimo. 88. Bourke, Diaries, 92; Bourke, On the Border, 17; Loring, “Report,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 189; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 84; Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 87. 89. Howard, My Life, 216; see also 182–83; Howard, Famous Indian Chiefs, 97. 90. Upham, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 91; Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 87; Loring, “Report,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 193; Carter, From Yorktown, 211, 242; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 50–51. Often the army held Apache leaders responsible that no tiswin was made. See U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1883, 172. 91. Rowse, White Flour, esp. 1–10, 204–7. 92. Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 86–87; Upham, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 90. At another time the Apaches were seated on the ground in a forest opening to wait patiently for the distribution of bread. See Howard, My Life, 165. Notes to pages 135–139
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93. Nickerson, “Major General,” hhl , 14; Miles, Personal Recollections, 342; Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 39. 94. E. Ball, In the Days, 61–62. 95. Gatewood, “Campaigning against Victorio,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 213. For army views of Indian agents and reservation management, see, for example, Cruse, Apache Days, 38–41, 185–86, 204–6; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 89; Bourke, On the Border, 438–40; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1870, 8–9; 1875, 122–23; 1877, 140–47; 1883, 159–70; 1884, 128–29; Crook, Resume of Operations; Nickerson, “Major General,” hhl ; and Carter, From Yorktown, 210. See also Harte, “Conflict at San Carlos.” 96. See U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1871, 78; Davis, “Difficulties of Indian Warfare,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 488–89; J. Parker, Old Army, 152; Forsyth, Thrilling Days, 80–81; Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 86. Some officers argued that the Apaches remained “docile” in the reservations only because of the heavy military presence. See Loring, “Report,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 185; and U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1876, 100. 97. Crook, Resume of Operations, 10. See also Elliott, “Geronimo Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 427; E. Ball, In the Days, 162–67; and Davis, Truth about Geronimo. 98. For captivity raiding and trading in the Southwest, see Brooks, Captives and Cousins, and Barr, “From Captives to Slaves.” 99. Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 32–34. 100. Bourke, On the Border, 40. 101. Biddle, Reminiscences, 180–83. One enlisted man adopted and “systematically” educated two Apache boys, who nevertheless after more than six years wanted to return to live on the reservation with their people. Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 89–91, 122–27. 102. For Apache resistance on the reservations, see, for example, Watt, Don’t Let the Sun; E. Ball, Indeh; E. Ball, In the Days; Record, Big Sycamore; Merritt, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 157–58; Davis, Truth about Geronimo; and Davis, “Difficulties of Indian Warfare,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 488–89. 103. Worcester, Apaches, 3. 104. Simmons, New Mexico, 82. 105. Lamar, Far Southwest, 2–3. 106. Thrapp, Conquest of Apacheria, x; Sweeney, Cochise, 3. 107. Kraft, Gatewood and Geronimo, 12; Haley, Apaches, 285; Thrapp, Conquest of Apacheria, 202. See also, for example, Billington, New Mexico’s Buffalo Soldiers, 61; D. Ball, “Fort Craig,” 153–57; and Dobak and Phillips, Black Regulars, xvii. 286
Notes to pages 139–144
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108. See, for instance, Kraft, Gatewood and Geronimo, 208; Simmons, Massacre; J. Porter, Paper Medicine Man, 6; and Utley, Frontier Regulars, 371. This study calls these conflicts “U.S.-Apache wars” to suggest a more suitable term for general and scholarly use. Still, even this term is too narrow to describe the entire conflict in the borderlands, because it omits the Apache clashes with Mexico. 109. See, for example, Utley, Frontier Regulars, 169, 375. 110. Leiker, Racial Borders, 63; Dinges, “Victorio Campaign,” 84; Kane, “Army Politics,” 117; Simmons, Massacre, 52; D. Roberts, Like the Wind, 81; C. Robinson, General Crook, 253; Thrapp, Conquest of Apacheria, 155, 211. On page 239 Thrapp also refers to Apaches as “savages.” For “warpath” references, see, for example, Dunlay, Wolves, 169; Kraft, Gatewood and Geronimo, 14–15; J. Porter, Paper Medicine Man, 185; and Thrapp, Conquest of Apacheria, 236. 111. See, for example, Utley, Frontier Regulars, 196–98, 375; Thrapp, Conquest of Apacheria, 115, 246; Leiker, Racial Borders, 49, 59; D. Roberts, Like the Wind, 133, 179; and Rickey, Forty Miles, 14. 112. Sweeney, Cochise, 242–43, 266, 270. For samples of the use of the term “hostile” in scholarship, see, for example, Dunlay, Wolves, 168–69, 183; J. Porter, Paper Medicine Man, 9–11, 19; Simmons, Massacre, 52; C. Robinson, General Crook, 105, 135, 275–77; Leiker, Racial Borders, 51; BowenHatfield, Chasing Shadows, xii, 11, 17, 19, 22, 58; Rickey, Forty Miles, 10– 11, 14–15, 214; Utley, Frontier Regulars, 360, 375, 381, 385, 389; Worcester, Apaches, 144, 146, 297; Thrapp, Conquest of Apacheria, 7, 102, 106, 239; and Smits, “Fighting Fire,” 74. Smits also repeatedly labels those indigenous men who worked in or with the army as “friendlies.” 113. Some historical studies have also adopted the army’s language when describing the natural geography of the Southwest. An older overview of New Mexico history writes of the “cactus-studded wastes of Arizona,” while a standard monograph on Apache history describes the land as “hostile,” “brutal,” and “tortured.” Even a relatively recent study refers to the “burning temperatures and hostile terrain of the Southwest.” Another new study on the Santa Fe Trail uses descriptions like “hostile terrain,” “a far land,” or “harrowing country” to describe the region. See Simmons, New Mexico, 82, 137; Worcester, Apaches, 3; Kraft, Gatewood and Geronimo, 12; and Hyslop, Bound for Santa Fe, 46, 73, 171. See also Thrapp, Conquest of Apacheria, xii; and Leiker, Racial Borders, 19. 114. Thrapp, Al Sieber, 281, 286. 115. C. Robinson, General Crook, 140; see also 124–41; Gates, “Crook’s First Apache Campaign,” 319. See also Haley, Apaches, 284–93; Utley, Frontier Notes to pages 144–146
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Regulars, 196–98; Thrapp, Al Sieber, 106–17; and Thrapp, Conquest of Apacheria, 119–43. 116. Braatz, Surviving Conquest, 16. 117. See, for example, Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Massacre at Camp Grant; Braatz, Surviving Conquest; Record, Big Sycamore; V. Smith, “White Eyes”; Jacoby, Shadows at Dawn; and Shepherd, Indian Nation. 118. Braatz, Surviving Conquest, 17. 119. D. Gutierrez, “Significant to Whom?” 520.
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5. Army Village as Middle-Class Living Space 1. Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 37, 49–51, 187. For Fort Bayard, see Frazer, Forts of the West, 95–96. 2. D. Ball, “Fort Craig,” 169. For the number of army posts, see Wooster, United States Indian Policy, 13. After the continent was under U.S. control, the number of posts rapidly declined. In two years alone, 1890 and 1891, about one fourth were abandoned, and by 1894 there were only eighty posts left. Coffman, Old Army, 282. 3. In addition to soldiers and officers and their dependents, the army villages had a variable numbers of other residents, including servants, licensed merchants (post sutlers), laundresses, blacksmiths, carpenters, freighters, and other civilian laborers hired by the army. While several officers had their families with them, enlisted men were usually single, as the army was against their marrying. 4. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1878, 22–25. 5. Letter, July 21, 1867, file 14, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs ; Federal Census, 133–43; Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 83–84, 86; A. Mills, My Story, 146; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1871, 104– 5. See also Boyd, Cavalry Life, 123. 6. Some officers, especially those of higher rank, strove desperately for the top rung, trying to win favors from high-ranking government officials. For the strategies of promotion-hungry officers, see, for example, A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady; Wooster, Nelson A. Miles; and Dixon, Beecher Island. In Arizona the rivalry between Gen. George Crook and Gen. Nelson Miles and their respective devotees is the best known and the most high profile of the disputes where promotion and career considerations played a major role. After 1886 Crook, the commander of the Department of Arizona from 1882 to 1886, and Miles, the man who replaced him, fought for the honors of bringing the U.S.-Apache wars to an end. Both claimed that it was their methods and efforts that caused the collapse of Apache resistance and made possible the surrender of Geronimo. The debate was fought in print and has been extensively 288
Notes to pages 146–153
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discussed by several historians. See, for example, Bourke, On the Border; Bourke, General Crook; Crook, Resume of Operations; Miles, Personal Recollections; Miles, Serving the Republic; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, esp. 1886; Wooster, Nelson A. Miles; DeMontravel, Fighting Men; and C. Robinson, General Crook. 7. Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 47, 195–97; A. Mills, My Story, 150–51. For quarrels and disharmony, see Letters, November 1, 1879, May 4, 1880, and May 29, 1880, Worthington Letters, ashs ; Corson Reminiscences, uasc ; Lane, I Married a Soldier, 188; and C. Wood, “Lieutenants.” 8. Promotion was actually so slow that some officers spent decades in the same rank. See Coffman, Old Army, 230–34; and Utley, Frontier Regulars, 19–21. 9. Stoler, Carnal Knowledge; Stoler, Haunted by Empire. 10. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1875, 122. From time to time the army determined which villages were to be abandoned, which spared for the time being, and which maintained longer. For example, the Annual Report for 1882 handed permanent status only to Forts Grant and Huachuca in Arizona and Forts Marcy and Wingate in New Mexico. Forts Thomas, Apache, Lowell, McDowell, and Whipple Barracks in Arizona and Bayard, Cummings, Union, and Stanton in New Mexico the report categorized as temporary and specified that in ten years time they would no longer be necessary, whereas Forts Bowie, Mojave, Verde, and Yuma in Arizona and Craig and Selden in New Mexico the report judged suitable for immediate abandonment. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1882, 11–17. 11. For the location of army posts in Arizona and New Mexico, see Frazer, Forts of the West, 3–15, 95–109; and R. Roberts, Encyclopedia, 33–50, 521– 30. See also U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 46–47; and Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 128–29. 12. Ice would have helped many battling with fever, but the War Department was reluctant to issue any because of the cost. It is telling of the way officers took care of their own that when a daughter of one of the officers got the fever, two hundred pounds ice were delivered in twelve hours from another army village. A. Mills, My Story, 189–90. 13. For Craig, see Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 45. For Selden, see Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 295. 14. Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 534; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 121; Letter, November 20, 1867, file 15, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs ; Marion, Notes of Travel, 7; Frazer, Forts of the West, 5–9. 15. Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 78; Letters, November 1, 1879, and July 23, 1880, Worthington Letters, ashs ; A. Mills, My Story, 150; Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 30, 32, 35; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 203–6. For army Notes to pages 153–156
