Cochise

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Cochise (Bronze bust of Betty Butts based on a historical illustration from Cochise. Location: Fort Bowie National Historic Site , Arizona, USA.)

Cochise (also Cheis or A-da-tli-chi - 'hardwood'; in Apache K'uu-ch'ish - 'oak', English pronunciation: [koʊˈtʃiːs] ) (* between 1810 and 1823; †  June 8, 1874 in the southeast of present-day Arizona , USA ) was a leader of the Chihuicahui local group of the Chokons ('Ridge of the Mountainside People', real or central Chiricahua ) and in the 1860s and early 1870s the most important and influential chief (or Nantan ) of the Chokons group (. English band ) of the Chiricahua - Apaches .

In addition to the Chokonen , the Spaniards / Mexicans and Americans were (and still are) the Bedonkohe ('In Front of the End People' or 'Standing in front of the enemy', northeastern Chiricahua ), the Chihenne ('red-painted people', too Eastern Chiricahua ) and Nednhi ('hostile people', 'people who cause trouble', also Southern Chiricahua ) belonged to the Chiricahua Apache, these groups were related to each other and sometimes united in war, but they mostly acted independently of each other .

Although they regarded themselves primarily as Bedonkohe or Chokonen and sometimes even fought against each other, they distinguished themselves from the neighboring Western Apaches and Mescalero Apaches due to their cultural and linguistic similarity to one another . For the groups generally referred to as Chiricahua Apache , only two local Chokonen groups were real Chiricahua: once Cochise's local group, the Chihuicahui, and the one referred to as Chokonen under the leadership of Chief Chihuahua (in Apache: Kla-esh ) and his brother and segundos Ulzana ( also known as Josanni or Jolsanie ).

Life

Only the local groups had elected leaders (so-called Nantan, sometimes women), but there were no recognized chiefs who had an all-encompassing power over the whole group (English band ), such as B. the chocons could exercise. These leaders had prestige acquired through skill and persuasiveness. In addition, most of the Nantans were also diyins ( medicine men ), who had a special power (diya) that enabled them to lead people and to take into account the sacred aspects of the raid as well as the war. All known leaders, such as Cochise, Mangas Coloradas , Victorio , Juh , were only leaders of their respective local groups - however, Cochise was never the chief of all Chokons or Mangas Coloradas that of all Chihennes. Cochise was Nantan and Diyin of the Chihuicahui local group of the Chokons, but this in no way obliged Chihuahua, the leader of the Chokonen local group, to automatically obey, but he was free in his decisions and could, if he wanted, join Cochise temporarily. It cannot be denied that Victorio or Mangas Coloradas had an enormous influence on neighboring local groups (and their leaders gladly joined them), but they could not give orders or sign a binding contract for them.

Cochise's life was shaped by the continued struggles of the Apaches against the increasing settlement of the far north of Mexico by Mexicans and of today's southwestern USA by Anglo-Americans . While the Apaches succeeded in repeatedly pushing the Mexicans back from their ancestral homeland, the Chokones under Cochise's leadership were defeated by the US Army after decades of guerrilla warfare .

The Dragoon Mountains in southeast Arizona, where the Chokons and other Chiricahua Apache groups under Cochise lived for most of the time.
Naiche, a son of Cochise, with his wife

The armed conflicts were only interrupted by brief periods of peace, which were usually broken by the Americans. In 1861 Cochise's final war against the US Army began as a result of the Bascom affair . George Bascom, a young career-addicted lieutenant, accused Cochise of stealing cattle and kidnapping a boy. Cochise escaped capture by a dramatic escape during the alleged negotiations that had turned out to be a trap. Part of his family was held hostage. Cochise then took other whites as prisoners. When Bascom refused to surrender Cochise's family members in a prisoner swap, the Apache white prisoners were killed. Bascom then dropped Cochise's three male relatives. These incidents sparked a new phase of war between the Chokons and the Anglo-Americans.

