The United States has an abysmal record of abandonment and betrayal of indigenous auxiliaries — men who helped us fight the wars of empire and were rewarded with a fistful of ashes.
During the Vietnam War, U.S. Army Special Forces worked and fought with Montagnard tribesmen in the Highlands, creating a highly-effective anti-communist force. And when the war went bad, we abandoned them to repression and expropriation.
Right now, there are Afghan translators and fixers who have been abandoned in their homeland after working loyally for the Americans — and marked for death by a resurgent Taliban.
If they’d been able to talk to the Apache scout Massai, they might have thought twice about serving the Americans.
*
Massai was a highly capable scout, despite his restive nature. He proved to be one of the preeminent survivalists of American history and legend.
Massai was a warrior of the Mimbreño Chihenne branch of the Chiricahua Apache people, whose homeland was the Black Range of New Mexico. He was known to his people as a restless spirit. He wasn’t inclined to go along with either the bronco Apaches or the U.S. Army if their interests crossed his.
In 1882, he was serving as a scout when Geronimo and Juh stormed up from Mexico and raided the San Carlos Agency reservation, forcing the Mimbreño chief Loco and his people at gunpoint to join them on the run back into the Sierra Madre. Massai’s wife and children were among Loco’s kidnapped people. When he returned from New Mexico to San Carlos, he was discharged and plunged into the Sierra Madre after them.
A young Apache who would later be known as Jason Betzinez, author of “I Fought With Geronimo,” recalled Massai’s brief sojourn in the Nedhni war leader Juh’s stronghold at Guayopa, deep in the Sierra Madre.
“He was one of those restive individuals who could not stay long in one place. Furthermore, he seemed to have a distaste for the rest of us, possibly because we were outlaws. So with his family he stole my horse and headed for San Carlos.”
Over the next couple of years, Massai earned a reputation as a highly capable and reliable scout. Not that that did him any good when Geronimo surrendered for the last time on September 4, 1886, and the Apache Wars officially came to an end. The word came down from Washington that not only Geronimo and Naiche’s bronco Chiricahuas must be sent into exile in Florida — the Chiricahua scouts must be sent, too.
Massai attempted to rouse his fellow scouts into an uprising, but they were too stunned and demoralized to act. With Massai among them, they were loaded on a train and sent east. Massai never made it. The prisoner jumped the train, possibly as far east as Missouri, and made it back to New Mexico, traveling at night and stealing food for sustenance. Apache oral tradition says that he made the trek with Gray Lizard, a Tonkawa friend who had been raised among the Apaches. Gray Lizard parted company with Massai in New Mexico, knowing that he would not be sought by the American authorities — and that they would never stop hunting Massai. The lone Apache warrior disappeared into the mountains of Apacheria — and into legend.
*
The Apache warrior was not always a lone wolf. We know that he rode with Adelnietze and escaped the firefight in which that bold renegade met his death. And he is believed to have ridden at times with the other legendary Apache outlaw, the Apache Kid. But mostly he was on his own — with a craving for female company.
Massai left a wife and children behind on the train, headed into exile in hot, humid Florida. He must have missed them, the Apache being deeply committed to family. But he did not pine away. Moving into Arizona, he raided Fort Apache and the San Carlos Agency for food and other supplies — and women. Dark tales spoke of murder; when he tired of the women, he killed them.
In one incident famously recounted by artist Frederick Remington, who was embedded with U.S. Cavalry troops at this time, Massai killed an Apache mother near Fort Apache, and kidnapped her daughter. The famous scout Mickey Free took his trail, which wound through the rugged Arizona mountains, but he was never able to run the lobo Apache down. Several months later, the Apache girl named Natastale returned to Fort Apache with a horse loaded down with buckskins and a tale to tell.
In the company of Massai she had ventured into the Sierra Madre, where they hid out and lived by the proceeds of Massai’s solo raids. Occasionally the warrior fell into a dark, brooding mood and contemplated killing her, but her usefulness and a well-pleaded case kept her alive until Massai decided to simply send her home. He told her to tell the Americans “that she was a pretty good girl, better than the San Carlos woman (his first wife?) and that he would come again and get another.”
Frederick Remington was embedded with U.S. Cavalry troops and Apache scouts at the time they were hunting Massai and other Apache outlaws.
Massai’s next woman would prove to be a life partner. He found her to the east, in Mescalero Apache country, where he espied her bathing and accosted her. Zanagoliche would stay with Massai till the end, bearing him six children while living on the run in New Mexico, Arizona and Northern Mexico.
Their daughter, Alberta Begay, recounted their fugitive life in Eve Ball’s magnificent Indeh: An Apache Odyssey. Massai hunted with self-made bow and arrows, saving rifle cartridges for combat, which he generally sought to avoid. Zanagoliche and Alberta claimed that Massai only killed to protect his family, and from their perspective that is undoubtedly true. But it seems abundantly clear that he was an opportunistic killer who did not hesitate to shed blood in his ghostly raids on both sides of the border.
