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Season Six: Holiday Episode 13 (2025)
60 Plays1 hour ago
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Transcript
Introduction and Content Warning
00:00:00
Speaker
The content you're about to hear may be graphic in nature. Listener discretion is advised.
00:00:50
Speaker
This is True Crime XS.
00:00:59
Speaker
So I
Research Challenges in True Crime
00:01:00
Speaker
think it was, it's either the last episode or like in the last couple of episodes, I was talking about being kind of ah stuck for a while in 1995 1990s.
00:01:11
Speaker
This one, I must've been, when I put like all the research together, I must've been thinking that too, because this one, when I look at it, I'm like, wow, I went way back in time for this one.
00:01:23
Speaker
And like, we've done episodes in this time range before. But I don't understand this time range a lot of the time. And the reason we don't do more is because We don't understand this time range.
00:01:38
Speaker
Well, I get distracted. Like I go down one rabbit hole and this thing happens where like I see the story we're told about it and then I start digging into it. it's different.
00:01:49
Speaker
Right. And it's like, that doesn't make sense. And when I do that, i really get like off track. And when I say off track, I mean, it's the rabbit hole of rabbit holes that I wander down. Right. And never ends. Right. That's what I was going to say. I wanted to tell a piece of the rabbit hole because I think people will find it interesting enough that like they might research on their own.
Unraveling a Story from 1861
00:02:12
Speaker
Some of the other things that happened. And while like the story itself is kind of,
00:02:18
Speaker
It's kind of capsulated. Like it happens like in a short period of time. um It reminds me of things like like Ruby Ridge and like kind of Waco-ish in a way because there's like these two sides that both think they're doing the right thing and everybody's kind of doing the wrong thing.
00:02:37
Speaker
And when I read about stories like this, I have to dig really deep to figure out like who's who. Yeah. i I get really fascinated with the concept of how America was settled.
00:02:51
Speaker
And in my opinion, this is like that prime time. Because ah the story that we're going to tell you guys today takes place in early 1861. Yeah. So anybody who wants to check out, now's the time to check out if you're just not into like really old stuff. I happen to like that time period. But it is difficult to tell stories that are true crime related in that time period with any level of facts that we feel are supported.
00:03:18
Speaker
So this is one of those rare instances where this story has been told. And even if we can't tell you exactly what happened, we can give you kind of the multiple sides of it all.
00:03:28
Speaker
And Depending on what you read about this, this will have like different names. You might hear that it's the Tonto Apache Massacre.
00:03:41
Speaker
You might hear that it's the Bascom Massacre. You might hear it called the Bascom Affair. And I thought, like, anytime there's enough question that we don't really know what to call it, there's enough for us to talk about that case.
00:03:54
Speaker
To give you kind of a setup for this, 1861 is an interesting time in American history in general. There have been...
Apache Wars and the Bascom Affair
00:04:05
Speaker
what's known today as the Apache Wars or the Apache Conflicts, which is the series of armed conflicts going on between the United States Army and various like tribal confederations throughout the Southwest.
00:04:18
Speaker
They go on from 1849 1886. They still have minor hostilities that go past eighteen eighty six up through nineteen twenty four but they kind of like people like Both sides are kind of running out of people, and then there's this whole like the Mexican-American War and the Civil War. All of those things happening kind of affect how the Apache Wars ah move forward.
00:04:45
Speaker
But one of the interesting things is that a big piece of the Apache Wars is thought to have started as sort of a mistake, right?
00:04:57
Speaker
And I thought that we would talk about that because it's fascinating to me. It's quite literally ah the Bascom Affair. And the Bascom Affair, for all intents and purposes, it takes place during this time that it's it's called Chikawa Wars.
00:05:15
Speaker
And this kicks off like the Chiricahua Wars actually kick off 10 years earlier than the event that we're talking about today. But in 1851, near the Pinos Altos ah mining camp, which is in the the geographical location it takes place in is modern Grant County, New Mexico.
Gold Discovery and Treaty Violations
00:05:35
Speaker
The whole reason that there's a town there is because gold is going to be discovered here in the, the penis altos mountains. So man goes, Colorado's, uh, he gets attacked by a group of miners.
