Some Apache Biographies

The Indians mentioned in Fort Apache have the names of historical Indians.

Cochise, chief of the Chokonen band of the Chiricahua Apache was born around 1805 and lived at peace with the Americans from 1850 to the Bascomb Incident in 1861. Cochise was at war the Americans for most of the period 1861-1872. He made his peace treaty with General Howard on Oct. 12,1872 and was at peace with the American from then until his death on June 8, 1874 -- that is the period when the events of the tv series Broken Arrow would have taken place if real.

Satanta's name was not satanic. it was Kiowa for "White Bear", since Satanta was a Kiowa. On May 18, 1871 Satanta was in a raiding party which ignored a small group including General Sherman and attacked the larger Warren Wagon Train, killing seven men. When accused at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in the presence of General Sherman, General Mackenzie, colonel of the Fourth cavalry, and General Grierson, Colonel of the Tenth Cavalry, Satanta and others boasted of their part in the massacre, and then were surprised at being seized and arrested for murder.

Satanta was sentenced to hang by a Texas State court, but eastern humanitarians pressured the Governor to commute the sentence to life imprisonment at Huntsville State Prison, and then to release Satanta in 1873. When Satanta surrendered in October 1874 during the Red River War, he was returned to Huntsville Prison for violating the terms of release by being present at the Second Battle of Adobe Walls. Satanta committed suicide on October 11, 1878 by diving out an upper story window of the prison hospital. He is believed to be the inspiration for Larry McMurty's fictional Blue Duck.

Diablo's name was satanic, of course. He was a Cibeque Apache leader who was killed in battle on August 30, 1880 by feuding White Mountain Apaches, including Alchesay. For a while I thought that didn't make any sense and Diablo should have been alive for years after 1880. Then I realized I had confused Diablo with Loco (1823-1909).

Geronimo was born June 16,1829, if you can believe such a precise date, and surrendered to the US army for the very last time on September 4, 1886. He died Feb 17, 1909.

Alchesay or Alchise, or however you spell it, was a Coyotero or White Mountain Apache, supposedly born May 17, 1853, which seems suspiciously precise to me, and died August 6, 1928. Like all the Western Apaches, he would have become hostile to the Americans during the 1860s, In November i869, when Alchesay was about 16, Major John Green of the First US Cavalry negotiated a peace treaty with the White Mountain Apache tribe. Thus the White Mountain Apache were friendly to the Americans since 1869. If Alchesay was as young as claimed his first war could have been service as Sergeant of Indian Scouts during the Tonto Campaign of 1872-1873. On April 12, 1875, Alchesay was awarded a medal of Honor for gallantry in that campaign.

If Alchesay had lived for another twenty years he could have sued the makers of Fort Apache for libel in depicting him as a leader of hostile Apaches fighting and massacring the US Cavalry alongside Geronimo.

So the latest year in which all these men were alive, and free, and hostile to the United States would seem to be 1869, which was eleven to thirteen years after the Mexican war of 1846-1848. If Philadelphia Thursday was 19 in 1869 she would have been born in 1849-1850, and thus about 6 to 8 during the Mexican War, perhaps too old for Mrs. Collingwood to assume that she wouldn't remember her. So perhaps the split between Thursday and Collingwood occurred during some (no doubt fictional) Indian battle a few years before the Mexican War.

Sergeant major O'Rourke would have served most of his years in the Regular Army before the Civil War in this chronology.

Collingwood would have been given few chances to prove his courage in battle after his big goof, while Thursday would have had success after success in the Mexican War and the Civil War of 1861-1865. If the events of Fort Apache happened during a few weeks or months after Washington's Birthday in February 1869, it could be before Major Green's peace Treaty with the White Mountain Apaches in November, and while Alchesay was a remarkable precocious war leader (or else he was actually about a hundred when he died).

Of course in real history Fort Apache was not established until 1870 as a result of Green's treaty with the White Mountain Apache and not named Fort Apache until later.

Thus we could suppose that in the Wild West of the movies and television, Cochise was on a reservation from about 1864-1866 and went back on the warpath when Meacham became the Indian agent in 1866. Sometime after Thursday's disaster his regiment (the Thirteenth Cavalry?) was assigned to another post, and the 101st US Cavalry was assigned to Fort Apache for the events of The Adventures of Rin Tin Tin in the early 1870s. (The same location was used for Fort Apache in both productions).

Then the 101st Cavalry was reassigned, and the old Fort Apache was abandoned and a new Fort Apache built somewhere else by 1874, since Taza, Son of Cochise , set in 1874, uses another location for Fort Apache. And possibly the new Fort Apache was later abandoned and the old Fort Apache was reoccupied, possibly by the 101st Cavalry for further Adventures of Rin Tin Tin if some of the episodes seem to be after 1874.

The epilogue of Fort Apache may have happened in 1873 or 1874, after the 101st Cavalry moved out of Old Fort Apache and before the establishment of New Fort Apache. Or possibly it occurred after Taza, Son of Cochise , when New Fort Apache might have been abandoned and Old Fort Apache reoccupied.

If Kirby York and Kirby Yorke were the same man, his regiment would have been moved to a different fort by 1879-1880, the date of Rio Grande .

But I am not sure it makes sense to use real history and biography to date events in the wild west of the movies and television shows.