Skull Cave

[Music] hello and welcome to a special, special, special edition of Mysteries of the Superstition Mountains because today we are going to be meeting with Arizona's official state historian Marshall Trimble and he's gonna tell us all about skull cave up by Canyon Lake so let's take it away Marshall Marshall I've heard all sorts of stories about skull cave but what is the real story let me give you a little bit of background Charlie there the civil war broke out and it was about to say it coincided with the with the accusation of Cochise of kidnapping that youngster which was wrong he hadn't he didn't do it but he was accused of it and it led to some deaths and led to a 10-year war well the forts in Arizona were abandoned about that time so there was no real military presence here so it was up to the civilians and people were pretty bitter about the being abandoned by the military but they fighting a bigger war back east and so gradually they began bringing troops and again as the war dragged on but a lot of times the citizens it was up to the citizens king Woolsey and people like that you know who went out and just did punitive expeditions against the against the Yavapai Tano Apache and further south of Chiricahua so all of this was going on and then in 1871 a group of a large group of Tohono O'odham Indians from Tucson living near Tucson banded up with some a large number of Mexicans in Tucson and and some in some Anglos and they went up to Arvaipa canyon where the Aravipa Apatche's were accusing them of the atrocities out and around Tucson because it was you could venture outside of Tucson and be taking your life in your hands at that time is scary and so they went up there massacred a whole bunch but unfortunately most of the Warriors were away and it turned out to be mostly women and children but they got back and they were hailed as heroes in in Tucson not so in Washington President Grant called a purely murder and he said we got a we got to make some changes out there in Arizona so we're going to start a peace policy so he sends a one-armed general named Oliver Howard out and he was a real religious guy they the Apaches thought he was kind of strange because they thought before he ate they noticed he he talked to his plate they were quite amused by that but Howard persuaded the Chiricahua and Cochise to to make a treaty and in the war so that took care of the Chiricahua temporarily and for as long as Cochise was alive he kept his word and they kept the peace but up here in the mountains the Yavapai and the Tonto Apache had been having things their own way and they weren't they were interested they weren't interested in all in having any kind of peace treaty or moving to a reservation and General Crook had been brought in declare the sort of quell the problems because the other generals had been inept incompetent and so Crook believed he'd been around long enough and he believed that it was in the best interest of the Indians the the Tonto Apache and the and the Yavapai and all to give up those old ways too many people were coming in and pretty soon the whites were going to be overwhelmingly large in number and they're just going to go out and kill him exterminate him because that was the attitude as extermination and so he thought we've got to bring him in and we've got to get him out there and have him they've got to stop raiding the Pima Indians and the villages along the rivers down there and they've got to give it up we want to make ranchers out of them and farmers and and it it was it was it was a it was something the Indians were not interested in at the time they were doing okay as Raiders this is what they do this is this is what they did all right well let's go beyond local government here as far as the Native Americans the Indians go and and talk about the federal government how did they feel about the Indians President Grant decided to it was smart we know what kind of a general he was in a civil war it was so he's out we'll have we'll make it a to a two-prong thing we'll have the Olive Branch will extend the olive branch and the Sabre and give you a choice and so crook the crook decided to try to tell them to come in he gave him a general order number 10 you know they come in you've got until November 15th anybody out after November 15th will be considered hostile and and then here's where here was here was the wonder of crooks work as a general at this time when he came out here the packed trains were just haphazard and the troops companies would go out they'd be out a week and run out of supplies and pack trains that break down or whatever and so he he just streamlined the pack trains brought in real good Packers brought in good stock and so that was his first contribution the other one was that he believed that Apache scouts would do the job they tried other Indians but didn't have nearly the success and he and the Yavapai he thought we find these and he said I want the wilder ones the better the wilder ones the better and we're going to go out there and his orders were bring in keep the women and children alive if at all possible and it also of all possible they get the man to surrender don't kill him bring him in I'd rather I'd rather bring him in alive and and work with them and something about Crook he had the respect of the natives more than any other general a Crook was and I think the reason was was straight talked he didn't lie and when he died when a many years later one of the Chiefs up in the Northern Plains said he never lied to us and that was a good epitaph you know for for General Crook so but they knew he was a doged and boy he was he was a bulldog in battle and he ordered the troops into the field we they were coming up from Fort Verde, Fort McDowell Camp Thomas let's see Fort Grant and Fort Apache all of these they they were scattered all over what was called Apache rea which is really the central mountains of Arizona those rugged central mountains of Arizona and they will start criss-crossing in the field he ordered him to go out and don't come back don't return in five days and say he ran he ran into problems like they were doing before he got there he said no excuses given you stay in the field until we called you in and we'll keep a move we'll