Stuff You Should Know - The Apache Wars

Episode Date: November 23, 2021

America’s longest-running war was between the US government and the loosely-confederated groups we know as the Apache. As their lands were encroached upon, the Apache pushed back with disastrous consequences, nearly becoming exterminated. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and there's Charles W. Chuck Brian over there and this is Stuff You Should Know, celebrating Native American Heritage Month.

Fantastic. Yeah. And we are talking about something we probably would have talked about whether it was Native American Heritage Month or not, but we selected it for this month in particular just as a nod to shout out. But we're talking about one of those moments in history that probably most people are walking around and are like, oh yeah, the Apache Wars, I've heard of that, but no, almost nothing about. Even though depending on how you look at it, it's actually still to this day the longest war that the United States ever fought. Really? Yeah. And it produced some really famous, really interesting, really amazing characters on both sides, but in particular among the Apache who will meet a lot of them in this episode. Yeah. And these are a series of

skirmishes over time that it seems like there was often peace and then there were these inciting incidents that would happen. There were misunderstandings that happened. There were bungled negotiations that happened. And it feels like it could have gone a different way. Oh yeah. Yeah. It had so many points and it continually just went south. Yeah. And I mean, speaking, you know, history is written by the victors. And so the idea of the Apache basically being, you know, bloodthirsty, cruel, merciless people who mutilated victims and would kill women and children, you know, that's definitely painted. It paints the whole group with a much larger brush than you should, but it also leaves out the atrocities that were committed on the other side

too. Oh yeah. Their people were slaughtered as well. Exactly. So it's just one of those things where it was a war. Like it was a genuine straight up war, but like you said, there were plenty of places where it could have been avoided and we'll talk about those. But first, Chuck, I think we should talk about the Apache. And one of the first things that I learned when I started researching this is that the Apache are not a nation or tribe. They're a group of loosely affiliated tribes that all kind of come from the same area. And despite the fact that we tend to think of the Apache as totally tied to the Southwestern United States, they actually arrived fairly recently from Western Canada, like BC, I take it. That's right. And they eventually found their way to the

American Southwest. They did not, we call them Apache, they do not call themselves that. They called themselves, I guess, Indae, which means the people, which is pretty great and basic. Right. And they think the name Apache may have been given to them from the word Apache by the Zuni tribe who battled with them many times. And that means Apache means enemy in Zuni. So they think that's where Apache came from. And you mentioned that they were a loose collection. I mean, there were never like hundreds of thousands of Apache. Right. I'm not sure where the numbers topped out, but they were spread over 15 million square miles. Wow. So that's called a very, very thin distribution. So they were,

you know, not to skip ahead too much, but they were rarely in groups more than like 25 or 30 at a time. Right. And so what you would call the Apache were actually kind of spread out among the Western Apache. There's the Chiricawa Apache. And then these larger groups were split into smaller bands even. And the Chiricawa are kind of like the central group that fought the Apache wars, although just about every Apache tribe was involved. But the Chiricawa were kind of like the central figures. And the Chiricawa were broken into four different smaller bands. The Bedankohi, the Ch... Let's hear it. Bedankohi. Thank you, Chuck. The Choconin. Yep. Chiheni. Chiheni, yeah. And the Nedni. Yeah, great. Okay. So what was the first one again?

Bedankohi. Bedankohi. That's much better than mine. But all of these groups, these four bands that formed the Chiricawa Apache totaled maybe 1,500 people at their largest population size. And despite that really small number, they produced some really famous people like Geronimo, Cochise, Vittorio. All of them were Chiricawa Apache. And again, they were the central group that fought the Apache wars. They were also the central group that could have stemmed off the Apache wars if some of the Union soldiers that they had to deal with had taken them a different way. That's right. And I mentioned that there were a lot of misunderstandings and mix ups along the way. And combined that with the fact that the settlers just thought they were all Apache and

that they all were the same. Right. They were misunderstandings like a raid would happen on a camp. And this is one of the ways that the Apache got by is they would, not because they didn't like somebody, because they needed supplies and stuff, they would raid a camp, take some stuff. And the settlers would think, well, this is just, this is the Apache. It's all of you doing this, whereas it might be one very small group. And the other groups will be like, I don't even know what you're talking about. Right. And that's why I was saying you can't really paint the people we call the Apache with this very large brush, because some of them worked very closely and for the US military to go find other Apache. Even within the Chiricawa, there were

