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Overview
Winner of the 2011 New Mexico Book Award in the multi-cultural catagory
Jlin-tay-i-tith, better known as Loco, was the only Apache leader to make a lasting peace with both Americans and Mexicans. Yet most historians have ignored his efforts, and some Chiricahua descendants have branded him as fainthearted despite his well-known valor in combat. In this engaging biography, Bud Shapard tells the story of this important but overlooked chief against the backdrop of the harrowing Apache wars and eventual removal of the tribe from its homeland to prison camps in Florida, Alabama, and Oklahoma.
Tracing the events of Loco’s long tenure as a leader of the Warm Springs Chiricahua band, Shapard tells how Loco steered his followers along a treacherous path of unforeseeable circumstances and tragic developments in the mid-to-late 1800s. While recognizing the near-impossibility of Apache-American coexistence, Loco persevered in his quest for peace against frustrating odds and often treacherous U.S. government policy. Even as Geronimo, Naiche, and others continued their raiding and sought to undermine Loco’s efforts, this visionary chief, motivated by his love for children, maintained his commitment to keep Apache families safe from wartime dangers.
Based on extensive research, including interviews with Loco’s grandsons and other descendants, Shapard’s biography is an important counterview for historians and buffs interested in Apache history and a moving account of a leader ahead of his time.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780806191218 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Oklahoma Press |
| Publication date: | 10/11/2022 |
| Series: | The Civilization of the American Indian Series , #260 |
| Pages: | 380 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.84(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Chief Loco
Apache Peacemaker
By Bud Shapard
UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS
Copyright © 2010 University of Oklahoma PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8061-8430-2
CHAPTER 1
Loco
Apaches take great pride in their personal names. A name is considered valuable individual property of the bearer and is often derived from a significant event in the owner's life. The meaningful event for Chief Loco took place during a raid in the late 1840s. A small Warm Springs Apache raiding party was driving a few stolen cattle northward toward its home camp near Ojo Caliente in southwestern New Mexico. Concurrently, a company of Mexican infantry was tramping south on a collision course with the Apaches. The Mexicans spotted the Indians first and set an ambush near a dusty patch that would soon become Mesilla, New Mexico.
When the raiders bumbled directly into the trap, the Mexican troopers let loose a volley that decimated the Apaches. In the blistering crossfire that followed, the survivors made a headlong dash for safety. According to Chief Loco's descendants, one young warrior in his late twenties lay low over his horse and was racing through the firestorm when he heard a wounded relative shout his name and plead for help. He skidded his mount to a stop, lifted his cousin aboard the horse, and continued his dash to safety as Mexican marksmen poured fire onto the two. The event inspired the Apaches to rename the warrior "Jlin-tay-itith," or "Stops-His-Horse." The Mexicans called the lucky fellow "Apache Loco"—Crazy Apache. The Apaches quickly picked up on the Mexican moniker and began calling him Loco.
Loco disclosed his Apache name to John Bourke, a captain in the U.S. Army and an ethnographer, in 1886, but he apparently did not tell Bourke the story behind it. Balatchu, an Apache contemporary of Loco's, said Loco's Apache name was "Lidayisil" but translated it the same way, as Stops-His-Horse. Anthropologist Morris Opler's study of the Apaches' use of names during emergencies further validates the account given by Loco's descendants. Opler's informants said that ordinarily it was rude to speak a person's name in his presence, but in times of dire need, the use of one's name would bring immediate help. "A man is willing to do anything for another if he calls him by name."
A number of writers and later-generation Apaches have erroneously asserted that Loco received the name because he trusted whites and repeatedly made peace with the Americans. These accounts lack credit because Loco already sported the name when he was mentioned for being absent during the signing of the first Apache peace treaty with the Americans at Acoma, New Mexico, in 1852. He was also one of the signers of the 1855 Fort Thorn treaty, under the name "Losho"—the name apparently recorded that way as the result of a glitch in translation. The idea that he received the name Loco solely because of his penchant for peaceful relations with the whites is incorrect, but no doubt a few years after the Stops-His-Horse incident, some tribal wag connected the name with his efforts for peace.
