Page 195 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

continued to expand his interests in the mining in-
dustry there. On the afternoon of May 14, 1868, he
was returning to Pinos Altos from Mesilla. He was
driving a buggy and was accompanied by two men
on horseback. Approximately three miles from their
destination, they were attacked by a party of about
40Indians. Thetwomountedmenmanagedtoout-
distance the Apaches, but Mastin paid the ultimate
103 price.
By this time the two old adversaries, Indian Agent Steck and General Carleton, had been relieved of their respective jobs. The Department of the Inte- rior had taken over the responsibility for the Bosque Redondo Reservation, but, by summer of 1868, it was closed and the Indians remaining there returned to their homelands.
Carleton’s grand experiment has been branded a failure by many. However, it was not without sig- nificant effects. The Navajo Nation, fearing a repeat of the hated Bosque
mings had never been formally established or sur- veyed. In December 1868, First Lieutenant Henry Jackson, Seventh United States Cavalry, made a survey of the proposed reservation. All the corners and every half mile along the boundary lines were marked by six-inch-diameter posts that were five- feet-long and were marked US with MR under- neath. 10
The year 1869 started badly for Captain Moore.
The Indians were attacking citizens and military
posts alike, and the mail contractor was complaining
to Moore’s superiors regarding the lack of an escort.
The Apaches had established a temporary rancheria
in either the Florida or Tres Hermanos mountains
and were committing depredations against the
citizens of Mesilla and those living along the
Mimbres River. They captured a herd of cattle two
miles south of Fort Selden and also ventured onto
the military reservation to attack the fort’s wood
107 train.
Sometimes the difference between reports from the man-in-the-field and the higher-level interpreta- tion of a situation was interesting. In the Surgeon General’s report it was noted that mail was received at Fort Cummings three times a week by stage from California via Tucson. 108 Captain Moore, respond- ing to a directive to furnish an escort for the United States Mail both ways through Cooke’s Canyon, had a different view. Not only did he complain that the contractor was deliberately taking advantage of the government, he also stated that to support the mail inthemannerwhichhadbeensuggesteditwould require all the animals at the post, most of the men, and would forestall any action to control the Indians. He further described the tri-weekly service:
I beg leave also, respectively state that the mails, as served at this post, are meager, and often delayedforan unreasonableperiod. The mailissupposedtobetri-weekly,andtwodays out of the week it is carried by a solitary Mexican, mounted on a miserable mule, and the other day in a buggy, ifsuch a vehicle as that
Redondo experience, never again waged large scale warfare against the govern- ment. For better or worse, the experiment provided an illustration of what to do and not to do in estab-
lishing future reservation systems.
The Navajo
people learned new skills, including farming tech-
niques and metalsmithing. The latter, today artisti-
cally expressed in silver, was learned by
counterfeiting the metal ration tokens issued by the
military so that additional food could be procured.
The old army wagons, given to families when the
reservation was closed, provided them a new ability
totravelandcommunicatewithothers. But,
foremost, the Navajos developed a previously lack-
ing sense of tribal unity that would aid them in their
future dealings with the Whites and the federal
104 government.
Meanwhile, the soldiers at Fort Cummings and the
Apaches were still at each other’s throats. In late
August, Captain Alexander Moore left the fort on
anextendedforayagainsttheIndians. Heandhis
men were involved in two engagements. In the first,
they killed two Apaches and captured two boys and
all the Indians’ riding stock. In the second en-
counter they killed one Indian, took a small girl
captive, and killed some pack animals. In retalia-
tion, the Apaches took an entire mule herd that had
stopped overnight at Fort Selden. Moore gathered
his men and took off again for a long but ineffective
105 scout.
The size of the military reservation for Fort Cum-
used, can be called by that name.
109
Chapter 6
181
Perhaps to either illustrate his point or to avoid the issue, Moore took off on an extended scout for Indians, leaving First Lieutenant Steele to handle the problem. Steele recounted his manpower: 30 total, of which 6 were prisoners, 4 sick in the hospital,