00:05:52
Speaker
They him to a tree and they beat him. And there are multiple incidents that start occurring during this time that they In terms of the U.S. government, they are violating a treaty that had been signed in Santa Fe, New Mexico, April 2nd of 1851.
00:06:15
Speaker
And that treaty was really meant to kind of keep like these skirmishes from ongoing. And just like wars today kind of like have their root in petroleum, wars of this time period, no matter what people said, were about land and gold.
00:06:33
Speaker
Oh yeah, 100%. This peace treaty that Mingus Colorados had signed, it it was really meant, like he was ah an Apache tribal chief and he was a member of the Membranio Division of the Central Apaches.
00:06:48
Speaker
All of that has like different meanings if you go looking at it from like the perspective of the people who are in the tribe versus the people who are settling versus the government at the time. like All of those things mean different things. But what it should have meant was that he was a leader and he was to be respected.
00:07:06
Speaker
Over the years, we have these similar incidents that are violations of this treaty where you basically have European Americans and like local Apache tribe members fighting.
Battle of the Mimbres River
00:07:19
Speaker
And it's all going to result in ah December 1860 in kind of a like ah a big skirmish where 30 miners launch a surprise attack that's going to be called the Battle of the Mimbres River.
00:07:34
Speaker
And... I cannot imagine living in this time period because like you're literally like having wars break out in what would essentially be neighborhoods, even though they're not developed yet as neighborhoods, like little villages and tent towns that have been set up. And like some of the tribe members had more permanent.
00:07:54
Speaker
homes here. But the Battle of the Mimbers River, like I said, it was a surprise attack. The people who are like technically the belligerent of this attack are considered American militia. They're led by a guy named James Henry Tevis.
00:08:11
Speaker
So he founded a town that is now known as Bowie, Arizona. Back then, it was known as Tevis, Arizona. I think he founded it in like 20 years after this incident, maybe more.
00:08:26
Speaker
But December 4th of 1860, he leads a bunch of armed miners who are considered an American militia, meaning they're sort of sanctioned.
00:08:38
Speaker
They attack a...
00:08:44
Speaker
a group of Apaches, i don't know what you would call them at the time, at Sunrise, and they claim that the reason they're attacking them is because livestock had been stolen. But these Apaches, including Mingus Colorados, ah they're quickly defeated in this like very short combat action.
00:09:03
Speaker
Four of the tribe members are killed, an unknown member are wounded, and the settlers don't report really any casualties. So for some reason, ah while the warriors are fleeing, the miners, militia people, they capture 13 women and children.
00:09:23
Speaker
And it's like The way that you would read this in the history books, it seems like some of the fleeing warriors, these are their families that are left behind. Mingus Colorado survives. And according to the story, the militiamen and the miners, they have ah recovered some of their livestock. And they feel like that totally justifies what's happening.
00:09:42
Speaker
So this goes on for a while. And I said it was about like land and gold. The idea of stealing someone's crops or their livestock, basically you're telling them they're not allowed on that land and you're making it very hard for them to survive.
00:10:02
Speaker
While all
George Bascom's Background
00:10:03
Speaker
this is going on, there's a guy named George Nicholas Bascom. He's a United States Army officer in this area, which at the time is known as the New Mexico Territory.
00:10:14
Speaker
So it's going to be a state, but that's not going to be until, i think, 1912. Right now, it's just a big territory. Right.
00:10:26
Speaker
This is actually a guy who operated during the early months of the American Civil War. And I find that fascinating because if you look at the timeline of the American Civil War from 1861 1865, are right ahead of the April start date for the Civil when we're dealing with the bascom affair Now, George Bascom had been born in Bath County, Kentucky.
00:10:58
Speaker
His ancestors were known as Huguenots and the French Basque. He had gone through the United States Military Academy. He graduated 26 in a class of 27.
