Apache Kid

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Apache Kid

Apache Kid served as a scout in the US Army . He was on the hunt for Juh and Geronimo with Masai and Al Sieber . First and foremost, he was an excellent, unrivaled and legendary scout who could not be captured despite numerous campaigns. He was described as "a short, stocky, thoroughbred Indian who was wiry and courageous, quick as lightning and as smart as a fox". Kid earned the additional title of "Apache" after becoming an apostate. This title provided a way to describe him as particularly notorious and dangerous.

Kid was born, possibly as a White Mountain Apache , in Aravaipa Canyon , about 25 miles (40 km) south of the San Carlos Apache Reservation in southeastern Arizona , in the 1860s . Kid's legitimate Apache name remained a secret. The records with the US Army list the remarkable scout only as a "kid" without any further designation. Sayes, a member of Kids' gang, claimed that his Native American name was Shisininty . During Kids' court martial , an Apache scout testified that his name was Hahouantell . Various authors have given other names that include Eskibinadel , Gonteee , Haskay-bay-nay-ntal , Ohyessonna , Oskabennantelz , Ski-be-nan-ted, and Zenogolache .

family

The names of his father (presumably Togo-de-Chuz) and mother do not appear in the San Carlos census or are not precisely documented. His family settled in Globe , Arizona in 1868 . His name, Haskay-bay-nay-natyl ("the great man destined to come to a mysterious ending"), was too long for the people of Globe to call him simply "Kid". The Kid married a daughter of the Eskiminzin , possibly her name was "Seamhledeztelth".

Kid learned English, worked odd jobs around town, and soon became friends with famous scout Al Sieber. Kid became Sieber's protégé ; this allowed Kid to apply to the Indian Scouts in 1881. He demonstrated such aptitude for the job he was doing as a sergeant that he eventually rose to the rank of sergeant within two years .

Maasai (left), Apache Kid (center) and Rowdy (right)

Scout

In June 1882 he was enlisted in the US Army as First Sergeant and Scout in the A Company . Physically robust, Kid possessed great stamina and was a charismatic leader who won the "admiration" of other scouts under his command. In the battle at the Big Dry Wash on the Mogollon Rim, northwest of Fort Apache, Kid won the trust of Lieutenant Thomas Cruse and Al Sieber, Chief of Scouts. In 1883, Kid served under General George Crook in the hunt for the renegade Chiricahua Apache "Juh" in the Sierra Madre.

With the Geronimo campaign (1885-1886), Kid came back to Mexico with Sieber in early 1885. When the Chief of Scouts was called back that fall, Kid rode him back to San Carlos. He was again by Lt. Crawford's call for a hundred scouts drafted for Mexican combat and headed south in late 1885. In the Mexican city of Huasabas on the Bavispe River, Kid almost lost his life in a riot because he was a drunk participant. Kid was supposed to be shot by a Mexican firing squad for this, but instead the mayor imposed a twenty dollar fine on him and the army sent him back to San Carlos.

In 1886, Kid accompanied Captain Emmet Crawford in Mexico to pursue Geronimo. Kid began his eighth and final engagement with the Scouts on April 11, 1887.

Kid served as a scout from June 1882 through January 11, 1888. He was dishonorably dismissed for mutiny and desertion . Up until 1887, Kids' active service was only two years and seven months. During this period there were interruptions totaling one year and eleven months. Despite serving as a scout for the Army, Kid had never been fully assimilated . Kid loved to shift his existence between military service and his Apache lifestyle .

The course of catastrophic events unfolded, as for many other Apaches, with the brew of Tiswin . A drink made from fermented fruits or corn . Brewing Tiswin was illegal on the reservation, but the agents, Captain Pierce and Al Sieber, were on patrol . The time seemed right for a Tiswin evening. Kid had been left behind by the scouts and was in charge of the prison. However, Kid left the reservation without permission and the problems began. Before he and the scouts could get into the camp where the Tiswin was flowing freely, two men were dead.

One of the dead was Apache Kid's father, Togo-de-Chuz, the other was Gon-Zizzie, the man who killed him. Kid's friends had already killed Gon-Zizzie, but Kid's thirst for revenge was still not quenched. He and his scouts went to Gon-Zizzie's brother's place, and Kid subsequently killed "Rip". The Kid and his scouts returned to his father's camp where they drank tiswin with the others. The binge went on for several days and finally, perhaps filled with remorse and certainly hungover, the scouts found their way back to San Carlos.

The Kid and his scouts arrived in San Carlos on June 1, 1887, and found that neither Sieber nor Pierce were in the mood to treat them generously. A group of Indians, some of them armed, gathered to watch the punishment. When Captain Pierce ordered the scouts to be disarmed, Kid was the first to surrender his weapon. The scouts' firearms were placed on a table near Sieber's tent, and Pierce ordered Kid and the others to come to the guardhouse. Here they were to be locked up until further measures could be decided. They were about to do so when a shot was fired from out of the crowd and a lot more was fired shortly afterwards.

