San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation - Information

Information

President U.S. Grant established the San Carlos Apache Reservation on December 14, 1872. The government gave various religious groups the responsibility for managing the new reservations, and the Dutch Reformed Church was given charge of the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation. They sought out a candidate to run the reservation at Rutgers College and were connected with John Clum, who had attended the church while in school in Claverack, New York. Clum knew that a number of Indian Agents sought the position only as a means to line their own pocket, selling government-supplied food and clothing and keeping the profits for themselves.

The Apaches, who were supposed to be fed and housed by their caretakers, rarely saw the results of the federal money and suffered as a result. The U.S. Army showed both animosity toward the Indians and disdain for the civilian Indian Agents. Soldiers and their commanding officers sometimes brutally tortured or killed the Indians for sport. After turning the position down twice, Clum relented and on February 16, 1874, Clum accepted a commission as Indian Agent for the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in the Arizona Territory.

To the distant politicians in Washington, D.C., all Indians were alike. They did not give consideration to the different tribes, cultures, customs and language. They also ignored prior political differences and military alliances. They tried to apply a “one-size-fits-all" strategy to deal with the “Indian problem”. As a result, friends and foes alike were forced to live in close proximity to one another.

Clum arrived at the reservation on August 4, 1874. During his tenure at San Carlos, he struck a lifelong friendship with Eskiminzin, an Aravaipa Apache chief, and persuaded many of the White Mountain people to move south to San Carlos. He visited Apache camps without soldiers and fiercely defended the Apaches against the military's interference. In this way Clum gradually and grudgingly won the Indians's confidence. They responded by turning in their weapons, using a tribal court to try minor infractions, and joining the Tribal Police organized under Clum's command, forming a system of limited Indian self-rule. The agent soon attracted 4,200 Apaches and Yavaais Indians to the semi-arid reservation. The Army bristled at Clum's actions because they prevented them from raking off part of the funds that passed through the reservation.

On April 21, 1877 Clum along with 100 of his best Apache Police captured the marauding Geronimo at the Ojo Caliente Reservation in the New Mexico Territory. The U.S. Army, which had mounted intense efforts to track-down and capture Geronimo, was seriously embarrassed by his success and their failure. Indian Bureau administrators and U.S. Army commanders disliked his methods and continually frustrated his efforts. He finally resigned. The reservation's new administrators released Geronimo, resulting in more than 15 years of conflict across the American southwest.