00:11:12
Speaker
so he wasn't dead last, in 1858. And following his graduation, he makes his way over to be stationed at Camp Floyd, which was in the Utah Territory. ah Today it's a state park, the area that he would have been in. And then he moves on to be stationed in new Mexico Territory at what is known as Fort Buchanan as a second lieutenant of the United States 7th Infantry Regiment. That gets us up to January 1861.
00:11:38
Speaker
so we have an event here that is triggering one of the Apache Wars. This Apache war, which is splitting off the United States army from the civil war.
00:11:50
Speaker
Keep that in mind. This Apache war that like is a subsection of the larger Apache conflicts. It's going to take place from 1861 until about 1872. But ultimately the, until about eighteen seventy two but ultimately Where we are today, we have Lieutenant George Nicholas Bascom. He is in the Arizona Territory in early 1861, but he is a part of the New Mexico Territories.
00:12:18
Speaker
Okay. We have a lot of tribes that live out here. Have you ever looked at all of this? Yeah. Okay. So it's a lot of people. And essentially, the way that you have to think of a tribe is as a full community. There are leaders. There are people that do all of the things to make their community function.
00:12:36
Speaker
Now, when we start off, we have a group of what is known as Tonto Apaches. So this is the
Misidentification of Apache Tribes
00:12:44
Speaker
Tonto tribe. The Tonto Apache tribe is out of Arizona at the time. They are a federal federally recognized tribe of Western Apache people today.
00:12:53
Speaker
They're currently located in Gill County, Arizona. So... That's who starts off. They're alleged to have raided a ranch of a man named John Ward at a place called Senoita Creek, which is a tributary of the Santa Cruz River in Arizona.
00:13:13
Speaker
And what is said to have happened is the Tonto Apache make off with some livestock. So just like the other incident. The problem is watching those livestock is a 12-year-old boy.
00:13:28
Speaker
He is the stepson of John Ward, and his name is Felix Ward. So John Ward reports this raid to a nearby military man named Lieutenant Colonel Morrison.
00:13:40
Speaker
He's the commandant of Fort Buchanan in Arizona. He directs Lieutenant George Nicholas Bascom and a large group of infantry to rally up, form a huge posse, and head out to recover this 12-year-old boy.
00:13:59
Speaker
So George Baskin and his group of men, they go out to locate the boy or to find the Tonto Apache members, and they can't find them.
00:14:12
Speaker
But because John Ward said that the kidnappers had gone over towards what are known at the Chiricahua Mountains, it was assumed that the raid had involved the Chiricahua Apaches.
00:14:24
Speaker
That is a completely different group of people than the Tonto Apaches. And that is the reason that I pointed out that you have tribes living out here as full-blown communities. So if you're going knocking on the wrong doors, you're going to start an argument, potentially a fight, and possibly an armed conflict with people that have nothing to do with what you're there for.
00:14:44
Speaker
So this was considered like the Chiricahua were thought to regularly do things like steal livestock. But it was determined that the group who were actually responsible were not Chiricahua. They came from a group of Tonto Apaches called the Coyotero.
00:15:04
Speaker
So Coyote, ah R-O is how you spell it. Well, Lieutenant Colonel Morrison, he orders... George Bascom to do absolutely whatever it's going to take to get out there, find the correct kidnappers, and to recapture this 12-year-old boy.
00:15:27
Speaker
So you have George Bascom, you have John Ward, and 54 soldiers. They head out. So this all starts on January 27th, 1861, 1861.
00:15:41
Speaker
By the time they're going to get to where they need to be, this place called Apache Pass, Opreto del Dado, this is a historic mountain pass in in Arizona. It's between the Dos Cabezas Mountains and the Chiricahua Mountains.
00:15:56
Speaker
Where like the Apache Pass is, i think it's 5,000 feet above sea level is where we're going In this area, they're meeting up with a guy named Sergeant Daniel Robinson.
00:16:11
Speaker
He is going to go along with them for the rest of this expedition. And George Bascom is able to negotiate ah to convince a Chiricahua Apache leader named Cochise to meet up with him.
00:16:26
Speaker
Do you know who Cochise is? You ever heard him before? love So he's a noted Apache leader. like His name means as much as Geronimo, Mangus, Colorado. His approach to all of this, if you look back in time, first of all, he was a big dude.
