Spanish Deportation of Apaches

Transcription

Journal of the Southwest
Spanish Deportation of Hostile Apaches: The Policy and the Practice
Author(s): Max L. Moorhead
Source: Arizona and the West, Vol. 17, No. 3 (Autumn, 1975), pp. 205-220
Published by: Journal of the Southwest
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SPANISH DEPORTATION
HOSTILE APACHES
OF
THE POLICY AND THE PRACTICE
by
MAX L. MOORHEAD*
One of Spain's most frustratingproblems during her last century of rule
over what is now the American Southwest was what to do with the
captives taken in the Indian wars. While royal policy sought to provide
both clemency for the hostiles and security for the frontier settlers, this
became especially difficult when the captives were Apaches. Of all the
tribes and nations which openly resisted her occupation of the Borderlands, Spain considered the Apaches the most ferocious, vindictive, and
irreconcilable. Accordingly, Spanish policy was less conciliatory toward
them than toward other Indians and, as the only apparent solution to
the security problem, it eventually called for the wholesale expatriation
of captured Apaches. Even then, the Crown attempted to provide safeguards for the health and welfare of the prisoners of war, but what the
Apaches actually experienced was a far cry from what the royal government intended.
* The author is David Ross
Boyd Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Oklahoma, Norman, and a distinguished authority on the Spanish Borderlands. His new book,
The Presidio: Bastion of the Spanish Borderlands, has just been published.
[205]
206
ARIZONA and the WEST
The official policy of removing hostile Apaches from their homeland in the north to the remote environs of Mexico City stemmed from
the celebrated Reglamento of 1729, the first attempt at establishing a
uniform system of defense throughout the northern Borderlands. Prior
to this ordinance, Spaniards looked upon captured Apaches as spoils of
war and distributed them as personal servants among the military and
civilian personnel of that region. According to the 1729 regulation,
however, this practice was explicitly forbidden, and henceforth no
Indian captive of war - of either sex, any age, or under any pretext could be assigned to the people of the frontier. Instead, they were now
to be sent under appropriate security to the vicinity of Mexico City,
there to be dealt with by the viceroy according to royal directives. The
reason offered for the new policy was that only at the viceregal court
could they be situated with convenience both "to their own tranquility
and that of the Provinces." It was further explained that the previous
policy, of pardoning captured hostiles and treating them well, had only
permitted them to abuse the amnesty and continue their audacity.1
However reluctant frontier officials may have been to abide by the
new requirement, its provisions were carried out at least as early as
1739. In that year the Apache Chief Cabellos Colorados and thirteen of
his followers in Texas were transported to Mexico City, on viceregal
orders, after more than a year of incarceration at San Antonio. Apparently, no other Apaches captured in the northern provinces were sent
to the viceregal capital during the next three decades. In 1772 a new
ordinance superseded that of 1729, embodying requirements that were
even more specific.2
The Reglamento of 1772 strictly prohibited any ill-treatment of
Indian prisoners of war and even imposed the death penalty on any
person who might kill one of them in cold blood. It was again required
that such captives be sent to Mexico City for viceregal disposition. Now,
however, it was specified that they be provided with the same daily
rations of food as were being issued to the military's Indian auxiliaries
(to the value of one real per day for each), and that the women and
1Articles 190 and 195, Reglamento
fora todos los presidios de las Provincias lnternas de esta
Hecho for el Excmo. Senor Marques de Casa-Fuerte, Vi-Rey, Governador,
Governacion
y Capitdn General de estos Reynos (Mexico, 1729).
2 Governor Prudencio Orobio Bazterra to the Viceroy, San Antonio, April 26, 1738, and to
the local magistrates en route, Los Adaes, February 18, 1739, Ramo de Provincias lnternas
[PI], Tomo 32, Expediente 8, Archivo General y Publica de la Naci6n [AGN], Mexico City.
