[IV'-25] For remarks on the Indians mentioned in this paragraph which would be introduced here had I not recently given them elsewhere, the reader is referred to Lewis and Clark, ed. 1893, p. 55, note7; p. 58, note11; p. 60, note15; and p. 477, note3.
[IV'-26] The Navajos, Navahos, or, as they call themselves, Tennai, are one of the three main divisions of the southern group of Athapascan Indians (the other two being the Lipans and the Apaches). They have always lived, so far as is known to history, in the country where they do now, and whence they raided in every direction before their final subjugation in our times. They focused on the upper waters of the Rio San Juan, in N. W. New Mexico, whence they habitually ranged down the river in Colorado and Utah, and S. of it in Arizona. They were thus in contact and conflict with Shoshonean tribes on the N., and warred when they pleased with the various Apache tribes of their own stock which were about them; they were of course a terror to the peaceful Pueblonians, who had to hold their own as best they could against all the battlesome savages by whom they were beset on every hand. They were powerful, and are still one of the largest tribes with which we have to do, like the Comanches and some of the divisions of the Sioux. A late census returns about 17,000, nearly all on the large Navajo reservation which occupies the contiguous N. W. corner of New Mexico and N. E. corner of Arizona.
An interesting account of the expedition of Colonel Doniphan and some of his officers to the Navajos in 1846, together with the text of the first treaty of peace concluded between them, the New Mexicans, and Americans, at Ojo Oso (Bear spring), Nov. 22d, occupies Chaps. IX-XI of Hughes' Don. Exp., 8vo, ed. of 1847, pp. 61-76.
[IV'-27] The Lipans or Sipans cut no figure now in the United States, where they are practically extinguished, though the case may be different in Mexico. They were a numerous and roving tribe of stalwart Indians who scoured the plains of Texas from Red r. to the Rio Grande. They were a sort of Apaches, having their nearest affinities with the latter, and in fact might be considered the Apaches of the plains as distinguished from those of the mountains. They have been commonly called Lipan Apaches, and such is no incorrect designation, though they are rather more distinct from most bands of Apaches than these are from one another. They extend in Mexico as far S. as Durango. A Lipan collision which made some history, and enriched the cabinet of S. G. Morton, the craniologist of Philadelphia, may be read in Hughes' Don. Exped., pp. 130-132, and Wislizenus, Mem., pp. 71, 72: see also [note5, p. 697].
[IV'-28] There is no historic period when the Apaches were not the scourge of the country they inhabited, down to the time when they were brought to terms by General Crook, in his Arizona campaigns of 1872 seq., and even since then their repeated escapades are matters of recent notoriety. They always warred with other Indians, always warred with the whites, and not seldom with one another. In Arizona particularly, so far as we are concerned, they did more to retard the development of the country than all other causes combined. For some years after the Territorial government was established, it was at the risk of life that one went out of sight of Prescott or Fort Whipple alone or with a small party. The Apaches lurked behind every rock, and hid in every bush; or, failing that, under cover of every three blades of grass—a trick they did to perfection—and reddened with blood every trail that led to the capital or the post. People were killed and stock was run off within a few hundred paces of both these places, and more than one pitched battle came off within ear-shot. A regular part of my business for two years was the extraction of Apache arrow-heads. The arrows used by the tribes nearest us were exactly such as Pike describes, though, so far as my observation went, the heads were all of stone, quite small and sharp, and very brittle, so that they usually shivered when they struck a bone and the fragments were not easily removed. They were only held in place with gum in the shallow notch at the end of the small hardwood stick that was set in the large reed, and thus were always left in the wound when the stick was pulled out. It is within my certain knowledge that they were in some cases poisoned; the common opinion was that the septic substance was derived from a deer's liver into which a rattlesnake had been made to inject its venom, and which was then left to putrefy in the sun; but how this case may really be, I never ascertained to my satisfaction. We continually hunted Apaches and killed a good many; a particular friend of mine, Mr. Willard Rice, who saved my life on a very ticklish occasion, when we were on a deer-hunt together without other companions, and who is still living near Prescott, is to be credited with at least 20 "good" (dead) Apaches—none of the score women or children, either. But such desultory operations as we could conduct in those years seemed to make little difference; it required Crook's systematic campaigns, on a large scale, to render the country inhabitable. The other side of the picture is, that the Apache has never committed an atrocity that we have not exchanged in kind, with the sole exception that we have probably never put a prisoner to death by slow torture, as was the Apache custom; that the Apache has not broken faith with us oftener than we are proud to say we have with him, and has not robbed us of more than we would like to take from him, if he had anything left to steal and we had an opportunity. The secrets of Indian agencies, like those of the Roman confessional, only leak out under great pressure. The Apaches that troubled us most in that particular vicinity of which I speak were known or supposed to be those of the Tonto basin, commonly called Tontos (Pinal Coyoteros). In scientific classification the Apache tribes and sub-tribes are numerous. The alphabetical list now recognized by high authority is: Arivaipa, Chiricahua, Faraone, Gileño (Gilans, or Apaches of the Gila, with four sub-tribes, Coyotero, Mimbreño, Mogollon, and Pinal Coyotero or Tonto), Jicarilla, Lipan, Llanero, Mescalero, Naisha, Querecho, Tchikun, Tchishi. All the Apaches within our jurisdiction have been brought under military subjection and restraint. The largest body of Apaches is now on the San Carlos reservation; their number is uncertain, say 2,000, representing several different tribes. Nearly as many more are in charge of the military at Camp Apache, in Arizona, say 1,900, known collectively as White Mountain Apaches. About 800 Jicarillas are on the Southern Ute Reservations in Colorado; some 500 Mescaleros are on the reservation of that name in New Mexico; and 300 other Apaches are on the Kiowa, Comanche, and Wichita Reservation in Indian Territory. After a recent outbreak had been quelled 356 prisoners were sent to Mount Vernon Barracks in Alabama. There are about 150 children at school in Carlisle, Pa. The total of perhaps 6,000 Apaches with which we have still to deal is not large in comparison with the numbers of some other tribes—but it is enough.
