Apache Campaigns - Fort Huachuca - U.S. Army

The crowded conditions at San Carlos led to conditions that were conducive to feuds and
conspiracies among the not always friendly tribes of Apaches. Not all of the plotting was done by
Indians. With a few notable exceptions, Indian agents were inefficient or exploitative or both.
Many profited by shorting the Indians of their rations. It is not surprising that many groups of
Indians chose to leave the inactivity and humiliating circumstances of the reservation behind and
ride out to pursue the raiding way of life in which they had been reared.
But it did surprise the department commander. Kautz wrote in an official report in 1877:
An investigation of the number of Scouts that have been made in the Territory since I
have been in command...reveals the fact that one hundred and seven Indians have been killed,
and seventy-nine captured. The fact that they are almost invariably killed or captured excites
the inquiry why do they leave the Reservation in the face of such dangers, where they are
supposed to be provided with plenty to eat, security to life and property, and the opportunity
for civilization and improvement?
The popular explanation is that they are badly treated on the reservation, do not get
enough to eat, and fly to escape the pangs of hunger. Another explanation is found in their
innate savage nature and aversion to restraint.
This last finds strong plausibility in the fact that the scouts employed to hunt them up
are their own people, frequently their own tribe and kin, enlisted in the service, who pursue
them with the unerring instincts of the bloodhound, and kill them as remorselessly as they ever
did the whites, and it is only through the presence of officers and soldiers that women and
children are spared.
Is there not ample room for doubt whether such savageness has yet reached that degree
of development which will admit in another generation of a material approach to civilization of
the white race, and is there any hope that the present generation can be controlled by any
other influence than overpowering force, such as the military service alone can furnish? 2
Kautz’s problems with public opinion in Arizona reached all the way into the governor’s
mansion where Anson P. K. Safford wrote letters to newspapers accusing the military commander
of being inefficient and inactive. The governor proposed raising his own militia, to
include Indian scouts, to track down the renegades. Kautz wrote rebuttals to the editors but the
contoversy would eventually lead to his replacement in 1878 by General Orlando B. Willcox.
A MAGAZINE OF THE FORT HUACHUCA MUSEUM
9