totally different ideas on how to approach and deal with the Americans. There was a big division that developed through the Apache wars in, among the Apache of, some of them were like, look, we cannot defeat this enemy. The best thing we can do to live peacefully is just settle down and start farming and live on these reservations that they're making us live on. And the other groups said, no, we need to fight to the death for our ancestral lands and our old ways of life. And so there's a lot of nuances, a lot of differences, a lot of disagreement among these people who are living and fighting during the Apache wars. And even some of the ones that wanted to live peacefully were frequently forced into fighting. Like that was their only

choice. And so it's just really important to keep in mind that you can't just, just like you can't say Apache, and that's just one nation because it's not, you also can't just say, well, all the Apache thought this way, or even all the Chiricawa thought this way. There was just a lot of difference. And there was also a lot of room for different opinions because, like you said, the groups that they lived in really were usually no more than 25 or 30. A family or a couple of families. Exactly. And they were often related by blood and marriage. And it was a matrilineal society too. So if you were a man and you married a woman, you joined your wife's family from that point on. And so these bands, these four bands of the Chiricawa were very much related to one

another because they would often swap members through marriage and alliances. That's right. So I mentioned the raids as a way of life for them. That is different than, like there was no malice involved. That was different from like an actual skirmish or a battle when the warriors would take center stage. And that was serious stuff. They were people that very much wanted revenge when they were wronged. And that's when those sort of really bloody skirmishes would take place as opposed to the raids, which was them getting food and supplies and ammunition and stuff like that. Yeah. There was an author of a book called The Apache Words, a guy named Paul Andrew Hutton, said that he likened them to the Vikings, that they just,

like, raiding was out of economic necessity. The thing is they were also, again, campaign them all with one brush. There were plenty of them that were raiders and all of them apparently engaged in raiding, but some much more than others. And then the ones that didn't raid so much, they might farm a little more or they might engage in peaceful trade with their neighbors. But the one commonality that basically all groups labeled as Apache seem to have had was an enemy in Mexico, first the Spanish and then later Mexico, where if you were caught by Mexican and you were an Apache or you were Mexican and you were caught by Apache, you were going to face a very brutal, unhappy end almost immediately. They weren't going to release you as a hostage

or negotiate for your release. You were going to be killed horribly. Yeah. And they were united sometimes with the settlers against Mexico, so much so that I believe one of the chiefs told Kit Carson, who was an American scout in 1846, like, hey, we'll team up with you to fight Mexico. That's how much we hate Mexico. Yeah. That chief was Mangus Coloradis. And he was actually one of the first great leaders at this time, at this moment in history when the Americans first started showing up. And he was very much interested in peace with the Americans, not even necessarily out of necessity. But like you said, the common enemy was Mexico. And he thought Americans were great because they hated Mexico as much as the Apache did. That's right. The one problem with

the Chiricawa is that they had a nice place where they lived. I mean, they were seasonal migrators. And so they would kind of move around. But one of the main places that they hung out was south of the Gila River in Arizona. And it was a really, really good place to be. So that means, of course, as westward expansion happens, or as we'll see later, as the civil war happens, and then Union troops head west to try and keep it from falling into the hands of the Southerners, that's going to be a place where they're going to go. There are going to be wagon trains going through there. Eventually, there's going to be railroads going through there. And so there was basically no chance that the Chiricawa were just going to be left alone to do their thing.

No, but this was their ancestral land. And they weren't exactly, you know, ones to leave other people alone through their raiding and wars for revenge. So again, the stage was definitely set for Apache wars, but it's wrong to say that they were inevitable. And the reason why it was wrong to say that they were inevitable is because there was some early stuff that happened that didn't have to happen that really kind of kicked this off. But I propose we take a break before we start talking about those things. Let's do it. Okay, we'll be right back. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end

of the road. Okay, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help this. I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never ever have to

say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesha Chikler. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology, but from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life in India. It's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet

and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Okay, Chuck. So one of the first things that a lot of people point to is the thing that kicked off the Apache war or wars, I should say, took place in 1861. And it came to be known as the Bascom Affair. And from what I saw, almost every site that writes about Lieutenant George Bascom wrote that he was young, inexperienced, over-enthusiastic, overzealous even, and pretty much

incompetent when it came to something as tense and unsure as negotiating for the release of hostages. Yeah. And that's exactly what happened in 1861. Oh, this is one I didn't look up. The Arab Vapa? I'm going with Arav Aipa. Okay. They were yet another band of Apache that raided a farm of a settler named John Ward, went off to the Chiricawa Mountains, which is where Cochise was, and they did the usual stuff. They took livestock, but they also made the mistake of kidnapping John Ward's stepson, Felix Ward, which is when Lieutenant Bascom was sent in to bring them to justice to negotiate something. He invites Cochise to a meeting, and again, they went to Cochise's territory. He was not behind this. Right. And when he got in a tent with

