Karl Jacoby’s account of the 1871 Camp Grant massacre fits within the broad sweep of the “New Western history” a movement that arose in the 1980s, headed by scholars such as William Cronon, Patricia Nelson Limerick, and Richard White. In their reexaminations of Western history the West became a darker place, where and the violence of conquest and the ignominious glory that accompanied it defined the expanding American nation. Jacoby’s history is a narrative, though he has task in retelling the story of the massacre through the eyes of its perpetrators and victims. He aims to correct the distortions of the event that have built up over the intervening decades and to hold power up to scrutiny.
Early in the morning on April 30, 1871, in Arizona’s Aravaipa Canyon, 60 miles northeast of Tucson, a large force attacked an Apache encampment. In 30 minutes the attackers shot, clubbed, or captured 29 people and killed 144. Nearly all the victims were …show more content…
The O’odham saw Apaches as enemies, but they also disliked Mexicans and Americans. The Mexicans, or Vecinos (neighbors) as Jacoby calls them, were mixed Spanish-Indian blood. Unable to end Apache raids, they countered them, often capturing children and selling them into slavery. The Americans (many from a defeated Confederacy) saw Indians targets for extermination. Meanwhile, the United States army, fresh off four years of Civil War promised protection on reservations but instant genocide if the Apaches strayed.
Behind this cruelty, Jacoby suggests, is the conviction that Indians only understand violence and, as indigenous people, are headed for extinction anyway. Much like Miles, Jacoby attempts to understand the motivation for violence. The American view changed when Eastern liberals called for reform of Indian policy. Settlements like Camp Grant became safe havens for the Apache, though they still posed a threat to many in the
Early in the morning on April 30, 1871, in Arizona’s Aravaipa Canyon, 60 miles northeast of Tucson, a large force attacked an Apache encampment. In 30 minutes the attackers shot, clubbed, or captured 29 people and killed 144. Nearly all the victims were …show more content…
The O’odham saw Apaches as enemies, but they also disliked Mexicans and Americans. The Mexicans, or Vecinos (neighbors) as Jacoby calls them, were mixed Spanish-Indian blood. Unable to end Apache raids, they countered them, often capturing children and selling them into slavery. The Americans (many from a defeated Confederacy) saw Indians targets for extermination. Meanwhile, the United States army, fresh off four years of Civil War promised protection on reservations but instant genocide if the Apaches strayed.
Behind this cruelty, Jacoby suggests, is the conviction that Indians only understand violence and, as indigenous people, are headed for extinction anyway. Much like Miles, Jacoby attempts to understand the motivation for violence. The American view changed when Eastern liberals called for reform of Indian policy. Settlements like Camp Grant became safe havens for the Apache, though they still posed a threat to many in the