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views of Camp McDowell, see also Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 23–25; and Henry, “Cavalry Life,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 97. 16. For Fort Apache, see Cruse, Apache Days, 32, 41–42; Barnes, “In the Apache Country,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 622; and Upham, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 86. For Fort Stanton, see Boyd, Cavalry Life, 164– 65; and Cruse, Apache Days, 198. At Whipple Barracks the army village itself was supposedly far from handsome, but the blue skies, the wonderful rugged mountains, and the mystery of the desert made the location more bearable. See Biddle, Reminiscences, 164–68; and A. Mills, My Story, 145. 17. Hoagland, Army Architecture, 10. For recommendations of what the village buildings should look like, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1872, unnumbered pages after page 280. 18. Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 532–33. 19. Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 552–53, 555. 20. Utley, Frontier Regulars, 81. Due to the lack of stockades, some officers thought that the forts really did not live up to the meaning of the word. See, for instance, Howard, My Life, 126; and Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 3. In the Southwest, Fort Cummings, entirely surrounded by an adobe wall ten or twelve feet high, was an exception. At Fort Craig the buildings were also connected by an adobe wall to prevent cattle from wandering into the parade ground. See Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 45, 128–29. 21. In 1879 Forts Bayard, Stanton, and Wingate in New Mexico had schools attended by an average of only ten, thirteen, and ten enlisted men each, while in Arizona only Forts Bowie and Lowell had schools, and only in Lowell did ten enlisted man participate. The schools did have some children as students. A few years later school attendance was still low among enlisted men, with only thirty-eight men studying in the whole of Arizona. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1880, 295–96, 316; 1883, 54–56. 22. James Glover, “Reminiscences of James B. Glover as Told to Mrs. George F. Kitt, 1928,” Glover Papers, ashs, 5; Cruse, Apache Days, 32; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 36; Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 561. 23. Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 247, 283, 295, 298, 527–30, 532, 541, 545; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1882, 15–17. 24. For Yuma, see Howard, Famous Indian Chiefs, 39, 41; and Howard, My Life, 126. For Whipple, see A. Mills, My Story, 145; and Biddle, Reminiscences, 164–65. For Stanton, see Boyd, Cavalry Life, 169. For improvements at Stanton, see Cruse, Apache Days, 240. 25. Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 545; Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 192; A. Mills, My Story, 149; Letter, June 13, 1880, Worthington 290
Notes to pages 157–161
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Letters, ashs. For problems in planting trees around the parade ground at Fort Craig, see Grinstead, “Back at the Fort,” 53–54. 26. A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 165; U.S. War Department, Office of Quartermaster General, “Report on Fort Mojave” and “Report on Fort Lowell,” file 3, box 2, “Military Posts Research Materials,” Schilling Collection, uasc. 27. Altshuler, Starting with Defiance, 30–32. Lake Constance was named for the daughter of the officer who designed the new water system. See A. Mills, My Story, 190–93, 200; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 147; U.S. War Department, Office of Quartermaster General, “Report on Fort Grant,” file 3, box 2, “Military Posts Research Materials,” Schilling Collection, uasc ; A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 166–67, 172–73; and U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1876, 102. For expenditures authorized for water, drainage, sewer, bridge, and road work, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1885, 454–55. 28. Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 528, 536; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1872, 142; Hoagland, Army Architecture, 181. 29. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1872, 75. 30. Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 186, 191; Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 545. For tent accommodation among enlisted ranks, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 50; and R. Roberts, Encyclopedia, 35. 31. Fort Lowell Records, ashs ; Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 541–42. For army tents, see McChristian, Army in the West, 102–3. 32. Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 536. 33. Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 247. 34. Officers often preferred any kind of a house over a tent. For instance, a couple at Whipple Barracks were pleased with what they called a “primitive” log house because they were under the impression that in most other army villages in the Southwest people were housed in tents. Also, even though one family was disappointed that their house was not finished when they arrived at Fort Selden, they still felt lucky that the rooms already available for occupation nevertheless proved “larger and better than a tent.” A. Mills, My Story, 145; Lane, I Married a Soldier, 188. 35. F. Corbusier, Recollections, 32–35. 36. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 124–27. 37. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1877, 191; 1881, 447; 1882, 265. For fires, see Boyd, Cavalry Life, 235–38. For snakes and other wildlife inside the army quarters, see also, among others, Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 25. For officers and wives’ critique concerning the standard of housing, see Upham, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 87. 38. For sand, see Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 152. For water, see Frazer, Forts of the West, 6; Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 545; Notes to pages 161–166
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Letters, May 1, 1879, and July 1, 1879, Fort Lowell Records, ashs ; and Upham, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 87. 39. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 214–19. 40. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 136, 220–23; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 130– 31. See also Lane, I Married a Soldier, and Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona. For officers’ opinions, see, for instance, Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 129– 30; and Bourke, On the Border. In their efforts to perpetuate domesticity and Victorian values, army wives had much in common with many of the “civilian” white middle-class women who ventured West in the nineteenth century. Classic studies of women in the West include Jeffrey, Frontier Women, and Armitage and Jameson, Women’s West. 41. Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 192. For the lack of lumber, see A. Mills, My Story, 150. 42. A. Mills, My Story, 149–50; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 34; Biddle, Reminiscences, 168. 43. Letters, November 20, 1867, and December 4, 1867, files 15–16, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs. 44. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 214–19; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 79, 86; see also 77–78. 45. A. Mills, My Story, 150. See also Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 44. 46. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 119–20; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 131. 47. Lane, I Married a Soldier, 165–66, 194–95. For the cost of travel to and from the Southwest, see Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 192; Lane, I Married a Soldier, 165–66; and Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 35. 48. Biddle, Reminiscences, 172–75, 193–95, 202. 49. Letter, November 1, 1879, Worthington Letters, ashs. 50. The salary for a first-year private was $16 a month, before reduced to $13 in 1871. Second lieutenants had an annual salary of $1,400 or $1,500, depending on whether one was in the infantry or the cavalry. First lieutenants made $1,500 or $1,600; captains $1,800 or $2,000; majors $2,500; lieutenant colonels $3,000; colonels $3,500; and brigadier generals $5,500. Utley, Frontier Regulars, 19, 38. 51. Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 194; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 132–33, 137; Letters, May 29, 1880, and July 16, 1880, Worthington Letters, ashs. See also Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 199. For debt, see Biddle, Reminiscences, 191–92; and Boyd, Cavalry Life, 231. 52. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 214–20. 53. Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 27; Bourke, On the Border, 58–59; Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 193; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 128–29, 139–40. See also F. Corbusier, Recollections, 33–34; and 292
Notes to pages 167–173
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Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 206. Imported flour, eggs, potatoes, and so on were often very costly. See U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1872, 153; Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 27; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 128–29; and Corson Reminiscences, uasc. 54. Biddle, Reminiscences, 174. See also Boyd, Cavalry Life, 123–24, 129, 230–31; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 129; Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 36; A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 165–66; Letter, November 20, 1867, file 15, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs ; Lane, I Married a Soldier, 189–90; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 37. 55. A. Mills, My Story, 145–46, 199–200. See also the description of a visit by Gen. William Sherman at Whipple Barracks, where he was treated to a dinner and a ball. Corson Reminiscences, uasc. 56. Biddle, Reminiscences, 193; Fort Apache Commissary Ledgers, 1875– 83, box 3, ashs. For army wives shopping, see Biddle, Reminiscences, 185–87. 57. Valputic and Longfellow, “Fight at Chiricahua Pass,” 373. One army surgeon wanted two local papers from his home region, in addition to five national publications, whereas an army couple received many English and French papers from their friend. Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 47; Biddle, Reminiscences, 144. See also Baldwin, Army Wife, 74; and Myres, Cavalry Wife, 120. 58. Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 30; Letters, files 14–18, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs. The quote is from a letter dated July 21, 1867. See also Chaffee Papers, ashs. In 1872, two weeks after the presidential election, some officers, much to their frustration, had still not heard any word of the outcome. See Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 40–42. 59. Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 248, 283, 306, 531, 533, 542. Letters from Washington to Fort Apache usually took a circuitous route: from Washington via San Francisco to San Diego; from there to Tucson, then to Camp Bowie, the nearest post-office; from Bowie by cavalry couriers to Camp Grant, then to the San Carlos reservation, and finally to Apache. 60. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 170. See also Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 87. 61. Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 39; Lane, I Married a Soldier, 64. 62. Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 187–88; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 98–100; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 23; Myres, “Evy Alexander”; Crook, His Autobiography, 266; A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 165; Boyd, Cavalry Life. 63. Once Fanny Corbusier tried washing her own clothes, but after washing, drying, and starching had “clothes so stiff” that she could not get them off the lines. Crying, she carried water from the kitchen to loosen them. In the end, she failed in getting her washing done and had to get her husband to appeal to a superior officer so that the laundresses would do her laundry as well. F. Corbusier, Recollections, 36. See also Boyd, Cavalry Life, 135, 221. Notes to pages 173–175
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64. Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 31; Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 192, 197; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 123. 65. Biddle, Reminiscences, 173, 184; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 221–22. 66. Biddle, Reminiscences, 139–42, 188–90, 212–13; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 304. For nurses, see Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” and Myres, “Arizona Camping Trip.” For births, see Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona; Myres, “Evy Alexander”; Lane, I Married a Soldier, 147; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 187; F. Corbusier, Recollections; and Chaffee Papers, ashs. For childcare, see Boyd, Cavalry Life, 88–89. 67. A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 167; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 89–92, 124. 68. Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 98–100; see also 170–71; Lane, I Married a Soldier, 190–92. For incompetent servants, see Boyd, Cavalry Life, 221. For reliable and devoted servants, see Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 31; and Biddle, Reminiscences, 151–52, 175–76. 69. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 192–93, 221. See also Corson Reminiscences, uasc ; Cruse, Apache Days. 70. Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 31–37. See also Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 167–68. 71. Letter, May 24, 1880, Worthington Letters, ashs ; Howard, My Life, 147, 164, 182. See also Boyd, Cavalry Life, 106–7, 118–19, 157; Biddle, Reminiscences, 165; Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 190–92; and A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 165. 72. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 214–19, 255.
