Sonora and Chihuahua are located in northwest/northern Mexico, bordering Arizona and New Mexico; played a very significant role in the Cochise story, as until Mexican- American War of 1848 they were parts of Mexico. Both Sonora and Chihuahua are dominated by the Sierra Madre Mountains, deserts, and rich deposits of gold, silver and copper as well as peppered by valleys and rivers including the Sonora/ and Bavispe, and Casas/Santa Maria in Chihuahua. These fertile valleys gave birth to the cattle industry/ rancheros. Alvar Nuneza Cabeza de Vaca was the first Spaniards to enter Chihuahua in 1528. Quickly Franciscans came to St. Barbara establishing a mission to converts the Indians which became the springboard to exploring New Mexico. In 1540, Francisco Coronado travelled through Sonora and is credited with naming the territory. The Jesuits soon followed and began to make inroads with the Pimas, Yaquis, Opatas, Tohono O’odham, and Mayo’s. Sonora and Chihuahua were geopolitically valuable as they became springboards for Spanish expansion into Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas.
Apache presence in Sonora /Chihuahua emerged at the end of the seventeenth century. The Spanish to protect themselves from Apache incursions built presidios at Janos in 1685, in Chihuahua and Fronteras in 1690. The Apache raids were so extensive that Captain Juan Mateo Mange reported in 1737: “that many mines have been destroyed, 15 large estancias along the frontier have been totally destroyed, having lost two hundred head of cattle, mules and horses, several missions have been burned and 200 Christians have lost their lives to the Apache enemy, who sustains himself only with the bow and arrow, killing, and stealing livestock. All this has left us in ruin.” Later in the 1740’s Cochise’s people the Chiricahua Apaches arrived, and became the scourge of Sonora/Chihuahua. So successful were they that the government established a string of 23 presidios, but these proved to be ineffective against the elusive Apache. Apache depredation intensified according to Robert Salmon, Indian Revolts in Northern Spain: A Synthesis of Resistance,1680-1786, that Chihuahua began losing its population base. By 1780’s, Theodor de Croix, Commanding General of New Spain concluded that he would need 3000 troops along with Comanche assistance to subdue the Apaches.
In 1786, Spanish authorities decided to abandon their ineffectual military solution for a peace policy with the Apaches. Bernardo de Galvez, Viceroy of New Spain described it as “pacification by dependency” by which Spanish “would endeavor to make treaties with individual bands, persuade then to settle near military stations where they could receive food rations, give them low –quality weapons for hunting, encourage trade. Most important was to use “divide and conquer tactics when appropriate “by playing one Apache Band against another, or against other tribes against the Apaches. (Cf, Martinez, Troublesome Border). The policy of pacification /dependence did nonetheless create an era of relative peace which would basically prevail during Cochise’s birth in 1810 and continued through his adolescence until 1830 when conflict would resume again between Apaches and Mexicans in Sonora/ Chihuahua. The Spanish peace policy unraveled because of Mexican Independence in 1822, and its accompanying administrative costs, as well as by the desire of the new government in Mexico City to reassert its control over the resources of the northern territories as a way of consolidating its position against the expanding movement for separatism by the growing population of American settlers in Texas. (Cf, John Schamal, “Sonora: Four Centuries of Indigenous Resistance”) Termination of the peace policy and its loss of food/supplies, however, forced the Apache Bands to return to raiding throughout the southwest. Pisago Cabezon, Cochise’s father, and Mangas Coloradas emerged as the new leaders and orchestrated the lethal Apache response to the Mexican shift in policy. The conflict between the Mexicans and the “los indios barbarous” became so deadly that it ultimately weakened Mexico’s ability to respond to American expansionism paving the way for the Mexican – American War, 1846-48, and the Gadsden Purchase of 1854, which brought the Pindah into Apacheria. A serious Mexican weakness, described by Brian Delay in, War Of A Thousand Deserts, was the inability of Sonora and Chihuahua leadership to collaborate against the Apaches. The Sonoran saw the Apaches as barbarians that had to be ethnically cleansed, whereas, the Chihuahuan favored tempering war with peace. This ambiguity was connected to the Mestizos heritage of the Mexican state making it difficult to wage a blatant race war against “Indians” as America would do in the name of “Exceptionalism” and “Manifest Destiny”. As the war became increasingly cruel it lead the Mexicans to introduce scalping in the 1830’s as a way of terrorizing Apaches leading them to hire outside American Scalp Hunters. Two infamous Scalp Hunters were John James Johnson and James Kirker who came as wolves in sheep clothing promising whiskey, guns and cloth to the Apaches only to treacherously set them up for massacre. Johnson is connected with the 1837 slaughter of twenty Apaches, and Kirker with the massacre at Galena in 1846 in which possibly Cochise’s father, Pisago Cabezon, lost his life along with 130 other Chiricahuas. Jason Betzinez (I fought With Geronimo, Vol. I) recalls it as a horrendous experience touching many families. Apache responses to these killings in Sonora /Chihuahua were so devastating that population loss became endemic as Mexicans deserted the cities/villages for larger cities or States. Transportation came to a standstill, paralyzing economic growth, cattle and mining goods could not be shipped. Rancheria suffered from lack of vaqueros and field hands. Sonora/Chihuahua became wastelands. An 1848 Sonora report indicated how extensive the psychological and material damage was by reporting “the abandonment of ninety ranches, thirty haciendas, and twenty-six mines in the state. “ (Cf, War Of A Thousand Deserts.p.195.).