Massai’s two-decade run with a young family in tow is an American epic of survival. He evaded not only U.S. troops but White Mountain Apache scouts and posses of cowboys and Mexican vaqueros in an ever-shrinking world. His fieldcraft must have been of a very high order, even for an Apache, and his mental fortitude served him well in an environment where making a mistake would mean death.
The end came in 1906 when he stole horses from a group of New Mexico cowboys. They trailed the stolen horses and ambushed the renegade. Massai was shot down and the cowboys cut off his head and burned his body in great bonfire. After the cowboys left the gruesome scene of their triumph, Zanagoliche crept down to the smoldering embers and stirred them with a long stick. She collected every shard and fragment of bone and set them aside for burial. And she found the buckle of her man’s ammunition belt.
With no other options, Zanagoliche eventually brought her children to the Mescalero Agency. There, generation after generation, a belt buckle is passed down — the only trace of an elusive, highly-skilled Apache Frontier Partisan.
*
Frontier novelist Paul I. Wellman told the tale of Massai in his remarkable 1936 novel Broncho Apache. That novel inspired the 1954 movie Apache starring Burt Lancaster as Massai. It was one of Hollywood’s first “pro-Indian” movies. I loved the movie as a kid. It deserves a remake — with native actors.
Burt Lancaster as Massai.
Information for this post comes from Paul A. Hutton’s magnificent The Apache Wars; Edwin R. Sweeney’s From Cochise to Geronimo; and Eve Ball’s Indeh: An Apache Odyssey.
Matthew says
Massai seems to have been pretty wild even for an Apache. A renegade in a society of renegades. Not someone I would like to meet in a dark New Mexico canyon.
It’s also odd that he has a one letter difference in name from an African tribe.
I’ve been reading Fighting Men by Jim Morris which talks about his time in Vietnam and the Montagnards. I actually read one of the articles you linked to a few days ago. Now I know where the term Snake-Eater comes from.
JimC says
Ah, Frontier Partisan synchronicity. Love it when that is clicking….
Yeah, Massai was a tough, badass hombre.
Breaker Morant says
Curses, with your talk of the Montagnards and so forth-you have me itching to dig out Bernard Fall’s “Street without Joy” on the French War in Indochina. They also used similar indigenous help.
JimC says
Bernard Fall was one of the more remarkable men of the 20th Century. Too bad more heed was not paid to his work from the get-go. David Hackworth read him though…
lane batot says
I was HOPING yer next Bronco Apache segment would be about Massai! I just recently got a newer(2008) novel about him, titled “Massai; The Last Apache Outlaw” by Grady E. McCright, that I’m looking very forward to reading! Has the same photo on the cover, with a photo of that belt buckle superimposed over it! I’ll havta let you know what I think of it….Massai has always been a hero of mine, despite his sometimes brutal divorce rate(kinda shades of Sheherazade!). I saw, and loved and was inspired by the Lancaster movie as a kid–I still love it, for sentimentality’s sake. But YES, I’d also LOVE to see a modern, more historically accurate, Native starring cast. Probably too much about it(in an ACCURATE portrayal, that is) that would be “politically incorrect” for the cowardly philosophies that hold sway just now. A “white-washed” Massai couldn’t even compare to the 1950’s version, with all it’s inaccuracies! That’s SAD.But maybe some daring, rebel director would take it on. I think Burt Lancaster at least channeled the SPIRIT of Massai purty darn good, despite his glaring blue eyes!
JimC says
TV seems to have more balls than movies, especially when it comes to challenging an audience’s affections for a protagonist.
Matthew says
Because cable they make a lot more shows these days so a lot screenwriters went there instead of movie studios. To say nothing to being frustrated with producers.
Paul McNamee says
The United States has an abysmal record of abandonment and betrayal of indigenous auxiliaries — men who helped us fight the wars of empire and were rewarded with a fistful of ashes.
One wonders why we keep doing this. Surely there isn’t anything tactical about the decisions to abandon. Is it red tape horseshit? Not on the military rolls, not accounted for?
It flies in the face of honor, unless I’m missing something.
JimC says
CIA and military personnel defied orders to get South Vietnamese counterparts out of the country in 1975 as Saigon fell. It was the right, honorable and moral thing to do, since these men and their families faced death for their role. At some level of the bureaucracy, honor evaporates in a fog of bullshit.
Matthew says
C. S. Lewis believed that Hell would look like a bureaucracy whether government or corporate. He mentions it in the forward to the Screwtape Letters. This was written after the discovery of the Concentration camps.
Black Tyrone says
Ah Yes Saigon April. Remember it well
J.F. Bell says
If a government is willing to abandon its own veterans, safe money says it won’t do much for its defeated allies.
Nature of the beast, I imagine.
JimC says
Trenchantly — and accurately — put.