General Oliver Otis Howard, who negotiated the peace treaty with Cochise in 1872 (Photo by Mathew Brady , ca.1860)

After the death of the Bedonkohe Apache chief, Mangas Coloradas , Cochise was the most influential leader of the Chiricahua. After more than ten years of further, legendary struggle, in 1872, through the mediation of Tom Jeffords , a US mail rider and former scout with whom Cochise had developed a friendly relationship, peace negotiations with the Civil War veteran General Oliver Otis Howard , who treats fairly was said of the Indians . A peace treaty was negotiated in which the Bedonkohe were granted their own reservation .

Cochise died in June 1874. Friends and enemies alike had considered him a skilful war tactician and a sincere man who kept his word once given. In 1881 the southeasternmost territory of Arizona, Cochise County , was named after him. It is one of the few United States' over 3,000 counties (equivalent to the counties in Germany) that is named after a single Indian.

After Cochise's death

In 1876, two years after Cochise's death, the Chokonen reservation was dissolved. Like other Apache tribes, the Chokons were relocated to the San Carlos Reservation , where they relied on the sparse support of the US administration. One of Cochise's two sons, Naiche (also Nachise on various occasions ), evaded resettlement with some other Apaches and joined the holy man and war chief of the Bedonkohe and Nednhi, Geronimo . Under Geronimo, the few Apaches who were still fighting waged another hopeless guerrilla fight against the US troops, which in turn would last about ten years. In 1886 the last free Apache group was finally formed, including Naiche and Geronimo, US General Nelson Appleton Miles .

Cochise in literature and film

The life of Cochise and especially his friendship with Tom Jefford formed the subject of the historical novel Blood Brother by Elliott Arnold , published in 1947 (published in 1964 in German translation by Karl May Publishing House Bamberg). This novel was in turn the basis for one of the first Indian-friendly Western Hollywood , Broken Arrow by Delmer Daves in 1950 with Jeff Chandler as the actor of Cochise and James Stewart as Tom Jeffords (German title: " The broken arrow ").

The story of the Apache uprising, which was triggered by the Bascom affair, is told in the first five volumes of the Lieutenant Blueberry comic series by Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean Giraud, in which Cochise and Bascom also appear. The action has been moved to 1868, after the American Civil War.

A certain similarity between the friendship between Tom Jeffords and Cochise and the romanticized, fictional adventure stories of Karl May about the blood brotherhood between the fictional characters Old Shatterhand and Winnetou is purely coincidental and has nothing to do with historical circumstances - unlike Elliott Arnold's novel, too when this puts the authentic happening in a romantically transfigured light and adorns it with a speculative love story, among other things.

Cochise associations in pop culture (especially in the musical field)

  • The German folk rock band Cochise named themselves after the Apache.
  • The British country rock band Cochise was also named after him.
  • The American rock band Audioslave gave their debut single the title Cochise .
  • The second track of Mike Oldfield's Guitars album is titled Cochise .
  • Cochise is also the name of the first track on the album Live at Montreux by jazz pianist Les McCann , recorded in 1972 at the festival of the same name.

literature

Non-fiction

  • Dee Brown : Bury my heart at the bend of the river (Chapter 9: Cochise and the Apache Guerillas, pages 193 to 217), Hoffmann and Campe Verlag, Hamburg 1972, ISBN 3-455-00720-1
  • Edwin R. Sweeney: Cochise: Chiricahua Apache Chief . Norman, University of Oklahoma Press, 1991
  • Donald E. Worcester: The Apaches - 'Eagles of the Southwest', Econ Verlag 1982, ISBN 3-430-19854-2

Fiction

  • Elliott Arnold : Cochise , Karl-May-Verlag (1964)
  • Elliott Arnold : Blutsbrüder , Karl-May-Verlag (1964), 436 pages, 17 cm, linen, card ill. on previous pages, translated by Friedrich Gentz ​​/ Dr. Gustav Finzel, the americ. Original "Blood Brothers" was released in 1947

See also

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Cochise
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Chees; A-da-tli-chi
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Leader and chief of the Bedonkohe Apaches
DATE OF BIRTH between 1810 and 1823
DATE OF DEATH June 8, 1874
Place of death Arizona , USA