keep them moving around if you don't catch them you might drive them into another unit over here somewhere else because they're just criss crossing through the Tonto basin in the central mountains the Superstition Mountains, Sierra Anchas and all those so it really was working it was a winter campaign we hit him in winter when when they are all holed up in their little hidden canyons and places like that they're little sanctuaries and keep him keep him but destroy their supplies burn him out sort of like Carson did with the Navajo during the Civil War to destroy their food supplies and so it was working and it was it was getting very frustrating to these tribes because no matter where they went but the reason that wherever they went they could be found was it other other other bands of their people and so people would always ask how come how come these bands would go against each other well what they didn't realize and Crook did was that these bands some of these bands hated each other as much as they did the whites and that's what Crook counted on so he he would find these bands that were at odds with another band and he would recruit them and enlist him in the army as Scouts and pay them and it was quite a prestigious thing you know to be getting paid for your work so so he had he had great success and all this was his strategy and that's when he went out so on November the 15th they had not come in yet Nani chatty del che and a number of the Yavapai and Tonto Apatche were still out there and still raiding and still doing what they'd always done so he he's got that he's got the troops in the field and now they're just it just a search looking looking for looking for different bands and keep him moving and get him get him all stirred up so by December he has got now Major William Brown of the 5th Cavalry and captain Jim Burns commander at Fort McDowell Brown was Brown was the commander at Fort Grant and this was the old Fort Grant down in Aravaipa Canyon and so Brown leaves on with his Patrol he's got two columns of cavalry and about thirty thirty Indian scouts and they go north follow the follow of the San Pedro across the Gila River and from the Gila River they go further north up into the globe area around the Pinal mountains around where Globe is and and then they kept going and they went over to the Sierra Ancha and they didn't find anybody they didn't see anybody so that's about where Roosevelt Lake and all that is today in that area and so he turns back south and it hits down and in the Superstition Mountains he encounters captain burns and and his he's got about let's see he had he had nearly a hundred Pima Scouts with him too but Brown has got the Browns got the Yavapai Scouts and so they decide to join forces and they headed north then out of the superstitions over towards the four peaks and they're there at the base of the four peaks on December 27th and they're going to go into those rugged jagged impenetrable canyons we call the Salt River canyons and so forth all that area and I've ridden in that area too and it is rough you have to it's rough country and there's but they they were so far in there in fact nany chatty who is the the leader of the of the group of Yavapai in the canyons he said we'd we many times he bragged you know he bragged Fort Verde he says we've seen your soldiers looking for us and we stood up there a high above you and watch you look for us and you never found us and you never will he said he said you never will find us alright let me ask you this how did they find them and they've got us a scout there their lead scout named nathi and he is he he's got a he's got a have this is medicine it's got to be just right and he spots a bear track so what was the significance of them finding a bear track after them the bear track is a good sign that's a sign that the enemy you're going to you're going to meet the enemy soon and he'll be yours and so he's all good and he and he he wants to wait until a certain star comes out at night marshal you amaze me where did you get all this information where did I get all this with John Burke lieutenant, John Burke who wrote the famous book on the border with Crook he was a young lieutenant and he was with brown's outfit at this time and he gives a first-hand account he would later be Crooks aid-De-camp and then wrote the great book on the border with Crook and it is a classic it's probably the best primary thing source of material on the Apache Wars today and the Yavapai Wars well anyway Burke is with him and he's taken you know he's writing it all down and the this that star comes out and they're ready to start moving they're going through some scary country because they're in a sharp steep-sided Canyon there they they take off their boots and they're wearing moccasins now so they won't make noise and can move quietly through there they're creeping up and they still don't know what they're going to run into and it's dark and if... it's probably better if it's dark cause if you're looking you are going to see a Thousand foot down to the river if I if I make a bad step so they're going along just creeping along and they and they spot a old Rancheria all right well I'm a little rusty on my Spanish so what does that word mean which was camp and they know they're getting close and then they see some animals and then they hear some noise they they might have been a Burk thought they might have been out on a raid and come back whatever whatever they were they were they were they were not posting centuries they were just having a good time and they're they're ready to go so you get they get him oh they moved they moved the troops up and the scouts are all there and they close in on that cave. Marshal you know Dave and I a few years back went out looking for the cave off of Canyon Lake there we thought we had found it and it wasn't it so we spent the whole day for naught so to speak but but tell us about the cave itself give give us a little bit of a description of the cave and what we need to look for now that cave is really it's not a cave it's just more of an dome of some kind impervious dome it just cut out of a hollow out of a mountain but it's pretty good-sized and I've been in there when I went in there was a by boat we came in a