Black Tyrone says
” Wolves for the Blue Soldiers” , Thomas W Dunlay an essential work on Indian scouts 1869-90. Pawnee were successful and with the North brothers much more than Auxillaries. Gotta get out of that “Dances with Wolves” image. Pawnee were tough and had to be many enemies and caught caught in the middle. US kept promises better than with others. ” a good account for those who believe they know the story is Van De Logt’s War Party in Blue. Said this once before I recall. Best..
lane batot says
Same for the Crow. No doubt it depends on a few decent, honorable people in charge being at the right place at the right time–sadly too rare an occurrence in history.Too many jerks and pompous, unqualified arses competing hatefully for the positions of power–because they want them the most, in the worst way. And they usually drive off the decent, qualified folks with lies and intrigue–sounds amazingly like my own workplace right now! But back to the Crow–I find it very ironic(and aggravating) how the Crow sided with the Whites in the Plains conflicts(and it was a matter of survival for them, surrounded and overwhelmed by all manner of formidable tribes!), but it was also just wisely being able to see the handwriting on the wall. Not that the Crow have not had to deal with their share of prejudice and oppression, but thanks to the wisdom of their leaders long ago, they got to stay and keep a part, at least, of their traditional homeland. Anyway–ironic that they were allies of the whites in so many conflicts, but are so often portrayed as Indian villians in film and fiction now!
Black Tyrone says
The great Crow Chief Plenty Coups was most wise.
Matthew says
The fact that the Crow were usually on the side of whites actually is probably the reason that they are usually villains. They would considered “traitors.” Never mind that different Indian tribes fought each other long before European colonization.
The Tonkawa, despite or even because of there reputations as cannibals were usually align with the Texians. The Comanche and other tribes were pretty nasty in retaliation.
Black Tyrone says
Black Seminoles too have been largely ignored by those. Kinda like when Jim laments too much Wyatt Earp and not enough Al Sieber.
Traveling through colonial East Africa one eventually hears the term Ruga Ruga.
lane batot says
The whole Seminole conflict would make for an amazing, stereotype-destroying view of American Indians(and the slave trade and black Americans of that period!) that might could even placate the anally “politically correct” set in many ways(if not others….) that would make for a SPLENDID, gritty, poignant, UNIQUE cable TV series on early America. Florida being quite the formidable wilderness then, as opposed to the land of exploitive, EXPENSIVE vacation entertainment and upper class retirement that it is today! An excellent book on the conflict, usually available reasonably, is “Hunted Like A Wolf; the story of the Seminole War” by Milton Meltzer…..
JimC says
That would be splendid indeed.
Black Tyrone says
Lane, read Dade’s Last Command! {Frank Laumer} Seminole vengeance. 108 US regulars wiped out December 1835 long before Fetterman fight. In the middle of read now.
lane batot says
…Thanks, I’ll havta check that one out sometime, Tyrone, but I have read several overall accounts of the Seminole wars that of course got into the Dade massacre somewhat. I love how the Seminoles as a people never totally,officially surrendered to the U. S.(shades of the last bronco Apaches, certainly!), but that the U. S. finally just gave up trying to root all of them out of those then almost impenetrable swamps! And now most of Florida is a popular tourist destination!
Black Tyrone says
Great! This account is solely about the battle and is broken down by day. Enjoy Well respected account by Florida historians. University Press of Florida. Yes a few bands {not all} never surrendered but sought refuge in the Everglades. There are still wild areas, be careful Nothing quite comes at you like a Florida cottonmouth!
Saddle Tramp says
Jim,
You could be another Bob Boze Bell but with Frontiers without borders and even edgier and [wilder]. Great piece and in my favorite frontier territory…
— ST
VIA: Richfield, UT leaving out from the Flyin’ Hook (Flying J) heading to Denver and unfortunately traveling through this wondrous canyon country in the dark.
JimC says
Thanks ST.
lane batot says
….and having mentioned above about the non-surrendering Seminole, and tying it in with the bronco Apaches, a MARVELOUS history rewrite make-believe fantasy just popped into my head–WHAT IF(great title for a revolutionary cable TV series that explored alternate historical possibilities!), the exiled Apaches in Florida had escaped and were given asylum by the Seminole holdouts deep in the swamps? Like mixing fire with gasoline, perhaps! Well, it could be for the sake of dramatic television–I’D like to see that!
JimC says
I’d watch that.
Black Tyrone says
Led by Chato! WOW!
Richard Hudson says
Moved to Ft. Worth 1971 after living on Warm Springs Indian Rez. Bet a hunting buddy I could get to my folks house 401 mi. Northwest and never be seen. Made it 205 mi. Northwest carrying a wool blanket, oiled canvas, canteen, pemmican and dried cactus. Ate critters, had fires only to cook. Farming and cattle work going on. Saw lots of people up close. Only concern was bored people that like to shoot at anything that moves. Had a hatchet and long barreled .22 pistol (not to hunt) for that contingency. Was a runner for years. Traveled late afternoon (into sun) night and early morning. Was never seen and gained 5 pounds. Never less than 45 miles/day. Did it during a medical school break and had to quit to go back to class. Did a few survival classes on own and in service. But nothing to compare to the Indians. Met an Apache tracker, 10 times out of my league. I was 5’10” tall and 15# overweight at 168#. Wore tall moccasins made on the Rez for me.
JimC says
This is wonderful.