Cochise and said, this is what you did, this is one of those things. Cochise was like, I don't know what you're talking about, man. We had nothing to do with this, but here's what I'll do. I'll try and find out who was behind this, and I'll track them down, and I'll bring them to you. And Bascom said, which was a pretty good deal, considering he didn't have anything to do with it. And Bascom said, no, and you know what? You're going to stay here as our hostage, along with your family members. And Cochise said, I don't think so. I'm going to cut a hole in this tent in the middle of the night and leave. Right. They're like, how did he cut a hole in the tent? No, it doesn't make any sense. He disappeared, but he had to leave his family behind to make

his escape. And Bascom now had his family as hostages. So Cochise went out and got his own hostages. They raided a wagon train and a stagecoach and got both Mexican and American hostages. And the Mexicans, they dispatched immediately in some really terrible way. They tied them to a wagon and then lit the wagon on fire. So the Mexican hostages had zero chance. But the Americans, Cochise kept alive to use as pawns in negotiating the release of his own family. And apparently Bascom was unmoved. He said, no, we're not releasing your family until we get that livestock and that kid that was initially kidnapped back. That's how your family's going to get released. And so after a few days of trying to negotiate an exchange of

hostages, Cochise ordered the American hostages killed. And then Bascom ordered Cochise's family killed, which is really something for a U.S. Army officer to do, but that's what happened. They were executed. The women were let go, but Cochise's favorite brother was among the ones that were killed and that did not sit very well with Cochise. A lot of people say the Bascom affair is what kicked off the Apache wars. Not everyone agrees, actually. There's other stuff that came later. Just real quick, the death of Manga's Colorado, that really important early chief who wanted to ally with the Americans. In 1863, he was invited for peace talks and was held and executed. The peace talks were just a ruse and he was grossly mutilated after he was murdered. They

cut his head off, boiled the skin from his skull, sent his skull off to a phrenologist in New York. And a lot of people say that's probably what started the Apache wars because not only was that a brutal way to treat Manga's Colorado as a very respected chief, but it also showed that you couldn't trust the Union Army to engage in actual peace talks. They might just kill you. They might just assume kill you. And also, they killed a really big ally and steadying hand among the Chiricawa. All right. So, I mentioned earlier the Civil War getting cranked up back east and Union soldiers coming out to kind of safeguard or at least protect Southerners from coming into the American Southwest. And all of a sudden, the Chiricawa are like, hey, if we want to do some

raiding, this is pretty great because they've got all kinds of supplies, all kinds of munitions, and it's a pretty good group of people to try and raid. And how some of these raids went down, as far as the military is concerned, there was a battle in 1862 that was pretty typical, is that they would raid the military, but the military was far more outguns them. And so, the Apache retreat, but a retreat to the Apache was not some bad thing. It was actually a tactic because they could just sort of, they're like, why just get slaughtered because of pride when we can retreat and really disappear into the desert? And like, they will not find us. We know this land so well, we can really hide out here because we're few in number, and we know this territory.

And there are historians that basically agree that say, if it wasn't for Apache that ended up working with the military to turn on their own people, like they could have never been found if they didn't want to be. Yeah, and it wasn't even necessarily turning on their own people. Again, that's looking at it through the idea that all Apache were the same, but we're talking about the White Mountain Apache or the Dark Rocks' people of Apache. People that might as well have been enemies to the Chiricawa. So, the idea of them working with the army as scouts to find these other Apache wasn't quite as much as being like a Benedict Arnold kind of thing. Yeah, not turning on their own tribe. Right, right. So, I found, Chuck, there's actually a

Confederate officer that's buried in Arizona because the Confederacy actually made its way, managed to get to Arizona and occupied it for a brief time. And they themselves also got into skirmishes with the Apache there. And one of them got killed. So, there's a guy that's buried who is a Confederate soldier in Arizona. Wow. So, we should probably talk about the Camp Grant Massacre because this is a big turning point. We have lots of raids and skirmishes and battles and atrocities that have been going on during the first Apache wars, generally how it's kind of loosely gathered together. But the Camp Grant Massacre in 1871, it was a big turning point because the Arapa chief Eskiminsen's people were camped out near Tucson at an army encampment,