Loco was born during the hot months of 1823 in the Black Range of southwestern New Mexico, somewhere near the Alamosa River. He entered the world as a member of what anthropologists have defined as the Eastern Chiricahua group, one of three divisions of the Chiricahua tribe. Loco's band occupied most of southwestern New Mexico. The Americans referred to the Eastern Chiricahuas as the Mimbres, Gila, Copper Mine, Mogollon, Mimbreño, and Ojo Caliente, or Warm Springs, Apaches. These people called themselves Chihennes, the Red Paint People, and painted a red stripe across their faces. The other two divisions of the tribe were the Central Chiricahuas, who lived primarily in southeastern Arizona, and the Southern Chiricahuas, who lived almost exclusively in northeastern Chihuahua and northwestern Sonora, Mexico. The Central Chiricahuas were often referred to as the Cochise Chiricahuas, but they called themselves Chokonen. The Southern Chiricahuas were known as Mexican or Pinary Apaches but called themselves Nednai. The Chiricahuas recognized a fourth band, the Bedonkohe, but this band apparently disappeared in the 1860s, having been killed off or integrated into other bands.
Loco's family was associated with the band of Chihennes under the leadership of Cuchillo Negro, which tended to be the most peaceful of the Chiricahua bands. Its peoples were a little more sedentary and did a bit more small-patch farming than the others. That is not to say they did not follow the Apaches' traditional pillage-and-plunder lifestyle. As Mexicans and Americans moved into their territories, game became scarce. Accordingly, raiding became increasingly important, not to drive out the new immigrants or defend the homeland but to find food.
Loco's father was probably the headman of a local group associated with Cuchillo Negro's band. Apache leaders often came from the wealthier "better families," headed by brighter men who were effective leaders. Their children, who grew up surrounded by upper-crust models, naturally became successful leaders. When his name first appeared in official American records, Loco, at the age of thirty, was already the leader of a small local group.
Physically, Loco was smaller than most of the well-known Apache leaders. In 1872, General Howard wrote that he was "a little smaller" than another Chihenne chief, Victorio, whom Howard described as five feet ten inches tall. In later life Loco enlisted as a scout on three separate occasions at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. His height was listed differently for each enlistment, at five feet two, five feet four, and five feet six inches. Analysis of photographs of Loco standing beside other Apaches of known heights, such as Naiche, who was five feet eleven, indicate that he was about five feet four inches tall.
Despite Loco's being physically small, oral history accounts from his descendants indicate that as a young adult, he more than met the expectations of traditional tribal culture. His successes as a rising Apache warrior soon attracted a small following of relatives and friends. That he was a physically powerful man may have sped his selection as a leader.
His strength with his bow and arrow is legendary. Loco purportedly owned bows so stout that only a few men in the band were able to draw the strings. He was known for his prowess with the bow. Once, in a clash with a small group of Navajos, Loco fell into an archery duel with the Navajo leader. In an effort to avoid Loco's arrows, the Navajo repeatedly dived forward, exposing his shoulder. One of Loco's arrows struck the Navajo just behind the collar bone, traveled diagonally through the entire length of the poor fellow's body, and exited from his thigh, just below the buttock. According to the story, the other Navajo warriors took that as a cue to abandon the fight. Jason Betzinez, a member of Loco's band and eventually a follower of Geronimo, marveled that Loco and Nana, another Chihenne leader, could each slaughter steers on ration issue day at the Warm Springs Indian agency with one arrow that went entirely through the animal's body. Years later, in his seventies, the old chief still slaughtered cattle this way on ration day at Fort Sill.
Loco's prodigious strength once saved his life, but the incident left him marked with distinctive scars. The episode probably happened in the 1860s. The affair began with a fight between two old women. As village headman, it fell to Loco to separate the two and settle the squabble. He pulled the brawlers apart and slung the more aggressive contender into her wickiup. As he left the scene, the woman shouted, "I hope a bear chews your leg off."
A few days later Loco took his young son hunting in the Black Range. In those days, grizzly bears were so plentiful there that even a short stroll in the mountains was dangerous. Apaches believed the grizzly had strong evil powers. One of Opler's informants warned that "if you come in contact with a bear by smell or touch, you can get sick. Bear sickness often shows up in a deformity, in a crooked arm or leg."
