Never heard of him? Not surprising. He wasn’t as famous as Cochise or Geronimo, though many consider him the equal
of both as warrior, and perhaps better as a military strategist.
He was the last chief of the Warm Springs Apaches.
His tribe, the Chihenne people, had called the Warm Springs area their home for centuries. During those centuries they raided, and were raided, by neighboring Apache tribes, Spanish Conquistadores, Mexicans, and, by the time of Vittorio’s birth in 1825 – Americans.
The Chihenne, like all Apaches, were warriors. It was their way. They never understood any other way. They raided horses and cattle. They did not raise any. They raided stores
of corn but, except for patch plantings, they did not grow any. They lived by hunting, raiding, capturing and selling slaves. Doesn’t everyone?
Europeans past the paleolithic stage could not understand Indians, and Indians, still in the paleolithic stage, could not understand Europeans.
Though some of those captured, did.
The anthropologist, Loren Eiseley, wrote in Barbed Wire and Brown Skulls, a tale told to him in the nineteen twenties
by an eighty-year old man – Mr. Harney. As a young boy, Harney had been captured by Victorio. He wasn’t the only captive.
He said about half of Victorio’s band at that time had been captured in Mexico and brought up Apache.
He says, “I was an Apache till I was fifteen. “Learned to be an Apache, ride, shoot, steal, live on nothing, trust nobody and keep on ridin’ – keep ridin’, south of the border, north of the border, it was all the same – Apaches! Ya’ know, son, that’s
a joke. We wasn’t Apaches. We was a way of life”.
Harney’s life as an Apache ended when Victorio took him to a ridgetop overlooking a small town. Sitting side by side on their ponies, they could see people in the streets below and smoke from the chimneys. “We watched it like animals must watch people – sharp, wild, ready to vanish at the least sign
of danger”.
Then, Victorio said soft and low, “Those are your people, do you remember”? Harney answered in Apache, “Yes I remember”. Victorio nodded - a little sad. He said, “Those are your people. Go down to them”. Harney was confused. . . He said, “I don’t know . . . My people . . . all the people I know are Apache . . . I am Apache”.
Not a muscle of Victorio’s face moved.
“Those are your people”.
Pointing, he said, “We killed your father and the Black-haired girl.(Lucinda, Harney’s teenaged aunt) The white men will take care of you. You are not one of us”. With that he turned his pony and slipped silently away. Harney never saw him again. He never knew if Victorio did this as an act of kindness, or as an act of rejection.
“It wasn’t so uncommon then – changing’ sides like that”.
Many others, like Harney, lived both lives – but they did not live both lives at the same time. One, or the other life must be chosen. Racial half-breeds were possible. Cultural half-breeds were not.
Victorio lived in a world of spirits, omens, signs, and witches – all of which affected every decision he made.
Americans and Mexicans lived in a world of papers, proclamations, treaties, and rules – all of which affected everything they did.
Each side spoke past the other. Words could be translated. Controlling Ideas could not.
Individual acts of grace and horror were committed as often on one side as on the other. Human nature is the same, in all ages, and everywhere. Cultures are very different.
The broken treaties and blood revenge were problems that might have eventually been solved – if only the cultural gulf wasn’t so wide.
After years and years of effort, only three policies seemed realistic: extermination, removal, or conversion.
Mexico favored extermination. They offered government payment with no questions asked for every Indian scalp.
American tried all three policies.
Sometime around 1877 Victorio was persuaded to move his people from their mountain home in Warm Springs to the flatland of San Carlos, New Mexico. He was promised peace and government provision for every need of his people.
The provisions turned out to be skimpy and unreliable. The land turned out to be hellish; blazing hot, barren, and waterless. Warm Springs was cool, green, well-watered, and filled with enough wild-life to supply their every need.
In San Carlos, the people suffered. Many died.
In 1879 Victorio responded to this obvious breach of promise by departing - unannounced - along with forty Chihenne warriors.
The U.S. Department of the Interior called it an Act
of War.
The chase In, “Victorio’s war”, ranged through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Old Mexico.
His pursuers ranged from U.S. Army Regulars & Buffalo Soldiers to the Mexican Army - along with militias and bounty hunters from both sides of the border.
General George Crook said, “You see a puff of smoke above the boulders, you hear the wiz of his bullet, you rarely see the Indian”.
The Apaches used their knowledge of the land to outwit and out-maneuver the huge forces on their trail. They re-supplied on the move by raiding for cattle, horses, guns, and ammunition. Victorio fought and eluded the Indah (White Man) for fourteen months
They fought their final fight on Oct. 14-15, 1880 in Chihuahua, Mexico
Victorio was aware of the approaching Mexican Army.
He could have fled. He chose to fight. No one knows why. Victorio’s band fought up to, and past, their last bullet.
It was called The Battle of Tres Castillios – two hundred sixty men under the command of Colonel Joaquin Terrazas, killed Victorio, and all sixty-one of his warriors, along with sixteen women. All were were scalped for the bounty payment. They also captured sixty-eight women and children, all of whom were sold into slavery.
The total cost of this, ”War”- in the hundreds killed and thousands squandered can never be calculated. Records are few and unreliable. Had the U.S. Department of the Interior declared White Spring an Apache Reservation, instead of San Carlos, it might have all been avoided.
Local folks suggested as much. Far away bureaucrats thought they knew better.
They still do.
Victorio – Last war chief of the Chihenne Apaches.