Image: Victorio (Public Domain)
On this day in history, October 15, 1880, Apache warrior and chieftain Victorio, one of the most notable native military tacticians of all time, dies at the Battle of Tres Castillos in the Tres Castillos Mountains south of El Paso, Texas. The battle also resulted in the death or capture of most of his close to 200 followers.
The clash ended Victorio’s War, a 14-month-long journey of fight and flight by the Apache in southern New Mexico, western Texas, and Chihuahua. Mexican Colonel Joaquin Terrazas and 350 men encircled the Apache force, killing 62 men, including Victorio, along with 16 women and children, and capturing 68 women and children. Three Mexicans were slain in the battle. Victorio had barely any ammunition left to oppose the Mexican forces.
Born in New Mexico in 1809, Victorio grew up during a time of concentrated resentment between the Apache of the southwest and invading Mexican and American settlers. Intent on resisting the forfeiture of his native country, Victorio began commanding his small group of warriors on an extensive series of destructive attacks against Mexican and American settlers and their communities during the 1850s.
After more than a decade of avoiding the attempts of the Mexican and American armies to seize him, the U.S. Army succeeded in convincing Victorio to resettle his people on a harsh piece of blistering land near San Carlos, Arizona, in 1869. But with temperatures reaching 110 degrees Fahrenheit on the San Carlos reservation (an area also branded as Hell’s Forty Acres) and with farming virtually impossible, Victorio decided the new reservation was intolerable and encouraged his followers to move to Ojo Caliente (Warm Springs), once more becoming fugitives to the Americans. In 1878, the U.S. Army tried to push the Apache back to the San Carlos reservation, but Victorio avoided capture, withdrawing into the desert with 150 warriors. Prevailing by robbing the towns and farms of Chihuahua, Mexico, Victorio and his band initiated ambushing U.S. soldiers and Mexican and American sheepherders.
By September 29, 1880, the leader of Mexican forces in Chihuahua, Colonel Joaquin Terrazas, gathered a detachment of 350 soldiers at Tres Patos Lake 200 kilometers (120 miles) northwest of Tres Castillos. On October 1, his squad separated into various units and moved eastward across the desert. Terrazas discovered a grimy pond with recently slaughtered livestock nearby, implying that Victorio and his group had gone in that direction. On October 8, one of Terrazas’ scouts informed him that Victorio might be near Tres Castillos, 70 kilometers (43 miles) away. Terrazas discharged 90 “worthless civilians” from his party and moved south with 260 soldiers. He also refused assistance from 13 Texas Rangers and told them to return to the U.S. On October 13, Terrazas found indications that Victorio was at Tres Castillos. Ten companies of the 10th Cavalry that entered Mexico in October worked with the Chihuahua state militia until the finding of Victorio at Tres Castillos when Colonel Terrazas ordered the U.S. soldiers to depart from Mexico.
At the end of the rainy period in October, the lakes and streams nearby had water, and Tres Castillos was an oasis. Terrazas approached the area and sent his second in command, a veteran Indian fighter named Juan Mata Ortiz, to round the Tres Castillos to the north while he circled south.
The Apaches learned of Terrazas’ plan when he was still about 1,000 meters (1,100 yards) away and sent 30 fighters to stop him. They killed a scout but abruptly withdrew to the rocky hills when they saw the size of the advancing group. Terrazas and Mata Ortiz seized the Apache’s horse herd and forced the natives to withdraw to the southmost part of the Tres Castillos. About 10 p.m. that evening, Terrazas spotted a fire to his south and dispatched a 30-man troop to inspect. Several Apaches not surrounded on Tres Castillos had set fire to draw the Mexicans away from Tres Castillos, but after a fleeting encounter with the Mexican detachment, they escaped, most likely leaving the area.
Victorio and his group maintained their resistance to the Mexicans all that night. Terrazas depicted extreme combat as the Mexicans advanced – but the Apaches soon drained their ammo. The last two warriors lasted in a cave for two hours before being shot at 10:00 a.m.
Three Mexican soldiers died in the fighting. Terrazas said he killed 62 warriors and 16 women and children and took 68 prisoners. The remaining women and children were sold into slavery in Mexico. Some Apaches declare that Victorio committed suicide by stabbing himself; others claim a sharpshooter killed him. The survivors of Victorio’s faction were two groups of absent men, Nana, Victorio’s lieutenant, with 17 men on an incursion and 15 men on a different raid. A few Mescaleros were hunting and, therefore, not at Tres Castillos, and a small number of women and children did escape.
Tres Castillos was more a massacre than a battle due to the Apaches’ lack of ammunition. Victorio’s warriors, who were absent and thus survived Tres Castillos, including Nana, swiftly took revenge. Nine Mexican soldiers were killed in a surprise attack. Nana led the remnants of Victorio’s group to a refuge in the Sierra Madre and, in 1881, commenced a lengthy and effective attack into the United States. Chihuahua celebrated Terrazas, Mata Ortiz, and Mauricio Corredor, the Tarahumara who supposedly killed Victorio. The townspeople held a parade to show off the hostages and the scalps of Victorio and other Apaches. The Apache children were taken from their mothers and sent as servants to prominent families in Chihuahua.
The Mexican second-in-command at Tres Castillos, Juan Mata Ortiz, was killed by the remaining Apaches in an ambush on November 13, 1882. The Tarahumara sharpshooter, Mauricio Corredor, was killed in 1886 in a confrontation between American and Mexican units, which also resulted in the death of American scout Emmet Crawford. Colonel Terrazas died in bed in 1901. A monument admiring him and his triumph at Tres Castillos was built in Chihuahua City in 1910.
The Battle of Tres Castillos ended the period of extensive clashes between Apache bands and American and Mexican soldiers. After the death of Victorio, Apache warriors were never again in such numbers to roam and ravage that area, nor were they again to be so ably led and managed. Attacks and battles by Apaches after Victorio were short and small compared to the magnitude of Victorio’s group and the devastation they caused.
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