An absorbing account of a quarter century of conflict: the Apache
resistance to the "White Eye" settlers encroaching on their Arizona
lands. Clashes between US troops and Apaches broke out in 1861, but
it was only after the Civil War that the army turned its attention
fully to these skirmishes in the Southwest. Roberts (Jean Stafford:
A Biography, 1988, etc.) sifts through contradictory memoirs and
letters from the two sides to present a balanced version of why
peace in the region was continually shattered - and why the
outnumbered Apache were continually able to drive white settlers to
hysteria. Complaints about Indian atrocities were sometimes valid,
Roberts explains, but the Apache chief Cochise was often accused of
crimes that he couldn't have committed. Meanwhile, the Apaches felt
betrayed when agreements with troops were cavalierly broken by
Indian land agents. Roberts's narrative is considerably enhanced by
its briskly written portraits - including those of the fierce, and
fiercely honest, Cochise; of General George Crook, the army's best
Indian fighter, who found the key to ending the Apaches' flight (to
catch an Apache, use Apache scouts); of John Clum, an Indian land
agent whom the Apaches nicknamed "Turkey Gobbler" for his
arrogance; Lozen, the woman warrior who could equal any man in
riding and shooting; and Juh, the chief afflicted with a terrible
stutter but gifted with military genius. And, above all, there is
the presence of Geronimo, vengeful, untrustworthy, and vacillating,
but also capable of leading a band of 34 men, women, and children
that, before it surrendered in 1886, managed to elude five thousand
American troops and another three thousand Mexican soldiers.
Geronimo rightly feared the fate in store for his people: They were
deported on sealed railroad cars to Florida, where they remained
POWs for 27 years, never to see their homelands again. A history
that never loses its sense of drama even as it separates myth from
truth. (Kirkus Reviews)
Of the many tales of conflict and warfare between the UK Government and the Indian tribes, perhaps none is more dramatic or revealing than the story of the Apache wars. Those wars were the final episode in the US government's subjugation of the indigenous peoples; the surrender of Geronimo in 1886 effectively ended the Indian wars. Once They Moved Liked the Wind is the epic story of the battles between the Apaches and the US Army for land and freedom. The larger-than-life characters of Cochise, Geronimo and General Cook move dramatically through these pages, illuminating the history behind the Apache wars.
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