Mangas Coloradas
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Mangas Coloradas or Dasoda-hae (known as Red Sleeves) (c.1793 - January 18, 1863) was an Apache tribal chief and a member of the Eastern Chiricahua nation, whose homeland stretched west from the Rio Grande to include most of what is present-day southwestern New Mexico. He is regarded by many historians to be one of the most important Native American and Apache leaders of the 19th century due to his fighting achievements against White intruders from the United States.
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[edit] Apache war leader
During the decades of the 1820s and 1830s, the Apaches' main enemy were the Mexicans, who had won their independence from Spain in 1821. By 1835 Mexico had placed a bounty on Apache scalps. After Juan José Compas, the leader of the Mimbreno Apaches, was killed for bounty money in 1837, Mangas became a war leader and began a series of retaliatory raids against the Mexicans.
In 1846, when the United States went to war with Mexico, the Apache Nation promised U.S. soldiers safe passage through Apache lands. Once the U.S. occupied New Mexico in 1846, Mangas Coloradas signed a peace treaty, respecting them as conquerors of the hated Mexican enemy. An uneasy peace between the Apache and the United States lasted until an influx of gold miners into the Santa Rita Mountains led to open conflict. In 1851, near Pinos Altos mining camp, Mangas was personally attacked by a group of White miners who tied him to a tree and severely beat him. Similar incidents continued in violation of the treaty, leading to Apache reprisals. In December, 1860, thirty miners launched a surprise attack on an encampment of Bedonkohes on the west bank of the Mimbres River. According to historian Edwin R. Sweeney, the miners "...killed four Indians, wounded others, and captured thirteen women and children." Shortly after that, Mangas began raids against U.S. citizens and their property.
Mangas Coloradas' daughter Dos-Teh-Seh married Cochise, principal chief of the Chokonen Apache. In early February 1861, US Army Lieutenant George N. Bascom, apparently without orders, lured Cochise, his family and several warriors into a trap at Apache Pass, southeastern Arizona. Cochise managed to escape, but his family and warriors remained in custody. Negotiations were unsuccessful and fighting erupted. This incident, known as the "Bascom Affair," ended with Cochise’s brother and five other warriors being hanged by Bascom. Later that year, Mangas and Cochise struck an alliance, agreeing to drive all Americans out of Apache territory. They were joined in their effort by Juh and Geronimo. Although the goal was never achieved, the White population in Apache territory was greatly reduced for a few years during the Civil War, after federal troops had been withdrawn to the east.
[edit] Death
In the summer of 1862, after recovering from a bullet wound in the chest, Mangas Coloradas met with an intermediary to call for peace. In January of 1863, he decided to meet with U.S. military leaders at Fort McLane, in southwestern New Mexico. Mangas arrived under a flag of truce to meet with Brigadier General Joseph Rodman West, an officer of the California militia and a future Reconstruction senator from Louisiana. Armed soldiers took Mangas into custody. West allegedly gave an execution order to the sentries.
| “ | Men, that old murderer has got away from every soldier command and has left a trail of blood for 500 miles on the old stage line. I want him dead or alive tomorrow morning, do you understand? I want him dead. | ” |
That night Mangas was tortured, shot and killed "trying to escape."
The following day, U.S. soldiers cut off his head, boiled it and sent the skull to Orson Squire Fowler, a phrenologist in New York City. Phrenological analysis of the skull and a sketch of it appear in Fowler's 1873 book Human Science: or.... In Eve Ball's Indeh: An Apache Odyssey,[1] Daklugie, one of her informants says the skull went to the Smithsonian Institution. However, the Smithsonian has done a thorough search for the skull, and reports that it never received it. Mangas' descendents and sources based on their testimony may have confused the Smithsonian with Fowler's Phrenological Cabinet in New York, where the skull was on display, leading to the misattribution.
The murder and mutilation of Mangas' body only increased the hostility between Apaches and the United States, with more or less constant war continuing for nearly another 25 years.
[edit] External links
[edit] Appearances in literature
- Life Among the Apaches (1868) by John C. Cremony.
- Flashman and the Redskins (1982) by George MacDonald Fraser.
- Blood Meridian (1985) by Cormac McCarthy.
[edit] References
- ^ *Ball, Eve; Henn, Nora; Sanchez, Lynda A. (1988). Indeh: An Apache Odyssey (reprint). University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-2165-3.
- Etulain, Richard W. New Mexican Lives: A Biographical History. University of New Mexico Center for the American West, University of New Mexico Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8263-2433-9
- Haley, James L. Apaches: A History and Culture Portrait. University of Oklahoma Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8061-2978-6.
- Sweeney, Edwin R. Mangas Coloradas: Chief of the Chiricahua Apaches. University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8061-3063-6
