Wild West Photo Friday: Apache Scouts

The Apache gave the U.S. government no end of headaches with their raids and defiance of American expansion. Some Apache, however, joined forces with the government to fight against their own and other tribes.

The Apache scouts were some of the most valuable Native American scouts in the U.S. Army. The first all-Apache units were formed in 1871 by Lt-Col George Crook. He mostly recruited Apache who had peacefully settled on the reservation, but would also accept captured "renegades". As he put it, "the wilder the Apache was, the more he was likely to know the wiles and stratagems of those still out in the mountains."

The scouts soon proved their mettle, and in his annual report for 1876, Crook's successor, Col Augustus Kautz wrote,

"These scouts, supported by a small force of cavalry, are exceedingly efficient, and have succeeded, with one or two exceptions, in finding every party of Indians they have gone in pursuit of. They are a great terror to the runaways from the Reservations, and for such work are much more efficient than double the number of soldiers."

Jump the cut to see a closeup of these guys.

The Apache way of war

"You want us to ride around your wagon circle making perfect targets while you shoot at us? I don't think so, paleface!"

In the movies we're told that the Apache were pretty dumb. As soon as our heroes, the settlers, put their wagons in a circle, the Apaches would ride around it, whopping and waving their guns over their heads, making perfect targets.

Not likely. The Apache defied the U.S. government for a century despite the Americans having greater numbers and better weapons. They did this by launching a classic guerrilla campaign.

The Apache offset their numerical inferiority by focusing their forces on isolated army detachments, giving them a localized superiority in numbers. They were also quick to adopt the latest weaponry, whether through illegal trading or by capturing guns from the enemy.

Their greatest ally was the land itself. Arizona and New Mexico, where the greatest number of Apache lived in the 19th century, is a rugged place, with scarce water and countless mountains and ravines in which to hide. The Apache knew the land well and could strike fast from unexpected directions and disappear into the wilderness.

Pterodactyl sightings in America

Let's descend into a bit of silliness. This is, after all, a fiction blog as well as a history blog.

We all remember the pterodactyl from when we were kids, that weird birdlike creature with the funky head. It died out with the dinosaurs, right?

Wrong, say some true believers. Pterodactyls have been spotted all over the world, especially in Texas, which has had several waves of pterodactyl sightings. Pterodactyls have landed on mobile homes, buzzed schoolteachers on their way to work, and generally caused mayhem across the state.

Native Americans believed in the Thunderbird, a giant bird seen in the skies of the American Southwest. Cryptozoologists (people who study unexplained animal sightings) claim the Thunderbird legend may be evidence of pterodactyl sightings. Of course the legend recounts a big feathered bird and not a reptile, but whatever.

Creationists have also gotten into the game. Many of the "pterodactyls are alive" websites use the sightings as evidence that the Earth couldn't be millions of years old, otherwise these creatures would have died out.

The sightings have been happening for some time now and even the Tombstone Epitaph got into the game back in 1890, claiming that some cowboys bagged one. Many photos of the supposed creature have arisen. This is just one of them.

While I have a hard time believing in the Thunderbird/living pterodactyl, I do find the idea charming. Perhaps I'll write a story about it one day!


I took this photo from the Texas Cryptid Hunter blog, which has a refreshingly skeptical take on the phenomenon. The image is not original to them. While I'm careful to use only public domain photos in this blog, I'm not sure this one is. If it's really as old as it appears, then it's public domain. It could simply be an old fake. If it's modern, then I'm in breach of copyright, but the only way the creator could sue me is if they admitted faking the photo! I'll take that chance. :-)

Civil War Photo Friday: Soldier in the Indian Home Guard

During the Civil War, the Indian Territory (modern Oklahoma) was as divided as the rest of the nation. Many Native American leaders hoped to get a better deal from the Confederacy than the years of lies and broken treaties the Federal government had given them, so at the beginning of the war much of the Indian Territory joined with the rebellion.

Some remained faithful to the Union, but after a series of defeats they had to flee to Kansas in the middle of the winter, on what the refugees called "the trail of blood on the ice." From these refugees the Federal government recruited men to create three Indian Home Guard units. This guy, whose name is now sadly lost, was one of them.