like peacefully settling there. They were not like scouting or doing anything like that. But the people of Tucson were worried that there were raiders among them. And so, they preemptively massacred the Apache that were there. And I think all but eight of the 144 people that were killed in that massacre of the Apache were women and children. And that, I think, something like 27 kids were kidnapped and sold in the slavery and very soon came to work in some of the homes of Tucson's most affluent families. It was a huge atrocity that was carried out by the white settlers of Tucson. And it had a huge effect on not just the Arapa Apache, but also the Chiricawa as well. And it also had a big effect on President Grant, Ulysses S. Grant, who was furious when he heard

about this. And he actually threatened to put Arizona under martial law unless this whole thing got sorted out. And he sent a peace delegation to speak with Cochise to see if they could keep this war from continuing on or breaking out further. That's right. So, they offered a truce. They said, here's what we'll do. If you agree to move to this reservation in San Carlos, then we can have a peace treaty in a truce in line. San Carlos was not a good place to be. It was terrible. The settlers knew this. The Apache knew this. They all called it hell's 40 acres. And so, it was not a place that they wanted to go. But Cochise negotiated and said, you know what? We're not going there. But if we can create our new reservation

that's just for us and we can come and go as we please, then we'll get on board with this truce. And Grant said, okay. And they had a peace. And it lasted about four years. Eventually, Cochise died of stomach cancer though. And that was, you know, one thing that kind of weakened the peace accord. There was also an incident where there were a couple of Chiricawa, Apache, who killed two white men who didn't give them whiskey. Fair enough. And both of these incidences basically just sort of chipped away. And all of a sudden, there was no more truce. No, because the people who lived in the area were like, we don't like this idea that the Chiricawa gets to like come and go off of their reservation as they please. And in fact, they were staging

raids in Mexico, which was not part of the treaty, but it was an oversight. And so, like all those things combined, like especially with the death of Cochise, like that treaty ended. And so, like this, I think it was a four year peace. And when that ended, the second Apache wars began. That's right. And Cochise's son, Taza, took his place. Basically, that reservation was abolished that they were happy with. And they said, well, great. That means we can just go back and live on wherever we want and migrate around. And they said, no, not really. We'd like you to go back to the San Carlos Reservation that we know you hate. And so, they started negotiating. Taza had another Chiricawa chief name, who? Chief who? J-U-H, who he was with Badonca Hayes. And

he had a stutter though. So, he said, I don't like to negotiate in person with my stutter. I'm going to have a proxy. My brother-in-law, Goya Kala, is going to speak for me. He's a medicine man, but you might know him by his other name, Geronimo. Yeah. And everyone went, whoa. Right. We've heard of him. Geronimo, by this time, it was already nicknamed as Geronimo, because it was the Mexicans who gave Geronimo his nickname. And still to this day, no one knows what the heck they meant by that. It turns out that Geronimo is a really rare Italian version of the name Jerome. And we're talking about Mexican and Spanish people, not Italians. So, it'd be weird for them to give him the name Jerome. And even if they had given them the

name Jerome, it wouldn't make any sense, because that means sacred name. And by the way, you know, Heronimus? Sure. That's a version of Geronimo. Oh, yeah? Yeah. But it doesn't make any sense. So, regardless, it's lost to history why they call him Geronimo. But they would shout Geronimo during some raids that he staged into Mexico. And Geronimo went into Mexico because if there was anybody who hated, among the Apache who hated Mexican people, it was Geronimo. He had watched them slaughter his family, including his mother and his wife and some children. And he never, he never forgot it. He never forgave them. And every chance he had to kill a Mexican, he would take it gladly. That's right. I mean, he was genuinely scarred as a young man.

So, it wasn't just like man hell bent on revenge. It was man who suffered like deep, deep traumas losing his family like this. So, you know, that's where all that came from. But he was a complicated guy. He was, you know, if you talk to Americans, he was known as, quote, the worst Indian that ever lived. In quote, he had a bad temper. He was paranoid. He was a fierce fighter who would not hang back, you know, and like shoot arrows from long distances. He would charge the enemy and run in a zigzag. So, he wouldn't get hit with a bullet, although apparently he did get hit with a bullet quite a bit, as we'll find out later. And then he would knife people and take their guns. And he didn't even know how to use guns. He would take guns back to the other