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6. Manual Labor and Leisure 1. In May Banks’s account the enlisted men remain mostly invisible. Her narrative does not mention how much timber the men cut, hauled to the post, or even if they returned with the Staceys. Myres, ”Arizona Camping Trip.” 2. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 130. For officers and their wives’ dislike toward domestic work, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1875, 174–75; 1881, 35; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 310–11; and A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 167. 3. Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 47, 133, 136. Lieutenant Bigelow, living in a temporary camp, wrote that his normal day consisted of eating three meals, made by soldier cooks or enjoyed at nearby civilian homes and restaurants; socializing with those civilians considered suitable; exercising, which usually included climbing or visiting some mine; reading; and oftentimes participating in local dances and celebrations. 4. For officers and labor, see Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 27; Corson Reminiscences, uasc ; Letters, December 15, 1867, January 8, 1868, and March 11, 1868, files 16–17, box 2, Widney Letters, 294
Notes to pages 176–183
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Schneider Papers, ashs ; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 109; Finerty, “On Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 242; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 132; Upham, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 89. See also K. Adams, Class and Race, 48–51, 68–69, 75–76. Lt. Thomas Cruse bought a tract of land near Roswell, New Mexico, took a short leave and tried farming, building irrigation systems himself. He quickly changed his mind and stopped when he realized just how difficult and unattractive labor was. Cruse, Apache Days, 242–45; see also 183. 5. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1875, 77; see also 1877, 137; Forsyth, Story of the Soldier, 102, 105. See also Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 22. For soldier labor in the pre–Civil War army, see Coffman, Old Army, 18– 19, 44, 167–72; Utley, Frontiersmen in Blue, 38; and Prucha, Sword of the Republic, 169–92. 6. Jacobson, Whiteness. 7. The officers’ corps was out of reach for most white immigrants. In 1886 of the 2,140 officers in the army only 176 were foreign-born. Although there were 3,640 German soldiers, there were only 34 German officers. The number of Irish soldiers was 3,518, but only 67 officers were Irish. In addition, the army had 454 Scandinavian soldiers, but only 3 such officers. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1886, 594; Federal Census, 133–51. 8. W. Corbusier, Soldier, 67. Only later, by the end of the nineteenth century, did a more widespread concern arise among native-born army people over the large numbers of immigrants in service. See Coffman, Old Army. 9. Federal Census, 133–51. 10. See, for example, Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 127; and Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 22–24. 11. A. Mills, My Story, 135; Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 193; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 193–95; K. Adams, Class and Race, 137–40. For soldiers’ need of discipline, see, for example, Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 62, 102–3. 12. See, for example, Biddle, Reminiscences, and Myres, Cavalry Wife. 13. Baldwin, Army Wife, 71, 73. See also, for example, Letter, November 20, 1867, file 15, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs ; Cruse, Apache Days, 31; and A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 152, 165. 14. The four in Arizona were Forts Apache, Huachuca, McDowell, and Mojave, and the one in New Mexico, Fort Bayard. Frazer, Forts of the West, 3–15, 95–109; R. Roberts, Encyclopedia, 33–50, 521–30. 15. Greene, Ladies and Officers, 53. 16. Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 283, 295, 544–45, 555; R. Roberts, Encyclopedia, 49; Frazer, Forts of the West, 100. 17. Letter, July 1, 1879, Fort Lowell Records, ashs. Notes to pages 183–187
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18. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1881, 123; see also 1885, 464–80. 19. Benton, “Sgt. Neil Erickson,” 128; Carter, From Yorktown, 242. For enlisted men building Fort Apache, see Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 527; and Upham, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 86; for Camp Reno, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 56–57; for Fort Thomas, see Diary, February 6, 1880, series 3, Barnes Papers, ashs ; Cruse, Apache Days, 29; Altshuler, Cavalry Yellow, 314; and Myres, “Arizona Camping Trip.” For soldiers building posts in Arizona, see, for example, U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 67; 1880, 212, 215; Dinges, “New York Private,” 67– 68; Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 13; and Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 49–50, 107–8; for New Mexico, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1875, 77; 1881, 123–24. 20. Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 56–59, 127–28. 21. Mazzanovich, “Life in Arizona,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 334. 22. Rickey, Forty Miles, 98; Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 248, 553, 556; Howard, Famous Indian Chiefs, 39; Tate, Frontier Army, 158. In Arizona, enlisted men also improved existing springs. Bourke, On the Border, 34. 23. Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 548; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 47–48. See also U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1884, 133; Letter, June 13, 1880, Worthington Letters, ashs ; and Schreier, “I Had Left Civilization,” 192. 24. Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 26–27. 25. Dinges, “New York Private,” 63. See also Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 108–9, for a case when men were required to work all day and without breaks during the hottest hours, even though a troublesome malarial fever “shook the garrison.” 26. Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 14, 18; Dinges, “New York Private,” 65; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 193–94; Post Returns, Fort Grant, rolls 414–15; Fort Apache, rolls 33–34; and Fort Bayard, rolls 87–88, in Returns from U.S. Military Posts, nara ; Randall, Hostile Land; K. Adams, Class and Race, 157. 27. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1878, 306–8; see also 1881, 190; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 74. Extra duty continued to play a significant role in Arizona in the 1880s, with only a few posts having large numbers of civilian employees. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1885, 412–13. For soldiers’ comments on extra duty, see Diary entries, February 10, 1886, and May 5, 1886, Chrisman Papers, ashs. 28. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1869, 125; Barnes, “In the Apache Country,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 624; Flint and Flint, “Fort Union,” 35– 36; Coffman, Old Army, 346–50. Don Rickey writes that men whose previous experience qualified them as skilled laborers were allowed extra duty pay 296
Notes to pages 187–190
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of thirty-five cents a day, others twenty-five cents, which was reduced in the 1880s to twenty cents. Forty Miles, 95. 29. Graybill, Policing the Great Plains, 96–97; White, “Animals and Enterprise,” 261–62; Sheridan, Arizona, 117, 155; González, Refusing the Favor, 45. 30. F. Corbusier, Recollections, 63; “Descriptive Report, Fort Apache, December 1870,” box 1, Schilling Collection, uasc ; Tate, Frontier Army, 78; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 56–57. For soldiers building roads in Arizona, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 65, 67; 1876, 103; 1878, 196; 1880, 210; and Cruse, Apache Days, 32. 31. Quote from Carter, From Yorktown, 192–93. For the telegraph line, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1871, 68–69, 78; 1872, 77; 1873, 51; 1874, 65, 124–25; and W. Corbusier, Soldier, 87. In Texas, the army completed 1,218 miles of wire. See Tate, Frontier Army, 69–70. 32. Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 195–98; Simmons, New Mexico, 156. 33. Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 40–43; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1875, 136; 1876, 103; 1877, 148; 1882, 152; Finerty, “On Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 254. 34. Cruse, Apache Days, 197–98; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 80; see also 77–78, 98–103, 137, 151–52, 198–99; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 221; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 124; “Trailing Geronimo,” typescript, file 6, Mazzanovich Papers, ashs ; Chaffee Papers, ashs. Servants of officers received their extra pay from the officer they worked for, the amount varying a great deal. Don Rickey estimates that it usually ranged from five to ten dollars a month. Forty Miles, 111–12. 35. F. Corbusier, Recollections, 33; see also 29–30. For soldier cooks, see Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 50–51, 78, 85, 168, 201–3; Baldwin, Army Wife, 67, 75, 82; and Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 33. Soldiers also had to cook in their own companies. Laundry was something the soldiers did not do, as the military hired civilian laundresses. Some officers wanted to abandon this practice and make the enlisted men do their own and the officers’ laundry. See U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1875, 175. 36. Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 197; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 310. 37. Barnes, “In the Apache Country,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 622; Rickey, Forty Miles, 94; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 98. See also Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 13; W. Parker, Annals, 11; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1882, 68–69; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 195; and Bode, Dose of Frontier Soldiering, 187. 38. Greene, Ladies and Officers, 104; Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, quote from 64. For Bigelow’s ideas of discipline and soldiers’ free time, see 6–8, 33, 80; Forsyth, Story of the Soldier, 88. Notes to pages 190–193
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39. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1880, 212. 40. Quote from Henry, “Cavalry Life,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 99. For soldiers excused from military activities, see Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 107, 125–26; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1878, 196; and Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 310. On officers and professionalization, see K. Adams, Class and Race, 64–68. For the question of military training, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1875, 177; 1877, 67; 1879, 167, 171; 1880, 212; 1881, 124–25; 1882, 7; 1883, 136, 170; and Miles, Personal Recollections, 537–44. For West Point, see T. Smith, “West Point,” 32–33. One enlisted man noted that the “truth is, the only thing I enjoyed about being a soldier was cavalry drill.” Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 30. 41. Billington, New Mexico’s Buffalo Soldiers, 26–31, 109–14; Dobak and Phillips, Black Regulars, 63–64, 104–5. 42. When his term ended Jett wrote that “I felt like a man let out of prison after having been found ‘not guilty,’ or like a mocking bird able, in the heart, to sing all the tunes of liberty in the world.” Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 4–5, 43. See also Wright, “In the Days,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 498. One officer discovered that “owing to the unsoldierliness of our garrison service . . . and the ingloriousness of Indian warfare . . . our men have not the pride in their uniform of soldiers engaged in regular civilized war.” Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 202. See also Greene, Ladies and Officers, 104. 43. Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 13–14; Bode, Dose of Frontier Soldiering, 18; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 134. See also Bourke, On the Border, 7. 44. Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 13; Tate, Frontier Army, 269–70. Some infuriated soldiers even sent a petition to Congress to correct their position. See Utley, Frontier Regulars, 83–84. 45. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 52, 60–61; see also 1875, 176–77. 46. For officers’ and wives’ remarks concerning the primitive quality of enlisted men’s work, see, for example, Upham, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 86–87; and Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 22. 47. Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 27–28. 48. Bode, Dose of Frontier Soldiering, 19. For desertions during the first year of service, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1881, 210. 49. Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 83; Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 27; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 50, 52, 60–61; Cruse, Apache Days, 67; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 59. 50. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1868, 51; see also 67; 1882, 70; Mazzanovich, “Life in Arizona,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 339; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 28. For chasing deserters, see Reeve, “Frederick E. 298
Notes to pages 194–198
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Phelps,” 132–35; Myres “Evy Alexander,” 34; and R. Grierson, “Journal,” 3. Beginning in the late 1860s enlisted men saw a certain percentage of their pay withheld by the government. The men could get the money only after serving a full term of five years with a good service record. Coffman, Old Army, 349. 51. Cruse, Apache Days, 69; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 59; Mazzanovich, “Life in Arizona,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 332; Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 62; Randall, Hostile Land, 227. 52. For Arizona, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1869, 125; 1883, 50. After the peak in 1871 desertion rates for the whole army declined so that (by fiscal years, ending June 30) there were 7,271 desertions in 1873; 4,606 in 1874; 2,521 in 1875; 1,844 in 1876; 2,516 in 1877; 1,678 in 1878; 1,965 in 1879; 2,043 in 1880; 2,361 in 1881; 3,741 in 1882; 3,578 in 1883; 3,672 in 1884; 2,927 in 1885; and 2,090 in 1886. See U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1873, 222; 1875, 330; 1876, 72; 1877, 49; 1878, 26; 1879, 35; 1880, 33; 1881, 72; 1882, 52; 1883, 80; 1885, 74, 100; 1886, 104; and Coffman, Old Army, 346. Desertion rates were always much lower among black soldiers. They had fewer opportunities available in the often mainly white and Hispanic civilian world in the West. For black soldiers and desertion, see Dobak and Phillips, Black Regulars, 62–64; Leiker, Racial Borders, 82–85, 185; Kenner, Buffalo Soldiers, 23; and Coffman, Old Army, 371, 483. 53. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1883, 50; Bourke, On the Border, 6–7. 54. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1871, 45; 1883, 50–52; Coffman, Old Army, 371–73; K. Adams, Class and Race, 137–38. For ideas officers had concerning desertion, soldiers, and free time, see, for example, U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1872, 49; 1876, 453–54; 1877, 65–66; 1882, 71; 1885, 115; Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 33, 37–38, 62, 64, 99–100; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 18. 55. Dobak, “Licit Amusements,” 36. 56. Surgeon General’s Office, Circular No. 8, 246; Mazzanovich, “Life in Arizona,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 335; C. Wood, “Lieutenants,” 161; Scott, “Whiskey.” 57. Cruse, Apache Days, 29. See also Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 21; “My Life in the West,” typescript, Glover Papers, ashs, 35–36; and Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 62, 126–27. 58. Coffman, Old Army, 350; Rickey, Forty Miles, 201; Benton, “Sgt. Neil Erickson,” 130. On payday drinking among the enlisted ranks, see Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 25; Mazzanovich, “Life in Arizona,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 332, 337; and Bourke, On the Border, 21; see also 12–13. Notes to pages 198–201
