Cultural Construction of Empire: The U.S. Army in Arizona and New Mexico

7. Colonized Labor

A day or two after this, the [Apache] scouts again struck the trail of the enemy [Apaches], and had a sharp brush with them, killing several and capturing three. —john g. bourke, captain, U.S. Army “A whole bunch of us went . . . to San Carlos to try to enlist,” Tlodilhil (“Black Rope,” also known as John Rope) said as he remembered his journey in the mid-1870s. As part of a large gathering of Yavapais, Tonto Apaches, San Carlos Apaches, and White Mountain Apaches, Rope and his brother rode double on the only horse they managed to obtain to reach the agency on the White Mountain Reservation. In his early twenties, Rope did not hurry for any social celebration or to join a raiding or war party but, tired of reservation poverty, he came to find work in the United States Army. At San Carlos, Rope lined up with the rest of the men. Following a physical examination, white officers, who acted as employment agents, hired forty men. Many hopefuls were left out, but Rope proved lucky. Leaving the reservation the next day as part of the multiracial army workforce was the start in his nearly decade-long periodic employment as colonized labor.1 The army community in the Southwest consisted not only of white 218 Colonized Labor officers, wives, white soldiers, or black troops. Like so many indigenous peoples in the Dutch, British, and French Empires, Apaches and other indigenous peoples were hired as soldiers because the colonial power needed their expertise to gain the monopoly of violence and secure control over the colonial terrain.2 When it comes to the diversity of tasks, the length of the experiment, and army’s dependence on indigenous laborers’ performance, the Apaches represent the most prominent example of this kind of labor recruiting during the Southwest U.S.-indigenous wars. Apaches temporarily occupied the ranks of the colonizers by working as soldiers alongside white and black troops and under the command of white officers, although never institutionally incorporated nor accepted by white army personnel as full members of the army community. Labeled “scouts” in army discourses, Apaches performed much the same labor tasks as white or black soldiers but were also used for special labor roles. They received equal wages, but as a racialized workforce, their job security was uncertain at best. Their only alternatives besides army work were reservation captivity or war against the U.S. regime. Yet Apaches proved able to use the fluid and even paradoxical labor system for negotiating the impact of colonialism on their lives. Army work brought economic security and temporary freedom , a certain latitude to pursue goals that would have otherwise been impossible because of colonizer control. Some managed to build rather considerable army careers; others did not prefer long-term employment outside their indigenous communities. Work could, however , also create strife and divisions within the indigenous groups. In sum, Apache soldiers were colonized labor, participants in a complex web, with constant tension and negotiation between integration and exclusion, between valuing and othering, and between indigenous freedom and colonial control. Army Work as Colonial Resistance Like whites and blacks, Apaches became soldiers voluntarily. If others joined to find some meaning in their lives or for secure employment Colonized Labor 219 or adventure, or, in the case of immigrants, to familiarize themselves with the new country and language, indigenous men were compelled to enlist by circumstances arising from colonial conquest. In the mid-1870s the federal government thought it would gain a better control of Chiricahua and Western Apaches by moving all of them to one reservation. The government chose San Carlos as the designated place. Not all Apaches disliked San Carlos, but the White Mountain, Cibecue, and Chiricahua Apaches, who did not regard the San Carlos area as their home, grew to dislike the overcrowded and barren place immensely. One Chiricahua, for instance, thought that it was “the worst place in all the great territory stolen from the Apaches.”3 Life in San Carlos was often marked by poverty , disease, and quarrels. Groups who disliked one another had to live in proximity. Agents subjected the Apaches to the government’s civilization policies, while some even embezzled rations and funds. Reservations were supposed to be places for Apache regeneration, brought about by limiting Apache self-rule and freedom of thought and action. Hunting was limited, all raiding and warfare were obviously...