Mangas Coloradas

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Mangas Coloradas or Dasoda-hae (Red Sleeves), 1793?-1863 was a famous Apache chief, a member of the Eastern Chiricahuas, whose homeland stretched west from the Rio Grande to include most of what is present-day southwestern New Mexico. Considered by many to be the most important Apache leader of the 19th century, he united the Apache nation against the United States.

In the 1820s and 1830s, the Apaches' chief enemy was the Mexicans, who had gained their independence from Spain in 1821. By 1835 Mexico had placed a bounty on Apache scalps. When Juan Jose Compas, the leader of the Mimbreno Apaches, was killed for bounty money in 1837, Mangas became principal chief and war leader and began a series of retaliatory raids against the Mexicans.

When the United States went to war against Mexico, the Apache promised U.S. soldiers safe passage through Apache lands. When the U.S. claimed former territories of Mexico in 1846, Mangas Coloradas signed a peace treaty, respecting them as conquerors of the hated Mexican enemies. An uneasy peace between the Apache and the United States held until the 1850s, when an influx of gold miners into the Santa Rita Mountains led to conflict. In 1851, near Pinos Altos mining camp, Mangas was personally attacked by a group of miners who tied him to a tree and severely beat him. Similar incidents continued in violation of the treaty, leading to Apache reprisals. In December, 1860, thirty miners launched a surprise attack on an encampment of Bedonkohes on the west bank of the Mimbres River. According to historian Edwin R. Sweeney, the miners "...killed four Indians, wounded others, and captured thirteen women and children." Shortly after, Mangas initiated raids against U.S. citizens and property.

Mangas Coloradas' daughter Dos-Teh-Seh married Cochise, principal chief of the Chokonen Apache. In early February 1861, Lieutenant George N. Bascom and his troopers deceived Cochise and lured him, his family and several warriors into a trap at Apache Pass, in southeastern Arizona. Cochise managed to escape but his family and warriors remained in custody. Negotiations were unsuccessful and fighting erupted. This incident, known as the "Bascom Affair," ended with Cochise’s brother and five other warriors hanging from trees. Later in 1861, Mangas and Cochise struck an alliance, agreeing to drive all Anglo Americans out of Apache territory. They were joined in their effort by the chief Juh and the famous warrior Geronimo. Although the goal was never achieved, the Anglo American population in Apache territory was greatly reduced for a few years during the Civil War. {Bascom would be killed in the U.S. Civil War}

In the summer of 1862, after recovering from a bullet wound in the chest, Mangas Coloradas met with an intermediary to call for peace with the Americans. In January of 1863, he decided to personally meet with U.S. military leaders at Fort McLane in southwestern New Mexico. Mangas arrived under a white flag of truce to meet with Brigadier General Joseph Rodman West, an officer of the California militia and a future senator from Louisiana. Armed soldiers took him into custody. West is reported to have given an execution order to the sentries.

Men, that old murderer has got away from every soldier command and has left a trail of blood for 500 miles on the old stage line. I want him dead or alive tomorrow morning, do you understand? I want him dead.

That night Mangas was tortured, shot and killed as he was "trying to escape."

The following day, U.S. soldiers cut off his head, boiled it and sent the skull to Orson Squire Fowler, a Phrenologist in New York City. A phrenological analysis of the skull and a sketch of it appear in Fowler's 1873 book Human Science: or.... (Mangas' descendents conflated Fowler's Phrenological Cabinet in New York, where the skull was on display, with the Smithsonian, leading to the misattribution of the skull to the latter institution. In Eve Ball's Indeh: An Apache Odyssey,^[1] Daklugie, one of her informants says the skull went to the Smithsonian, but the Smithsonian has done a thorough search for the skull, and reports that it never held it.)

The mutilation of Mangas' body only increased the hostility between the Apaches and the United States, with war continuing for almost another quarter century.

Mangas Coloradas was physically striking, described as standing well over 6 feet with a hulking body and disproportionately large head.

[edit] Appearances in literature

• Flashman and the Redskins (1982) by George MacDonald Fraser.
• Life Among the Apaches (1868) by John C. Cremony.

[edit] References

1. ^ *Ball, Eve; Henn, Nora; Sanchez, Lynda A. (1988). Indeh: An Apache Odyssey (reprint). University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 0-8061-2165-3. 

• Etulain, Richard W. New Mexican Lives: A Biographical History. University of New Mexico Center for the American West, University of New Mexico Press, 2002. ISBN 0-8263-2433-9
• Haley, James L. Apaches: A History and Culture Portrait. University of Oklahoma Press, 1997. ISBN 0-8061-2978-6.
• Sweeney, Edwin R. Mangas Coloradas: Chief of the Chiricahua Apaches. University of Oklahoma Press, 1998. ISBN 0-8061-3063-6