Unfortunately, the two stumbled across a large grizzly during their outing. Loco pushed the boy up into a tree and turned to deal with the bear, simultaneously trying to load his musket. The muzzle-loader, its wooden ramrod still in the barrel, was knocked from his hands as the bear slammed into him. Loco pulled a hunting knife, and the two went about the deadly business of carving each other up. Ultimately, the bear quit the fight, but not before it took a large bite out of Loco's right thigh and swiped a paw across his face, leaving gashes in several places around his left eye. As the bear ran off, Loco scooped up his gun, the ramrod still in the barrel, and fired it at the bear. The ramrod shattered harmlessly on the bear's back. As the legend goes, Loco then hobbled after the animal, waving his knife and shouting for the grizzly to come back and finish its meal, if it dared. When he finally caught up with the animal, it was dead.
The people from his village carried Loco back to the camp. As Loco passed the wickiup of the woman who cursed him, he allegedly shouted from his stretcher, "I hope you are satisfied, old woman." Loco collected an impressive set of scars about his left eye from the incident and, as Opler's informant warned, a deformed leg. If there was any doubt that the woman was a witch and a menace to the community, it was dispelled by this affair. The modern family version discretely does not mention the fate of the witch.
One Apache writer suggests that Loco acquired "bear power" after the fight and became a medicine man. Betzinez and a descendant of Victorio's imply that he later wore a necklace of bear claws. Loco's descendants reported no knowledge of his being a medicine man or having "bear power." No pictures exist showing him wearing a bear claw necklace. It is unlikely that he did, because Loco was apparently a popular fellow. Any man wearing a bear claw necklace would have attracted few friends and certainly no following.
Most of Loco's non-Indian contemporaries and subsequent writers ascribe his facial injuries and his bad eye to a bear attack, as do some Apaches. Everyone agrees that the bear damaged his face and leg. Some of Loco's descendants deny that the scuffle with the grizzly had anything to do with his blind eye. An analysis of a photographic enlargement of the injured area on Loco's face shows deep scars above and to the left of the eye and on his cheek. The eyelid, however, seems to be normal and undamaged. A claw might have damaged nerves to the eyelid, but it appears unlikely that a claw tore through it. The actual incident in which Loco's sight was impaired was recounted by Raymond Loco as it was told to him by his father, John Loco, the chief's son.
In that account, Mexican soldiers attacked an Apache camp by surprise. As the Mexicans began firing into the camp, the Indians scattered in all directions in the predawn darkness. In an effort to save a prized saddle, Loco threw it over his shoulder as he dashed to escape. Running in the dark, he raced over the edge of a rocky arroyo, landed on his face, and permanently damaged his eye. Another of Loco's grandsons, Moses, said Loco had "some vision left in his eye," but probably no more than being able to see light and form. Britton Davis, an officer in the Third Cavalry who was heavily involved in Apache matters during the period, observed that a cataract had formed over the eye. Loco's eyelid drooped over the eye and had to be held open with a finger for him to see at all.
His facial disfigurement "gave him a sinister appearance entirely foreign to his nature." General Howard noted that he had "a pleasant smile." Britton Davis wrote that Loco, among others, made frequent visits to Davis's tent at Fort Apache for "friendly or business talks."
Charles Clark, a telegraph operator at the San Carlos Indian agency, Arizona, in the summer of 1881, became good friends with Loco. Clark described Loco as "a short, fat, big-paunched Apache who had lost one eye." They met when Loco's band came to the agency for its weekly rations. The Indians came to the agency by noon on Thursdays to be counted, but the rations were not issued until Friday, forcing the Apaches to loll about the area throughout Thursday afternoons. "Loco made the front of the telegraph office his loafing place and all of Thursday afternoons could be found lying half against the front wall of the office, watching my work in which he took interest. During these visits I kept him supplied with 'the makings' [of cigarettes] and we became quite friendly."
Clark had heard about the Apaches' "ceremonial dances" and wanted to see one. He asked Loco on two occasions for the opportunity to attend, to which Loco replied, "Poco tiempo," meaning, "Soon." Eventually Clark was invited to a social dance and was allowed to bring two couples along. The group arrived at the dance scene just after nine o'clock in the evening, led by a youngster, probably Loco's son. "We were welcomed by Loco in person and conducted to seats on the ground at the edge of the large circle formed by the spectators," wrote Clark.
