After a while the daughter of the chief was missing. When the Indians made inquiries for her, they were told that she had been taken to heaven in a miraculous manner and was made a saint. The chief did not believe the story and suspected treachery. There was an old woman who had had charge of the Indian girl. The Apaches seized and tortured her until she confessed the truth. The priest had lived with the daughter as a wife. And when her condition became such as to betray him he had her killed and buried. The Indians found her body and confirmed this treachery. They then raised and killed all connected with the mission and destroyed everything possible. They swore vengeance on the priests and their followers and vowed that no Catholic should ever inhabit this valley.
I have seen the ruins they made within the last few years, and heard this story from the Mexicans living within a day's travel from this valley. They all dread the Apaches to this day. No Mexican has ever dared to make a home there. From that time until the present the Apaches have been at war with the Mexicans.
When white men first went to the region where the Apaches roam, the Indians looked upon them as a different class of people and did not make war upon the few white traders they met on the road to the city of Chihuahua, but they would go in and trade with merchant trains owned by Americans, and in no way molest them.
This peaceful state of affairs was broken up in the year 1843. At that time the State of Chihuahua was having a hard time with the Apaches, and the government offered a large reward for their scalps, ranging from $100 to $150 per head.
This offer got to the ears of Colonel Kerker, of Texas. He raised a company of Texans and went to the city of Chihuahua, and contracted with the Governor for Apache scalps.
The Colt revolver had recently been brought into use. This company of rangers carried these weapons concealed under their coats and went to Galliana, a town on the Rio Santa Maria, in the north-western part of Chihuahua, near the mountains where the Indians dwelt.
This Kerker arranged to have the Apaches come to a feast prepared for them, agreeing to meet them unarmed, as friends. The Indians, believing these white men real friends, came in without suspicion, and, while partaking of the hospitality, the rangers commenced with their revolvers and killed over a hundred of them. The Indians could make no resistance, but were literally slaughtered. Kerker got his money, but lost the respect of all decent men.
A few years after this I was in the Apache country. They were killing both whites and Mexicans at every opportunity. Thirty-five years after I was again in that country and it was still the same.
For many years when a white man was killed by an Apache, the whites would remark, "There is another of Kerker's victims."
I saw this same individual in 1849 in Santa Fe, when he was there for a few days. So indignant were the people at him that there was a strong talk of lynching him.