april on the desert - Desert Magazine of the Southwest

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A Genetsl's Otdets; An Apache's Swendet
Two remarkable documents, one written
by an Army general, the other by an Apache
chief, throw penetrating light on that period
in frontier history when the long struggle
between Redmen and Whites was resolved
conclusively in favor of the latter.
In 1862 the Texas Confederates' foray into
New Mexico had paved the way for widescale
Indian depredations. When the Union's
California Column marched into the state
and found the Confederates had left the
field. General James Henry Carleton mounted
a campaign against the Indians. Soldiers
under his command had these orders:
All Indian men of that tribe (Mescalero
Apache) are to be killed whenever and
wherever you can find them. The women
and children will not be harmed, but you
will take them prisoners, and feed them at
Fort Stanton until you receive other instructions
about them. ]f the Indians send in
a flag and desire to treat for peace, say
to the bearer that when the people of
New Mexico were attacked by the Texans,
the Mescaleros broke their treaty of peace,
and murdered innocent people, and ran off
APRIL, 1959
their stock; that now our hands are untied,
and you have been sent to punish them
for their treachery and their crimes; that
you have no power to make peace; that
you are there to kill them wherever you
can find them; that if they beg for peace,
their chiefs and twenty of their principal
men must come to Santa Fe to have a talk
there.
After a few bloody encounters, the frightened
Indians begged for peace. One of their
chiefs, Cadete, made this speech of surrender:
You are stronger than we. We have
fought you so long as we had rifles and
powder; but your>*weapons are better than
ours. Give us weapons^^jid turn us loosie,
and we will fight yd'u'again; but we are
worn out; we have no more heart; we
have no provisions, no means to live; your
troopis are everywhere; our springs and
waterholes are either occupied or overlooked
by your young men. You have
driven us from our last and best stronghold,
and we have no more heart. Do
with us as may seem good to you, but do
not forget we are men and braves.
driver, discovered an outcrop of silver
ore here in 1879, it didn't take long
for wealth-seeking miners to turn this
wilderness canyon into a roaring boom
town. For three decades Chloride
flourished as new silver strikes in the
district added to the wealth flowing
through the little town. Vktorio and
his marauding Apaches made the settlement
a favorite target. Chloride
survived bandits, gunfighters and Indians,
but perished around the turn of
the century when the silver veins
played out.
Gold and silver boom days in the
valley are mere memories now. Ranching
and lumbering are the main industries
today, although a few small scale
mining operations continue. A small
alum mine is being worked near the
fort, and gold has been taken from
the foothills, but not in quantity. Much
of the box canyon east of the fort has
been staked for uranium claims, but
no mining has been undertaken.
Indian Gold
Ojo Caliente has its share of legends
—stories hard to prove or disprove.
One tale concerns Geronimo when he
was a prisoner at the fort. The Apache
leader reportedly offered to fill a room
with gold within 24 hours in exchange
for his freedom. This would indicate
the Indians knew of a rich mine somewhere
close by.
Years later, an old man came to the
valley. He claimed he had been reared
by Geronimo, had known of the
Apache mine, and now had returned
to find it. The old man said the entrance
was under a white rock that
looked like a white cow standing in
the brush of a hillside. He searched
for several years, but never found the
lost Apache treasure.
Another missing fortune is that of
six mule-loads of gold buried near the
fort by Mexican vaqueros. In the early
1800s, so the story goes, the Mexicans
were packing the gold from Sonora to
Santa Fe when they were attacked by
Apaches. After a running battle, the
Mexicans eluded their pursuers and
buried the treasure in a canyon. They
turned the mules loose and fled on
foot.
Treasure Map
Only one of the vaqueros reached
Socorro. Before he died of wounds,
he gave a map of the treasure site to a
man named Flores who searched many
years for the cached gold without success.
In the 1920s, cowboys found six
old Mexican pack saddles in a cave
near the fort. Mrs. Ramsey believes
a fortune still lies buried in that cave,
a place she has visited several times.
—END
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