In addition to being good-natured, Loco was a bit of a jokester. After Clark and his friends had been at the dance for some time, Clark recalled:
Loco walked over to me and saying something I did not understand took my arm and walked me onto the dance floor stopping in front of two squaws. He hooked their arms within mine, facing the squaws in one direction and myself in the opposite. Then the orchestra struck up and the dance commenced.... [After a while] I considered I contributed much toward the entertainment of the evening as any of the devils [masked dancers] so I broke holds and sat down. The two women laughed over my weakness and signaled another buck in the circle, who jumped in to help with a yell, ran to where the women stood waiting, and hooking arms with them cut up more didos and coming than I could ever thought of. The two squaws telling him what a weakling I was, I suppose, for they would look at me and then throw a fit.
Generally speaking, most Americans and most Apaches who knew Loco liked him. Loco himself noted that white people "seemed to like to have me near them." Even his harshest critics, the descendants of Victorio, admit that Loco was usually good-natured, although they also claim he was a "gruff man" with a "reputation for sudden bursts of temper." The fact was that the two leaders seldom saw eye-to-eye. Although supposedly cousins, and cohorts in a few misadventures when they were younger, Loco and Victorio were a fractious twosome, often vying for control of the Chihennes. They argued over which other Apaches should be allowed on the reservation. Victorio almost always favored a traditional raiding lifestyle and was inclined to allow militant bands to move in with the Chihennes. Loco invariably favored peace and modernization, generally trying to exclude hostiles such as Geronimo from the reservation, where they were often confused with the peaceful Chihennes. Perico, an old-time Chihenne warrior and army scout, told anthropologist Sol Tax that "while Victoria [sic] was the main chief, the war chief, and Loco the assistant, most of the tribe were 'with' Loco because he always favored peace." White settlers and military officers were also quick to notice and appreciate Loco's preference for peace. Britton Davis wrote that "Loco, while generally acknowledged as chief of the Warm Springs, was [after Victorio's death], like Mangas [the son of Mangas Coloradas], pacifically inclined, but he was a man of greater force and exercised a controlling influence over a considerable number of his people; an influence always in the paths of peace."
Victorio's descendants report that Victorio and Loco never "saw eye-to-eye concerning slaves." Many Apaches kept captives, mostly young boys, girls, and women. Eventually many of these were adopted, married to their captors, or otherwise taken into the tribe, but until then they were slaves, often treated badly and sold or traded readily. Loco was among the Apache slaveholders. It appears from the few available accounts that he often gave his slaves a bad time.
In May 1853, Mangas Coloradas and several other leaders assembled at Fort Webster to clarify and reaffirm the terms of the Treaty of Acoma with Indian Agent Edward Wingfield and Captain Enoch Steen. Reports of the meeting referred to a Chihenne chief, Loshio or Losio, undoubtedly Loco. The Chihennes arrived a few days late, bringing with them four captives, Mexican girls ages six to eleven. The Apaches were apparently expecting to sell or trade the girls to the Americans. Captain Steen was shocked at the captives' condition. "A narrative of their sufferings by the captives is sufficient to shock with horror and chill the blood in the veins of the most degenerated Americans." Backed by the army, Steen took the girls from the unsuspecting Apaches. In exchange, Steen and Wingfield issued the Indians rations, but they observed that the Chihennes "appeared much dissatisfied, displaying signs of belligerent nature" as they left Fort Webster.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Chief Loco by Bud Shapard. Copyright © 2010 University of Oklahoma Press. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS.
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Table of Contents
Contents
List of Illustrations,Preface,
Introduction,
1. Loco,
2. In Search of a Good Peace,
3. Chaos at Cañada Alamosa,
4. Forced to Tularosa,
5. "We Are Dying Here",
6. The Ghosts of Tularosa,
7. Gunfight at Victorio's,
8. "We Are Good Indians",
9. A Run for Home,
10. Final Removal from Ojo Caliente,
11. Loco's Dilemma,
12. The "Loco Outbreak",
13. Ambushed at Sierra Enmedio,
14. Ghastly Scenes at Alisos Creek,
15. Chiz-odle-netln's Escape,
16. Returned to San Carlos,
17. Loco Saves the Chihennes,
18. Exiled to the East,
19. Fort Marion, Florida, 1886–1887,
20. Life at Fort Marion,
21. Mount Vernon, Alabama, 1887–1894,
22. The Dark Side of Mount Vernon,
23. "Loco Died, Causes Unknown",
Notes,
Bibliography,
Index,