The San Carlos Indian Reservation (1872-1884)

Life at San Carlos during the 1870s and 1880s was horrible. The government crowded together Apaches from different tribes in places lacking food and water.

“Rain was so infrequent (at San Carlos) that it took on the semblance of a phenomenon when it came at all. Almost continuously dry, hot, dust- and gravel-laden winds swept the plain, denuding it of every vestige of vegetation. In summer, a temperature of 110° in the shade was cool weather. At all other times of the year flies, gnats, unnameable bugs, — and I was about to say “beasts of the air” – swarmed in millions. “Everywhere the naked, hungry, dirty, frightened little Indian children, darting behind bush or into wikiup at sight of you. Everywhere the sullen, stolid, hopeless, suspicious faces of the older Indians challenging you … that unspoken challenge to prove yourself anything else than one more liar and thief, differing but little from the procession of liars and thieves who had preceded you.” (Lieutenant Britton Davis, Third Calvary, Commanding Company B, Indian Scouts, at Turkey Creek, Arizona, November 1884 – September 1885, describing San Carlos in The Truth about Geronimo 1976:31. Orig. 1929. )

“San Carlos! That was the worse place in all the great territory stolen from the Apaches…. Where there is no grass there is no game…. Nearly all of the vegetation was cacti; and though in season a little cactus fruit was produced, the rest of the year food was lacking. The heat was terrible. The insects were terrible. The water was terrible…. Insects and rattle snakes seemed to thrive there…. There were also tarantulas, Gila monsters, and centipedes…. Apaches experienced the shaking sickness.” (Asa Daklugie, Chiricahua Apache POW. In Eve Ball 1980:37. )

Soldiers and Indian police watched the Apaches. Authorities forced Apaches to wear identification numbers and tags.

“… General Crook … introduced (the system of “tagging”) … for the better protection of the Indians, as well as to enable the commanding officers to tell at a moment’s notice just where each and every one of the males capable of bearing arms was to be found. These tags were of various shapes, but all small and convenient in size; there were crosses, crescents, circles, diamonds, squares, triangles, etc. , each specifying a particular band, and each with the number of its owner punched upon it.” (Captain John Gregory Bourke, Third U. S. Calvary, Staff Member, General George Crook, Commander, Department of Arizona. In On the Border with Crook 1962:219. )

Agents who administered the reservation were thieves; they commonly stole Apache provisions and other critical supplies.

“Ranches were stocked with cattle that were intended to be issued as beef at the agencies. White farmers near the reservations tilled the soil, chopped & hauled their wood, cooked their food, & so on, largely at the expense of the Indians…. Of course, the cry of “outrages by the red fiends” was set up by the white innocents (whenever) … trouble began…. The blame was all laid on the Apaches, & no one thought of finding fault with the administration of Apache affairs; or if thought of at all, there were too many men profiting by it for any protest to be made….” (Lieutenant Charles Gatewood, Sixth U. S. Calvary, Commander of Indian Scouts, Fort Apache, Journal, Kraft 2005:28-34. )

In 1882, a grand jury in Tucson, Arizona investigated the corruption of San Carlos Indian Agent J. C. Tiffany.

“The investigations of the Grand Jury have brought to light a course of procedure at the San Carlos Reservation … which is a disgrace to the civilization of the age and a foul blot upon the national escutcheon…. We feel it our duty … to express our utter abhorrence of the conduct of Agent Tiffany and that class of reverend (s)peculators who have … caused more misery and loss of life (in Arizona) than all other causes combined…. (T)he management of the Indian reservations in Arizona was a fraud upon the Government…. (T)he constantly recurring outbreaks of the Indians and their consequent devastation’s were due to the criminal neglect or apathy of the Indian agent at San Carlos…. Fraud, (s)peculation, conspiracy, larceny, plots and counter plots, seem to be the rule of action upon this reservation.” (Report of the Federal Grand Jury of Arizona, investigating the conduct of Apache Agent J. C. Tiffany, Tucson Star, October 24, 1882. Quoted in Bourke, On the Border with Crook, 1891:438-440. )

“The fact is there is too much money in this Indian business … and I am particularly anxious that the honest and good people of the country should understand what a gigantic fraud this Indian ring is.” (General George Crook, Commander, Department of Arizona, to Rutherford B. Hayes, November 28, 1871. Quoted in Charles M. Robinson, General Crook and the Western Frontier, 2001:115. )

“… (T)he greed and rapacity of the vultures who fatten on Indian wars have been a greater obstacle in the path of civilization than the ferocity of the wildest savages who have fought them.” (General George Crook, Commander, Department of Arizona, “The Apache Problem, ” In Journal of the Military Service Institution, VIII (Sept. ), 1886:268. Quoted in Ralph Ogle, “The Apache and the Government — 1870’s” New Mexico Historical Review, XXXIII, April 1958 no. 2, pp. 81-82. )

Chiricahua people often became sick at San Carlos and hundreds died.

“… (T)he malaria-reeking flats of the San Carlos, where the water is salt and the air poison, and one breathes a mixture of sand-blizzards and more flies than were ever supposed to be under the care of the great fly-god Beelzebub.” (Captain John Gregory Bourke, Third U. S. Calvary, Staff Member, General George Crook, Commander, Department of Arizona. In On the Border with Crook 1962:437-438. )

“In this locality the Indians are subject to malarial fevers, dysentery, and diarrhea…. Consumption is almost unknown among them…. Their exemption from constitutional pulmonary disease is probably due to climatic influences.” (Dr. Frederick Lloyd, Medical Director, Department of Arizona, “A Profile of the San Carlos Agency, ” February 10, 1883. Reprinted in Cozzens 2001:329-330. )

Previous Page Early Chiricahua Apache Reservations (1872-1877)

Next Page Chiricahua Apaches as “Bloodthirsty Savages”

Apaches Before 1886