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Introduction
In 1863, Apache chief Mangas Coloradas was killed by the U.S. military in what Geronimo, another Apache war leader, describes as “perhaps the greatest wrong ever done to the Indians” (Barrett 119). As Union troops were pulled out of Arizona and New Mexico to fight in the Civil War, tensions between settlers and Apaches rose. Coloradas was an impressive warrior, leader, and diplomat, uniting multiple bands of Apaches by earning their respect as a warrior and leader, and through diplomacy by marrying his daughters to other chiefs. While Coloradas wanted to establish peace (Carleton to West, The War of the Rebellion 147-48)1 , the California Volunteers First Infantry saw him as a threat, and local miners saw him as an impediment to finding gold. Lured in under the guise of peace talks, Coloradas was seized and later killed, while allegedly “attempting to escape,” as the military record states (Shirland). The duplicity of Coloradas’s killing, and the subsequent mutilation of his body, spurred on the dwindling Apache wars for several more years (Hutton 103). To this day we still do not know exactly what happened leading up to Coloradas’s death; all accounts vary dramatically depending on who is telling the story, and so we are left with multiple conflicting narratives.
This project uses Fisher’s narrative paradigm, a form of rhetorical analysis, to examine the multiple accounts of the circumstances surrounding the death of Mangas Coloradas in order to assess the credibility of the various accounts. The narratives from military personnel are told by Brigadier General Joseph West, Clark Stocking, and William McCleave. The miner accounts are both from Daniel Ellis Conner, written at two different points in time, with changes from the first telling to the second. And the Apache accounts are from Geronimo, Kaywaykla, and Daklugie. This paper finds a lack of coherence and fidelity among accounts given by the military personnel and by Conner, casting doubt on their reliability as narrators. The Apache accounts, on the other hand, while not as comprehensive, coincide with what we know to be true. Though previous literature surrounding the death of Coloradas does not give these narratives much weight, the information they share is consistent and, through Fisher’s paradigm, appears to be credible.
The first section of this paper will strive to establish my own identity and introduction to this work, as well as position my argument in the context of the larger body of scholarship within Native American studies.2 The second section will delve more in depth into the events directly preceding Mangas Coloradas’s death, as well as the tensions that had been brewing between Apaches, the military, and the local miners for years and that contributed to these events. The third will discuss Fisher’s narrative paradigm and the qualities of coherence, fidelity, and the logic of good reason. Finally, in the last section, the different narratives will be discussed and evaluated through the lens of Fisher’s Paradigm.
[1] The letters referenced in this work come from a compilation of official records of the union and confederate armies that were published as The War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official Records of the Union and Confederate Armies.
[2] The rhetorical analysis of this paper, which seeks to highlight indigenous accounts, is situated in relation to a larger body of scholarship within Native American studies. This includes the work of Scott Lyons, Malea Powell, Ernest Stromberg, and Regina McManigell-Grijalva, which will be explored more fully below, as well as a larger body of literature including Kimberly G. Wieser’s Back to the Blanket: Recovered Rhetorics and Literacies in American Indian Studies, Gerald Vizenor’s Manifest Manners: Postindian Warriors of Survivance and Narratives of Native Presence, and Survivance, Sovereignty, and Story: Teaching American Indian Rhetorics, edited by Lisa King, Rose Gubele, and Joyce Rain Anderson.