Winners Of The West
Vol XVI     No. 5
St. Joseph Missouri
May 1939
 
 
 
 

MY FRIEND, CHIEF ALTAHA
Robert Page Lincoln

"I climb the rise above Sleepy Waters creek in the Oucahita mountains of Arkansas and Chief Altaha meets me.  An amazing sort of a person to Chief Altaha, a page out of the past, a contradiction to everything you might ask.  This is not my own estimate, but likewise of others.  So far as his age is concerned he should be as wrinkled as a shriveled persimmon, and yet the wrinkles are not numerous, though the cheekbones very prominent.  His eyes are bright, keen, black and extremely shrewd.

His hair hands in two thin braids almost to his waist, streaked with white strands.  He has on an old pair of pants, a skin coat and a greasy sombrero.  This is Chief Altaha (Gray Horse), son of Chief Cochise, hereditary ruler of the Arizona White Mountain Apaches, who was displaced in supreme authority by Geronimo, the war chieftain, as the result of which the famous Geronimo campaign followed.  That was long, long ago during the youth of Gray Horse, who is now eighty-six years of age.

Once Gray Horse was known as the Apache Kid and there was a price of $20,000 on his head, dead or alive.  But we are getting a bit ahead of our story.

Gray Horse Born in Arizona Mountains
Gray Horse was born in the Cochise stronghold, near the summit of the Dragoon mountains, about 90 miles southwest of Tucson, Ariz.  In the region of the Dragoon mountains Gray Horse spent his early youth, acquiring so he says, all the knowledge and wood lore of his tribe.  The western frontier was being rapidly subdued in those days and an Indian reservation had been established at San Carlos.  In the chief's faultless English:

'The Government lumped a number of Apaches together on the barren land.  There was bound to be more or less trouble, because the tribes were distinct.  Finally the Indians discovered a white man thieving from the commissary and in accordance with their customs and belief, promptly shot him down..  A great deal of confusion followed in which the Indians fled
from the reservation, and took to their native territory again.'

This was in 1872, at which time Gray Horse was qualifying as a buffalo hunter.  The hostilities that broke out as the result of the rising of the Apaches required much patient fighting on the part of the United States Cavalry.  In fact, the intermittent, bush whacking type of contest continued for fourteen years.  What effect the ascendency of the war chief Geronimo had on the affections of Gray Horse for his tribe can only be conjectured.  He remained friendly to his people, but became a fugitive
before Geronimo and his people came to death grips with the cavalry.

Al Severs, chief of the United States Scouts, had been shot in the leg and lost the leg as the result of the wound.  Gray Horse was accused of the crime, tried by military court martial and sentenced to be shot.

The execution would have been carried out but an opportunity availed to escape and Gray Horse vanished.  Followed then the posting of a reward in Arizona of $10,000 by the then Governor George H.P. Hunt on his head, dead or alive, and the governor of New Mexico joined in with a like amount.

He was known from that time on as the Apache Kid and had a band of followers who led the usual life of the hunted.  Gradually his followers drifted away and Gray Horse was left practically alone.

When his travels brought him to the Utes he stayed with them for six months; had his hair cut like the Ute; apparantly embraced the Mormon religion, later worked his way down through Kansas, Oklahoma and was in Arkansas when he was fully pardoned in 1884.  The case was, according to Gray Horse, reviewed by a congressional committee which found him not guilty of shooting the government scout.

After his pardon Gray Horse returned to his tribe and used his influence with his people in their surrender to Lt. Charles B. Gatewood of the Sixth Cavalry, near Mexico in 1886.  Apparantly Gray Horse was accorded no more consideration than the rest of his people.  He remarks with regard to this episode:

'We had been lied to.  We had been told all other tribes had surrendered and been sent to a beautiful reservation in Florida but we were marched to San Antonio and were shipped by freight to Fort Smith, (Ark) and from there to St. Augustine, Florida.

There, 740 Apaches were huddled together in a moldy old fortress and in two years only 375 were left.  Finally they were sent back to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and for twenty-six years, or until 1912, were held as prisoners of war.  Of my tribe, about 160 are living today, only eight of the original prisoners still being alive.  Geronimo died as a prisoner of war.'

Gray Horse, however did not come to the same fate as his people.  Before the Apaches were taken from Florida he was called to the government school at Carlisle, Pa. to assist Major General Pratt in education of the Indians.  He was 35 years old when his education started.  His improved lot was, no doubt, due to his former activity on behalf of the United States government.  Although he did not speak English until he was 35, Gray Horse now speaks German, Spanish and English fluently.

Such, mainly, are the essential facts in the life of Chief Altaha, a living and walking contradiction of everything one would expect of an Indian.  No seeking for words to expressing himself.  The current of speech flows on and on, never dull, never lacking in interest.  It might be another Oxford educated Chief Brant or another inspired Red Jacked speaking.  And, too, he writes an excellent essay and an equally stirring poem."