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59. Ward, “Cavalry Camps,” 112; Pettit, “Apache Campaign Notes,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 533. See also “Trailing Geronimo,” typescript, file 6, Mazzanovich Papers, ashs ; and Mazzanovich, “Life in Arizona,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 338. 60. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1885, 721; Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 22; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 48–49. 61. Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 11–12, 20–21, 46. George H. Neymier, also known as “Booze,” enlisted on September 11, 1879, in Cincinnati, Ohio. He served his whole term of five years, being discharged September 10, 1884, with a character rating of “good.” 62. Cruse, Apache Days, 30. 63. Scott, “Whiskey,” 38. 64. Mazzanovich, “Life in Arizona,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 333–34; Cruse, “From Hembrillo Canyon,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 262; Scott, “Whiskey,” 39–40, 44–49. For drunkenness during military campaigns, see Notebook 1880–81, Finley Papers, uasc ; Bode, Dose of Frontier Soldiering, 156– 60, 163; J. Parker, Old Army, 176; Cruse, Apache Days, 51–53; and “Trailing Geronimo,” typescript, file 6, Mazzanovich Papers, ashs. 65. Mazzanovich, “Life in Arizona,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 332; Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 23. 66. For example, Fourth Cavalry headquarters at Fort Huachuca in the 1880s had a good regimental library, but it was boxed up, and, according to one officer, there were “no indications of impatience on the part of the garrison to get at it.” Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 117. For soldiers’ leisure activities, see Mazzanovich, “Life in Arizona,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 335, 337–38; Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 23–24; Dinges, “New York Private,” 67–69; Neifert, “Trailing Geronimo,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 560; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 135–36; Eales, Army Wives, 91; and Rickey, Forty Miles, 205. 67. Walker, “Reluctant Corporal,” 14–15, 18–20; see also 5; Baldwin, Army Wife, 533; see also 52. 68. Forsyth, Story of the Soldier, 91–92; K. Adams, Class and Race, 7, 86– 87. For the range of nationalities represented in the enlisted ranks, see Nationality of Enlisted Men. 69. For black soldiers and leisure, see Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail; Billington, New Mexico’s Buffalo Soldiers, 129–30; Kenner, Buffalo Soldiers, 16; Leiker, Racial Borders, 76; and Dobak and Phillips, Black Regulars, 87– 88, 121–22, 135–78. 70. Greene, Ladies and Officers, 51. 71. Bourke, Diaries, 134–39. Crook’s trip to his new station in Omaha, Nebraska, saw plenty of additional entertainments, receptions, and banquets. 300
Notes to pages 201–206
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Two large ones were held in San Francisco and Omaha. En route, Crook was detained at Salt Lake City for two weeks. He was treated like royalty, with some kind of entertainment provided almost every night. Crook, His Autobiography, 187; Bourke, On the Border, 240. When the commanding general of the army William T. Sherman visited Arizona, the citizens of Prescott gave him a reception too. See Biddle, Reminiscences, 179–80. 72. A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 169–70. For a “progressive whist party,” see F. Corbusier, Recollections, 146, and for an “Indian-style” ball on a “grander scale,” including fireworks, given by the officers, see Loring, “Report,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 199. For a wedding ceremony, see Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 325–26. References to “routine” hops, dinners, parties, and gatherings can be found, for example, in Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 81, 85, 94–96; Fuller, “Evening with the Apaches,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses; Biddle, Reminiscences, 50; A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 153–54; and Clarke, “Hot Trail,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 630. 73. Cruse, Apache Days, 44–45, 87, 158, 236. On the Fourth of July the military ideally feasted “in grand style,” with music, games, horse races, and athletic contests. For the variation in holiday celebrations, see also Mazzanovich, “Life in Arizona,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 338; Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 99–100; Diary entry, December 25, 1885, Chrisman Papers, ashs ; Dinges, “New York Private,” 66; and Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 43. 74. Letter, December 15, 1867, file 16, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs. See also Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 82; and Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 239. At Fort Union the army wives made music and organized a choir. Lane, I Married a Soldier, 164. 75. F. Corbusier, Recollections, 131; A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 178; see also 159; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 100; Billington, New Mexico’s Buffalo Soldiers, 116–20. See also Biddle, Reminiscences, 187–88; and Cruse, Apache Days, 91, 182. In 1876 an exceptional event took place in Santa Fe, as three regimental bands held a concert there. The Sixth Cavalry relieved the Fifth in Arizona and both regimental bands met at Santa Fe. The town also served as the location for the headquarters of the Eight Cavalry. See Carter, From Yorktown, 175. In 1882 Whipple Barracks and Forts Lowell and Grant in Arizona, and Bayard, Wingate, Union, and Marcy in New Mexico had regimental headquarters, while three years later Lowell and Wingate were deprived of headquarters and Fort Huachuca had gained one. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1882, 51; 1885, 99. 76. Biddle, Reminiscences, 167–68. 77. Boyd, Cavalry Life, 198–99, 205–6, 229; Cruse, Apache Days, 182. For theatrical companies in the Southwest, see Gipson, “Beginning of Theatre.” Notes to pages 207–208
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78. Biddle, Reminiscences, 163. For similar cases, see Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 202; and A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 165. 79. See Boyd, Cavalry Life, 123; Biddle, Reminiscences, 148–51, 163, 200; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 129–30, 146; Mattes, Indians, Infants, and Infantry, 250; Myres, “Arizona Camping Trip,” 62; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 116–17; Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 81, 90–91; and Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 33–34, 62–63, 149–50, 153–59, 197. Sometimes the hosts stressed that their standards in the “remote” villages were not high enough for the visitors. See, for example, A. Mills, My Story, 199–200; and Lane, I Married a Soldier, 193–94. 80. Baldwin, Army Wife, 63. See also Corson Reminiscences, uasc. 81. Crook, His Autobiography, 162. 82. Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 127. See also Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 129. 83. Bourke, On the Border, 12; Notebook 1881–85, Finley Papers, uasc ; Letter, May 24, 1880, Worthington Letters, ashs. For Bourke, see J. Porter, Paper Medicine Man. On reading habits, see Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 33, 38; Myres, Cavalry Wife, 120; Upham, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 89; and Letter, December 15, 1867, file 16, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs. For picnic and leisure trips, see Letters, October 23, 1867, and January 1, 1868, file 15–16, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs ; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 141–42; Cruse, Apache Days, 241; Nickerson, “Apache Raid,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 107; and Myres, “Arizona Camping Trip.” 84. Quotes from Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 30; see also 23; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 119; see also 148–49. See also, for example, A. Mills, My Story, 140–41, 150; Corson Reminiscences, uasc ; Cruse, Apache Days, 201–2; Bourke, Diaries, 88; G. Price, Across the Continent, 146–47; Biddle, Reminiscences, 180; and F. Corbusier, Recollections, 64. Enlisted men were also interested in old indigenous sites but were usually less “scientific” in their approach than the officers. See Diary entry, September 28, 1885, Chrisman Papers, ashs ; and “Gashuntz,” “On the March,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 54–55. Some soldiers supplemented their incomes by selling artifacts they had gathered from the roads or battle sites. “Trailing Geronimo,” typescript, file 6, Mazzanovich Papers, ashs. 85. For army comments on San Xavier del Bac, see Boyd, Cavalry Life, 151– 53; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 241–42; Bourke, On the Border, 97; and Henry, “Cavalry Life,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 101. 86. Quote from Boyd, Cavalry Life, 232–33. For leisure riding, see Baldwin, Army Wife, 80; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 200–201, 239; Boyd, 302
Notes to pages 209–211
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Cavalry Life, 201; Notebook 1881–85, Finley Papers, uasc ; and Myres, Cavalry Wife, 110. For tennis, see Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 80–81. 87. Bourke, On the Border, 11; Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 171; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 35; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 61–62, 64; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 76–77. 88. Biddle, Reminiscences, 176–77; Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 109–11; Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 49–50; see also 21; Baldwin, Army Wife, 68. For officers and hunting, see Bourke, Diaries, 30; Elliott, “Geronimo Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 435, 440; Biddle, Reminiscences, 190; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 118–19; Letter, March 11, 1868, file 17, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs ; and Myres, Cavalry Wife, 110, 121. Hunting could also function as a rite of manhood. Claude Corbusier, the son of army surgeon William Corbusier, shot his first deer at Fort Grant during the winter of 1887–88. “Father arose from his bed, and awakening Claude, he pointed to a grove of black oaks on a slope near the foot of the mountains and told him that probably a fine fat buck was feeding there, to go afoot and keep a good lookout,” Claude’s mother, Fanny Corbusier remembered. “In less than two hours,” she continued, “the other boys, who were watching, shouted, ‘Claude has shot a deer,’ as they saw him on a great boulder waving his hat. . . . It was a large black-tailed buck, and Claude was pronounced a skilled hunter.” F. Corbusier, Recollections, 139–40. See also the father’s version in W. Corbusier, Soldier, 119–20. 89. Baldwin, Army Wife, 69. Officers sometimes took enlisted men along on their hunts as servants, trackers, and helpers. Given the opportunity many enlisted men also liked to hunt. Although the soldiers recognized aspects of honor and masculinity involved, their primary motive was to supplement their meager diet. See Diary entries, November 8, 1885, and November 27, 1885, Chrisman Papers, ashs ; Mazzanovich, “Life in Arizona,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 336; Neifert, “Trailing Geronimo,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 560; and Gustafson, John Spring’s Arizona, 110–14. 90. As department headquarters, Whipple Barracks often had a large contingency of officers, and many more traveled through, keeping social life in constant motion. In army words, “there was a continual round of gayety” with dances, luncheons, dinners, play rehearsals, and shows at the officers’ Dramatic Society. Entertainment of some kind was offered almost every day and evening. If for some reason there was nothing happening, officers and wives visited nearby Fort Verde for more dinners and dances. See Cochran, Posie, 72; Biddle, Reminiscences, 166–67, 180; A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 165; and F. Corbusier, Recollections, 38–39. See also Letter 60, May 9, 1877, Kautz Letters, Denver Correspondence, ashs ; A. Mills, My Story, 145–46; and Notes to pages 211–212
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A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 168, for the social connections between Whipple Barracks and the people of Prescott. Fort Lowell was linked to Tucson by a special coach line to benefit the movement between the post and the town. Also in Santa Fe and Fort Marcy social intermixing was commonplace. See Splitter, “Tour in Arizona,” 81–82; Cruse, Apache Days, 182; A. Grierson, Colonel’s Lady, 176–82; Howard, My Life, 145–46; Mazzanovich, “Life in Arizona,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 332; and “My Life in the West,” typescript, 32–37, Glover Papers, ashs. 91. Letters, July 21, 1867, September 4, 1867, and December 15, 1867, files 14 and 16, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs ; Upham, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 88; Baldwin, Army Wife, 68; Carr, “Days of the Empire,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 25. 92. Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 31, 34. 93. F. Corbusier, Recollections, 37; Boyd, Cavalry Life, 123–24. The situation was similar at Fort Yuma, through which many army people heading to Arizona traversed. See Corson Reminiscences, uasc ; and Henry, “Cavalry Life,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 97. 94. Gressley, “Soldier with Crook,” 43; Corson Reminiscences, uasc ; Myres, “Evy Alexander,” 34; Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 132; Biddle, Reminiscences, 170–71, 184–85. 95. Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps,” 43–47; see also 196–97. For excessive drinking among officers, see also Bourke, On the Border, 12; Scott, “Whiskey”; and Boyd, Cavalry Life, 1–20, 136–37. 96. Letter, January 9, 1868, file 16, box 2, Widney Letters, Schneider Papers, ashs ; Altshuler, Cavalry Yellow, 213–14. After being dismissed from service because of drunkenness, another officer shot himself in a hotel in Santa Fe. See Kenner, Buffalo Soldiers, 239–40. 97. A. Mills, My Story, 195–99; W. Corbusier, Soldier, 118–19; F. Corbusier, Recollections, 142–44. The pack train even brought up a cooking stove.