couple of us and came in there and climbed up some steep cliffs and then it was a long long slope and to the cave itself so there's open areas well that was that was the way we came in from down below from the river but the troops came in from over the top they were they were up here coming down and they got they got down to this area and and they they were able to form in front of the cave and they were ready for action but first major Brown calls them calls on him to surrender well there was just a bunch of defiant cries coming from inside the cave of they were they'd never been beaten there's no reason to think they were going to get beaten this time but firepower is going to be important here so brown opens fire and they're at one point in the in this fight they have a little boy wanders out they were shooting and they actually ever shooting at the roof of the cave and their bullets were ricocheting down coming down you know just ricocheting bullets flying all over there so they were taking casualties and there and the little boy comes out he has a little minor wound and he's the poor thing is crying and you know he's scared and Nanie the Scout he runs up and he grabs the kid and takes him back to safety and for that he would later be awarded the Medal of Honor his name is down at the State Capitol with the heroes he is engraved on that on that monument so anyway there it's here comes captain burns he'd been out on patrol have gone up another way and he was up above and he he comes up with his troops now and they're looking right down on the battles down below him they're up here on a high cliff looking down and he decide comes up with an ingenious plan I call it the hanging chads I guess they take their suspenders off and they make little harnesses they come up with two harnesses and they lower these guys over the edge of the cliff in a harness you get great visuals on this and and so they've got pistols and so they just start shooting they start shooting and then and then they get carried away when the pistols are empty they Center they threw him he said he hauls hauling back up that gave him an idea let's roll boulders down on him now and they started young avalanche e avalanche and and it just raises havoc it is it has just gone crazy inside that cave and people are hollering and screaming but still defiant well why didn't they let the women and children out of the cave Brown had said bring..let your women out and they'll be safe and no way they were deficient too so these people were not gonna you know they were they were not going to give in they were brave they were they were fighters and so the but after the avalanche there's just nothing but chaos inside and there are think they counted the dead when they when soldiers went in the count of the dead and there they had been about 76, 76 in there and about 57 of them were warriors so there were several women and children among the dead and they captured they had 18... 18 women and children captives was all they wound up with a little sidebar there one of the one of the ones captured was a little boy named that would become his name would be changed captain burns adopted him a young boy but oh maybe eight years old and captain burns but actually raised him and got him educated and when captain burns died the general Merritt took over the raising the kid and he they named him Mike Burns and he became he wrote, his wrote his biography years later and it's it's available that biography is available how long did the battle last the last last until noon the battle had started probably about daybreak when he could see where you were and it lasted so it lasted for several hours and by that time one of the captives said there are there are our people all over this canyon and they're going to be coming and there are going to be coming for you so Brown and Burns who decided we don't even have time to bury the dead here just buried the one-one-one Scout was killed and they just left the dead in the cave and we just that we got we got to get out of here and they went back over the top with the captives and and they sent an advance group down for medical help they did not have a corpsman or our medics with him in those days there any kind of a doctor later on that would be part of the standard operating procedure but there was there were no medical supplies which is even for your own people many of us know Canyon Lake but before that you know it was a big Canyon Salt River Canyon so what was the terrain like trying to get up to that cave. it was almost impenetrable because you had the river in there the salt river in there so there wouldn't been a whole lot of room and with a lake there now it's much easier to get in there you just get a boat and go right where the cave is but there you know it was it was a very difficult trail but these people this is where they lived this was this was a this was their home why didn't they come from below it would have been it would have been a difficult climb to get up there because you came home from if you came in from the river and the troops came in from above but most of the time you came up the canyon and followed the river and and then they went up into this this gave them a commanding view to from that cave of anybody coming in they could see they could see any anybody looking for him but that was so rough that the soldiers had a hard time go out and negotiating that and again the the scouts this was this was their oh this was their old playground you know these these Yavapai Scouts they they knew that area well and Nanti had been there and and lived there and so he knew the area and then he'd had a falling-out with bands you know it was a band the thing that he was he was vengeful so I don't know what what the problem with the band but these bands did they did fight and fiercely and the Apache the same thing and this was a this was the this is the way that you could get good Scouts okay at the time of this battle was there any mining going on in the canyon oh no no no no no mining or anything like that nothing going on just it was just wild country and it was some of the wildest the you know the soldiers commented and Burke especially coming just the this was the wildest country in the whole United States too