DEPORTATIONof APACHES
207
children be provided with the care required to bring about their conversion to Christianity. Although frontier authorities were encouraged
to negotiate peace treaties with all other Indian nations, they could no
longer concede more than a truce to the Apaches. Only the viceroy
could admit them to a formal peace. An exchange of prisoners was to
be the first condition for either a truce or a formal peace, and if the
arrangement should prove promising of success, the prisoners were not
to be sent to Mexico City as previously required, but interned near the
presidios, where the troops, pending the exchange, might guard against
their escape.3
Commandant Inspector Hugo O'Conor, whose principal obligation
was to enforce the new regulations, had reservationsas to their wisdom,
especially in respect to the Lipan Apaches. Writing to Viceroy Antonio
Maria Bucareli on March 8, 1774, O'Conor declared that the Lipans
would never accept internment in permanent villages, but that they
would abandon these at the first opportunity and return to their marauding ways. If he should send them to Mexico City, even in small groups
and in chains, he feared that the women, as well as the men, were
cunning enough to escape and return to their old haunts. O'Conor was
convinced that the frontier settlements could be freed from their ravages only by shipping them in small groups to the islands of the Caribbean. However, the viceroy's legal counsel, Jose Antonio Areche,
advised that it would be cheaper and also more just to send the Lipan
prisoners to Mexico City, for there the men could be distributed as
laborers and the women and children cared for and educated in the
Spanish religion and customs.4
Official policy toward the hostiles softened noticeably in 1779, on
the eve of Spain's war with England. In a royal order of February 20,
the Crown required that all hostiles who surrendered and aspired to
live in peace were to be treated with gentleness, humanity, charity, and
good faith. There was no suggestion that captives be sent to Mexico
City. On the contrary, they were not to be forced to settle in Spanish
3Articles 1, 2, and 3, Title 10,
Reglamentoe Instruccidnpara los Presidios que se nan de
format en la Linea de fronterade la Nueva Espana. Resuelto for el Rey Nuestro Senor en
CdduladelOde sepiembre de 1772 (Madrid, 1772).
4Commandant
Inspector Hugo O'Conor to Viceroy Antonio Maria Bucareli, Coahuila,
March 8, 1774; Fiscal de la Real Hacienda Jos£ Antonio Areche to the Viceroy, M6rico,
September6, 1774, PI 154/5, AGN.
208
towns or even permanent villages of their own. Rather, they were to
be left in their "just and natural liberty." Furthermore,the commandant
general was to redouble his efforts to prevent the Apache captives being
treated as slaves, as admittedly they had been in the past.5
When the war with England wound down and offensive operations
against the Apaches were resumed, the deportations began anew. In a
viceregal decree of February 19, 1782, the Crown approved Commandant General Teodoro de Croix's request to send to Mexico City for
viceregal disposition ninety-five Mescalero Apaches whom he considered particularly dangerous. On their arrival at the capital, the viceroy
was to assign them where they could never return to their homelands
and renew their depredations.6
In 1786 Viceroy Bernardo de Galvez issued new instructions to
Commandant General Jacobo Ugarte, blending the alternately hard-line
and conciliatory policies of the past. These instructions shortly gained
the force of a royal ordinance. Now the demand that prisoners of war
be removed from the frontier was omitted, as it also had been in the
royal order of 1779. Nonetheless, the practice continued. In 1787
Ugarte reported to the viceroy that his field commanders, following
established practice, had sent the Apaches they had captured to the
jails and workhouses of the frontier provinces, but most of these were
women and children. He had retained a number of the warriors as
military scouts, had dispatched seventeen others in chains to Guadalajara, and had sent the captured children to the Real de Alamos, in
Sonora. There the children would be distributed in private homes, with
the expectation that accommodating citizens would rear, dress, educate, and Christianize them. Viceroy Manuel Antonio Flores not only
approved these dispositions, but indicated that he would shortly have
the male prisoners sent overseas, so they could never again ravage the
frontier communities. He would have the women maintained in charity
5 Minister of the Indies Jose*de Gdlvez to Commandant General Teodoro de Croix, El Pardo,
February 20, 1779, PI 170/5, AGN.
6Gdlvez to the Viceroy, Madrid, July 5, 1783, PI 156/1, AGN. A precedent for the subsequent
disposition of Apache prisoners of war had been established early in 1782, when the governor
of Nuevo Santander sent 113 captured Aracates (of the Chichimeca nations) to Mexico City.
should be sent on to Vera Cruz,
There the viceroy ruled that, after an
eight-day rest, they
where they would be incarcerated in the Castillo de San Juan de Ulua and made to work
on its fortifications for their daily rations. Governor Diego de Lasaga, Lista General de la
Collera de Indios Gentiles, Villa de Aguayo, January 14, 1782; and viceregal decree, Mexico,
February 19, 1782, PI 64/3, AGN.
