Page 32 - Cooke's Peak - Pasaron Por Aqui

without retrieving his horses. As a result of the con- certed hostilities, the missions declined and in many
66 casesgavewayentirelytothepresidioorfort.
By the middle of the eighteenth century, the Spanish saw that they would have to launch large coordinated campaigns against the Apaches if they were to have any hope of holding their northernmost province. In 1747 the Spaniards launched a major offensive against the Apaches of New Mexico, but despite propitious begin- nings, it ended in failure. Many of the New Mexico troops were diverted by Governor Joaquin Codallos y Ragal to control a Ute uprising in the north. The
remaining 700 men that united on the Rio Mimbres to scout the headwaters of the Gila, Mimbres, and San Francisco rivers were unable to engage a significant body of the elusive enemy. After three months in the field and covering 1,000 miles, the expeditionary forces
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were disbanded on the Rio Grande in December. Curiously, one of the Franciscan friars, Juan Miguel Menchero, had coordinated at least part of the large- scale campaign, and although he was called on in later years for similar assistance, his fellow missionaries
thought that this was a role unbecoming of a friar. Captain Bernardo Antonio de Bustamente Basque y Tagle, of Sonora, assisted by Captain Gabriel de Vil- dosola, from Fronteras, conducted a similar campaign through southwestern New Mexico in 1756 but met with only limited success. Not all of the planned reprisals against the Indians were consummated and no record was found of any major expeditions in the
6
area for nearly another two decades.
For the first time the Spanish faced a serious threat
from forces at least as mobile as their own. Spain ordered the Marquees de Rubi, a respected military leader, to reorganize frontier defenses, and he proposed a string of 15 presidios which were to be implemented under the Royal Regulations of 1772. Colonel Hugo O’Conor, an expatriate to Spain from Dublin, was designated the Commander Inspector to implement the plan, which he at least partially ac-
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complished by building or relocating 12 installations. During 1773 and early 1774, O’Conor’s men enjoyed moderate successes (Captain Juan Bautista Peru) and defeats (Captain Alegre) in their northern province encounters. Late in 1774 O’Conor, now a General, rode north from Janos to defeat the Gilas in the Alamo
massive undertaking was conducted by detachments from more than 20 presidios and settlements as well as
Hueco and the Big and Little Hatchet ranges. success of his tactics must have been convincing, be- cause the following spring O’Conor developed a plan to invade the upper Gila from several directions. This
The Iberian Influence
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The
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movements were in- itiated between August 20 and September 1, 1775. Despite the necessary withdrawal by Governor Men- dinueta of New Mexico for want of horses, over 1,600 men were fielded to envelope and punish the recal-
citrant Apaches.
The plan was for one group to block escape routes to
the north while a second acted as the hammer driving the Indians west from the Rio Grande, the Florida Mountains, and the Mimbres Mountains (Cooke s Range) and crushing them on the twin anvils supplied by O’Conor’s and Tomas Velez Cachupin’s (Governor of Sonora) troops. The plan worked quite effectively and in administering 15 defeats to the Apaches, the Spaniards killed 138 warriors, captured 104 Indians of all ages and sexes, and recovered 1,966 stolen animals. No information was recorded concerning the death of female adults or children.
Again in the fall of 1776, O’Conor moved against the Apaches, this time with Governor Mendinueta assist- ing with 250 men under First Lieutenant Diego de Borca. Apparently traversing essentially the same area and using similar tactics, this time they destroyed 27 Indians, took 18 prisoners, and confiscated consid- erable plunder. Similar expeditions from Sonora and Vizcaya had similar success killing 40 and capturing 46 Indians while recovering 119 horses. These serial defeats were made more terrible because the Apaches, in attempting to flee eastward and avoid the operations conducted by the Spaniards, ran into their old Com-
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anche enemies and lost perhaps hundreds more. Despite the successes achieved by O’Conor in the Gila area, the Apaches continued to terrorize the Spanish settlers and military alike. Don Teodoro Cavallero de Croix, the Commander General of the interior provinces of New Spain during the years of the American Revolutionary War, surmounted manpower shortages and lack of funds and tried to bring peace to the troubled frontier with some success. In 1777, how- ever, things must not have been going well, because de
Croix reported that the Apaches were overrunning Sonora with impunity, horse herds were swept off regularly, and presidio garrisons were hard put to defend their posts and herds and unable to mount any offensive operations against the Apaches. From this period until after the turn of the century an uneasy impasse existed; the Spanish could not be expelled from their fortified positions, and the elusive Apaches
Indianallies. Thecoordinated