Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #807839 in Books
• Published on: 1991-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 393 pages

Customer Reviews

Victorio and the Mimbres Apaches
As an interested reader and student of Apache history, I couldn't pass up reading the reviews on books by Dan L. Thrapp. One that caught my attention was that written by Kosto Barry Granlund of New York. Where is this guy coming from? Dan Thrapp's works are a MUST for anyone interested in a solid understanding of the Apaches and their wars. Mr. Granlund's diatribe is without basis and so off the mark that it is not worth discussing. For an accurate assessment, one must read Ed Sweeney's balanced response.

Dan Thrapp broke new ground and set the standard in researching the Indian wars. In doing so, he spawned a new generation of researcher/writers who will readily acknowledge the man's greatness. Dan Thrapp not only wrote about Apaches, but also compiled and authored the highly touted and indispensable four-volume, Encyclopedia Of Frontier Biography. I highly recommend all of Mr. Thrapp's books.

Classic biography of a great Apache chief
Dan Thrapp, who passed away in 1994, remains the preeminent Apache historian of the twentieth century. The former religious editor of the Los Angeles Times, Dan became interested in the American West, particularly the Apaches, in the early 1950s. He faced a daunting challenge. Unlike other Indian tribes, the Apache story had not been told. What was known looked like a puzzle with its frame formed but without the interlocking pieces. Thrapp quickly realized there was a treasure chest of unpublished material from Western historical societies and the National Archives that no one had mined. The fruits of this research led to books that advanced our knowledge by light years over what had been written: Al Sieber: Chief of Scouts (1964), Conquest of Apacheria, (1967), and Victorio and the Mimbres Apaches, (1974). These peerless works provided interested readers with new information about the Apaches' struggle to survive against overwhelming odds. And, although in print for over forty years, each has stood the test of time.
Dan Thrapp was honest and objective about the frontier characters whom he wrote about-whether Indian, American, or Mexican. Ethnicity did not matter. He sympathized with Apaches who fought to preserve their cultural identity and ancestral homelands. And he was partial to men of integrity and honor. He was not an Apache "wanna-be," though he obviously admired many of the Chiricahua Apache leaders during the period he wrote about. He clearly respected Cochise, Victorio, and Juh; he had little respect, however, for Geronimo, who has become the symbolic leader of the small band that surrendered in 1886. He made no apologies for his opinion.
One critic sites Dan's treatment of Geronimo to disparage his entire body of works. He claims that comments made by Asa Daklugie, a relative of Geronimo, who was the main source of Eve Ball in her book Indeh, as proof that the Chiricahuas take issue with Thrapp's view of Geronimo. Yet Asa Daklugie does not speak for all Chiricahuas in his remarks that glorify and exaggerate Geronimo's skills, and influence. In fact, the majority of those Apaches who knew and rode with Geronimo did not share Daklugie's sentiments. Many blamed him for their twenty-eight years as Prisoners-of-War.
It might be appropriate to point out that Morris Opler, the foremost Apache anthropologist of the twentieth century, agreed wholeheartedly with Thrapp. Opler had interviewed two hundred Chiricahuas on the Mescalero Reservation in the early 1930s. Of these, many had served as scouts against Geronimo during the final outbreak, and thus had little sympathy for him. Opler concluded that "no Chiricahua of his general age group who had been in engagements with him, represented him to me as a particularly able or effective fighter." In an article that Opler published in 1948, he expanded on his feelings: "Geronimo was not a tribal chief or leader. Moreover, he was not a particularly outstanding warrior." Two of Opler's principal informants were Perico (Geronimo's second cousin who was with him at the final surrender) and Chatto. Perico is quoted as saying that "he and the other warriors did all the fighting while Geronimo stayed behind." And Chatto, who led the Chiricahua scouts against Geronimo in the 1885-86 campaign, said: "I have known Geronimo my whole life and I can't say anything good about him." Even Chihuahua and Ulzana, two fearless Chiricahua warriors, had vowed to kill Geronimo because he "had told [us] so many lies" to persuade them to leave the reservation in the final outbreak. Geronimo avoided their wrath by fleeing before they got to his camp. Lt. Britton Davis, the Chiricahuas' agent in 1884-85, saw Geronimo often during this time. He characterized him as a "thoroughly vicious, intractable, and treacherous man. His only redeeming traits were courage and determination. His word, no matter how earnestly pledged, was worthless."
Here we have the opinions of the foremost Apache anthropologist, the American military officer who knew Geronimo the best, and the statements of four prominent Chiricahuas of the 1880s (associates of Geronimo) who agreed completely with Dan Thrapp. Their views certainly deserve the same consideration as Daklugie, who was a teenager at the time of the last outbreak. He was with Geronimo for less than three of the eighteen months of hostilities. Daklugie was too young to have fought during the Apache Wars. During the reservation years, he was not a chief in the traditional manner and never had much of a following.
Like all of Dan Thrapp's books, Victorio and the Mimbres Apaches is a well researched study of one of America's greatest Native American leader--Victorio. In 1877 Apache Indian Agent John Clum removed Victorio and his people from their ancestral homelands in New Mexico to the barren San Carlos Reservation in Arizona. Victorio vowed to return to his country as soon as possible. He made good on that vow, then waged a guerrilla war against Americans and Mexicans while the government debated setting aside a reservation in Victorio's homeland. Unfortunately for all concerned, the bureaucracy in Washington had no idea what was best for the Apaches. Thrapp recites the forces and events that drove Victorio to fight for a reservation in his country. Though he tells the story from both sides, he clearly sympathizes with Victorio as he faced the challenges, obstacles, and forces that eventually drove him to his fate. This is one of the finest biographies of an Indian leader.
Ed Sweeney, author of Cochise: Chiricahua Apache Chief, and Mangas Coloradas: Chief of the Chiricahua Apaches.

Classic
The late Dan Thrapp wrote many books on Southwestern U.S. and Apache history (and a wonderful novel about Fletcher Christian, the chief mutineer of the H.M.S. Bounty), all of which have the rare distinction of being modern classics. Thrapp was a meticulous researcher and a fine prose stylist -- another rare combination. VICTORIO is among his best books.