Apache. So, he got this nickname as like Mexicans would shout it to warn each other. And then it became something that the Apache latched on to as like a chant of enthusiasm. Right. And so, Geronimo was never a chief. He became a leader, but he was never a chief. And apparently he really didn't like people who accidentally confused him as a chief. But he had like a lot of, say, being a medicine man for the bedankehi. Right. And being that proxy of the actual chief who. So, he was part of these talks. And the idea was, or the decision was, between who and Taza and Geronimo, that the Apache could either move to the San Carlos Reservation, which had been designated for Apache, or they could live life on the run and basically be hunted and exterminated

by the U.S. Army. That was their choice. And so, Taza, who was the son of Cochise and who was his designated heir, said, we should, like my father knew like there's no way to defeat these people. We need to just, you know, live in peace with them. And I guess it means we have to move to the San Carlos Reservation. Something like a third of the Apache followed him. But two-thirds said, no, we're going to go the way of Geronimo and who, and that is to just basically escape and start staging raids and fighting and living life on the run. Yeah. And Geronimo, this is really the point in time where his legend really began to grow as far as the Americans are concerned. And he was, like I said, he was a complicated guy. He would, he would get criticized by his own

people for, you know, not giving up when he should, for being reckless in their eyes with some of these young soldiers who weren't as prepared as they need to be and was basically always just sort of like, at this point at least, go full bore and try and win these battles as brutally as possible. So this was happening. He was getting a reputation among his own people. At some points, there was a point in 1883 where he staged a raid on that San Carlos Reservation, captured another Chiricawin leader named Chief Loco and 200 of his followers and basically at gunpoint said, you're with me now and you got to help us fight. So he was, he wasn't always looked upon the best by his own people even because of stuff like this.

Yeah. I mean, Chief Loco and his followers were like, no, we're just trying to, we're just trying to live peacefully, leave us alone. And Geronimo said, no. So they were kind of pressing the surface. Other groups, he and his band attracted just because they wanted to fight too. It was that division of, no, we need to protect our ancestral lands and our old ways of living. And so he attracted like Chief Chihuahua, Chief Nana, who was also a Chihene, like Chief Loco. And that actually, that kind of shows that division of opinions and thoughts where Chief Loco was like, no, we need to live peacefully. And he was a Chihene. Chief Nana was also a Chihene. And he was like, no, he was at Geronimo's side throughout this entire fight. A lot of people

say that Chief Nana, he was very old even during this time. And he lived to be a very old man, but he also died fighting. They think that he probably killed more Americans than any Apache in history just because he was, he fought so much and he lived for so long. He was apparently also a really brilliant strategist as well. All right. So, well, should we take a break or should we wait? We could take a break. Is this our second one? I've lost track because this is a thrilling story. All right. Let's take our second break and we'll pick back up right after this. Okay. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new I Heart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough,

or you're at the end of the road. Okay. I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael, um, hey, that's me. Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new

podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, major league baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop.

But just when I thought I had to handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world can crash down. Situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change, too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. All right. So at this same time, kind of concurrently to Geronimo and all his battling going on, the Chahani started to fight the Americans at the same time. And they did this because of another kind of a weird incident caused by Geronimo, almost an accident.

He escaped. He had a knack for escaping. He was really good at that. We'll see time and time again. If you had Geronimo, you didn't have him for very long. So he escaped and snuck onto a reservation at Oho Caliente. And this was kind of a big deal. Like they weren't supposed to be there. They were supposed to, the Chahani, they were supposed to be at San Carlos. They had set up this other reservation. And again, it was, you know, no one knew they were there because things were so spread out. They were living peacefully. But this Geronimo escaping and going to their encampment, they were like, hey, man, thanks a lot. Like now everybody knows we're here. He brought the heat on them. Yeah. Put the serious heat on them to the point where

they said, you know, if you're off of this reservation, you're going to be shot on site. Yeah. And this kind of launches another one of the Apache wars or another part. Yeah. The Warm Springs Band of the Chahani were led by Chief Victoria. And they were forced, now that they, now that they were found out that they were living on Oho Caliente, which I guess was, you know, a nicer reservation as far as reservations went, that they were supposed to be in San Carlos, they were faced with the same decision, go live in this hell of San Carlos or live on the run. And so Chief Victoria said, all right, we've been living peacefully. We gave it a shot. The jig is up. Now we are going to go back to

living on the run. And for two years, Chief Victoria and his band were staging their own Apache war, concurrent with Geronimo and his band staging a different Apache war. And Chief Victoria's war and the band that followed him were so effective that Mexico and America, which hated each other still, had been engaged in the Mexican-American war less than a decade before and were just not fast friends by any measure. Mexico allowed the U.S. to have its army enter Mexico and chase Chief Victoria and his band. That's how much they were hated by both the Mexicans and the Americans. And that's the links that they went to. And apparently they were actually eventually found by a Mexican-American joint expedition. The Mexican

