Cochise

Cochise was born around 1805 into the Chokonen band of the Chiricahua Apache, in the mountain borderlands of what is now southeastern Arizona, then claimed first by Spain and later by Mexico. Almost nothing about his early life survives in writing; what is known comes mostly from Apache oral tradition rather than any Spanish, Mexican or American record. He grew into a war leader of the Chokonen and married Dos-teh-seh, daughter of the powerful Chihenne chief Mangas Coloradas, raising two sons, Taza and Naiche, in a borderland where Apache raiding parties and Mexican militias had traded attacks for generations before a single American soldier crossed into the country.

In February 1861, Lieutenant George Bascom accused Cochise of kidnapping a rancher's stepson and stealing cattle, crimes he had not committed. Bascom tried to hold him under a truce flag; Cochise cut through the tent wall with a knife and escaped, and both sides then executed hostages. The Bascom Affair opened eleven years of war across the Arizona borderlands, fought first against Mexican forces and then, after 1863, against the United States following the killing of his father-in-law Mangas Coloradas under another flag of truce. Cochise led raids from a stronghold in the Dragoon Mountains through the mid-1860s, evading repeated Army campaigns. In October 1872 he negotiated directly with General Oliver Howard, aided by the trader Tom Jeffords, and won a reservation carved from his own homeland rather than exile to distant land.

Cochise's peace held only because it was personal: the 1872 treaty rested on his word to Howard and Jeffords, not on any binding document, and the reservation dissolved within two years of his death when Washington moved the Chiricahua to San Carlos anyway. The same man who refused to break his word to Jeffords had spent a decade ordering the killing of Mexican and American civilians in retaliation raids, following an Apache code that made no distinction between soldiers and settlers' families. His younger son Naiche inherited the chieftainship in 1876 after his brother Taza died, then broke out of the reservation with Geronimo in 1885 and fought two more years in the exact war Cochise had spent his last years trying to end.

Cochise died at his stronghold in the Dragoon Mountains on June 8, 1874, of what his people and later writers believed was abdominal cancer. His grave, somewhere in the rocks above the pass, was never marked, and Jeffords, the one American who knew its location, never told. The Chiricahua Reservation he negotiated was dissolved in 1876, and his people were eventually removed and held as prisoners of war for 27 years after Geronimo's 1886 surrender, not freed until 1913. Cochise County, Arizona, created in 1881, still carries his name over land his own treaty was supposed to guarantee his family.

Cochise's life against the full span of the corpus.

• 1872 peace treaty with Oliver O. Howard other
  Negotiated in person with the aid of trader Tom Jeffords; ended a decade of war 1872
• Chiricahua Reservation other
  Covered his own homeland in the Dragoon and Chiricahua Mountains; dissolved in 1876 1872
• United Chokonen-Chihenne resistance coalition other
  Combined bands under his leadership through eleven years of war against Mexico and the United States 1861

• c. 1805 aged ~0 Born into the Chokonen band of the Chiricahua Apache
• February 1861 aged ~56 Wrongly accused of kidnapping and cattle theft, escapes Army custody by cutting through a tent wall The Bascom Affair opened eleven years of war.
• July 15, 1862 aged ~57 Leads roughly 500 Apache fighters against California Volunteers at the Battle of Apache Pass
• January 1863 aged ~58 Father-in-law Mangas Coloradas is killed under a flag of truce Intensified Cochise's war against the United States.
• October 12, 1872 aged ~67 Negotiates peace with General Oliver O. Howard and wins the Chiricahua Reservation Trader Tom Jeffords, his only white friend, brokered the meeting.
• June 8, 1874 aged ~69 Dies at his stronghold in the Dragoon Mountains Cause is generally given as abdominal cancer.
• 1876 aged ~71 The Chiricahua Reservation is dissolved and his people are moved to San Carlos

• Geronimo 1829–1909
  Apache leader whose prolonged resistance became a powerful symbol of Indigenous opposition to U.S. expansion. resistance continued by
• Ulysses S. Grant 1822–1885
  18th President and Union Army general whose leadership was decisive in winning the Civil War. peace negotiated under
• Kit Carson 1809–1868
  Frontiersman and scout who guided John C. Frémont and became a legend of the American West. frontier era contemporary
• William Tecumseh Sherman 1820–1891
  Union general whose campaigns through Georgia and the Carolinas helped destroy the Confederacy’s capacity to wage war. army command opposed