Escape

In the following close combat, the disarmed kid escaped. Siebers tent killed by bullets, and a massive ball with a caliber of 0.45 to 70 smashed Siebers left ankle. He remained paralyzed on that leg for life. Neither the Kid nor the four other scouts could have started shooting as they were in front of the guardhouse at that point. Instead, they ran for cover, reached the horses, and fled into the wild with a dozen other Apaches. The army responded quickly and soon two troops of the 4th Cavalry were on their way to search for the fugitives on the banks of the San Carlos River.

Telegrams were sent from San Carlos to San Francisco to the division headquarters and to Washington, DC .

The local newspapers in Arizona and New Mexico got wind of this, were quick, and got the story out. The army began to feel the heat of the angry editorial . For two weeks the Apaches led the cavalry astray on their hunt, until they were helped by Indian scouts. The Kid and his gang were hidden high up in the Rincon Mountains. The soldiers surprised the Indians and kept their horses, saddles and equipment. Kid and his followers escaped in the rocky ravines, but the prospect of surviving without horses was poor, while the pressure from the army increased daily.

Apache Kid as a prisoner in Globe

After some negotiation, Kid got a message from General Miles stating that the cavalry would withdraw so he and his gang could surrender. Miles refrained from further pursuit. On June 22nd, eight of Kids' gang surrendered. The Kid and seven other Apaches surrendered on June 25, 1887. Miles decided to court-martial the Kid and four others , despite the fact that they were in all likelihood not guilty. A study was completed and no one was surprised that the men were found guilty of mutiny and desertion. All were sentenced to death by firing squad . Only Miles was upset by this verdict and ordered the court to reconsider its verdict. The court was called again on August 3, and those convicted have now been sentenced to life imprisonment . Miles was still not satisfied, however, and advocated that the sentence be reduced to ten years. The sentence began for the men in the San Carlos Guardhouse until the army decided where they should be taken. Finally on January 23, 1888, the army decided to transfer the prisoners to Alcatraz Island in California instead of the Fort Leaven military prison . Arrived on Alcatraz under heavy guard, the five of them began a short-term detention.

release

During the review, the judge in the Attorney General's office concluded that there was prejudice among the officers of the court-martial, so a fair trial was ruled out. On October 13, 1888, Secretary of War William C. Endicott authorized the five prisoners to forgive the remainder of their sentences, and by November they were back in San Carlos. Meanwhile, the Indian Legal Association was concerned that federal Apache detention in state prisons was illegal and sued on behalf of two detained Apaches. The court approved not only the release of the two named in the lawsuit, but the release of all Apaches who were held as federal prisoners in Illinois and Ohio. Eleven murderers had thus been returned to San Carlos as free men, and the outrage in the southwest was immeasurable.

Another arrest

By mid-October 1889, Gila County Sheriff Glenn Reynolds had arrest warrants for most of the freed Apaches, including the Apache Kid. Kid and three others were charged with murder, assault, and the wounding of Al Sieber for October 25, 1889. In the October 30 verdict, the four were found guilty and each sentenced to seven years in Yuma prison. Together with five other prisoners, the transport began on November 1st by stagecoach for incarceration in a prison that was notorious for its brutal living conditions. The prison has been aptly called the "Hell Hole".

The transfer was a two-day stage that led from Globe to Casa Grande and from there by train to Yuma. Sheriff Reynolds chose a deputy, WA "Hunkeydory" Holmes as guard and Gene Middleton, owner of the stagecoach , as driver. All three were armed. Kid and Hos-cal-te, as the most dangerous, were handcuffed at both wrists and ankles, the other Apaches were handcuffed in pairs, each man had a free hand. Only the Mexican horse thief Jesus Avott was unbound .

On the second day, after a night on the bank, Middleton had to climb a steep climb to Kelvin, and all prisoners except Kid and Hos-cal-te were released from walking. When Middleton reached the top and disappeared from view, the prisoners overwhelmed Reynolds and Holmes. Holmes died of shock, Reynolds was killed with Holmes' rifle. Middleton was also shot with Holmes' rifle and seriously wounded in the process, but survived. The prisoners unlocked their chains with keys taken from the corpses of Holmes and Reynolds and disappeared in an incipient snowstorm . Jesus Avott cut loose a horse and rode close to Florencez with the grim news.