contingent said, Americans, you should probably leave. And that deep, deep centuries old hatred between the Mexicans and the Apache was really kind of brought to the fore. And the Mexicans slaughtered Victoria. Right. Up until this point, though, Victoria had a lot of success with only about 150 warriors to fight with. Yeah. And one of the big reasons was this woman named Lozen. Lozen was pretty incredible. And someone who, I mean, certainly not lost a history, but someone that you probably never learned about in like high school history. So she was Victoria's sister known as the Apache Joan of Arc. She was a Cheheny Chiricawa medicine woman. She was a great fighter. She was a great strategist. She was wise beyond her years. She would,

she would kind of do anything. I mean, there were great legends of her like, like helping to give birth on the battlefield in the desert. And then like, you know, going right back to fighting and did a little Stevie Nicks kind of deal where apparently she would hold her hands out to the side and pray and lift her palms up and turn in a circle. And she said, and of course, this is this is lore, but she said that she could, she would know the direction where the enemy was coming from, from these tingles that she would get. And depending on how intense the tingles were, she could even tell how far away they were from them. Yeah, it's still Chiricawa legend today that it was Lozen who allowed Victoria and a small

band of 150 people to survive for two years, as long as they did from this, this weird special talent she had of knowing where the enemy was coming from and how far away they were and sometimes how, how strong their troop numbers were. And then they would move and dictate like their raids based on her basically her visions. And it was, the idea is kind of supported by the fact that Lozen wasn't there when Victoria and the last of his band met their end at the hand of the Mexicans. She was off smuggling a woman, a new mother and her newborn infant back to the reservation so that the mom and the baby could live safely. And when she got to the reservation, she got news that her brother, Victoria and the rest of the band that was fighting with him had all been

slaughtered. And there's a, there's a discrepancy historically about how Victoria died, right? Yeah, he either died, you know, fighting until his last breath or he took his own life at the last minute. Yeah. So either way, all of that band fought, fought to their death. And Lozen wasn't ready to give up fighting either. She was actually on the reservation and could have stayed there. Instead, she immediately made her way to go find Geronimo and his band and she joined up with them. What if Lozen had just been stealing maps and plans from the other side? Right. And she was like, watch this, they love this stuff. Right. And she like does the Stevie Nicks. Right. The spin with the palms out kind of thing. She's like, I'm getting tingly. Yeah, they eat this up. I'm going

to be a legend. Watch this. Right. Pretty good stuff. So now we find ourselves kind of coming toward the end of the Apache Wars where things get really interesting when a man named General George Crook arrived on the scene and they called him the Tan Wolf because he wore a khaki a lot, had a knack for khaki. They had a lot of respect for him. He had respect for them. He earned his name fighting against the Sioux with Custer years ago. But now he was back, I guess he was a really good tracker too, because time and time again, as we'll see, he tracked down Geronimo. They were holding out in Mexico at this point and he wanted to negotiate, but things were pretty tense at the time. So there were still a couple of skirmishes and I think Geronimo and some of his guys were

up on a cliff above Crook's company and they were kind of taunting Crook's Apache scouts. Right. Things were not going well, but it ended up in a very strange turn of events working out because Crook was a hunter and was going off hunting the next day by himself and was tracking an animal and ended up tracking this animal, or I don't know if he found the animal in the camp, but eventually made his way right up to Geronimo and where Geronimo was camped out and was like, oh, hi there. And Geronimo says, you know what I'm going to do? I'm not going to kill you. Which he totally could have. I mean, Crook was there with a single gun by himself with no cover and he just accidentally stumbled upon Geronimo and some of his warriors. I can imagine how tense

that situation was. Even Crook knowing that they respected him and he respected them, it's still Geronimo. Again, what the Americans considered the worst Indian that ever lived. That's right. So the writing was kind of on the wall at this point with American encroachment. Geronimo was like, there are endless numbers of you guys. You have way more weapons, way more ammunition, way more supplies than we could ever get. And we've been on the run and I don't think it's going to work out for us in the end. So maybe it's finally time to not fight and to sit down at the negotiating table since you seem like someone who is at least honorable enough to negotiate something honest.

