Council Rock

  Silent sentinels, they guard a place sacred to the history of Southern Arizona. Few go there. There are no signs to lead the way. It’s down a rugged dirt road, several miles from Middlemarch Pass in the Dragoon Mountains.

     Once these mountains were the perfect hideout for the fiercely independent Chiricahua Apache. On the East side was Cochise Stronghold, a massive jumble of rocks. Camp there, put a few sentinels on the crest of the mountain range and no intruder will ever surprise you. If trouble approaches, you can quickly disappear further into the rocks. It is quiet and beautiful. Directly across the crest of the Dragoons is a place where peace can be found.

     The Forest Road leading to Council Rocks runs up the Western side of the Dragoons. Side roads branch out to reach various canyons and camping grounds. One dead- ends at a place where the rocks seem to have tumbled down from the mountain, blocking the way. You have reached the most sacred place in all of Arizona.

     Take a deep breath, gaze back across the broad San Pedro valley. Note the tiny cars making their way along Highway 80. Forty miles away you can see Fort Huachuca and the city of Sierra Vista. Even closer, is Tombstone. The grass is good. Small streams fed by springs trickle nearby. It exudes serenity. Cochise, the Chief of the Chiricahua, loved this place. He is buried in a secret grave somewhere close.

     Look toward the rocks. You will see some steps carved in them. Follow them to the opening between the rocks. Here you will find a sheltered spot surrounded by protecting boulders. If you feel like you have just entered a holy place, you won’t be the first. Three very different, but remarkable, men met there in 1872. A general, a frontiersman and a fierce Apache warrior sat in council here. Throw your blanket down like they did and quietly reflect what they achieved.

     At about age 60, Cochise was the leader of the Chokonen band of the Chiricahua. The leaders of the other Apache bands looked to him in times of crisis. His Father-in-Law was Mangus Coloradas, leader of the Mimbrenos. Victorio, Geronimo and Ju were all allies of Cochise.

     Cochise had long been at war with his traditional enemies, the Mexicans, to the South. In 1854, the Gadsden purchase made much of Apacheria part of the United States. At first Cochise got along well with the soldiers, miners, ranchers and teamsters who began trickling in from the East. He maintained working trading relationships with the newcomers while still raiding down into Mexico. If someone got a horse or mule from the Apaches, chances are it had a Mexican brand. He trusted and got along well with the soldiers from Fort Buchanan, near modern Sonoita, Arizona.

     The peace between Cochise and the whites would end with the “Bascom Affair” in early 1861. Lt. Bascom accused Cochise of kidnapping a rancher’s stepson. Cochise said he didn’t have the boy and even offered to try to retrieve him. Instead of accepting his cooperation, the Army detained Cochise and some of his kinsmen at Apache Pass. Cochise cut his way out of a tent and escaped in a hail of bullets. Then things escalated. People died. The Chiricahua hostages were hung.

     Simultaneously, the Civil War broke out. The Army abandoned its Arizona posts and headed East. Cochise drove the ranchers and miners out of the territory. Travel became impossible. Feeling abandoned, the citizens of Tucson allied themselves with the Confederacy. Nobody was safe as the Apaches attacked both Union and Confederate forces at Apache Pass. After driving the Rebels out, the Union’s California Column established Fort Bowie at the crucial Apache Pass, across the Sulphur Springs Valley from Cochise Stronghold. The Apaches would snipe at the soldiers from the surrounding hills for the next decade.

     The Apache troubles continued even after the Civil War ended. Nobody in Southeastern Arizona was safe. Most of the countryside had been depopulated. The riches of Arizona were never going to be developed at this rate.

     Back East in the 1870’s, opinions toward Native Americans had begun to change. President Grant shook up the reservation system by appointing Agents from various religious denominations to civilize and Christianize the tribes. Though some were naïve, they generally did a better job of maintaining order than the greedy political appointees who had preceded them.

     An appalling incident called the Camp Grant Massacre occurred in 1871. Peaceful Aravaipa Apaches were camped near Fort Grant on the San Pedro River. Rumors spread around Tucson that this band posed a danger. A raiding party made up of local Anglos, Mexicans and native warriors staged a surprise attack on their camp. Scores of men,  women and children were killed. A number of the surviving children were kidnapped to serve as servants for Mexican families. 

     President Grant and the East Coast establishment were outraged. Something needed to be done. He needed someone to address all of the issues affecting the tribes of the Southwest. He found his man in General Oliver Otis Howard. Howard had lost an arm in the Civil War but continued to soldier on with Sherman’s Army until the end. Just before his assassination, Abraham Lincoln had asked the Secretary of War to put Howard in charge of the Freedmen’s Bureau.