209
houses and the children reared in private homes in the interior of the
realm.7
Although frontier military authorities were more concerned with
eliminating die Apache menace than with carrying out the pious intentions of the king, Commandant General Ugarte was not completely
unmindful of prisoner welfare. After the capture of 125 Apaches and
the voluntary surrender of fifty-five others in Sonora late in 1788, he
sent most of the former to Chihuahua for confinement until they could
be transported to Mexico City. In so doing, however, he cautioned
against detaining the Apaches en route at Fronteras or San Buenaventura, lest they perish from the unhealthy climate of those presidios, as
other Apaches had in the past. He ordered that those who had surrenderedvoluntarily were not to be exiled as prisonersof war. He allowed
these to settle in Sonora with their peaceful Chiricahua kinsmen, near
the presidio of Bacoachi.8
By this time, however, the question was not so much whether the
Apache prisoners should be sent to Mexico City but how they were to
be prevented from escaping, returning from the interior, and renewing
their depredations. In response to the pleas of the commandant general
for tighter measures of security, the viceroy ordered an investigation
of the matter, and it was discovered that a large number of Apaches had
indeed escaped from the interior and made their way back to the frontier. Therefore, in 1788 the viceroy decided to send all of the hostiles
who were captured in the north to Vera Cruz, for shipment to Havana,
from whence escape would be practically impossible. By a royal order
of April 1 1, 1799, this procedure became mandatory.9
Although the captain general of Cuba needed convict labor for the
7
Viceroy Bernardo de Galvez, lnstruccidn formada en virtud de Real Orden de S. M., que se
dirige al Senor Comandante General de Provincias internas Don Jacobo Ugarte y Loyola
para gobiemo y funtual observancia de este Superior Gefe de sus inmediatos subalternos
(Mexico, 1786). The King, Real Orden, El Pardo, February 27, 1787, PI 77/8, AGN.
Commandant General Jacobo Ugarte, Relaci6n de numero de enemigos Apaches . . . , Arizpe,
September 30, 1787; Ugarte to Viceroy Manuel Antonio Flores, Arizpe, October 1, 1787;
Flores to Ugarte, Mexico, November 21, 1787, PI 112/1, AGN.
8
Ugarte to Governor Juan Bautista de Anza, Hacienda de San Salvador and Valle de San
Bartolome\ December 2, 12, 1788, PI 128/4. AGN.
9This confirmed a similar
viceregal order of the preceding year. Viceroy Marque's de Branciforte to Regent of the Audiencia Baltasar Ladron de Guevara, Orizaba, January 1, 1798,
PI 208/13, AGN; Comunes de Provincias Internas, No. 5 (1800); Minister Joseph Antonio
Caballero to Viceroy Jos£ de Iturrigaray, Madrid, July 16, 1803, PI 208/16, AGN.
2io
fortificationworks at Havana, he feared an influx of uncivilized Apaches
and attempted to restricttheir admission to minors. However, the Crown
ruled in 1803 that all Apache prisoners in Mexico, without exception,
would be sent to Havana.10
Such was the official Spanish policy for dealing with captured
Apaches as it had evolved during the eighteenth century. Essentially,
it had entailed at every stage a compromise, an attempt to accommodate the welfare and rehabilitation of prisoners, on the one hand, and
the security and labor needs of the realm, on the other. Unfortunately,
actual experience demonstrated that the two royal objectives were
mutually exclusive, and so idealism gave way to practicality.
In practice, as revealed in the surviving records of the prisoner
deportations especially in the years 1739, 1783, 1787-88, 1789,
1797-98, 1805, and 1808- 1809 - the captured Apaches were subjected to a hideous punishment, which the Spanish authorities made
little attempt to conceal. The official records were frank in revealing
not only the generous expenditures of public funds but also the strict
enforcement of security measures, the heavy casualties suffered by the
prisoners, and the ultimate disposition of the captives after they reached
the viceregal capital.
The security of the prisoners was of major concern, for Apache
cunning, hardihood, and perhaps desperation had enabled many of them
to escape from their military escorts time and again. Also, when they
returned to their own lands, they tended to become even more embittered
and destructive as marauders than before their capture. Official fear of
this development undoubtedly contributed to the stringent and often
brutal measures that were taken with the captives, but the brutality of
increased precautions also intensified the urge of the prisoners to regain
their freedom.
The first Spanish collera, or contingent, of Apache prisoners of
record was that sent from Texas in 1739. It consisted of Chief Cabellos
Colorados, his wife and two-year-old daughter, six other adult males,
and five other adult females, all members of his band. Technically, they
were not war prisoners, for the Spaniards did not officially declare war
on the Apaches until 1748, but they had been convicted of a violent
breach of a peace treaty in which several Spanish subjects were slain.
i°Caballero to Iturrigaray,Madrid,July 16, 1803, PI 208/16, AGN.
DEPORTATION
of APACHES
21 1
As a securitymeasure,the fourteenprisonerswere escortedby a guard
consistingsometimesof soldiers,sometimesof armedcivilians,and sometimes of a combinationof both, varyingin strengthfrom eight to sixteen men, usuallyunder a corporal.11
The convoy left San Antonio on February18, 1739, and, after
traveling102 days, reached Mexico City at the end of May. At each
town, ranch, and hamlet where it spent the night, it was receivedby
the principallocalauthority,who certifiedin writinghow manyprisoners
had arrivedand, occasionally,how they were individuallyrestrained.