00:16:42
Speaker
He was over six feet tall, a pretty heavyset, muscular guy. For the time, for the 1860s, he's a large man, period. Long black hair. he wears it in ah a traditional Apache style.
00:16:55
Speaker
And He lived in the area that would now be like Sonora, Mexico, New Mexico, and part of Arizona. His approach, though, was they were resistance fighters.
00:17:08
Speaker
They had to fight off the Americans who were coming from their northeast and like ah directly above them from the north. And then they were fighting off people coming from Mexico, from the south and southwest.
00:17:20
Speaker
So that he was really just attempting to preserve... his life and his land. Now
Escalating Tensions: Cochise's Hostage Situation
00:17:29
Speaker
he gets involved here because he had mistakenly been thought of to be part of ah carrying it out. And he ends up saying, yes, I will help you. The way that that got started was George Bascom believes that Cochise is involved in it.
00:17:50
Speaker
Now, when Cochise goes to meet up with George Bascom, he brings along his brother, Kayantwa, two nephews, his wife, and his two children. During this meeting where he is talking to George Bascom, he says, we don't know anything about what you're talking about.
00:18:07
Speaker
Like, we are not the same group of people you're describing. We did not steal your livestock. And we definitely do not have your 12-year-old boy that you're missing. Now, Bascom's not the brightest bulb in the bush.
00:18:23
Speaker
He attempts to hold Cochise and his family in a tent as hostages. So we've got the boy being held hostage. That's Felix Ward, who we think is being held hostage.
00:18:36
Speaker
Think he's been taken. And now we have Cochise and his entire family. They're being held. And what's wild about this is it's going to be a full turn of events.
00:18:48
Speaker
So he escapes by pulling a knife and slashing his way out of a tent. And he gets shot at as he's trying to get away.
00:18:59
Speaker
So George Bascom is able to capture multiple relatives. and they're all taken by surprise in the moments that Cochise has figured out, i got to get away from these crazy white people.
00:19:14
Speaker
And he's escaping. Now we've got Cochise is about to be held hostage, but instead his family is being held hostage. Over the next couple of days, he takes hostages from this group and from other neighboring groups that he plans to use in negotiating to free his family.
00:19:36
Speaker
But U.S. troop reinforcements are sent over. Because remember... the The way that Morrison set all this up, he's he told Bascom, I'm going to send you whatever you need.
00:19:49
Speaker
And sure enough, reinforcements show up and the negotiations fall apart because Cochise is looking at this going, man, they're just bringing more people in here and I'm just trying to get a couple people out of their tents.
00:20:02
Speaker
So it gets crazy. And He ends up on February the 5th sending a message saying, please release my family.
00:20:13
Speaker
And Bascom refuses. And he says to Cochise, we will set your family free as soon as you send us back Felix Ward. And Cochise is like, dude, we told you, we don't have this kid.
00:20:26
Speaker
Right. And just to reemphasize, the whole reason Cochise showed up with his brother and ah two defused his wife and his two children is because Bascom asked him to you because an assumption was made. Right. Because of the direction the kidnappers of Felix Ward went, they assumed it was a certain group of the Apaches. Right.
00:20:49
Speaker
And they they assumed wrong. Right. Right. And so, but this has started like this whole thing, right? Oh, and it's about to get worse. Yes, it is.
00:21:00
Speaker
So, Cochise loses it His family is being held hostage, and he is just like, I got to deal with it. He's just about this like to take even more white people hostage.
00:21:11
Speaker
He just retaliates. He retaliates.
Failed Negotiations and Retaliation
00:21:15
Speaker
He comes across a group of Mexicans and Americans who literally have no idea what is happening. They're teams first.
00:21:22
Speaker
Yeah, they're they're out here to like help create towns, and they have nothing to do with any of this. And Cochise is like, you know what? I'll take them. They look right. So he grabs nine Mexicans and And he takes three Americans hostage, ends up killing the Mexicans after torturing these poor people who have no idea what is going on.