     Howard would spend most of the Civil War Reconstruction era looking out for the rights and well-being of the newly emancipated slaves. In the process he also found time to help establish Howard University in Washington, D.C.

     Grant asked Howard to take a leave from his duties at the bureau to serve as a Peace Commissioner to the troubled Southwest. He could not have picked a better man. Deeply religious, Howard was a man of great integrity with no axes to grind. With the Lord’s help, no task was too great for him. He would soon be taking the long roundabout trip by rail, ship, river boat and horseback required to get to Arizona in those days.

     Upon arrival in Arizona, he began a journey from West to East, visiting every tribe along the way. He would hear and adjust their grievances. He dealt with water issues along the Gila, where white settlers were diverting the water to their own fields. He met with Eskiminzin, Chief of the Aravaipa, and found a way to get some of their stolen children back. He set up a reservation for the Warm Springs Apaches along the Rio Grande. He took a contingent of Native leaders back to Washington to impress upon them the power of the nation and the benefits of civilization.

     His peace mission not complete, he returned to Arizona by the overland route in the summer of 1872. He had one more treaty to forge. But how would he find the wily and wary Cochise?

     Cochise and General Howard came from two different worlds. There was no way the one-armed General was going to ride right into the camp of Cochise. He needed an intermediary, a catalyst. Someone who knew the ways of the Apache and could understand them. Was there someone who Cochise trusted? That man turned out to be a rugged frontiersman named Tom Jeffords.

     Tom Jeffords was a 40-year-old former sea captain on the Great Lakes who migrated west to follow the gold rushes in the late 1850’s. When the war broke out, he became a scout for the Union Army in Arizona and New Mexico. After the war, he got the mail contract between Socorro and Tucson. He often lost his mail couriers to the Apache as they made their way through the land of Cochise. Legend has it that Jeffords went alone into the camp of Cochise to seek a truce. Startled by the courage of this act, Cochise befriended him and agreed to let the mails pass. Not everyone buys this story. Some of Jeffords’ contemporaries claim he was only able to get the mail through by providing liquor and guns to the Chiricahua.  

     Hearing both stories about Jeffords, Howard decided he was still the only man who could get him into Cochise’s camp. He approached him at Tularosa, New Mexico.

     “Can you take me to the camp of the Indian Cochise?” Howard questioned.

    Jeffords studied Howard for a moment and asked, Will you go there with me, General, without soldiers?”

     Unflinchingly, Howard agreed. Apaches are always ready for flight. They keep their weapons handy. Every one of them has a deerskin emergency bag filled with items essential to escape. Even the babies spend most of the first year of life bundled on a cradle board, ready to be strapped to their mothers’ backs in an instant for a flight to safety. A troop of soldiers riding across an open valley would never get close to an occupied Apache camp.

     Jeffords helped Howard secure a couple of Apache guides and a couple of packers. Only one Army officer, Captain Sladen, would ride to the Dragoons with the party. It would be a long dusty trip filled with danger and with water holes few and far between. As they moved east into Chiricahua country, the guides would use signal fires and flags to communicate with Cochise’s band. First at Silver City, and later at a mining camp, the group would have to restrain hostile citizens from killing their guides. As they neared Chiricahua territory, they sent their wagon and packers back toward Fort Bowie. The smaller the party, the greater the likelihood of success. Along the way, Captain Sladen would show a momentary lack of courage.

     “General, aren’t we doing wrong? Don’t you think you are taking too much risk?” asked Sladen.

     Eventually the pious General responded back to the nervous officer, “Captain, whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it.” After that Sladen never wavered.

     Upon crossing the lofty Chiricahua Mountains, the group got their first glimpse of the Dragoons. In the middle of the Sulphur Springs Valley, they stopped at the Rogers’ Ranch, the last outpost of civilization. Soldiers from Fort Bowie shared their rations with the weary travelers.

     At midnight, they saddled up for a silent trip to Cochise’s hide-away. They camped beneath the scrub oaks by a quiet stream flowing out of the Dragoons. One of their Apache scouts went in search of Cochise, while the other directed them in building a circle of five signal fires. Then the party anxiously bided their time and waited. Toward evening two boys on a horse appeared. Through the interpreter, the boys bid them to follow them to their encampment. They were welcome. (From the description provided by Howard, I’m guessing this well-protected camp was in Melanie Canyon.)