As a result of the strange course of events, the Apache Kid was no longer an admired and honored scout, but a refugee with a bounty of $ 15,000 on him . It was widely believed that Kid used the San Simon Valley in Arizona and Skeleton Canyon in New Mexico on his way to Old Mexico. In the 1920s and 1930s, rumors were circulated along the border that Kid had been seen men talking to him. He was still alive at a ranch in Sonora.

legend

The Apache Kid saga grew over the years. Probably no other character in Arizona's history had amassed such wild speculation about who and how he really was and what he represented. As a result of his bold attacks on San Carlos, an image of a fascinating, larger-than-life Apache fighter emerged as the "renegade of the renegade". Geronimo was a person who was hunted, captured, and sent to a Florida prison. Not so with the Apache Kid: he was undefeated and at large. It became a cultural symbol, an indigenous symbol of a shift in historical reality. At a time when the catastrophic onslaught of the rise and fall of Apache culture, the Kid became an Arizona legend, a heroic symbol of the Apache resistance; fearless, free, omnipresent, undefeated.

Legends

Legends about Kid sprang up quickly. In October 1890, Captain John Bullis tried to jail him. Bullis complained that the Kid and other renegades stormed San Carlos and killed several men and women. In 1893, Captain Lewis Johnson stated that Kid, accompanied by two Chiricahua Apaches from Sonora, had made several break-ins on the reservation, one of which may have been the famous Maasai warrior . Despite receiving a $ 5,000 regional government award, authorities always failed to capture Kid. From 1889 to 1896, the New York Times and Arizona newspapers ran sensational stories describing his deeds that contributed to the legend of the Apache Kid. The Los Angeles Times reported in its last article on "The Kid" in May 1896 that a band of renegade Apaches under his leadership had crossed the Mexican border in a raid. Once again, Kid and his gang evaded the pursuit. Kid became the challenger to white authority as Apache , but he was never caught.

reception

What happened to the kid and how he died remains a mystery. In 1899, Colonel Emilio Kosterlitsky, commander of the Mexican Rurales in Sonora, reported that the Apache Kid was still leading a "small, well-behaved band of Apaches" in the Sierra Madre. Ross Santee, a cowboy, artist, and writer, speculated that Kid was with the Pancho Villa troops in 1915. In 1924, a gang of Apaches from the Sierra Madre rode across the border in a raid against horse theft . Lieutenant John H. Healy of the 10th Cavalry asked Joe Adley, one of his scouts and kids' nephew. Adley replied, "Apache Kid, he's alive in Mexico." There were reports after 1935 claiming that the Kid was visiting friends in San Carlos.

Apache Kid Peak

Apache Kid Peak lies high in the San Mateo Mountains of the Cibola National Forest in New Mexico . Apache Kid's grave is about a mile northwest of the Cyclone Saddle as the crow flies. The hiker who comes across the marked point in such a remote area may wonder who the kid was, and perhaps he asks himself why an elaborate memorial has been built so far from the usual tourist attractions.

Film adaptations

literature

  • Paul Andrew Hutton : "The Apache Wars": The Hunt for Geronimo, the Apache Kid , and the Captive Boy Who Started the Longest War in American History, Crown Verlag, 2016, ISBN 0-7704-3581-5
  • Dan L. Thrapp: "Al Sieber: Chief of Scouts," University of Oklahoma Press, Norman 1964, ISBN 0-8061-2770-8 .
  • Donald E. Worcester: "The Apaches: Eagles of the Southwest". Econ Verlag, Düsseldorf et al. 1982, ISBN 3-430-19854-2 .
  • Gregor Lutz : "27 Years of Captivity", Geronimo and the Apache Resistance, BOD Norderstedt, 2012, ISBN 978-3-8482-2896-6
  • Phyllis De LA Garza : "The Apache Kid," Westernlore Publications, 1995, ISBN 0-8702-6094-4
  • William Sparks "The Apache Kid, a Bear Fight, and Other True Stories of the Old West." Los Angeles, Skeleton Publishing, 1926

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ It was not discovered until 1889 that the Apache "Curly" fired this shot at Sieber. Source: Camp Huachua History PDF p. 31 ( Memento from February 16, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Quotation: “At the Globe courthouse, the Kid testified that it had been an Apache named Curly who shot Al Sieber. The Kid and his scouts were found guilty on October 23, 1889, of assault on Al Sieber and given seven years each in the Yuma Territorial Prison. "
  2. ^ The Encyclopedia of Lawmen, Outlaws, and Gunfighters
  3. ^ Ross Santee Papers
  4. ↑ Cibola National Forest
  5. ↑ Apache Kid Grave Site , NM Latitude: 33.6511762, Longitude: -107.4250363; County: Socorro, Area: Blue Mountain, Elevation: 2866 meters - 9403 feet
personal data
SURNAME Apache Kid
BRIEF DESCRIPTION White Mountain Apache tribesman
DATE OF BIRTH around 1860
PLACE OF BIRTH Arizona
DATE OF DEATH around 1930
Place of death New Mexico