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7. Colonized Labor 1. Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 93, 103–4. The concept “colonized labor” is adapted from Bill Thorpe, who uses it to discuss aboriginal labor in Australia. “Aboriginal Employment.” 2. For colonial armies and indigenous soldiers, see Killingray and Omissi, Guardians of Empire; Hack and Rettig, Colonial Armies; and Farwell, Armies of the Raj. 3. E. Ball, Indeh, 37. 4. Quotes from Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 54–55; and E. Ball, In 304
Notes to pages 212–220
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the Days, 80. For Apache views on San Carlos, see Alchisay et al., “Apache Story,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 303–10. For an army view of a corrupt San Carlos agent, who purportedly fixed scales and sold Apaches’ flour and beef to miners, see Cruse, Apache Days, 38–41. For reservation life in general, see Haley, Apaches; Ogle, Federal Control; and Perry, Apache Reservation. 5. S. Robinson, Apache Voices, 102; see also 104, 142–43, 148; Opler, Apache Odyssey, 49; see also 34. For Apache willingness to enlist, see also, for example, U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1885, 185–86; Alchisay et al., “Apache Story,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 297–99; and E. Ball, Indeh, 200–203. 6. Quote from Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 154; see also 116, 130, 209. See also Record, Big Sycamore, 57; and Watt, Don’t Let the Sun, 4–10. 7. Quote from Opler, Apache Odyssey, 49. See also S. Robinson, Apache Voices, 102; and Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 50, 121. 8. The training of adolescent boys was focused on serving them in the raiding and war situations they were expected to face in life. Hard physical exercises, such as running long distances or swimming in icy rivers, training in fighting skills and tactics, and learning about weapons and the environment were standard. For Apache training, see Opler, Apache Odyssey, 64–65, 68– 69; Opler, Apache Life-Way, 65–74, 134–39; and Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 288–98. 9. E. Ball, In the Days, 156. For adult roles in Chiricahua society, see Cole, Chiricahua Apache, and Opler, Apache Life-Way, 332–54. 10. Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 108; E. Ball, In the Days, 80. For the appeal the army had for Apache men of various ages, see enlistment papers for “Indian scouts” in Registers of Enlistments, nara . 11. E. Ball, quoted in S. Robinson, Apache Voices, 72. 12. For pay, allowances, and property, see E. Ball, Indeh, 47; Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 104–9, 185, 199, 307; Alchisay et al., “Apache Story,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 299; Opler, Apache Odyssey, 33, 49; Bourke, On the Border, 221–22; Ross Letter Book, uasc ; and Fort Apache Commissary Ledgers, box 3, ashs. For pensions, see Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 154; and Watt, Don’t Let the Sun, 13. 13. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1883, 179–81. See Smits, “Fighting Fire,” for an interpretation that stresses the coercive nature of indigenous enlistment. 14. The Army Reorganization Act of 1866 authorized up to one thousand “Indian scouts” for the whole army. Sometimes local commanders circumvented the limitations. Dunlay, Wolves, 43–57. For Arizona, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1877, 148; and Vanderpot and Majewski, Forgotten Notes to pages 220–224
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Soldiers, 5. During the 1870s the Department of the Interior also developed an indigenous police force. See Tate, “John P. Clum.” Indigenous men occasionally also served as Arizona territorial volunteers, mustered into service by the governor. See U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1877, 139–40. For indigenous enlistment during and immediately after the Civil War, see Altshuler, Chains of Command, 50–51, 59, 86, 88, 175. 15. Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 109. See also Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 38, 162. 16. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1878, 117; 1879, 168–69; 1880, 221–22; Elliott, “Indian Reservation,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 407. 17. For army accounts of the 1872–74 operations, see, for example, Bourke, Diaries, and Crook, His Autobiography. 18. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1880, 86–89, 93–98; Gatewood, “Campaigning against Victorio,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses. For Apache employment in the late 1870s, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1878, 193–94; 1879, 164, 168–70. 19. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1883, 174; Bourke, Apache Campaign, 40. 20. For Apache soldiers and the Geronimo Campaign, see Crook, Resume of Operations; Davis, Truth about Geronimo; Elliott, “Geronimo Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses; Hanna, “With Crawford,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses; and Shipp, “Crawford’s Last Expedition,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses. Vanderpot and Majewski, Forgotten Soldiers, 20–23, aptly summarizes the army’s strategy. 21. Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 115; see also 200; Platten, Ten Years, 18–19; S. Robinson, Apaches Voices, 169; Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 44–55. 22. Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 106; Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 184; Vanderpot and Majewski, Forgotten Soldiers, 15; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 54. 23. Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 148; Elliott, “Indian Reservation,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 407. 24. Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 126–29; Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 132–33. 25. Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 184–85. 26. Crook, Resume of Operations, 9–10, 23; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1883, 160–61; Elliott, “Indian Reservation,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 407; Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 38–39, 55; Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 176; E. Ball, In the Days, 162–63; E. Ball, Indeh, 49–50. Many of the intermediaries were mixed-race men who worked in the military payroll. One of the most intriguing was Mickey Free, son of an Irish father and a Mexican 306
Notes to pages 224–227
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mother, who as a child was captured by the Apaches. For Free’s life between Apache and white worlds, see V. Smith, “White Eyes.” 27. The orders are printed in Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 43–44. For Apaches’ freedom of action in the field, see Hanna, “With Crawford,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 510–11; Shipp, “Crawford’s Last Expedition,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 519–20, 524; and Cruse, Apache Days, 55–56. 28. Shipp, “Crawford’s Last Expedition,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 519; Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 112. In 1890 the army issued a standard blue uniform, ornaments, and insignia of their own for the indigenous soldiers. Vanderpot and Majewski, Forgotten Soldiers, 8. 29. For Dutchy, see Hanna, “With Crawford,” 514–15; Daly, “Geronimo Campaign,” 451; and Shipp, “Crawford’s Last Expedition,” 519, all in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses. For army discipline and Apache soldiers, see Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 120–26, 133–34; and Alchisay et al., “Apache Story,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 300. Some Apaches quit the army because of mistrust toward the officers. See E. Ball, In the Days, 163. 30. For Apache leisure, see Opler, Apache Odyssey, 85–86; Ward, “Cavalry Camps,” 112; and Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 112–13, 134, 149, 197. For Apache dances, see Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 154, 312; see also 116– 18, 130, 148; Opler, Apache Life-Way, 69–71, 339; and Opler, Apache Odyssey, 69–71. For white army men’s reactions to Apache dances, see Hein, Memories of Long Ago, 89; Hanna, “With Crawford,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 513; and Pettit, “Apache Campaign Notes,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 534. 31. Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 86; see also 159. For other potentially hazardous situations, see Daly, “Geronimo Campaign,” 485; Wright, “In the Days,” 500; and Shipp, “Crawford’s Last Expedition,” 521, all in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses. For intoxicated indigenous soldiers, see also Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 108, 125; and Hanna, “With Crawford,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 512. 32. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1877, 148; Cruse, Apache Days, 38; Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 196–200. 33. For officers’ evaluations of Navajo soldiers, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1880, 94; 1886, 151; Gatewood, “Campaigning against Victorio,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 214; for Yavapais, see King, “On Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 172–76; and W. Corbusier, Soldier, 78–83. On Yavapais in the U.S. Army, see Braatz, Surviving Conquest, 162–70, 185–86. 34. Unable to live on the lowland deserts of the Colorado River, where they sickened and died, Hualapais returned to their old areas, trying to avoid contacts with the army. Only in 1883 their status for reservation was recognized. For the army and the Hualapais, see, for example, W. Price, “Scout,” in Notes to pages 228–230
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Cozzens, Eyewitnesses; Deine, “Hualapais War,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1875, 121, 133–35; 1876, 100; 1879, 165; 1880, 208; 1881, 476; 1884, 133; and Shepherd, Indian Nation. 35. Shipp, “Crawford’s Last Expedition,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 518. For army views of Akimel O’odham, Maricopas, and Tohono O’odham, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1869, 123; Cruse, Apache Days, 156– 57; and “Early Days,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 144–46. 36. Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 93–186; Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 89. 37. Opler, Apache Odyssey, 48–50; Vanderpot and Majewski, Forgotten Soldiers, 29. 38. One Apache who had enlisted at least six times had gained so many enemies due to his army service that he felt he had to stop, as “there were too many Indians about who wanted to kill me.” See Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 196–203. 39. Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 150–52; Crook, Resume of Operations, 6; E. Ball, In the Days, 80, 154–67, 175–80; E. Ball, Indeh, 47, 251–52. 40. Kenoi, “Chiricahua Apache’s Account,” 72. 41. Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 77–78, 82, 106. See also King, “On Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 164; Shipp, “Crawford’s Last Expedition,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 518–20; Cruse, Apache Days, 178; and Bourke, On the Border, 182. 42. “Gatewood on Experiences among the Apaches,” manuscript, Gatewood Collection, ashs. Another officer worried that army work had educated a large body of Apache men to a more accurate use of firearms, which brought problems for the army when these men became enemies again. See Carter, From Yorktown, 251. 43. For Massai, see Kenoi, “Chiricahua Apache’s Account,” 86–87; Betzinez, I Fought with Geronimo, 143–45; S. Robinson, Apache Voices, 87– 100; and E. Ball, Indeh, 248–61. For other Apaches who “switched sides,” see E. Ball, In the Days, 156, 163, 177; E. Ball, Indeh, 47–51, 98–100; Daly, “Geronimo Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 487, 674n; and S. Robinson, Apache Voices, 54, 112, 154–57. In Robinson, pages 79–85 chronicle the story of “Apache Kid,” an army worker who became one of the most widely publicized outlaws in the Southwest. For a recent study, see McKanna, CourtMartial. The case of Chan-deisi offers another example of how an ex-soldier could end up as a “hostile.” On May 27, 1873, Chan-deisi, a Western Apache, who by then was a discharged soldier from the army, sought ration tickets at San Carlos. Denied them, he protested and shot and killed Lt. Jacob Almy, who had tried to arrest him. Whether Chan-deisi did the killing is not entirely 308
