Camp Grant massacre

(April 30, 1871). The Camp Grant massacre was a violent attack on Pinal and Aravaipa Apaches surrendered to the United States Army at Camp Grant, Arizona Territory, along the San Pedro River.

Build up

Some historians feel that the reduction of Indian hostilities in the region over the previous few years had triggered fears of economic crisis in Tucson, because the Federal government was reducing funds for pacifying and controlling rebellious tribes, mostly Apaches. Merchants, who survived on the "blankets for peace" economy, were afraid that their source of income would soon be lost.

In order to bolster public support for increased hostilities (and increased Federal funding of "gifts" to the Apaches), it is alleged that several Anglo- and Mexican-Americans, including the prominent Tucson merchant Sam Hughes, perpetrated murderous "Indian style" raids on isolated settlements of whites in early 1871. One of these settlements was in Aravaipa Canyon.

Indian affairs in early 1870s Arizona lurched back and forth between peace and war. Each new round of Indian hostilities brought increasing conflict between the settlers and the soldiers, leading General E.O.C. Ord to declare that war was the foundation of the Arizona economy and that civilians demanded more troops because they wanted profit, not peace. The report of the Indian Peace Commission, in 1867, led to the creation of the Board of Indian Commissioners two years later. Investigating abuses within the Office of Indian Affairs, the two commissioners, led by Colyer, spearheaded a growing movement for Indian rights that culminated in the "Quaker Policy" of President Ulysses S. Grant's administration. That policy placed the appointment of Indian agents in the hands of Protestant religious organizations, not political patrons. The frontiersmen were infuriated by having the Eastern clergymen tell them what to do.

A major problem faced by Arizona's military was that they had too few soldiers for too vast of a land. Although most chronicles of the time regarded Apaches as the biggest menace, but Yuman-speaking Yavapais, who were usually identified as Apache Mohaves or Apache Yumas, killed Anglos just as often. Divided into four subtribes, the Tolkapaya (Western Yavapais), the Yavepe and the Wipukpaya (Northeastern Yavapais), and the Kewevkapaya (Southeastern Yavapais), the Yavapais ranged from the Colorado River to the Tonto Basin. Like the Apaches, they were mobile and extremely independent, their only political authorities being war chiefs and advisory chiefs selected by local groups. This made it extremely difficult for the U.S. Military to run down or negotiate with more than one Yavapais group at a time. Troops had to pursue the Yavapais across rough desert terrain. Many of the soldiers deserted, fleeing places like Camp Grant, a sun-scorched collection of adobes.

The camp

Early in 1871 a 37 year old first lieutenant named Royal Emerson Whitman assumed command of Camp Grant on the San Pedro River about 50 miles (80 km) northeast of Tucson. In February 1871 five old Apache women straggled into Camp Grant to look for a son who had been taken prisoner. Whitman fed them and treated them kindly, so other Apaches from Aravaipa and Pinal bands soon came to the post to receive rations of beef and flour. That spring, Whitman created a refuge along Aravaipa Creek about five miles (8 km) east of Camp Grant for nearly 500 Aravaipa and Pinal Apaches, including Chief Eskiminzin. The Apaches began cutting hay for the post's horse and harvesting barley in nearby ranchers' fields.

Whitman may have suspected that peace could not last. He urged Eskiminzin to move his people to the White Mouintains near Camp (later Fort) Apache, which was established in 1870, but he refused.

During the winter and spring, William Oury and Jesús María Elías formed a Committee of Public Safety, which blamed every depredation in southern Arizona on the Camp Grant Apaches. After Apaches ran off livestock from San Xavier on April 10, Elías contacted his old ally Francisco Galerita, leader of the Tohono O'odham at San Xavier. Oury collected arms and ammunition from his fellow Anglos.

The attack

On the afternoon of April 28, six Anglos, 48 Mexicans, and 94 O'odham (Papago) gathered along Rillito Creek and set off on a march to Aravaipa Canyon. At dawn on Sunday, April 30, they surrounded the Apache camp. O'odham were the main fighters, while Anglos and Mexicans picked off Apaches who tried to escape. Most of the Apache men were off hunting in the mountains. All but eight of the corpses were women and children. Twenty-seven children had been captured and were sold in Mexico by the Papago. A total of 144 Aravaipas and Pinals had been slain and mutilated. [Phil Konstantin, "This day in North American Indian history", p.107 ]

The letter

Lieutenant Whitman searched for the wounded, found only one woman, buried the bodies, and dispatched interpreters into the mountains to find the Apache men and assure them that his soldiers had not participated in the "vile transaction." The following evening, the surviving Aravaipas began trickling back to Camp Grant. Many of the settlers in southern Arizona considered the attack justifiable homicide and agreed with Oury but this was not the end of the story.

Within a week of the slaughter a local Anglo businessman/merchant named William Hopkins Tonge (or Touge) wrote to the Commissioner of Indian Affairs stating that "The Indians at the time of the being so taken by surprise and considering themselves perfectly safe with scarcely any arms, those that could get away ran for the mountains." [Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Chip. [http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_indian_quarterly/v027/27.3colwell.html "Western Apache Oral Histories and Traditions of the Camp Grant Massacre"] . "The American Indian Quarterly" - Volume 27, Number 3&4, Summer/Fall 2003, pp. 639-666.] He was the first person to refer to what had taken place as a massacre.

Government reaction

The U.S. military and Eastern press called it a . President Grant informed Governor A.P.K. Safford that if the perpetrators were not brought to trial, he would place Arizona under martial law. The trial lasted five days, and after 19 minutes of deliberation, the jury acquitted every defendant.

In October 1871, a Tucson grand jury indicted 100 of the assailants with 108 counts of murder. The trial two months later focused solely on Apache depredations; it took the jury just 19 minutes to pronounce a verdict of not guilty. Western Apache groups soon left their farms and gathering places near Tucson in fear of subsequent attacks. As pioneer families arrived and settled in the area, Apaches were never able to regain hold of much of their ancestral lands in the San Pedro River Valley.

Sources

*Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Chip. 2007. "Massacre at Camp Grant: Forgetting and Remembering Apache History". University of Arizona Press, Tucson.
*Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Chip. 2003. The Camp Grant Massacre in the Historical Imagination. "Journal of the Southwest" 45(3):249-269.
*Colwell-Chanthaphonh, Chip. 2003. Western Apache Oral Histories and Traditions of the Camp Grant Massacre. "American Indian Quarterly" 27(3&4):639-666.
*Hammond, George P. 1929. "The Camp Grant Massacre: A Chapter in Apache History". Berkeley: Proceedings of the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association.
*Hastings, James E. 1959. The Tragedy at Camp Grant in 1871. "Arizona and the West" 1(2):146-160.
*Langellier, J. Phillip. 1979. Camp Grant Affair, 1871: Milestone in Federal Indian Policy? "Military History of Texas and the Southwest" 15(2):17-30.

References