Cochise(1812 — 1874)

In 1861, Lieutenant George Bascom falsely accused Cochise of having kidnapped a young boy and summoned him under a flag of truce. Realizing it was a trap, Cochise slashed through the canvas of the army tent with a knife and escaped under a hail of bullets. This episode, known as the “Bascom Affair,” set off more than ten years of war.

Cochise made his refuge in a maze of rocks in the Dragoon Mountains of Arizona, from where his warriors could watch the plain and vanish in an instant. The place was so impregnable that American soldiers never managed to dislodge him from it: it is still called the “Cochise Stronghold” today.

In July 1862, at Apache Pass, Cochise and his father-in-law Mangas Coloradas ambushed the California Column. The Apaches were caught off guard by a weapon new to them: howitzer cannons. Cochise reportedly said that his men could have defeated the soldiers “if it had not been for those wagons that shoot twice” (the cannons).

The peace of 1872 was achieved thanks to a rare friendship: that between Cochise and the mail carrier Thomas Jeffords, who had dared to enter the Apache camp alone and unarmed to negotiate the safety of his riders. Cochise agreed to deal with General Howard only on the condition that Jeffords become the agent of his reservation.

At his death in 1874, the Chiricahuas secretly buried Cochise in a crevice of the Dragoon Mountains, along with his horse and his weapons. They then galloped horses over the grave to erase every trace: the exact location remains unknown to this day.