Only the men were shackled,four of them with leg irons (grillos),two
with stocks(cormas),and the other with manacles(maneas).Five days
before reachingtheir destination,two of the men were releasedfrom
their restraints,but one was shortlysecuredagain, this time with ropes
(cuerdas).All were incarceratedin the Real Carcel de la Corte, better
known as the Acordada,in Mexico City.
Although the Reglamentoof 1772 providedthat some captives
would be internedin or near the presidiosand then releasedunder a
prisonerexchangewith the enemy, fifteen Apachewomen and children
wereescortedin 1773 fromthe Presidioof San Sabain Texas for internment at Saltillo,Coahuila.A corporal,seven soldiers,and severalTlaxcalanauxiliarieswere assignedto guardthem, and at Saltillo they were
lockedup in the localjail. There twelve of them dug throughthe adobe
wall and escapedduringa stormynight. Four were recapturedand, on
the ordersof the viceroy,all who remainedin custody were delivered
overto the civilianmagistrateof the town. He, in turn, was to distribute
them in the homes of reputablecitizenswho would maintainand educatethempendingtheirexchangefor thoseheld by theirkinsmen.This,
of course,constituteda compromiseof the policy which attemptedto
terminatethe assignmentof Indiancaptivesto frontierpersonnel.12
The contingent of prisonerssent in 1783 from Chihuahua to
MexicoCity consistedof 145 Apachesof both sexes.They left Chihuahua on January20 of that year,underan escortcommandedby an experiencedlieutenant.However,at dawn on January3 1, while encamped
11A detailed file on this collera of
Apache prisoners is in Auttos fechos por el Govr. de Texas
... (32 fojas), PI 32/8, AGN.
12
Captain Felix Francisco Pacheco to Bucareli, Saltillo, June 26, July 21, 1773; Bucareli to
Pacheco, Mexico, July 13, 1773; Acting-Alcalde Mayor Joseph Miguel Ramos, affidavit,
Saltillo, August 25, 1773, PI 22/12, AGN.
212
at the Estanciadel Rio Florido,fifty-sixof them - led by their chief,
Patule- managedto escape, some with their manaclesstill intact. A
subsequentinvestigationrevealedthat the escortingcommandantand
troopshad fully compliedwith theirobligationsand had done well, not
only to contain the remainderof the prisoners,but also to overtakeand
kill nine of the fugitives, including their chief. The forty-sevenwho
made good their escape included fourteen women and two infants.
Laterthe sameyearCommandantInspectorFelipe de Neve askedthat
additionalprecautionsbe takenwith the twenty-eightprisonershe was
sending to the viceroyfrom Monclova.This, he explained,was necessaryto preventthem fromescapingand returning"asthose taken in the
past have continuallydone/' Within anothertwo months the Crown
had issued the royal decree of July 5, 1783, requiringthe viceroy to
insurethat prisonersarrivingin the future could never returnto their
homelandand renew their depredations.13
Late in 1787, when he dispatchedthree separatecontingentsof
Apache prisonersfrom Sonora, CommadantGeneral Ugarte warned
the viceroythatamongthem were somewho had escapedfroman earlier
colleraand would probablyattemptto liberatetheir companionswhile
en routeto MexicoCity. Accordingly,when the firsttwo collerasreached
Guadalajara,
ViceroyFloressent a bodyof dragoonsto escortthemto the
capital. The third contingent, which arrivedat Guadalajaraafter the
first two had left, consistedof fifty-fourcaptives,including seventeen
under the age of ten. The thirty-seven"adults"were kept in the royal
prisonfor a week and then marchedto Mexico City underan armycaptain and twenty-fivearmedmilitiamen.At least seventeenof the thirtysevenweresecuredwith newly purchasedhandcuffs.14
By the 1780s mostof the Apacheprisonerswere no longermarched
on foot to Mexico City, but were transportedon muleback.In 1788
fifteen captive MescaleroApacheswere sent on foot from Coahuilato
San Luis Potosi,andon muleback(and in leg irons) fromthereto Mexico City. It was estimatedthat the latterstage of the trip amountedto
13Croix to G&lvez, Arizpe, June 2, 1783; Commandant Inspector Felipe de Neve to Croix,
May 22, 1783 (copy with Croix to G&lvez, Arizpe, July 28, 1783), Audiencia de Guadalajara,
Legajo 284, Archivo General de Indias [AGI], Seville. Gdlvez to the Viceroy, Madrid, July 5,
1783, PI 156/1, AGN.