Arizona and Tucson however are more central to the Cochise story. Regarding the name Arizona it probably comes from Tohono O’ odham word for “small spring” or else connected with Basque word “aritz ona”, “the good oak.” Spanish Tucson became a small village center with a population of maybe 3-500 by Cochise’s birth. It was silver/gold that first brought miners and later ranchers into Arizona along the Santa Cruz river that ran southward from Tucson to Tubac and Nogales. The Jesuits became major players in the region establishing a Mission Church at Tumacaroi located south of Tubac which had been a Tohono O’Odham site in 1691, and Mission San Xavier Bac, south of Tucson, in 1700. Later in the eighteenth century the Jesuits were expelled by the Spanish Bourbons and replaced by the Franciscans, but because of growing Apache pressure the Tumacaroi mission was abandoned at the end of the eighteenth century. In 1752, the Spanish established a presidio in Tubac to protect the area from the different Indian tribes. It was from Tubac/Tucson that the Spanish launched their campaigns against the Apaches with their Indian allies: Opatas, Pimas and Navajos. Tucson presidio was harassed by Apaches in the 1770’s with worse attacks occurring in the 80’s. The Tucson population was essentially Mestizos or an Indian village. It was a Spanish outpost in a sea of Indians. The ruling elite of Tucson however came primarily from Sonora, and were connected to the wealthy Spanish Crillos families there. Sonoran census of Tucson in 1831 listed only 465 Mexicans with an ironically even larger Apache presence of 486 who were peaceful.
In the 1820’s Americans began appearing in Arizona prospecting for furs, gold and silver. American expansionism into the southwest and Texas began pointing to Mexican- American War This boundary change would profoundly impact Cochise’s people. Kit Carson was one of the earlier hunters who came into the area. Tucson would be occupied by the Mormon Battalion during the Mexican-American War, and then reverted back to Mexico by the Treaty of Guadalupe –Hidalgo in1848. In the early 1850’s, Washington showed a renewed interest in the lands south of the Gila River as the topography of Apacheria lend itself to the building of a railroad linking New Orleans to San Diego thereby complementing the building of the Central Pacific from Sacramento and consolidating American control over Far West. James Gadsden, American ambassador to Mexico, negotiated the 10 million dollar deal which brought the areas of Las Cruces, New Mexico, Tucson and Yuma into the American frame in 1853. It was the Gadsden Purchase that dramatically reshaped the destiny of Cochise as the treaty brought Americans into the Chiricahua Apache heartland. Tucson too would change from a Mexican- Indian village into an American military /commercial/transportation hub, becoming a major stop for the Butterfield Overland Mail that linked Missouri to California, and would be a central part in the Cochise story. For a while Tucson would be the western capitol of the Confederacy until it was driven out by the Carlton’s California Column in summer of 1862 ending up as a part of New Mexico. In 1863, Arizona Territory was established with Tucson briefly being its capitol from 1867-1877.Tucson too would serve as a major military center revolving around Fort Lowell, built on a Hohokam site, throughout the Apache period, and because of the monies to be made in fighting the Apaches gave birth to the infamous “Tucson Ring”. The “Tucson Ring” consisted of politicians, suppliers, merchants, Indian haters who made tons of monies from the Apache War, and were largely responsible for fomenting the ethnic racism and fear that permeated white thinking about the “Apache Problem.” For Cochise, although Tucson was outside his traditional lands, it would loom personally important because of the deep relationship he would forge with Tom Jeffords, who for awhile was responsible for mail delivery through Cochise country. One story has it that Jeffords went alone into Cochise’s Stronghold in order to guarantee the safety of the mail riders marking the beginnings of their deep relationship.
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