Chiricahua and Janos: Communities of Violence in the Southwestern Borderlands, 1680-1880

1. Communities of Violence: Apaches and Hispanics in the Southwestern Borderlands

With guns on their saddle-bows and lances at their stirrups the Sonorans rode over the mountains in the half-light of morning. The target of their wrath was the group of Chiricahua Apaches encamped outside the town Apaches called Kaskiyeh. As the Sonorans descended the pass they split into two parties: one to surprise a camp southeast of town, the other targeting Apaches to the west. The Killings at Kaskiyeh The first contingent found the campsite abandoned and so pressed on to Kaskiyeh, killing two Apaches and capturing several more along the way. The second group of Sonorans charged into the western Apache camp, brutally brushed aside an attempted parley, and killed four men and four women. While most Chiricahuas escaped into the hills, some fled to Kaskiyeh and found refuge in the houses of its Mexican inhabitants. As the sun rose the Sonorans converged on Kaskiyeh—Janos, as its Hispanic inhabitants called it—a long-time garrison community in northwestern Chihuahua. Since they outnumbered the garrison, the Sonoran mob ignored the protests of the commander of Janos and his lieutenant, Baltasar Padilla. They invaded Janos and forcibly took Apaches from houses, killing several. Chapter 1 Communities of Violence Apaches and Hispanics in the Southwestern Borderlands 2 Map 4. Chiricahua, ca. 1850 UNITED STATES MEXICO ARIZONA SONORA CHIHUAHUA NEW MEXICO Janos El Paso Hot Springs Lago de Guzmán Lago de Santa María Rio G r a n d e Río Gil a C a s a s G r a n d e s Río Gila R í o d e SIERRA DE CHIRICAHUA SIERRA DE MIMBRES EASTERN BAND C H I H E N E SOUTHERN BAND N E D N H I CENTRAL BAND CHOKONEN 50 mi 0 25 MEXICO TX NM AZ 3 Map 5. Janos, after a drawing by José Urrutia, 1766 C a m i n o d e l a P a l o t a d a Camino de Carretas Río de Janos Acequía de Regadio A B B B C D E F A. B. C. D. E. F. Main entrance/guardhouse Patios Cemetery Church Captain’s house False entrance communities of violence 4 After nightfall the surviving Chiricahuas—including a man known as Goyahkla—rendezvoused in the woods along the river. These survivors discovered many of their men and women were dead and many more had been captured, including Goyahkla’s wife, mother, and three children. Realizing they were outnumbered in the heart of enemy country the Chiricahuas retired northward to their homeland on the headwaters of the Gila River. Meanwhile, the Sonorans occupied Janos and uncovered the contraband trade between Chiricahuas and Janeros. After five days the Sonorans departed Janos with their Chiricahua prisoners—six men, four women , and fifty-two children—and more than three hundred head of livestock, including thirty-eight horses and mules with Sonoran brands taken from citizens of Janos, leaving Chihuahuan officials vainly protesting the Sonoran incursion to the central government.1 But Goyahkla was not done. Nearly a year later Goyahkla inspired Chiricahuas to avenge the killings of their kin at Kaskiyeh in a climactic battle against the Sonorans, during which he earned the sobriquet of Geronimo. This battle was the start, as Geronimo remembered it, of decades of conflict with the Mexicans and eventually the Americans that led to his ultimate exile and imprisonment by the United States. Since Geronimo recounted the events during his captivity nearly fifty years after the fact, either his memory was playing tricks on him, or he may have been playing tricks with his memory. The battle Geronimo presented as revenge almost twelve months after the Sonoran attack likely took place six weeks prior to the killings at Kaskiyeh. So what he recounted as retaliation was a provocation. Reversing the order of events in his recounting, Geronimo illustrated the primacy of violence in Chiricahuas’ dealings with Hispanic communities in the Southwestern Borderlands, including Janos.2 Geronimo was not alone in “re-remembering” events in light of the killings at Kaskiyeh. Baltasar Padilla, stung by accusations and evidence of coexistence and active cooperation with Chiricahuas, went beyond his habitual one-sentence synopsis of his actions in that year’s service record. With a different pen Padilla proceeded to list communities of violence 5 every expedition, campaign, skirmish, or pursuit against the Apaches he either led or participated in over...