00:21:45
Speaker
Takes the three Americans and tries to exchange them for his family. But George Bascom says, I'm not interested in those three people I've never met. have no idea knew who those people you're talking about are.
00:21:57
Speaker
um I only want the 12-year-old boy. so This is not great. I feel like this is a good illustration of a lot of the problems communicating between any of the Native American tribes and any of the United States um like military. Militia slash whatever. I feel like, because see, Kochi's didn't understand clearly. i mean, he was like, I don't have him. And he didn't understand why they didn't believe him, why they thought of he had him to begin with. And then he was thinking, I can just like take america i can take Americans and do the same thing they're doing, right?
00:22:47
Speaker
yeah So it it shows you right there, like there's a huge... like failure to communicate between both of them. Yeah. And like, not only that, it's like just the confusion escalates in such a way. I'm going to go ahead and spoil a little bit this.
00:23:02
Speaker
In terms of these hostages, these three Americans and Cochise's family that's being held behind, they're eventually all just going to be killed because neither side really understands what's happening.
00:23:13
Speaker
It is... The worst example of a big, huge misunderstanding that I've ever seen in terms of the Apache Wars Well, wait, but this is right at the beginning. Like, this is kind of what starts it all.
00:23:27
Speaker
Yeah, this is. You're right. it's It's stupidity, right? I mean, yeah I hate to say that, but, like, taking it it really, there was an association and an assumption made that was wrong. And then they were just like, both sides are saying the other side is brutal, right? When really all it was was neither of them could give them what they wanted.
00:23:52
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That's ultimately like what's happening here, which it sounds terrible to say this, but there's so much confusion. They're not understanding like what's happening at all. And i I imagine that there's an element of it that would be cartoonish if it weren't so tragic and all these people weren't done.
00:24:09
Speaker
Exactly. And a lot of the stories as they're told, i'm just going to go ahead and tell you, like if you watch, like there's old Westerns about this. There's lots of episodes of Westerns about this. um If you watch those, like it does become a little cartoonish and people seem to lose sight of how many people are losing their lives in just this Bascom affair.
00:24:30
Speaker
So February 7th, when he can't get his family back, Cochise and his men attack George Bascom's soldiers while they're out getting water. And they kind of wreck them.
00:24:43
Speaker
It's awful that that happened. But... It
Cochise's Escape to Mexico
00:24:48
Speaker
doesn't go the way he wants it to. And it turns out that like he really is super outnumbered.
00:24:54
Speaker
So he ends up fleeing and taking the hostages that he has collected to Sonora, Mexico. Sonora, Mexico at this time would be right outside of the American jurisdiction, I guess, um it would be part of what would be the like the federal entities of Mexico.
00:25:18
Speaker
Which is fantastic to think about because you think about the fact that they've kidnapped a family, yeah but they don't want to go outside their jurisdiction. Yeah. um So on the way,
00:25:31
Speaker
ah he
00:25:35
Speaker
Decides that the American hostages he has are not the best idea. He doesn't know what to do with them. So they end up torturing them to make sure they're not a part of the other American group that they're having this problem with.
00:25:50
Speaker
And then they kill them and they string their remains out along the way, which kind of leads to them in a way. It's like a they're...
00:26:01
Speaker
a trail of breadcrumbs that's human remains? Well, sort of, but it's also like, I don't know that they realized that it was leading to them, but what they were doing was saying like, look what we can do.
00:26:13
Speaker
Right. And then February 19th, 1861, a lieutenant named Isaiah Moore, who is part of the relief party of the Calvary coming out to Apache Pass, ah they're he's put in charge of dealing with Cochise's family who's been left behind.
00:26:30
Speaker
So he decides that he's done with his situation too, and he hangs Cochise's brother and his nephews. And then he and his soldiers leave.
00:26:45
Speaker
So... The moment that Cochise comes back and discovers that his brother and nephews have been killed is the moment that the, if you look at history, it is alleged that the Apaches stopped hating the Mexicans coming up from the South and the Southwest and transferred that hatred over to the Americans and started the 25 year long war. Cause Cochise
The Onset of the Apache Wars
00:27:14
Speaker
and Mangus Colorado's, they're going to be the ones leading this war for a very long period of time.
