During the early history of encounters between whites and Apaches in Arizona and New Mexico, the Apaches viewed U.S. settlers with ambivalent eyes. In some cases, they viewed them as allies to the Mexicans and in others as invaders. In 1852, the United States and some Chiricahuas signed a treaty that had little lasting effect. In the 1850s, American miners and settlers began moving into Chiricahua territory.

In 1871, President Ulysses S. Grant appointed General George Crook, the only officer to successfully subdue the Apaches before they were expelled in 1886, as commander of the Department of Arizona. In the 1880s, the Apaches earned the nickname Crook Nantan Lupine (meaning wolf chief). He was one of the few army officers the Apaches really trusted. Crook not only used Apache scouts to track down the renegade Apaches, but also reorganized his train of mule packs for Army expeditions. Pack trains were expensive and complex to maintain. That meant food, shelter and ammunition. Many officers credited Pac Train for defeating Native American tribes.

On December 14, 1872, President Grant established the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona Territory. In 1870, the government transferred control of the “Indian” agency from the military to civilians and transferred it to the Ministry of the Interior, thus creating a conflict over reservations between the army and agents. President Grant’s peace policy also made various religious groups responsible for the management of new reservations and the selection of agents.

White agents and officers knew little about tribal cultural, customs, and language differences. As a result, tribes were forced to live in close proximity to one another, even if they were enemies. Meanwhile, the Apaches were to be fed and housed by caretakers, but they rarely saw the money sent by the government and suffered as a result. Crook was sent north to Platt’s station (Platt’s station is a border that includes Iowa, Nebraska, the Dakota Territory, the Utah Territory, and a small portion of Idaho) and was ordered by the U.S. Army on March 5, 1866. was a military administrative district established in 1875 to deal with Native American problems in Montana.

In 1877, some of the Chiricahua Apache were moved from Fort Bowie to the San Carlos Reservation. The Apaches disliked San Carlos and stayed in San Carlos because it was relatively safe from enemy attacks. In addition, the government has rationed them. The settlement was called Hells 40 Acres because of the poor living conditions.

Ratten left his family in Florence in 1879 and arrived in the town of Grove with a battered donkey, five dollars, a saddle, a donkey harness and the clothes he was wearing. Grove was originally a mining camp on Rambo’s He Peak, but was moved to the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in 1875 after silver was discovered. By February 1881, Grove was the county seat of Gila. With Grove’s renewed importance as the county seat, a stagecoach was established to connect Grove to Silver City, New Mexico Territory. Due to Grove’s relative isolation from the rest of Arizona and its proximity to the San Carlos Apache Reservation, Grove remained a frontier town.

Around 1881, Ratten was reportedly part of a group of men who built a general store in San Carlos, and was one of the clerks there. Not only did he experience working, he soon learned the various Apache dialects. The Apaches on the reservation – Chiricahua, White He Mountain, Kihenne – used different dialects, but Ratten seems to have mastered them all. Many reports emphasized that no other white man could speak the Apache language as fluently as Wratten. Through his close contact, he also began to earn the trust of the Apache tribe, becoming a buffer between officers, agents, and members of the tribe.

The Apaches received rations once a week. Some families set up camp across the river from the distribution site. Their rations would be given to someone else when they didn’t show up, so they tried to cross the river even at high tide. Ratten’s older sister Edith said in her 1940 interview that her brother not only could swim, but she was one of the few who was a good swimmer and could cross the river to carry rations to the other side. says. If he hadn’t done this, many would have remained hungry. It is easy to imagine that this devoted young man, with his excellent language skills and willingness to help, became a good and trusted friend to many tribe members.

One of his best friends was the warrior Anandya. The incident happened around 1881 when Ratten said he was 16 years old. Ratten was reportedly threatened with a knife by an Apache member while on duty at the trading post. The man he felt was wronged. A Kienne named Anandya intervenes and saves Ratten’s life, and a lifelong friendship begins. This was an important experience for his Wratten.

In 1880, Ratten began working as a packer on General Crook’s mule train. 1881 and his 1882 must have been busy years for Wratten, but no confirmed details are known. During this time, however, he was employed at Forts Stanton, Cummings, and Bowie.

In 1882, conditions in San Carlos were generally described as deplorable. Even the Apaches who had lived on the reservation for years were now suspicious, disaffected, and “warlike.” Occasionally, small groups of Apache left the San Carlos Reservation. They reportedly joined a small group of Chiricahuas in the Sierra Madre. Some Apache members promised peace and remained — even though the situation was dire. On April 19, 1882, Geronimo, Naiche, and Chats, along with a group of Apache warriors, infiltrated the San Carlos Reservation and forced a band of Loco women and children to accompany them. .

According to Army accounts, the group was taken by surprise by soldiers, 14 men were killed and survivors were surrounded. Geronimo left in the middle of the night to reunite with the Nedney Band of the Chiricahua Apaches at Leader Zhu’s camp in the Sierra Madre. Shortly after, Mexican forces attacked the camp, killing some Apaches and forcing the rest to flee. Geronimo, Chihuahua and Carteny stayed with about 80 women and children and continued to raid Sonora and Arizona for livestock and ammunition.

On the reservation, meanwhile, a change in trading post ownership ended in an open dispute involving the army. Ratten, already on his army’s payroll at Fort Cummings, refused to leave the trading post and the Indian Agency until his employer ordered him to do so. However, Apache Rogers Tocrany intervened and prevented further violence. Ratten was later adopted by the Chiricahua tribe because of two incidents with Anandya and Tocrany.

In October 1882, a grand jury inquiry in Tucson, Arizona, revealed the status of San Carlos’ agency. Crook returned to Arizona in the fall of 1882 and was called up as commander of the Department of Arizona, where he again began the process of pacification. Some of the tribe’s food was sold to merchants, and the borders of the reservation were cut five times by him regardless of the Apaches. Unauthorized squatters and miners flocked to the reservation, and many merchants in nearby towns became rich selling food and supplying the army.

Perhaps this is why George Medhurst Ratten’s father, George Lemon Ratten, left the area with his family. On October 12, 1882, George Lemmon Wratten moved to Albuquerque to be appointed a notary and started his business. According to the manuscript, his son and some other family members remained at home. At the time, George Medhurst Wratten was the director of the Pack Train in Fort Bowie, Arizona, a key location following the Apache Rebels.

On May 23, 1882, Crook gathered over 220 Native American hostile ships, including Nana and Loco’s group, at his camp and began returning north to San Carlos. Geronimo asked for a few days to delay gathering his men, and Crook agreed. Many of the Apaches, tired of their dangerous and harsh life, have returned in peace. A month later he published a message on 10 June that the expedition had crossed the border and the newspapers had caught hostile ships.

Veronika Ederer received her Ph.D. She completed her PhD in Cultural Anthropology at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt on the River Main in Germany. Originally from Germany, she has worked in Switzerland for several years, including at the Museum of the North American Indigenous Peoples in Zurich and the talented program ‘Universikum’ in Zurich. She has visited Roswell, New Mexico, and traveled across the United States for her research purposes. The published author is currently working on a new book based on her research on the Apaches of the Southwest, which she shares in her column in a condensed form for the first time.