And Geronimo is the last holdout to come to this conclusion. By this time, like it was just he and his band, the rest of the Apache or the rest of the Chiricawa had either concluded that it was best to just settle down and adapt to reservation life or they had been killed fighting. So for Geronimo to finally come to this conclusion, he had been worn out because he was the kind to just keep going and keep going and keep going and inspire others to keep going. So he decides to surrender to Crook and apparently the surrender lasted a very short time. But one of the reasons why he did surrender was Crook said that they would create a new reservation near Turkey Creek,

which is where Geronimo was born. And so they weren't going to move them to San Carlos. I don't know if you've noticed a pattern or not everybody, but when the only option was move to San Carlos or die, very frequently the Apache chose die or fight to the death because that's how bad San Carlos was. Whenever there was another reservation put on the table, the Apache tended to say, okay, we'll go give that a shot. So it just really kind of points out like how much of this could have been avoided, not just from George Bascom never being involved or not just for them torturing and killing Mangus, Colorado, but if they had just improved the way of living at San Carlos or gotten rid of San Carlos and just created these other better

reservations, the Apache wars might never have taken the effect that they had either. It's like when Clary Starling offered Hannibal Lecter a stay on Anthrax Island. Plum Island. Plum Island, if it had gone a different way, if they had offered him a real nice place, maybe no one else would have died. No, maybe they would have caught Buffalo Bill before. Well, wait a minute, they did. It all worked out just fine thanks to Plum Island. You know, someone, a fan of the movie bought the Buffalo Bill House and has made it basically a Silence of the Lambs Museum. And I think he's building out the basement to where you can air

B&B it and stay there. Oh boy, that sounds awful. It's pretty great. And that's just like the story of Geronimo. Is it in Ohio for real? I don't remember where the real one is. Because, you know, very frequently they'll just be like, this house will work. No one will ever know it's in Ohio. No one will ever buy this house and turn it into air B&B and publicize that it's actually in Colorado. I hope he makes money off of it. So Geronimo surrenders a total chuck of four different times. Surrenders escapes, surrenders escapes. And the reason he keeps escaping is because he was about as hated as anyone ever was in this stage of American history, not just out west, but even back east. He was hated, mistrusted.

And there were editorials that he would read written in the local paper of whatever, whatever reservation he was having, he was being held at, that were calling for his immediate execution and murder, sometimes by mobs and vigilantes. So apparently he had a very large weakness for alcohol and when he got drunk, you could really convince him that they were going to kill him if he didn't escape. So he surrendered and escaped four different times. And on the last time, Crook was sent in with different marching orders, this time by President Grover Cleveland, who said, there's no terms of surrender anymore. Geronimo surrenders unconditionally or he dies and Crook said, it doesn't really sit well with me. Yeah, he resigned. And I think ever since then,

you know, or at least back then, of course, he was really looked down upon for doing that by his fellow American soldiers. So there's a bounty on Geronimo. For having integrity, just want to be clear about that. Right. Okay. There's a bounty on Geronimo's head at this point for 25 grand, a lot of money, and a new general takes over named General Nelson Miles. He was sort of the opposite of Crook in that he had no respect for the Apache. They had no respect for him. He would do his leading from forts many, many miles away from the real action. And he was, he kind of ruined things in the end that we'll get to here in a second. But this last summer of freedom here in 1886 for the Chiricawa, I think it was, Natchi was the chief at this point.

Yeah. And he was Taza's brother who was not bred to be chief, but Taza died on a trip to Washington, D.C. So now you had a chief that was easily manipulated through Geronimo, just FYI. Okay. So there was, there were only like 37 free Chiricawa at this point that were still down to battle. 18 of them were the warrior types. There were 13 women and six kids, including a couple of infants. And these 37 people were on the lamb for five full months with a total of about, you know, eight to 10,000, either army, U.S. army or Mexican soldiers or volunteers trying to find them. It's crazy. Like they could really blend into their territory. Yeah. They did so well at that, Chuck. There was only one death that entire summer of that

band of 37. And Geronimo was loving it. He was like, in retrospect, he was like, this was, these were the salad days. I did some of my best fighting. He's, you know, there were a few of us. You know, I could, I knew when they were coming. I didn't do the Stevie Nicks, but I knew, I knew what was going to happen before it happened. I was so on my game. So that General Miles guy, he came up with a plan. Like he knew that the, the, the Apache, the Chiricawa that were on San Carlos reservation were still very closely tied to this band of 37 that were following Geronimo. And so he sent word through two Apache scouts that the family members for the 434 Chiricawa on the reservation had been shipped to a prison in Florida. And that if they

ever wanted to see their family again, they needed to give up and surrender. And this proved to be the last draw for Geronimo. He said, okay, fine, I'm going to surrender. And he negotiated, he managed to negotiate terms. He agreed to be, to live in exile for two years as a prisoner of war. But it turned out that the, the, those terms were not honored. And he never was able to, to make his way back to his, his homeland, his ancestral land in South Arizona, New Mexico, again, after he left. That's right. I believe that they were, he was reunited with his family, eventually in Alabama and then moved out to Oklahoma. Yes. Neither of which were his original, you know, I think to the Americans back then, they were like, oh, look, we're sending you to