14Flores to Intendant-Governor Antonio Villa Urrutia, Mexico, December 18, 1787 (summarizing Ugarte to the Viceroy, November 9, 1787); Villa Urrutia to Flores, Guadalajara,
December 28, 1787; February 22, 29, June 21, 1788; Alcaide Lorenzo Romdn Santana,
receipt, Guadalajara, February 22, 1788, PI 204/4, AGN.
2 13
ninety-three leagues (more than 300 miles) and consumed eighteen
days, including one of rest en route. The guard consisted of a veteran
sergeant and six mounted militiamen. A group of just under one hundred Apaches, who had been captured in Sonora, were dispatched from
Chihuahua in January of 1789 with a train of forty-eight mules. Each
mule probably carried two or more prisoners, for forty-six of them were
infants and children under the age of six. The trip, amounting to something over 1,500 miles, took seventy-five days. An officer and seventeen
troopers from the compaiiia volante stationed at Guajoquilla escorted
the train.15
The collera dispatched from Pilar de Conchos on November 5,
1797, consisted of seventy-one Apaches - eleven male and fifty-seven
female "adults" (over the age of fourteen) and three children. The
prisoners were provided with mules and placed under the guard of a
sergeant and twenty-four men of the compaiiia volante of Conchos.
Since one of the adult males (Polito) had previously escaped from a
train of prisoners bound for Vera Cruz and another (Gaslen) was a
chief of considerable renown for his belligerance, Commandant General Pedro de Nava had urged the sergeant of the escort, and also the
viceroy, to take particular care with these two. He also recommended
that, in order to prevent them from returning to the frontier, they be
sent "overseas."16
After a fifty-day march from Conchos the prisoners arrived at the
capital on December 26. On the Marques de Branciforte's viceregal
orders, they were incarcerated according to custom - the males in the
Acordada and the females in the Real Hospicio de Pobres, or public
charity house. The viceroy assured the frontier commandant general
that all of the prisoners would be taken under strictest security to Vera
Cruz and then shipped off to Havana. Accordingly, on January 18 of the
following year, he commissioned a lieutenant and twenty regulars to
escort them in irons to Vera Cruz.17
15Treasurer
Domingo de Beregana to Flores, Chihuahua, January 9, 1789; Sergeant Nicolas
Tarin, Relation, Hacienda de Rio Florido, January 27, 1789; Cadet Mariano Varela to the
Viceroy, Mexico, March 23, 1789, PI 156/5, AGN. Intendant-Governor Bruno Diaz de
Salcedo, Noticia and Derrotero, San Luis Potosi, April 12, 27, 1788, PI 58/1, AGN.
16Commandant General Pedro de Nava to
Branciforte, Chihuahua, November 14, 1797,
PI 208/13, AGN.
17
Viceroy to Nava, Orizaba, December 4, 1797; to Brigadier Pedro Ruiz DaValos, Orizaba,
December 5, 1797, and January 18, 1798; Ruiz Davalos to the Viceroy, M6rico, December 28,
1797, PI 208/13, AGN.
2i4
En route to their various destinations, the Apache prisoners seem
to have been properly fed. The Reglamento of 1772 had specified regular rations for them, and the requirement was taken seriously at all levels.
According to the receipts which accompanied the expense accounts of
the prisoner trains, the daily rations consisted principally of fresh beef,
corn, and beans; the clothing, mainly of hides or rough blankets (fresadas). Feeding and clothing the prisonersconstituted the major expense
in removing them from the frontier. To deliver a train of ninety-six
Apaches from Chihuahua to Mexico City in 1789, the royal treasury
provided over 1,200 pesos for daily rations on what was initially estimated as a seventy-day trip. This was calculated at two reales per day
- the same as for soldiers - for each
prisoner over fourteen years of
one
and
a
half
reales
for
six to fourteen, and one real
children
from
age,
for those under six. An additional 840 pesos were issued for the service
of the forty-eight mules which bore them, figured at the rate of two
reales per day for each beast of burden. This raised the estimated cost
to just over 2,043 pesos. The actual expense came to something less,
thanks to a number of casualties which occurred before the prisoners
reached their destination. Another 803 pesos were spent for the daily
maintenance, on their round trip, of the seventeen soldiers of the escort,
but this sum ultimately came out of their company's regular subsidy.18
Adequate food and clothing, however, did not insure the good
health of the prisoners. Some had been wounded in battle, others were
seriously ill, and all probably suffered fatigue from the long march and
confinement. At any rate, the most deplorable aspect of the deportation
of the Apaches was the high rate of casualties they suffered. The officers
guarding the colleras were required to report all illnesses and deaths,
but both they and the higher authorities apparently were more concerned with the spiritual than with the physical welfare of the prisoners.
They recorded which of the victims were baptized and whether or not
they were buried in consecrated ground, but seldom the nature of their
illness. Sometimes local food vendors certified (usually favorably) how
the prisoners had been treated by the escorting officer.