00:27:21
Speaker
um The raids and murders are going to escalate. And like I said, this is going to keep going for 25 years. Now I say all that and most of the hostages that we just talked about are dead, except for one who has a very interesting story.
00:27:41
Speaker
So Felix tell us, was born in either 1848 or 1851 down in Mexico. His mother was a woman named Maria Jesus Martinez.
00:27:56
Speaker
She was Mexican. His father was a man named Santiago Telles. At 16, Maria and Santiago met. They fell in love. But they didn't get married because there was said to be some kind of issue between the parents. Specifically, it was believed that Santiago's parents did not believe Maria was the right choice of a wife.
00:28:22
Speaker
Either way, his name at birth is Felix. Felix. In 1858, Maria Jesus and her two children, Felix, and his half-sister, Teodora Ringel, they move in with a man named John Ward.
00:28:39
Speaker
So John Ward is an Irishman who had migrated out to the Arizona territories and started himself from drainage.
00:28:46
Speaker
According to the census for August 26, 1860,
00:28:51
Speaker
Felix Ward at that time, who is in the the census is done for the Sunita Creek a settlement in the Arizona territory. The census says that Felix Ward was 12 years old.
00:29:02
Speaker
His sister, Theodore was 10 and that they had a baby sister, Mary Ward, who's five months old. Maria Jesus Martinez at the time is listed as being 30 years old and John Ward is listed as being 54 years old.
00:29:17
Speaker
There is a half brother, ah Santiago war Ward, who he is going to claim to be born on July 25th, 1860. But there's like a lot of contradictions in here.
00:29:32
Speaker
From what we can tell, John Ward and Maria Jesus seem to have five children prior to his death in 1867. That's John Ward's death.
00:29:43
Speaker
So Felix Tellus is out by the livestock. He's climbing a tree near his farm. And according to him, an Apache warrior literally rode up beside Felix and puts him on a horse.
00:30:00
Speaker
So this is Felix Ward.
00:30:05
Speaker
It's going to be years from this Apache raiding party. before we find out what happened to him. But he is finally traded from the Pinale Apache over to the Cayetaro Apache, who at the time, depending on who you were in the world, you might have known him as the White Mountain Apaches.
00:30:28
Speaker
This kidnapping that we've been talking about, I'm just gonna go ahead and reiterate, it's probably the start of the worst of the Apache War. And it's definitely one of the like horrible starting moments for bad relationships between the Apache tribes and the United States.
00:30:49
Speaker
This abduction directly leads to the hostilities between multiple nations who are warring with the United States militias and the United States Army.
00:31:00
Speaker
John Ward had been away from his home. He returns home. He learns that his cattle and his stepson have been taken by these Apaches. And he kicks off the story that we just told you about.
00:31:12
Speaker
From what
Felix Ward's Life and Transformation
00:31:13
Speaker
we can tell, while all of that crazy hostage-taking and murder was going on, Nayundi, a white mountain Apache, adopts Felix.
00:31:27
Speaker
Felix becomes the foster brother to Tal Del Zile. Later on, he's going to be known as John Rope.
00:31:37
Speaker
Felix participates in Apache tribal tobacco smoking ceremonies, and he is accepted into the White Mountain Apache tribe, and he smokes tobacco with their medicine.
00:31:51
Speaker
He is going to be known as an Apache for the rest of his life, along with John Rope. Now John Rope is a Klan leader, and he's also an Apache scout, and he received the Medal of Honor.
00:32:06
Speaker
Don't know exactly where he was born or when he was born, but it's believed to be sometime between 1855 1863. know he passes away August eight i'm nineteen forty four John Rue is young foster brother to Felix Keller. I think he's actually a little younger than Felix based on ah these numbers.
00:32:27
Speaker
He goes to San Carlos in the mid 1870. He's in his early twenties. He enlists along with his brother and multiple other Apaches and they end up sharing a horse. He and his brother share horse. They ride double to reach where they're going.