Oklahoma where your, where your, your people are from. So that's probably great, right? Yeah. So the, the problem was is that the people who finally did make it to Indian territory in Oklahoma. And again, this is just a melting pot, hodgepodge. They're like, if you're a Native American, this is where you live now, Oklahoma. It was 27 years before any Chiricawa were allowed to move back to their ancestral lands. And at the time about a third of them said, no, this is our home now. You know, most of us were born here. A lot of us were born here. So there's a Fort Sill, Oklahoma contingent of a, of a Chiricawa. And then there's also the Mescalero Reservation Chiricawa that live about two thirds of a moved to that South Southern Arizona area where they, they

live still today. And Geronimo, if you've ever seen, I mean, there are quite a few famous portraits and photographs of Geronimo. And that's because Geronimo went on to be pretty famous. Yeah. He later on toured with Buffalo Bill in his side show. He would, he would sell his little trinkets from his coat to people who would pay top dollar buttons. And then he just replaced it with another button for the next person. That's right. And he rode in Teddy Roosevelt's election parade. Yeah. And as legend has it, a lot of people came to see Geronimo more so than Teddy Roosevelt even. He asked personally Teddy Roosevelt permission to go back to his ancestral lands and Teddy Roosevelt refused even though this is long past the two years that he had negotiated in the terms

of his surrender. Teddy Roosevelt said basically, you don't want to go back there. There's too many people that want to see you hang still. And so Geronimo actually died on the reservation at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He had been drinking pretty heavily that day, fell off his horse and laid in a ditch all night and apparently caught pneumonia. And as he was dying, he, he regretted not having fought to the death even though he managed to live to be an old man. And in retrospect, this, the, the Apache Wars were again, that was depending on how you look at it, the longest lasting war in American history. And it was also extraordinarily bloody, especially for the Americans. Remember the Chiricawa numbered maybe 1500 and they managed to engage in a 25 year war

with the American army and the Mexican army simultaneously. And there's a famous quote from William Tecumseh Sherman who said, we had one war with Mexico to take Arizona and we should have another war to make them take it back. That's how devastating the Apache Wars were for the, the Americans. So that's the Apache Wars. Oh, one other thing, Chuck. So remember, I said there was a division among the Chiricawa about ones who were like, we just want to live in peace and we'll adapt to reservation life. And the others say, no, we have to, we have to fight to the death for the old ways. Well, now if you look back and you go on to the Chiricawa tribe website and you look, they proclaimed themselves to be a peaceful tribe.

So it turns out that that faction ultimately won out in the end. Very cool. You got anything else? No. Okay. Well, if you want to know more about the Chiricawa and other Apache groups, there is plenty of really interesting history out there for you on the internet. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. I'm going to call this reminder that we have a lot of episodes. Hello, Josh and Chuckers. I'm writing you today from Georgetown, Texas while currently listening to how kleptomaniacs work from 2009, recently discovered your podcast and love it. So I decided to start at the beginning. Do y'all know y'all have 1843 episodes?

I don't think that's right. And Sarah says, holy hell, it's taking a while to get caught up. I really want to jump to new, but on the other hand, it's kind of fun and interesting to listen to past episodes, for example, will the world end in 2012? Dodge to bullet on that one. Anyway, just want to send a quick hello. Love the show. Love how you smart guys. That's in quotes, by the way, which means she doesn't really mean that. Deliver info in a funny way. Also love that I get your random references to off the wall stuff. Simpson's episodes, old school band names, et cetera. Keep up the great work. Can't wait to hear what the future holds, i.e.

2021 episodes. And that is from Sarah A. Yes. Well, Chuck, think about how red Sarah's face is going to be when she finally gets to the episode where you suggest sandwiching episodes. I know. Well, I'm going to tell Sarah, we'll see what happens here. I'm going to tell her I'm reading this listener mail. We'll see if we can't tempt her. I won't even tell her which episode it's in. Okay. So she'll hear this in like 27 years. No, no, no. I'm going to let her know. And she may, she may start listening to new episodes, you know what I'm saying? Okay. Well, I think we've reached the end of this episode. And if you want to be like Sarah and get in touch with us,

you can send us an email to stuffpodcastatihartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Bye bye bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular, and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view

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