Notes to pages 230–233
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clear, but he was declared an outlaw nonetheless. Chased by white and indigenous troops, Chan-deisi was killed in June 1874. Thereafter his head adorned the post at Fort Apache. Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 660; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1874, 61–62. Being accused of killing Almy cemented Chandeisi’s reputation as an “Apache villain.” For instance, in Dan Thrapp’s classic study he is dubbed as a “vicious renegade” leader “as ever ravaged the countryside.” Thrapp, Conquest of Apacheria, 152–60. 44. Davisson, “New Light,” 430. For the relationship between army personnel and Pedro’s and Miguel’s Apaches, see, for example, Fuller, “Evening with the Apaches,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses; and Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona, 90–96. 45. Refusing to live at San Carlos, some of Diablo’s Apaches started to escape back to their home areas within a year after the removal. Resentment between Diablo’s and Pedro’s people lingered and led to a violent confrontation on August 30, 1880, which resulted in Diablo’s death and in a cycle of murders, rapes, and retributions the following months. Davisson, “New Light,” 430–41; U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1875, 121–22, 135–36; 1876, 99–101. 46. Loring, “Report,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 200. See also Bourke, On the Border, 178; Worcester, Apaches, 236; and Davisson, “New Light,” 442. 47. One Apache soldier claimed that the cook of Col. Eugene A. Carr, who commanded troops at Cibecue, fired the first shot. It is possible that Apache soldiers were pressured to desert by their own relatives who were present during the arrest or that they feared they would be overrun by their kin or by the terrified white soldiers. For Apache versions, see Alchisay et al., “Apache Story,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 295–310; Kessel, “Battle at Cibecue,” 130– 33; and E. Ball, Indeh, 52–55. For white army men’s accounts, see U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1881, 139–47, 153–55; 1882, 143–52; Cruse, Apache Days, 93–145; Carter, From Yorktown, 209–37; Barnes, Apaches and Longhorns, 50–91; and “Trailing Geronimo,” typescript, files 4 and 5, Mazzanovich Papers, ashs. For a reporter’s version, see Finerty, “On Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses. 48. For the Apache soldier who enlisted after surrendering, see Collins, Apache Nightmare, 177–79, 183, 198–205; for the one who worked in the army after his prison sentence, see Benson, “Geronimo Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 553. For a detailed study of these events, consult Collins, Apache Nightmare. See also Worcester, Apaches, 234–58; and D. Roberts, Like the Wind, 195–201. 49. One of the army’s highest-ranking officers, Gen. William Sherman, wrote that “the soldiers should possess the attributes of civilized men. They [Indians] do not possess the stability or tenacity of purpose. . . . They cannot Notes to pages 233–235
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appreciate responsibility or the sacredness of an oath. . . . [They are] a race so distinctive from that governing this country that it would be neither wise nor expedient to recruit our army from their ranks.” Another high-ranking general, Phil Sheridan, stated that “moral effect will be bad” on white soldiers “if we have to get Indians to whip Indians.” Both quoted in Dunlay, Wolves, 66–67. 50. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1883, 166; Crook, Resume of Operations, 20–22. See also U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1871, 78. Crook regarded white troops as obstacles for successful offensive operations in the Southwest, being unable to engage the enemy despite ample opportunities. He saw that especially during the 1885–86 campaign all successful encounters with the enemy took place because of the work of Apache soldiers. 51. Sheridan messaged Crook that “it seems strange that Geronimo and party could have escaped without the knowledge of the scouts” and that “the offensive campaign against him [Geronimo] with scouts has failed.” Crook replied, “There can be no question that the scouts were thoroughly loyal and would have prevented the hostiles leaving had it been possible. . . . I believe that the plan upon which I have conducted operations is the one most likely to prove successful in the end. It may be however that I am too much wedded to my own views in this matter, and as I have spent nearly eight years of the hardest work of my life in this Department, I respectfully request that I may be now relieved from its command.” See Crook, Resume of Operations, 12– 16. In the end, Crook paid a small price. After departing Arizona he was soon enjoying pleasant times in the form of receptions, dinner parties, theater, poker, and extended hunting trips in his new command in Nebraska. Two years later he even went on to gain a coveted promotion to the rank of a major-general and a move to bustling Chicago. For an insightful biography of Crook, see C. Robinson, General Crook, esp. 104–59 and 247–86 for his time in the Southwest. Also of interest is Miller, “George Crook,” in Etulain and Riley, Chiefs and Generals. 52. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1886, 12, 165; Miles, Personal Recollections, 476. 53. S. Robinson, Apache Voices, 49–52. See also E. Ball, Indeh, 106–14; and Gatewood, “Surrender of Geronimo.” 54. Kenoi, “Chiricahua Apache’s Account,” 83–84; E. Ball, In the Days, 191–94; Opler, Apache Odyssey, 49–50; E. Ball, Indeh, 122–36. 55. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1886, 71. 56. For the removal, see Faulk, Geronimo Campaign, 152–75; and Debo, Geronimo, 271–79, 299–312. For official correspondence, see General Miles; and Miles, Personal Recollections. For officers who criticized the removal, see Bourke, On the Border, 485; and Crook, Resume of Operations. Strangely, 310
Notes to pages 235–237
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as prisoners of war several Chiricahuas were again enlisted into the army at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. See E. Ball, Indeh, 161; and Debo, Geronimo, 372–74. 57. On army texts that are practically silent on the presence of Apache soldiers, see, among others, Summerhayes, Vanished Arizona; Reeve, “Frederick E. Phelps”; Walker, “Reluctant Corporal”; and Biddle, Reminiscences. 58. Wright, “In the Days,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 500; King, “On Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 165; L. Wood, Chasing Geronimo, 72; Benton, “Sgt. Neil Erickson,” 124–25; Forsyth, Thrilling Days, 84. Evidently one indigenous soldier was renamed as General Crook, showing a very peculiar sense of humor and sensibility toward indigenous culture. Dinges, “Leighton Finley,” 182. 59. Elliott, “Indian Reservation,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 408. 60. E. Ball, Indeh, 55; Elliott, “Indian Reservation,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 413. 61. See, for example, Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail; Field diary, Chrisman Papers, ashs. 62. U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1877, 143; see also 1882, 146; 1886, 11–12, 72–73; “Trailing Geronimo,” typescript, file 6, Mazzanovich Papers, ashs ; Miles quoted in DeMontravel, Fighting Men, 192–93. See also Miles, Personal Recollections, 453, 495; Pettit, “Apache Campaign Notes,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 535; Collins, Apache Nightmare, 59–60; and Jerome, “Soldiering and Suffering,” 157, 163–64. Some Apache soldiers were at times singled out in army texts. For example, one army packer thought that “Dutchy” was a “most incorrigible and vicious scoundrel” and “a drunkard, a thief, and a murderer.” Daly, “Geronimo Campaign,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 451, 485. 63. Bigelow, On the Bloody Trail, 119–20. For false reports, see also Davis, “Difficulties of Indian Warfare,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 488–94. 64. John Rope’s narrative gives the impression that desertion was very rare, whereas Lt. Britton Davis asserts that only three of the approximately one hundred Chiricahua soldiers deserted during the 1885–86 campaigns. Basso, Western Apache Raiding, 93–185; Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 106–7, 150–51. See also Barnes, “Apaches’ Last Stand,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 285. Some contradictory evidence exists. According to Lt. James Parker, most of the forty White Mountain Apache soldiers serving with his column in 1885–86 deserted. J. Parker, Old Army, 152–57. 65. Carter, From Yorktown, 181. See also U.S. Secretary of War, Annual Report, 1869, 122; 1880, 109; Bourke, Apache Campaign, 30–37; and Davis, Truth about Geronimo, 80. Col. August Kautz, who commanded the Department of Arizona from 1875 to 1878, felt that one indigenous company was Notes to pages 238–241
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equal to six companies of regular cavalry in war against the Apaches. Kautz is quoted in Dunlay, Wolves, 53. 66. Bode, Dose of Frontier Soldiering, 157–58; Bourke, On the Border, 467–68; Bourke, Apache Campaign, 21–22. See also Forsyth, Thrilling Days, 79. One officer believed that all Apache soldiers had the capacity to go over any mountain or hill, no matter how steep. See Hanna, “With Crawford,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 511. 67. Shipp, “Crawford’s Last Expedition,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 519; Merritt, “Incidents,” in Cozzens, Eyewitnesses, 160; Carter, From Yorktown, 181. 68. Tate, “Soldiers of the Line”; Vanderpot and Majewski, Forgotten Soldiers; Wharfield, Apache Indian Scouts. See also Tate, “From Scout to Doughboy”; and Tate, “Pershing’s Pets.” 69. Cooper, Colonialism in Question, 24. Conclusion
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1. For U.S. conquest of the Philippines, see Kramer, Blood of Government; Go and Foster, American Colonial State; and W. L. Williams, “United States Indian Policy.” 2. W. A. Williams, Way of Life; Hobsbawm, Age of Empire; B. Porter, Empire and Superempire, 162. 3. Ferguson, Colossus. 4. M. Young, “Age of Global Power.” 5. Anderson and Cayton, Dominion of War, xx. 6. Bender, Nation among Nations, 192. 7. Bender, Nation among Nations, 182, 192. For U.S. Empire, see also Maier, Among Empires; Calhoun, Cooper, and Moore, Lessons of Empire; Kaplan and Pease, United States Imperialism; and Love, Race over Empire.
