Thanks to Jim Postema for forwarding the request from Rebecca Johnson
for information regarding her possible Chiricahua ancestry. I have
completed all but several maps for a book on the culture history
of the Chiricahua and Warm Springs Apache from 1786 to 1960, and so
can provide some information that may help. According to C. C. Painter,
a corresponding secretary of the Indian Rights Association, all but 10
Chiricahua and Warm Springs Apache were transported from Hollbrook,
Arizona, to Florida in 1886. Those 10 were married to Western Apache
and were living with them. (I don't cite the reference because you
probably would not find it most libraries).
A group of 77 Chiricahua under the local group leader Chihuahua were
sent to Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Florida, in April, 1886. Another
456 Chiricahua and Warm Springs joined them there the following October.
Geronimo and 16 others were imprisoned at Fort Pickens, Pensacola. In
April, 1887, *all* Apache prisoners of war at Fort Marion were
transferred to Mount Vernon Barracks, an Army installation 22 miles
north of Mobile, Alabama. Geronimo and the 14 other prisoners at Fort
Pickens still alive joined them there in May, 1888. All of these Apache
were transferred to the Fort Sill Military Reservation in Oklahoma in
late September, 1894. In April, 1913, 186 Apache prisoners of war,
all but 14 of them (who were Warm Springs) Chiricahua, were resettled
on the Mescalero Reservation in New Mexico; 86 others, over half of
them Warm Springs, chose allotments north of Fort Sill. Their
descendants are known as the Fort Sill Apache.
I think it odd that Rebecca's paternal grandmother was adopted, since
the Chiricahua did not practice adoption and still object to it. An
aunt (particularly the mother's sister) or an uncle have always had
the responsibility to raise an orphan as a foster child. Grandparents
may assume the responsibility if aunts and uncles are unable or
unwilling to do so. There are few known cases of adoption, and these
are admitted with regret.
If Rebecca's grandmother was born in Utah in 1892, it was certainly not
among her own people. This makes it unlikely that present-day Chiricahua
on the Mescalero Reservation or the Fort Sill Apache would be able to give
any information. The reason is that the only record of family relationships
that existed before 1913 was in the form of two unpublished record books
kept by George Wratten, a white Army scout and interpreter who voluntarily
went into exile with the prisoners in 1886. He began keeping them in
Alabama, and his son-in-law continued them after Wratten's death in 1910.
In any event, Rebecca's great-grandfather, David Eagle, would not have
been in Alabama or Oklahoma and would not be listed.
The only possibility is that he is mentioned in the unpublished
genealogical study compiled by the staff of the Fort Sill Museum in
1958-1962, _The Fort Sill Apaches: The Vital Statistics, Tribal Origins,
Antecedents_. This was a project designed to identify the graves of
Apache prisoners buried at Fort Sill and used *52 informants* with
cross-checking of as much information as possible. The Fort Sill
Apache Tribe has a copy. Their address is:
Fort Sill Apache Tribe
Rte. 2, Box 121
Apache, OK 73005
Attn: Mildred Cleghorn, Chr.
Grosvenor Pollard
via Elizabeth B. Pollard
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Elizabeth Pollard
Systems Librarian Internet: pollarde@email.uah.edu
University of Alabama in Huntsville Compuserve: 72457,1560
Huntsville, AL 35899 Phone: (205)895-6313
SYSOP*Diabetes & Hypoglycemia Forum on Compuserve
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