     In the camp, they were approached by a sub-chief named Tygee. The taciturn Chief could offer no hint as to the mood of Cochise. Comforted by the warmth and friendliness of the Apache children, the little group made camp and rested.

     The next morning the group was packing up as if to leave, when an Apache known as Juan rode into camp. Jeffords embraced him as an old friend. Cochise and a few members of his family followed. He greeted Jeffords in Spanish.

     “This is the man.” Said the frontiersman to Howard.

     Howard described Cochise as “fully six feet in height, well-proportioned, with large eyes; his face was slightly colored with vermillion, hair straight and black, with a few silver threads….His countenance was pleasant, and made me feel how strange it is that such a man can be a notorious robber and cold-blooded murderer.”

     He greeted Howard with, “Buenos dias, Senor.”

     Then Cochise spoke in Apache. Jeffords translated, “Will the General explain the object of his visit?”

     “The President sent me to make peace between you and the white people.”

     “Nobody wants peace more than I do,” was the response.

     Cochise then poured out his grievances. The General listened. Sympathizing with Cochise’s troubles, the General then offered him a reservation on the Rio Grande. Cochise said he had no objection, but that some of his mountain people would not go there.

     Suddenly Cochise asked, “Why not give me Apache Pass?”

     Howard quickly realized that the New Mexico reservation was a non-starter. Using the full authority bestowed upon him by the President, he acceded to Cochise’s request. The Chiricahua could have half of what would become Cochise County to include the Chiricahua and Dragoon Mountains and everything in between.

     Howard’s party stayed in Cochise’s camp for about two weeks waiting for the sub-chiefs to come in and approve the treaty. The three Anglos, Howard, Jeffords and Sladen seemed to enjoy this time. Howard became fond of the children. Jeffords interceded between the wives of Cochise and their husband when he went on a home-brewed Tizwin drunk.

     Placing his trust in Howard, Cochise had him ride to Fort Bowie with only one Apache guide to ensure the garrison would honor the peace. While Howard was gone, the nervous Apaches changed their camp to Council Rocks. Jeffords and Cochise stood watch as Howard returned.

     Once back in camp, Howard’s attention was called to a white flag placed on a lone hill off toward the San Pedro. At the request of Cochise, Jeffords and Sladen had planted it there as a symbol of peace. Howard settled in to await the arrival of the sub-chiefs. Cochise sent Apache women to guard his animals and supplies at night. A dance was held. Two women took Howard’s good hand and empty sleeve as he danced. Like the other men, he was expected give his partners each a small present. A small coin was the perfect gift. Howard had fun entertaining and being entertained by the children. One night the Apaches held a ceremony to consult the spirits. Cochise addressed the group, mentioning “Staglito”, or what the Apaches called Jeffords, “Red Beard”. Howard discerned that they were discussing the proposed treaty.

     Then Cochise told Howard, “Hereafter the white man and the Indian are to drink of the same water, eat of the same bread, and be at peace.”

     Then Howard took Cochise and his men to Dragoon Springs to meet with officers from Bowie. They would hammer out the final details. The “metes and bounds of the reservation were fixed, the agency at Sulphur Springs was established and Jeffords was appointed as agent of the Indian Department.” They had a deal and Cochise would honor it to his dying day.

     Several years later the Apaches told a visiting Inspector that, “General Howard placed a stone on a mesa and told us that as long as the stone should last so long would the peace continue.”

     Sadly, there was much opposition in Southern Arizona to the refuge given such feared adversaries. Renegade Apaches continued their raids into Mexico. Cochise died in 1874. His sons, Taza and Naitche, kept the peace for a few more years. Jeffords would complain to the Indian Department about the lack of rations provided by the government.

     Internal strife, the raids into Mexico and the killing of some settlers put the Chiricahua Reservation in the sights of the government. They would have to move to the San Carlos Agency to the North. This place, east of Safford, had little to offer. It was hot, barren and devoid of game. They were forced to move there in 1876. A mountain people, the Chiricahua would grow to hate it. Jeffords quit in disgust. Geronimo would lead multiple breakouts from the desolate reservation. The Apache wars would not end until 1886. When they did, the Chiricahua would all be exiled to the East. They would remain as Prisoners of War until 1912. Howard’s rock of peace would simply disappear into the landscape of Cochise County.

LDT Jan ‘21

REFERENCE: My Life and Experience Among the Hostile Indians. (1907). General Oliver Otis Howard.

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