18Lieutenant Juan Sartorio, Cuenta, Hacienda de Rio Florido,
January 27, 1789, PI 156/5,
AGN, presents an expense account. Beregana to Flores, Chihuahua, January 9, 1789; Accountant Fernando de Herrera to the Contadores Mayores, Mexico, April 21, 1789; Varela to the
Viceroy, Mexico, March 23, 1789; Viceroy to Varela, Mexico, April 7, 1789, PI 156/5, AGN.
The fifteen Apache prisoners sent from San Luis Potosi in 1788 were furnished with only one
real's worth of rations per day. Diaz de Salcedo, Derrotero, April 27, 1788, PI 58/1, AGN.
DEPORTATION
of APACHES
2 15
Of the fourteenprisonerssent fromTexas in 1739, twelve reached
Mexico City alive. One man and one woman died en route, and the
others- six men, five women, and a child of two - were immediately
depositedin the pestilentialAcordada.After only five months of incarceration,three more men and anotherwoman had died, reducing the
numberto eight. Anotherwomanhad been transferredto the Hospital
de San Lazaroto be treatedfor leprosy,and it was not known whether
she was still alive or not. All were describedas very thin and looking
like skeletons.They could speak no Spanish except their Christian
names,and it could not be determinedwhether any of them had been
properlybaptized.By November 23, less than six months after their
arrival,therewereonly five survivors- two verysick men, two women,
and a child - of the originalfourteensent from Texas. How long the
five lasted was not recorded.19
Casualtieswereunusuallyheavyin the firstof the threecontingents
which reachedGuadalajarain the winter of 1787-88. Of the original,
unspecifiednumberin the train (there were fifty-fourin the third contingent), all but threehad died by February.The three survivors,moreover,wereundertreatmentat the Real Hospitalde Belen.20
Of the 108 Apachesdeliveredfrom Sonorato Chihuahuain 1788
for remissionto Mexico City, only seventy-threereachedthe viceregal
capital. Three died in either the jail or the ohraje (workhouse) at
Chihuahuaon December23, anotheron December 24, and two more
on January1, 1789. Anothertwo, who were too ill to travel,were left
at the obrajewhen the train departedon January5. Another died at
Conchos on January13, and still another,who was too ill to proceed
farther,was left at Valle de San Bartolomeon January19. Thus, when
the initial escortingofficerturned his Apache chargesover to his successoron January26 at the Hacienda de Rio Florido,seven had died
and threeothershad been left behind as invalids,leaving ninety-eight
in the train. Subsequently,an undecipherablenumberof Apache girls
was left at El Pasajewith a captainwho requestedthem. Other losses
19Orobio Bazterra, affidavit, Los Adaes, February 18, 1739; Escribano de la Guerra Juan de
Balbuena, affidavits, M6rico, October 21, November 4, 20, 1739; and Auditor de la Guerra
Pedro Malo de Villavicencio to the Viceroy, Mexico, October 27, 1739, PI 32/8, AGN.
2<>VillaUrrutia to Flores, Guadalajara, December 28, 1787; February 22, 1788, PI 204/4,
AGN.
216
were probablysufferedfartheron, for when the train reachedits last
stop before Mexico City on March 18, the prisonersnumberedonly
seventy-three.21
Disease seems to have been the grimmestreaper.In a contingent
of ninety-fiveApachessent to Mexico City late in 1794, fourteenhad
succumbedto an epidemic illness while still in the northernregion.
Earlyin 1797 it was reportedfromVeraCruz that, of the sixty-onewho
had arrivedfrom Mexico City the previousNovember, only twentyeight had survivedto boardthe ship for Havana. Twenty of the fiftyseven females and two of the four males had died in Vera Cruz, and
ten of the women and one of the men were still confined at the Hospitalde Loreto.Their illness,reportedaftertheirreleasefromthe Castle
of San Juande Ulua, was diagnosedas "putridfever"(calenturaspudridas). This was not consideredcontagious,but it was thought necessary
to buy blanketsfor all the women prisoners,so they would be less likely
to contractthe feverwhile aboardship.22
The collera of seventy-onesent from Conchos on November 7,
1797, arrivedat MexicoCity almostintacton December26 of thatyear.