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Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations. Akimel O’odham, 124–26 Albuquerque, 271n35 Alcatraz penitentiary, 141, 197 alcohol consumption. See drinking Alexander, Andrew, 141 Alexander, Eveline, 36, 46, 141, 156, 175, 177, 213 Anglos, 23, 57–58, 66–67 Apacheria, 17–32 Apaches: assaults on, 131; attacks on villages of, 131–32; as brutal warrior race, 116, 143; children of, 131, 141– 42; as cowardly, 115; cross-class alliances against, 149; and decline of ancient civilizations, 102; fear of, 126– 28; history of, 17–19, 258n2; as hostiles, 123, 145, 281n41; killed by army, 134; marginalization of, 19, 244, 250; menace of, 76; as nomads, 117–18, 143–44; as primitive, 118, 121–22, 127, 280n37; redemption of, 134–43; reputation of, 112; resistance of, to civilization, 135–36, 142–43, 147; and Spanish settlements, 20–21; as spies,
227; structure of society of, 18–19, 258n3; in travel writings, 54–55; and violence, 111–12, 129–30, 132–33; and whites, 119–21, 127, 134, 233–34. See also Chiricahua Apaches; Western Apaches Apache soldiers. See soldiers, Apache Arizona City, 54 army: animals imported by, 43; and Apache point of view, 121, 248; as economic support, 75–76; identity of, 104–5, 148–49; as intruder, 145; as largest profession in Southwest, 39; as liberator, 103–6, 108; manufactured goods imported by, 43; and massacre stories, 55; organization of, 24, 259n15; pressure on, 76; religion in, 159; role of, in colonization, 21–23; as vanguard of civilization, 104; veterans of, 106 army villages, 150–79; as bastions of U.S. power, 151–52, 288n2; construction of, by enlisted men, 186; domestic life in, 171–77; domestic spaces in, 167–70; fires in, 166; housing in, 162– 67; as islands of civilization, 5, 46–47, 177–79; locations of, 154–57; public
Lahti, Janne. Cultural Construction of Empire : The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico, Nebraska, 2012. ProQuest Ebook
army villages (cont.) spaces in, 157–62; rebuilding of, 186– 88; residents of, 288n3; role of, in building identity, 5; schools in, 160, 290n21 Askeldelinny (Apache), 231 Barnes, Will, 40, 41–42, 193
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Battle of Big Dry Wash, 26–27, 76, 114 Betzinez, Jason, 219 Biddle, Ellen, 36, 55, 142, 171 Biddle, James, 142 Bigelow, John, 64–65, 67–68, 72, 94– 95, 103, 182, 193, 197, 294n3 black enlisted men, 8, 83, 194, 205, 299n52. See also enlisted men Bode, Emil A., 101, 130, 195–96 borderlands environment: biblical imagery in descriptions of, 92; characteristics of, 90, 91; civilization of, 66, 105, 247–48; difficulty of travel in, 85–87; inferiority of, to civilized landscapes, 66, 88, 90, 98; as place of escape, 101– 2, 276n89; as test of strength, 87; white mythology about, 107; as wilderness, 84–90. See also deserts Bourke, John, 44, 79, 90, 130, 172–73, 199, 205–6, 210 Boyd, Frances, 51, 165–66, 170, 172, 176–77 Browne, J. Ross, 57 California, 42 Camp Apache. See Fort Apache Camp Crittenden, 152, 155, 184 Camp Date Creek, 154–55, 160, 163, 165, 213 Camp Goodwin, 155, 184 Camp Grant. See Fort Grant Camp Grant massacre, 25, 259n16 Camp Huachuca. See Fort Huachuca Camp Lowell. See Fort Lowell Camp McDowell. See Fort McDowell Camp Mojave. See Fort Mojave
Camp Reno, 187 Camp San Carlos, 154 Camp Thomas. See Fort Thomas Camp Wallen, 188 Cañada Alamosa, 81 Carr, Camillo C. C., 172–73 Carter, William, 35–36 cattle ranching. See ranching Chaffee, Adna, 36, 76 Chihenne band, 18, 25 Chiricahua Apaches, 23, 27, 28, 219– 20, 231–32, 236–37 Chokenen band, 18, 25 Cibecue band, 18, 128, 219, 233, 234 Cibecue Creek incident, 234–35, 241, 309n47 civilians, 57–58, 73, 75–76, 105, 183, 190, 296n28. See also white settlers civilian volunteers, 76, 82, 269n24 civilization: as anchor of identity, 249; army villages as islands of, 5, 46–47, 177–79; as justification for conquest, 105; suitability of borderlands for, 7, 66, 247–48; and technology, 59–60, 98, 107; in travel writings, 55–56 civilizations, ancient Indian, 102, 107 class status: appearance as symbol of, 47; and enlisted men, 5, 60–61, 181– 82, 183, 199–200, 204, 215–16; and ethnicity, 9, 204; fluidity of, 4, 249– 50; during journeys, 36, 44–51, 61– 62; and manual labor, 10, 181–82; among officers’ wives, 175–76; and value of settlements, 81; wagons as symbol of, 45 Cloverdale incident, 110–11 Cochise (Apache), 23, 25, 122–23, 124, 282n45 colonialism as process, 6 colonial knowledge, 143–45, 148 colonial power, 62–63, 147 colonized labor, 5, 218, 237–43 colonizers, 129, 143–44 Colorado River, 42–43, 52, 54 Colyer, Vincent, 25
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conquest, mission of, 3, 55, 57, 62–63, 105, 134–35, 247 Cooley, Corydon, 74–75 Corbusier, Claude, 303n88 Corbusier, Fanny, 165, 169, 293n63 Corbusier, William, 1, 58 correspondence, 173–74 Corson, Joseph, 73, 79
Ehrenberg, 54, 73, 81, 166 Eighth Cavalry, 44, 301n75 Elliott, Charles, 226 enlisted men, 204; attitude of, toward Apaches, 115–16, 126–28; attitude of, toward borderlands, 91, 108–9; attitude of, toward settlements, 65, 82– 84; and class solidarity, 204; deser-
Crawford, Emmett, 228–29 Crook, George: and Apache soldiers, 223, 224, 227–29, 235–36, 310nn50– 51; on Apache war tactics, 116; and Geronimo, 28; journey of, to Yuma, 51–52; parties in honor of, 205–6, 209, 301n71; promotion of, 225; on racial limitations of white troops, 271n42; rivalry of, with Nelson Miles, 288n6; in wilderness, 85 Cruse, Thomas, 40, 85, 100–101, 130, 295n4
tion by, 61, 196–99, 251, 299n52; as domestic servants, 46, 50–51, 60–61, 183, 192–95, 214–15, 297n34; housing for, 163; impact of colonial situations on, 94; and journeys, 49–50, 265n52; as liberators, 195, 215; manual labor by, 10, 181–82, 186–93; multiracial composition of, 10; officers’ attitude toward, 184–85; opportunities for, 83; prospecting by, 101; punishments for, 189, 198, 203, 228; resistance of, to working conditions, 195–96, 215; schools for, 290n21; in Southwest after service, 94; turnover among, 37– 38, 263n14; as underclass, 5, 60–61, 181–82, 183, 204. See also black enlisted men; soldiers, Apache; white enlisted men Erickson, Neil, 133 ethnicity, 9, 66, 70–71, 184, 204. See also whiteness
Davis, Britton, 76, 226–27 Davis, Julia: as civilizing force, 168–69; on class among wives, 175; difficulties of, on journeys, 33–34, 42, 46, 47, 48, 52–53, 54, 56–57; on food supply, 173; on leaving civilization, 55 Davis, Murray, 33 decapitated heads, 133, 284n74 DeKlay (Apache), 231 demonizing of enemies, 112, 116, 147, 245 deserts, 51–53, 90, 92 Diablo (Apache), 233, 309n45 difference, construction of, 3–4, 13, 60– 61, 82, 91–92, 111–12, 228, 248–49. See also other, the Doane, Gustavus Cheyney, 202–3 drinking, 139, 200–201, 202–3, 213– 14, 229 Drum Barracks, 42, 43
farming, 72, 99, 117–18, 125, 136–37, 173, 188–89, 219 Fifth Cavalry, 44, 301n75 First Cavalry Hunt Club, 213 First Infantry, 44 flooding, 166–67, 272n47 Florence, 81 food supply, 43, 172–73, 178, 264n26 Forsyth, George, 193 Fort Apache, 157; Apache units at, 224; as army village, 139, 160, 161, 163,
eastern United States. See imperial center Eaton, George, 93
166, 173; burials of enlisted men at, 94; Cibecue clashes at, 128; leisure activities at, 207; location of, 41–42, 59,
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Fort Apache (cont.) 156, 295n14; population of, 152; and White Mountain Reservation, 154; work by enlisted men at, 187, 189 Fort Bayard: burials of enlisted men at, 94; farming by enlisted men at, 188; housing at, 150, 164; leisure activities at, 200, 301n75; location of, 59, 155, 295n14; storm damage at, 166; work by enlisted men at, 189 Fort Bowie, 59, 152, 154, 158, 160, 174, 184, 224 Fort Craig, 59, 155, 187, 290n3 Fort Cummings, 59, 154, 290n3 Fort Grant, 162, 204, 213; fears of uprisings at, 127–28; flooding at, 166; foreign-born residents of, 184; housing at, 163, 164; leisure activities at, 200, 207–8, 214–15, 301n75; location of, 59, 155–56; population of, 152; remoteness of, 41; water supply of, 161–62 Fort Huachuca, 59, 155, 224, 226, 295n14 Fort Lowell: Apache units at, 224; as army village, 160, 161, 163–64, 166, 174; leisure activities at, 212, 301n75; location of, 59, 155; population of, 152; rebuilding of, 187, 188 Fort Marcy, 155, 301n75 Fort McDowell: Apache units at, 224; as army village, 156, 161, 168–69; burials of enlisted men at, 94; construction of, 160; farming by enlisted men at, 188–89; flooding at, 166; housing at, 163; Julia Davis’s journey to, 33–34, 57; leisure activities at, 213; location of, 59, 295n14; rebuilding of, 187; and White Mountain Reservation, 154 Fort McRae, 155, 160 Fort Mojave, 42, 43, 59, 152, 160, 161, 166, 189, 295n14 Fort Selden, 59, 155, 160 Fort Stanton, 59, 154, 156–57, 160, 161