[IV'-29] See [note13, p. 615], [note14, p. 616], [note15, p. 618]; also, [note24, p. 743]. The towns here mentioned are those usually called San Domingo, San Felipe, and Sandia—the latter being the Tañoan one Pike elsewhere speaks of as St. Dies.
[IV'-30] Juan de Oñate, first governor of New Mexico, b. Guadalajara, Mex., about 1555, d. after 1611. "He was a son of the founder of Guadalajara, and was married to a granddaughter of Hernando Cortés. In 1595 his proposition to settle New Mexico was accepted by the viceroy Velasco, and after much delay the grant was confirmed by the Count of Monterey. Oñate left Zacatecas in Jan., 1598, with 130 men besides Indians, a large wagon- and cattle-train, etc.; reached the Rio Grande, probably at El Paso, April 20; took formal possession April 30; crossed the river; and in Aug. founded the first capital, San Juan (Santa Fé was founded later). After the first year he had little trouble with the Indians. Early in 1599 he explored a part of Arizona, and in 1604 followed the Gila river down to the Gulf of California. He probably ceased to rule as governor in 1608." (Cent. Cyc. Names, s. v.) (See [Nadal] and [Niza], in the Index.)
[IV'-31] The province which Pike calls indifferently Biscay and New Biscay was properly Nueva Vizcaya. It was named Reino de la Nueva Vizcaya by Francisco de Ibarra, who invaded it about 1560-70, and retained the name until after the independence. As a colonial division of New Spain it had been originally called Copala, and was much more extensive than Pike's Biscay, as it corresponded to the present states of Sonora, Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Durango, and a southern part of Coahuila. This region was included among the Provincias Internas in 1777, and such was its status in Pike's time; but meanwhile it had become contracted in extent by the exclusion of Sonora and Sinaloa, so that in Pike's time it was little if any more than equivalent to the two present states of Chihuahua and Durango. Present Chihuahua has Sinaloa and Durango on the S. Present Durango is surrounded by Sinaloa, Chihuahua, Coahuila, Zacatecas, and Jalisco.
[IV'-32] Wislizenus, Mem., p. 55, quotes this passage, and adds: "By rubbing the hair of cats and dogs in the dark, I could elicit here a greater mass of electricity than I had ever seen produced in this way. Some persons, entitled to confidence, informed me that by changing their woollen under-dress in the night, they had at first been repeatedly frightened by seeing themselves suddenly enveloped in a mass of electrical fire. The remarkable flames that appeared after a thunder-storm in the mountains south of El Paso, already mentioned by me [Mem. p. 43], were no doubt connected with electricity. I recollect also, from an account published in relation to the battle of Buena Vista, that during a sultry evening electrical flames were seen on the points of the bayonets among the sentinels stationed in the mountains."
[IV'-33] For these, see the itinerary, Apr. 30th-May 13th, [pp. 668]-[678], and notes there. The lakes Pike proceeds to mention are in or on the border of present Coahuila. The situation of the Presidio del Norte, where the Conchos discharges, is lat. 29° 33´ 53´´ N., long. 104° 36´ 27´´ W., by the river 346 m. above the mouth of the Pecos, and 348 below El Paso—both of these distances much in excess of the direct line between these points. "Batopilis" is very far out for the source of the Conchos, unless Pike refers to some other place than the modern Batopilas. This is situated below lat. 27° N., and in the Pacific water-shed, being on a branch of the Rio del Fuerte, which runs from Chihuahua through Sinaloa and empties into the Gulf of California at Point Ahome.