One woman, being ill, had been left behind at Cerrogordo.The thirteen males were ensconcedin the dreadAcordadaand the fifty-seven
femalesin the Hospiciode Pobres,pending final disposition.However,
theirgood fortuneon the journeyfrom the northdid not last. As it happened,they reachedthe viceregalcapitaljust as it was experiencingone
of its worst epidemicsof smallpox.Within seventeen days after their
arrival,nine of the femalesin the Hospiciohad died fromsmallpox,two
otherswere sufferingfrom it, and three more had been transferredto
the HospitalReal de Naturalesfor treatmentand to avoid furthercontagion.A month latertwenty-threeothersdied, leavingonly twenty-five
survivors,and of these only nineteen were consideredwell enough for
the marchto VeraCruzand voyageto Havana.In anothertwo weekssix
morewomenhad died, ten wereveryill, six were convalescing,and only
21Sartorio, Relation, Hacienda de Rio Florido,
January 27, 1789; Ugarte to Flores, Chihuahua,
February 14, 1789; Varela to Flores, Tepexe, March 18, 1789, PI 156/5, AGN.
22Nava to Branciforte, Chihuahua, December 11, 1794, PI 15/1, AGN. Acting-Governor
Diego Garcia Padr6n to the Viceroy, Veracruz, February 15, 1797; Captain Antonio Garda
del Postigo to Antonio de Cdrdenas, aboard the Angel, Veracruz, January 10, 1797, PI
208/4, AGN.
2 17
three were pronounced well. Thus, of the fifty-seven who reached Mexico City sixty-fivedays before, only nineteen women still survived. What
happened to the thirteen men was not reported.23
For those Apaches fortunate enough to survive the arduous trip
from the north and pestilential incarcerationat the capital, the prospects
were sometimes better, though often worse. Usually, the women and
children who survived these ordeals were assigned to private families in
and around Mexico City and were cared for as domestic servants and
wards. Many of the able-bodied men were consigned to forced labor,
either in the Valley of Mexico, at Vera Cruz, or at even more remote
Havana. It was up to the viceroy to determine their fate.
In 1739, five months after the first Apache prisoners arrived, the
Auditor de la Guerra urged that they be removed from the viceregal
prison, where three men and a woman had already died. He recommended that they should be privately cared for and that the three men
remaining in jail should be sent to work in separate obrajes. There the
latter could support themselves by their labor, receive proper care and
Christian instruction, and also be prevented from escaping. He also
recommended that two of the three women be placed in the Indian
villages of San Juan and Santiago, for the same purpose, and that the
child be sent to the home of the Escribano de la Guerra for rearing.
However, only one of the men was sent to an obraje, where he shortly
died. The other two, being ill, were removed to the Hospital Real de
Naturales. One of the three women died in jail, and the other two,
although very ill, were placed in the homes of prominent persons. The
child was separated from her mother, and an attempt to rectify this
unfortunate disposition was thwarted when the guardian ran off with
the mother.24
In 1787 Viceroy Flores permitted the intendant-governorat Guadalajara to distribute seventeen Apache children under the age of ten
among those "decent"citizens of that city who asked for them and agreed
^Nava to Branciforte, Chihuahua, November 14, 1797; Ruiz DaValos to Branciforte, Mexico,
December 28, 1797; Administrator of the Hospital Luis Valencia, affidavit, Mexico, January
12, 1798; Administrator of the Hospicio Juan Antonio Araujo, Estado, Mexico, January 22,
1798, PI 208/13, AGN. Ladron de Guevara to Branciforte, Mexico, March 1, 1798, PI
208/16, AGN.
24Villavicencio to the Viceroy, October 27, 1739; Balbuena, affidavits, Mexico, November 4,
6, 20, and 23, and December 7, 1739, PI 32/8, AGN.
218
to maintainand educatethem. Adult men were seldomassignedto individual guardians,especiallyafter the Crown'ssecuritydecree of 1783,
but a notableexceptionwas madein 1805. The Archbishopof Mexico,
having personallyexaminedtwo Apache men in the Acordada,found
that one of them, who was totallyblind, had alreadybeen baptizedand
that the other, whose vision was seriouslyimpaired,had expresseda
desireto becomea Christian.He thereuponaskedViceroyJosede Iturrigarayforpermissionto takethe two men fromprison,baptizethe unconvertedone, and have both of them assignedto him personallyfor their
educationand generalcare. He noted that the impairedvision of both
would make it impossiblefor either to escape and resume hostilities,
and he hopedthat the gesturewould inspireother Apachesstill at large
to seek peace and, perhaps,even Christianity.The viceroygrantedhis
request.25
The requirementthat Apache prisonersof war be sent to Mexico
City (as specifiedin the Reglamentosof 1729 and 1772 and, especially,
the royalorderof July 5, 1783) had a two-foldpurpose.The intention
was not only to rid the northernfrontierof a dangerouselement, but
also to providea morehumane treatmentand, hopefully, a moreeffective conversionof the captivesthemselvesthan they had been receiving
in the hostile atmosphereof the North. Regional authoritieshad not
been followingthis royalpolicyconsistently,but when a furtherremoval
wasrequired(by the viceregaldecreeof October27, 1788, and the royal
orderof April 11, 1799) from Mexico City to Vera Cruz, and from
there to Havana,fewer exceptionsapparentlywere made.