Fort Thomas, 41–42, 59, 154, 155, 187, 200, 224 Fort Union, 42, 188, 301n75 Fort Verde, 168; Apache units at, 224; as army village, 159, 160, 166; burials of enlisted men at, 94; farming by enlisted men at, 188; location of, 59, 155; and White Mountain Reservation, 154 Fort Wingate, 301n75 Fort Yuma, 43, 52, 55–56, 59, 155, 160– 61, 188 Fourth Cavalry, 58, 187 Free, Mickey, 306n26 gambling, 9, 71, 201, 213–14 Gatewood, Charles, 28 gender roles, 119, 136, 148 Germans, 30, 35, 64, 183, 204, 295n7 Geronimo (Apache), 28–29, 122–23, 124, 225, 236, 260n24, 282n45 Ghost Dance movement, 26–27 Gila City, 54 Greene, Duane, 193 Grierson, Alice, 116 heat, 56, 88, 155, 271n44 Henry, George J., 94 hierarchy, 158, 167, 178, 249. See also class status Hispanic peoples: Anglo attitudes toward, 69–70; and Anglo rule, 30, 262n29; army attitudes toward, 53, 67–68, 268n7; as contaminated by Indians, 68–69, 211, 268n8; in southwestern multiracial society, 66–67; as vassals of Apaches, 70. See also Mexicans; Spanish society in New Mexico housing, 117–18, 137, 150–51, 160, 162–67 Howard, Oliver O., 25 Hualapais, 230, 307n34 Hunter, Pendleton, 214 hunting, 211–12, 213, 219, 221, 225–26, 303nn88–89, 305n8
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identity: American, 3–4, 13, 245, 248– 49; of army, 104–5, 148–49; civilization as anchor of, 249; and class status, 36; and domestic living arrangements, 153–54; and manual labor, 5, 153, 186; role of army villages in, 5, 153–54; and travel writing, 34 immigrants, 183–84, 204 imperial center, 37, 90–97, 98, 172, 174, 178, 262n10, 293nn57–58 imperial contamination, 90–97, 251 indigenous groups, 53, 54, 66–67, 96, 145. See also specific groups indigenous soldiers. See soldiers, indigenous Irish, 8, 30, 35, 64, 71, 183, 295n7 irrigation, 99–100 Jett, William Bladen, 195, 202, 203, 298n42 Jews, 71 journeys: to Arizona, 42, 48; as battle against hostile environment, 56; camping on, 46–47; by civilian travelers, 57–58; and colonizer identity, 34, 51, 61–63; and differentiation between officers and enlisted men, 60–61; difficulties on, 47–48, 55–56; duration of, 44; and leaving civilization, 51–52; material comforts on, 45–46; meals on, 46–47, 48, 50–51
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Kaytennae (Apache), 141 Ki-e-ta (Apache), 28 landscape, 88, 90, 97, 98, 107, 156 landscaping, 178 Lane, Lydia Spencer, 47, 171, 177 leisure: for Apache soldiers, 229; for enlisted men, 61, 199–205; expectations for, 212; and identity, 153, 182, 205–14; during journeys, 45; outings for, 102 liberation and liberators, 2, 108, 135, 147, 195, 215, 245
mail service, 174–75, 293n59 Mangas Coloradas (Apache), 23 “Manso” Apaches, 21, 259n10 manual labor, 5, 10, 136, 153, 181–82, 186, 199 manufacturing, absence of, 159 maps, inaccuracies in, 85 marginalization, 10–11, 19, 82, 244, 250 Martine (Apache), 28, 236 masculinity, 76, 105, 116, 121–22, 147– 48, 212, 221, 251, 303n88 “massacre” sites as shrines, 54–55 Massai (Apache), 232–33 material goods, 50–51, 171–72 Maxon, Mason M., 93 Mazzanovich, Anton, 65 merchants, Anglo, 40, 66–67, 75–76, 82 Merritt, Wesley, 85–86, 88 Mescalero Reservation, 25, 28, 154 Mexicans, 67–69, 70, 91–92, 94 middle-class settlers, 72–73, 91, 98–99, 154. See also white settlers Miguel (Apache), 233 Miles, Nelson, 28, 102–3, 116, 236, 271n42, 288n6 military campaigns, 10, 97, 107, 131– 32, 145, 153, 225. See also violence, representations of; warfare military historians, 7–8 military training, 113, 193–94, 226 Mills, Anson, 45 mining, 9, 23, 31, 66–67, 71, 72, 99, 101 mythologies, white. See white mythologies Nana (Apache), 27 nature, 101–2, 122, 178, 276n89 Navajos, 19, 127, 230, 231 Nednhi band, 18 New Mexico territory, 17, 29–30, 66– 84, 257n1 Noch-ay-del-klinne (Apache), 26–27, 234
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officers, 35–37, 115–16, 182–86. See also officers and wives officers and wives, 210; and Apache heartland, 65; attitude of, toward settlements, 66–82; auctions of belongings of, 171–72; and borderlands environment, 108; and children, 176; and civilian society, 73; and construction of difference, 60–61, 82; control of self-image by, 153; housing for, 164– 65; investments in southwestern industries by, 100–101; literary activities of, 210–11; and music, 207–8, 301nn74– 75; parties for, 206, 208–9; and travel, 61–62; and worries over decivilization, 95–96. See also officers; wives Ogilby, Frederick, 93 other, the, 145–49, 246. See also difference, construction of outlaws, 71, 233, 308n43
Copyright © 2012. Nebraska. All rights reserved.
parade grounds, 158 paymasters, 263n15 Pedro (Apache), 233 Perry, David, 93 Pettit, James, 129 Phelps, Frederick, 150, 272n47 Philippine conflict, 245–46 Phoenix, 79, 270n28 Pimas, 124–26 postcolonial theory, 11–13 Prescott, 79–81, 80, 82, 205 progress, 4–5, 59–60, 66, 102–3, 105. See also civilization prospectors. See mining racial hatred, 128, 240–41 racial mixing, 66, 68–69, 74–75, 306n26 racial superiority, 8–9, 30, 105, 194. See also white privilege railroads: and availability of food, 173; comfort of travel by, 41, 42, 60; and cultural and economic changes, 31, 98,
263n17; effect of, on army movements, 58–59; location of, 267n80; as symbol of power, 59–60 ranching, 31–32, 99, 100, 261n35 rank and promotion, 153, 170, 288n6 rationing, 138–40, 285n92 reservations, 25–26, 28–29, 135– 37, 140, 218–20. See also specific reservations respectability: effect of railroads on, 98; of non-whites, 107, 125; redefinition of, in Southwest, 68, 73–74, 82, 169; in self-definition of officers and wives, 4, 45, 65, 81, 249 Rio Mimbres, 81 Rio Verde Reservation, 25, 26 Rope, John, 217, 220–21, 224, 226, 230 Roswell, 100 salaries, 190, 222, 292n50 Salt River Cave Massacre, 132 San Carlos band, 217 San Carlos reservation, 25–26, 28, 137, 154, 219, 224 sandstorms, 166 Santa Fe, 30, 39, 40, 190, 270n31, 275n81, 301n75, 304n90 Santa Fe Trail, 40 San Xavier del Bac mission, 210 Sargent, Alice A., 40 scalping, 130–31 Schofield, George, 93 Schofield, John M., 268n7 scouts. See soldiers, Apache segregation, 158, 162–63, 215 servants, 45, 175, 176 sheep raising, 99. See also ranching Sheridan, Phil, 235–36, 310n49 Sherman, William T., 97, 263n17, 301n71, 309n49 Sierra Madre, 27 Silver City, 81, 82, 100 Sisters of St. Joseph, 82 Sixth Cavalry, 37, 39, 58, 187–88, 204, 301n75
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changing sides by, 232–33, 308n42;
Tombstone, 31, 99, 261n33 Tonto (Northern and Southern) band, 18, 25, 26 Tonto Basin campaigns, 131–32, 145 trees, 88, 103, 271n43 Tucson, 77–78, 78, 82, 83, 84, 100, 107, 200, 275n81 Tularosa, 25, 26
class status of, 235, 250; as colonized
Twelfth Infantry, 39, 44
snakes, 61, 74, 88, 122, 165 social differentiation. See class status soldiers, Apache, 227; as adjunct members in army, 238; appearance of, 228; authorization for, 305n14; and balance between army and indigenous communities, 231–37; benefits for, 217, 243;
labor, 5, 218; dances by, 229; as dip-
as outlaws, 233, 308n43; policing by,
Upham, Frank, 212 U.S.-Apache wars, 21–29, 112–15 U.S. army. See army U.S. colonial regime, 29–32
226, 306n14; removal of, from army,
U.S.-Mexican War, 2
lomatic asset, 226; as fighters, 239– 40, 241; marginalization of, 10–11; opportunities for, 221–22, 229–30;
237; renaming of, 238–39; silencing of, 238, 242; as spies, 226–27; work duties of, 224–25 soldiers, indigenous, 5, 10–11, 216–44. See also soldiers, Apache Southwest region, 4, 57–58, 66–67, 97. See also borderlands environment; New Mexico territory
time management, 136–37
warfare, 21–29, 112–15, 122–23, 144, 221. See also military campaigns water supply, 32, 56, 88, 89–90, 105, 160–61, 273n49 Western Apaches, 23, 131–32, 223 Whipple Barracks: leisure activities at, 206, 207, 208, 212, 301n75, 303n90; location of, 59, 155, 290n16; as middle-class living space, 159, 160, 161, 173, 177–79; population of, 152; work at, by enlisted men, 186–87, 188, 189 white army people, 2–3, 66, 113, 117, 250, 251. See also officers and wives white enlisted men, 34–35, 84, 195, 262n4. See also enlisted men White Mountain band, 18, 217, 219, 233, 311n64 White Mountain Reservation, 25, 154, 217 white mythologies, 4, 106–9, 129, 247
Tlodilhil. See Rope, John
whiteness: and Apache soldiers, 242;
Spanish society in New Mexico, 19–21, 68–69, 70–71, 94, 258n5 Spring, John, 50, 193 Stacey, May Banks, 36, 179–81 Stoneman, George, 209 Summerhayes, Martha: on army villages, 156, 166, 170, 177; on borderlands, 73, 92, 97; on journeys, 40, 46, 48–49, 55; on welcoming party, 209 Sumner, Edwin V., 40 superiority. See racial superiority; white privilege Copyright © 2012. Nebraska. All rights reserved.
vanishing Indian, American view of, 135 Victorio (Apache), 26, 27, 122–23, 140, 225, 281n43 violence, representations of, 105–6, 111– 12, 116–24, 128–34, 147, 234, 247 Vroom, Peter, 212
tactics, Civil War–style, 114–15 technology, 98, 107 telegraph lines, 105, 191–92 Tenth Cavalry, 44, 58–59 Third Cavalry, 44
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whiteness (cont.) and army hierarchies, 71; and class solidarity, 9, 70–71, 184, 204; and European ethnics, 68–69; measurement of, 71, 249; and racial mixing, 68–69; as signifying superiority, 148–49 white privilege: in Anglo travel writings, 57; Apaches as threat to, 55, 112, 116,
of borderland settlements, 66, 82, 87– 88, 108; and whiteness, 148–49 white settlers, 53–54, 73–74, 104–5, 107, 133 white underclass, 71–73, 249 Widney, Joseph, 69, 96–97, 151, 212 wildlife, 88–89 Willcox, 65, 100, 200 wives, 167–70, 175–76, 208, 213. See also officers and wives
147; and construction of difference, 248–49; and journals, 62; as justifica-
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tion for warfare, 4; in representations
Yavapais, 20, 23, 25–26, 124, 131–32, 134, 230, 259n17
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