00:32:45
Speaker
And John Rope stated that he had joined the army, keep that in mind, in order to help the whites against the Chiricahuas, because the Chiricahuas had killed a lot of people.
00:32:56
Speaker
So he ends up writing as a scout for General George Crook during the Apache Wars. So John Rope, born Childer Hill, who is the foster brother to Felix Tellus Ward,
00:33:14
Speaker
They go to work for the U.S. Army. That's wild, right? I mean, in some ways it is. I can see the thinking sort of, though. Yeah. If you take a look at the narrative of this story, if you think about it, so...
00:33:29
Speaker
He was put on a horse, right? I mean, that's yeah that was his kidnapping. And then they took him back, and he basically was adopted and taken in and has a foster brother. Right. And you look at the converse side of that, where the violence was happening, right? Yeah. The militia was wrong in taking Cochise's family, right? Correct. And Cochise... He didn't really have anything to do with Felix.
00:33:57
Speaker
He did not, right? But they were both wrong because they were both just killing, killing, killing, right? Yes. And it makes sense to me that in the situation where Felix was taken and then he was adopted, like that's a very peaceful, I mean, you know, he was taken obviously, but and that's bad, but I don't really feel like it was...
00:34:20
Speaker
Right, yeah.
00:34:33
Speaker
make all of the killing stop right right yeah and ultimately And ultimately, that's what it becomes. Even though the militia at first had taken Cochise's family hostage, it does evolve to where they are trying to have peace, right? And that's where these kids join, or these young men join. Yeah, these
Felix Ward as an Apache Scout
00:34:52
Speaker
kids essentially join up as, like, Apache scouts are essentially spies for this time. Right, because they understand culture. The language, the culture, yeah. So...
00:35:01
Speaker
For his part, Feliz joins the United States Army's Apache Scouts December 2nd, 1872. Within two years, he's promoted to the rank of sergeant. He's posted out to Camp Verity to serve as an interpreter. He meets a man there named Al Sieber, who is a huge figure um in the rest of this war, but he was also a big part of the American Civil War.
00:35:24
Speaker
Because the soldiers could not pronounce most of the scouts' names, they would give them nicknames. Now, Pheliz has red hair and other features that they decide, rather than calling him Pheliz, they are going to describe him as Mickey Free, who is a character from the Charles Leaver's Charles O'Malley novel, The Irish Dragoon.
00:35:50
Speaker
um So he gets this nickname. He's also going to be a scout for George Crook. They're going to be pursuing Geronimo and Nana. like most of their lives.
00:36:02
Speaker
ah He accompanies George Crook on his expedition to the Sierra Madres, which would be in 1883. So that's nine years after he enlists. He accompanies Chato and other Apaches who all go into Washington, D.C. in 1886. And he's finally going to leave the Scouts after 21 years of service, which to me, that's like a lifetime career. it is. Yep.
00:36:27
Speaker
He's going to leave in 1893. According to legend, and I've seen some sources on this, I don't know how how accurate it is. At one point, he tracked Haska Bay Ne Taya, who is the Apache kid.
00:36:43
Speaker
um At one point, the Apache kid had a $15,000 reward on his head. He also pursued various Apache renegades, including Maasai, but he was never able to catch Maasai.
00:36:55
Speaker
ah ah According to the little blurbs I can find online, after leaving the army, he moved to the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. He went there with the remainder of the White Mountain Apache Scouts, and he lived out the rest of his life as a farmer until his death in 1914.
00:37:14
Speaker
He had married two White Mountain Apache women at the same time. His wives were named Ethelay. at Ochehe. He had been married a total of four times.
00:37:25
Speaker
ah He had two sons. He had two daughters. Depending on the year you believe that he was born, he would have been probably mid-60s when he passes away.
00:37:37
Speaker
He has a very interesting story, considering he is the one who like kicks off this whole hostage-taking. Well, it's not really him. It's his adoption. Right, the abduction of him. You're right, I'm sorry. For the other characters that we've kind of been talking about, ah so George Bascom, he was kind of the army officer who was dealing with all of this. After the Civil War begins, George Bascom, he gets promoted to captain, and he is part of the U.S. 16th Infantry Regiment.