Still, even the highestofficialswere temptedto place Apacheprisoners in privatehands. This arrangementinvolved a greatersecurity
risk and offered fewer guaranteesfor the health, welfare, and education of the prisonersthemselves,but it had the merit of being cheaper
for the government.As long as the captivesremainedin public custody
- in frontierjails, under armedescortto Mexico City, in the prisons,
charityhouses, and hospitalsof that city and Vera Cruz, and even in
convictlaboron the fortificationsof VeraCruz and Havana- they constituteda burdenon the royaltreasury.
25Flores to Villa Urrutia, December 18, 1787; Villa Urrutia to Flores, Guadalajara, February
22, 1788, PI 204/4, AGN. Archbishop Francisco Javier Lizana to Iturrigaray, Mexico,
June 25, 1805; Iturrigaray to the Archbishop, Mexico, June 28, 1805, PI 208/15, AGN.
DEPORTATION
of APACHES
2 19
In respectto prisonerwelfare, the pious intentionsof the Crown
were clearlyexpressedin the Reglamentoof 1772, the royal orderof
February20, 1779, and ViceroyGalvez'sinstructionsto Ugartein 1786.
Other directivesrequiredthe officersconducting prisonerconvoys to
keep detailedrecordsof theirexpendituresfor food, clothing,and medicine, and of the status of the individualsin their custody (i.e., which
had been baptized,had become seriouslyill, had been left behind, or
had died along the way). Yet, in spite of such officialconcern, there
was also abuse or, at least, neglect. While the death rate among prisonersin the colleraof 1739 was only 1.4%,it was 32.4%, collectively,
forthe convoysof 1789 and 1797. Evenworsethan the long and arduous
trip from the North was the horrorof urban incarcerationwhich followed. In 1739 and 1797-98, more than half of the Apache prisoners
died in Mexico City and Vera Cruz, largely from disease and malnutrition.
Actually, the dispositionof the prisonersof war constitutedonly
one elementof Spain'sIndian policyin America.It appliedonly to the
morebellicosetribesof New Spain'snorthernfrontierin the eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries.The sordiddetails of the procedurestrictconfinement,forcedlabor,family separation,and the absenceof
provisionsforeventualrelease- suggestan actualpractice,if not a deliberatepolicy, of sheer genocide. However, when viewed in perspective,
the brutalprocedurewas only a specific,not a general,Spanishsolution
to the Apacheproblem.
After 1772, many Apachesreceivedfreedomunder the prisonerexchangepolicy. Subsequently,many more were sparedby a general
amnesty.This latterdecision,authorizedin ViceroyGalvez'sinstructions
of 1786, and implementedby successivemilitaryadministrators
on the
tribes
to
their
frontier,permittedpeace-seekingApache
place
encampments under Spanishprotectionand pursuea tranquillife. Under this
arrangementthey were granted free trade in specified frontier communities, technicalassistancein establishingan agriculturaleconomy,
regularfood allotmentsuntil they could supportthemselvesby farming,
permissionto departseasonallyon hunting expeditionsto remotelands,
and militaryprotectionfromtheir Indianenemies.By 1787 some 4,000
Apacheshad taken advantageof this offer and had settled in villages
of their own under Spanish supervision.Although most of these fled
their "reservations"
from time to time, therewere approximately2,000
220
of them still settled peacefully in eight such establishments as late as
1793-26
Certainly the amnesty and prisoner-exchange programs, which
benefited thousands of Apaches, represented a far cry from an extermination policy. The brutal disposition of a few hundred prisoners of war
was therefore hardly typical of Spanish policy. In fact, the feeding,
clothing, sheltering, and hospitalizing of the Indians indicated something
other than an official intent to kill them off. Yet, in remanding them to
permanent confinement, forced labor, domestic service, or private wardship in an alien land, the authorities did indeed consign these Apaches
to despondency, disease, and a premature death.
26Max L. Moorhead,The Apache Frontier:
JacoboUgarte and Spanish-IndianRelationsin
NorthernNew Spain, 1769-1791 (U. of OklahomaPress, 1968), 125-28, 209-10, 212-13,
219-20, 224-25, 229-32, 277. Nava, Estadoque manifiestael numerode RancheriasApaches
existentes de Paz, Chihuahua, May 2, 1793 (enclosed with Nava to Minister Conde de
CampoAlange, same place and date), Guadalajara289, AGI.

Spanish Deportation of Apaches

Transcription

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