and it was a perfect place for the Apache and you have applied to have their lairs but they left the dead ones in the cave and it would be 19 it was nineteen nineteen six when Jeff Adams who would later be you I'm sure you run across his name with it with the Dutchman. yes I have. and Jeff Adams later be sheriff of Maricopa County and he was takin a picnic in there with a woman and and they they just happened to wander in there and hear it all there's all these bones and... that's quite a date! yeah [laughter] do not take her to dinner... no just go picnic in the.... up in the salt river canyon [laughter] let's see there still would have been no damn there they were still were they were still building the dam at that time way way up at Roosevelt but but yeah that's I guess he loved their wild country maybe she did too. I hope so [laughter] so they just stumbled upon the cave yeah because the whole thing was forgotten and but but with the casualties 76 casualties are dead that was the most costly to the Indians battle in the entire history of the Indian War of the Arizona because never not even the Battle of Apache pass did the Apatche's have any kind of I say apatche they were Yavapai Apache and have have that many casualties as they did there at Salt River Canyon that day Marshall we've talked about the date that it was found what was the exact date of the massacre 1872 it was December 28th 1872 and that pretty much broke the back of the resistance a couple of months later they had another one that turret Butte which is over on the Verde. Marshall have you ever actually been to the cave yeah and I remember thinking this is really hollowed ground and I knew it would be to the a Yavapai and it should be to really should be to anybody because of what happened there and people try it with trash you know drop it just trashing the place and still maddening to go out there and see that and just think you know you should you should take your hat off when you come here and like to do the Alamo were the bones ever given a proper burial yeah the bones were the bones were picked up by the Yavapai people and given a proper burial and I believe at McDowell at Fort McDowell okay so they brought him out of there later on yeah 1906? it was it would have to be after that yeah and the because the the Fort... Fort McDowell was was abandoned in the 1890s the end of the Indian Wars and then it was turned over to the the the Yavapai Indians the Yavapai had been when they surrendered in 1873 twenty-one hundred of them surrendered at one time to General Crook in Camp Verde at Fort Verde and and then wouldn't you know the best friend the Indians had was General Crook and Crook was transferred to the northern plains he had a rendezvous with destiny at a place called rosebud on a way to meet with General Custer and and so and in up there you know with the Twin Buttes and they were fighting and they were really fighting the formidable foe up there with it with the Lakota but but Crook left and when Crook left things started to go bad here the Chiricahua were then taken away from the reservation that been awarded them of which was down on the Chiricahua mountains that was their home but they were they were moved to san carlos and it it was it was this whole thing was a fight between department of war and Department of Interior for who's going to who's going to have charge of the Indians so what they were attempting to do is to make all the tribes and put them on one reservation yeah then it's your cover there was no love lost between the Western Apache pretty much in the Chiricahua but they wanted the group you want to put them all together yeah yeah and San Carlos which was hell's 40 acres they called it it was just no well that's nothing to write home about today and then of course you had the White Mountains but the White Mountain Apache they had allied out to altosea and people like that had allied with the with the army and when the army wins they got you know they got prime property which they have today and but the Chiricahua they got a one-way ticket to Florida and never were never were allowed back in Arizona officially they let some of them around in the 1900s they read for it they moved them finally to Fort Sill Oklahoma and by that time they had been you know several generations and so they they think but they never they they never came back as a tribe and anytime they did the other Indians didn't want him either it was it was resistant so to this day and a bad part of the sad part of it is we're talking about scouts when war ended and the Chiricahua were sent to the Florida they put the scouts with him to their only crime they were Chiricahua all right so after the scouts helped him so much they rewarded them by putting them on the train and sending them off to Florida as well Martine and Keita were two Scouts who were with Charles Gatewood when they persuaded Geronimo to surrender and they went on they were they were put on the train - it was a real crime and Crook had a fit crook was now retired and when all this was going on from the Army and he but he was nothing even he could do he fought for him but to no avail Marshall I really appreciate you sharing this story with us I believe that it's a tale that really needs to be told yeah so that's a tragic that's that's a whole tragedy of the thing is that it could have been handled it could have been so different could have been done differently well there you have it straight from Arizona's official state historian Marshall Trimble as he tells us all about skull cave join us again for the next edition of mysteries of the Superstition Mountains when we share more of the mysteries of the Superstition Mountains [Music]

Channel: Mysteries of the Superstition Mountains

Views: 7,699

Rating: 4.8714857 out of 5

Keywords: Charlie LeSueur, Superstition Mountains, The Lost Dutchman Mine, Superstition Mountain Museum, Opal Images, Arizona, History, Gold, Treasure, Marshall Trimble, Apache, Skull Cave, Indian Wars, General Crook, Canyon Lake, Massacre, battle, Arizona History, Indian Scouts, Cochise, Geronimo, fort apache, 1872, John G. Bourke, On the border with Crook

Id: anc2wWHvd6o

Length: 29min 48sec (1788 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 11 2019