The Indian regiments faced prejudice from white civilians and soldiers. They were commanded by white officers and were required by law only to fight in the Indian Territory. That they did. Starting in the summer of 1862 the Indian Home Guard fought to retake their homes. The Confederate Indians never got many supplies from the resource-strapped Confederacy and support for the rebellion waned. By the end of 1863, most of the territory was back in Union hands.

Fighting continued until the very end, however, and the land was laid waste. An untold number of civilians died of exposure, disease, and starvation.

For a snapshot of the other side of the conflict, check out my post on the Cherokee Confederate reunion of 1903.


Photo courtesy National Park Service.

The Sheriff and the Pants Tree: An Old West Story

Sheriff Carl Hayden of Phoenix had a problem. The conservative ladies of his city were up in arms over a public disgrace. They were shocked, shocked!, to see men like this walking their streets.

These men were Pima Indians, who came into town every Saturday during the first years of the 20th century in order to trade. They dressed in the traditional fashion, wearing only a breechclout. This left the rest of their bodies exposed, something the ladies didn't want to see. Whites, Mexicans, and Chinese didn't dress like that, and so they didn't want the Pima dressing like that either.

Hayden came up with a simple solution. He collected a bunch of old pants, hung them up on the branches of a tree just outside town, and told the Pima to put on a pair of pants before coming into town. Once they were done, they'd hang the pants back on the tree and go home dressed in their traditional (lack of) attire. The "pants tree" remained a Phoenix landmark for many years.

Hayden may not have been the first person to think of this. I've heard there was a pants tree outside Tucson as well for visiting Tohono O'odham.

Still the society ladies of Phoenix weren't satisfied. They complained that an old Pima chief was a polygamist, having no fewer than three wives. Sheriff Hayden rode out to visit the chief and told him that he could only have one wife. He had to pick one and tell the other two to go. The old chief thought for a long time. Then he looked at the sheriff and said, "You tell them."

Sheriff Hayden rode off. The chief got to keep his wives.

(Interestingly, a similar story is told about Comanche chief Quanah Parker, so this may just be a tall tale from the fronteir)

Carl Hayden is an Arizona icon. He was born in an adobe home on the Salt River near what is now Phoenix in 1877. His father ran a ferry boat business. Hayden became Maricopa County Sheriff in 1906, dealt with complaints from shocked ladies of society, and got a bit of fame in 1910 for foiling one of the last train robberies in the Old West.

He went on to serve in both houses of Congress for many years before retiring in 1969, the year I was born. It's not much of a stretch to go from the modern day back to a time when bandits robbed trains and half-naked Native Americans shocked the self-appointed guardians of virtue.

Wild West Photo Friday: A Sioux Tobacco Pouch

This is a Sioux tobacco bag from the 19th or early 20th century.

As you can see, there's intricate quillwork showing plants and what the photographer describes as a stylized cocoon and moth in the center.

The cocoon is a symbol of spiritual and physical transformation, and also of the Sioux spirit Yumni, the whirlwind, responsible for the four directions of the world.

Like Yumni, the moth is a free spirit that breaks out of its cocoon and cannot be contained.

Native American tobacco is pure and thus very strong. Smoking it certainly gives you a buzz that makes you feel like you're flying, which is perhaps what the designer of this bag was getting at. It also made me feel sick to my stomach. Nonsmokers like me shouldn't get curious and try pure tobacco!


Photo courtesy Pierre Fabre.

A practical joke in the Wild West

The Wild West was a tough place to live. Fun was hard to come by and people resorted to such strange diversions as anvil artillery. Practical jokes were popular too.

In Tombstone, Arizona, a tenderfoot was sure to come in for some ribbing. One popular trick was to take him out "Apache hunting". The guys in on the joke would slip the bullets out of his gun. Once they got out in the desert, they'd ditch him (a bit like snipe hunting) and then some other forntiersmen dressed up as Apaches would leap out from behind some rocks and charge at him, giving out blood-curdling war whoops.

The tenderfoot would try to fire, only to find he didn't have any ammunition! This was all good fun until one newcomer in Tombstone pulled out a holdout weapon and blazed away at the dressed up cowboys. Luckily nobody was hurt. The game kind of lost popularity after that.

Image of The Apache by Henry Farny courtesy Wikipedia.