00:38:11
Speaker
ah So this is the United States Army. He goes to join this new regiment, And ah the three companies of the 7th Infantry that had moved to Fort Craig, they end up involved in the Battle of Valderde. So he doesn't actually get, even though he becomes the captain and he's supposed to be in charge, i he never makes it to the 16th Infantry. He's killed in action by Confederate forces on February 1862. So it's about a year after the Bascom Affair.
00:38:43
Speaker
um Fort Bascom, New Mexico is, for some reason, still named in his honor. he had originally been buried down at ah Fort Craig, but when Fort Craig closed in 1885, they dug up all the bodies and reburied them in Santa Fe National Cemetery.
00:38:59
Speaker
ah They could not identify his body when they did that, so he is believed to be one of the unknown markers that's in Santa Fe National Cemetery. Cochise
Cochise's Later Life and Legacy
00:39:11
Speaker
is going to be a part of this war that goes on for many, many years.
00:39:19
Speaker
In fact, he is going to live to be until 1874. It's thought that he was either 68 or 69 years old when he passes away. um He had been captured, from what I understand, he'd been captured several times. um Some of those are
00:39:38
Speaker
dubious as to whether they actually had coaches or not. And was able to escape. I was going to say, he also doesn't seem to take well to it. Yeah, no, he, he likes to escape. According to his story, he died of natural causes. It's thought that maybe he died of some kind of cancer. Um, he was buried in the rocks above one of his favorite camps in the Dragoon mountains, which is now called the coach. He's stronghold only his people. and one of the men uh,
00:40:07
Speaker
worked with him at the time, known as Tom Jeffers. Apparently Dougie only wants to know his exact resting place, which I guess has never been disclosed. I find this story fascinating. I know it's like a little different than the other ones, but it is technically ah like multiple hostage takings. It's another one of those rolling hostage situations, and it all stemmed from like a lack of communication. i'd be interested to know I don't know if it's out there anywhere, but what the initial conversation with the the Native American that rode up on the horse and he got on the horse? Yeah.
00:40:45
Speaker
Yeah. Like, what was that conversation? Would you like to come be part of our tribe? Maybe it wasn't even a kidnapping. Hey, coming me with us. okay I don't have anything else to do.
00:40:57
Speaker
I mean, I'm just saying, like, it it's... it's uh startlingly facetious like what happened right like all of that led to like these huge you know battles and a lot of people died and there's a lot of um even to this day there's a lot of uh animosity from it right Oh, absolutely.
Reflections on the Bascom Affair
00:41:22
Speaker
if There's tons to read based on this, like in terms of like rabbit holes that people just want a rabbit hole to go down. The Hunt for Geronimo ah talks about a lot of these characters. It's a fascinating story. um It is a very weird time in U.S. history. We don't talk about it nearly enough anymore.
00:41:39
Speaker
it was kind of done to death in movies in the early days of like talking movies where like the cowboy movie was easy to do. You just put people out in the desert have people dressed up as cowboys and people dressed up as Indians and basically you got yourself a Western.
00:41:53
Speaker
But they don't cover the actual stories that much. um They're absolutely terrifying to read. They're fascinating. There's a lot of misunderstanding in the early days of the U.S. settlements and territories. So if you want to go down a rabbit hole, this is a great starting point with the Baquem Affair, the Baquem Massacres.
00:42:12
Speaker
um the Bascom affair or the Bascom massacres. Uh, it's, ah it's a really cool story. um and i wanted to include it because it doesn't have the traditional true crime elements that we look for in our stories, but I figured since we're doing hostage taking, it's kind of the perfect place to like work one of these stories into. And I thought like this one has, like you said, that rolling hostage taking spree sort of happening. I thought that would be, I thought that would be an interesting story for the holidays.
00:42:41
Speaker
Yep. And it's a little piece of history.
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:42:43
Speaker
Um,
00:43:01
Speaker
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00:43:12
Speaker
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00:45:16
Speaker
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00:45:35
Speaker
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