(A series brought to you by Feminist Global Resistance)

The Series:

Patriarchy ensures that male (almost exclusively white colonizer) history is remembered though a few women shine through or are given a twisted footnote.

More often, women are relegated to lost tomes and forgotten lore. Some shine through in song and tales while others, more recently, are beginning to have their stories told (progress?)

Throughout history, women around the world have stood to fight patriarchy, some winning, some losing, but they often brought revolution and change, their lives given for the just causes of freedom, liberty and justice.

This series will focus on the stories of some of those women who have stood up to patriarchy fighting oppression and colonization; confronting violence and abuse; And sacrificing everything in a fight for freedom, justice, and human rights.  There have been many.  I have chosen just a few of those who inspire me by their bravery and resolve.

Learn their names, learn from them, let them inspire you to do great things.

Part 9: Lozen, Tchihende (Chihenne) Nde Warrior

 

Lozen – Spiritual Leader, Warrior (approx. date of birth 1840; Death 1889), The Nde (aka, “Apache”)People of the Tchihende (Chihenne or “Red Paint People”), Chiricahua (Tsokanende) 

 

The Athabascans

The Apache and Navajo peoples are closely related. They are, both, Athabaskan-speaking people and, as anthropological evidence suggests, both Apache and Navajo groups probably lived in the northwestern areas of what is now Canada, Alaska, the northern Pacific coast line before migrating to the Southwestern United States, sometime between AD 1000 and 1500.

 

Seven branches of Athabascan (aka, Na-Dene or Dene)

 

The names “Apache” and “Navajo” are not what the nations call themselves, they are the “Diné” or “Dine’”, “Dine’e”, “Ndee”, “Nde” or “Indé” meaning “The People”.  The term “Apache” comes from the Zuni, ápachu,  meaning “enemy”.  The Spanish took the term as the name for the fierce nomads and it was passed on to other white colonizers as their name.

 

Nde in the Southwest

The Nde have always been nomadic, depending on hunting and gathering as their main source of food.  They became adept at quickly setting up camp, breaking it down and moving to a new locale using what their natural surroundings provided.

Upon moving South from the Northwestern part of the continent, they landed in what is now the Kansas plains. Here the “hunter-gatherer” society added some farming of watermelon, beans and corn to their meat sources.

Unfortunately, they were rivals to the Comanche, Nermernuh, and were driven from those.  The Nde were forced to move further south into New Mexico and Arizona as well as Texas and Mexico.

Establishing themselves in the new lands, they soon set up trade with neighboring tribal nations, trading meat and hides for corn and other foods While the Pueblo neighbors excelled in pottery, the Nde excelled in their basketry – lightweight storage, cooking and water containers were much easier to carry and transport on dog travois. Once horses were introduced to the Americas, they quickly adapted to their use

They became known for their fierce fighting and protection of their people and lands. After their original contact with the white colonizers (Spanish), in the 1500’s,  the Apache (called Querechos by Coronado and his men) soon found themselves battling for their land and their way of life once again.

 

Apacheria and the “Apache-Mexican Wars”

Map of Apacheria

 

As the colonizers began settling in Apacheria, they brought livestock, began farming, began mining, and established missions, cities and towns.  The movement of more people into the area disrupted trading with other tribes and taxed the limited natural resources of the area (game was depleted, water resources depleted, and native plants were being destroyed by grazing livestock and farming).

As competition for resources grew, the Nde began raiding these settlements.  Raiding became a part of the Nde way of life – Theft of horses, mules and other livestock; theft of goods (grain and other foods); and destruction of homes and mining communities became common place.

In response, the Spanish set up presidios (forts), began military operations against the bands of Nde, exacting heavy human tolls, but it didn’t stop the raids of communities, mines and missions.

By 1786, a tenuous peace was created between the Nde and the Spanish when they allied in their fight against the Comanche.  Many bands began moving closer to the presidios and food rations were established to augment the limited resources of the open desert and southern plains. That peace ended when Mexico declared independence in 1821.

By the 1830’s the newly formed Mexican government began cutting all rations to the Nde who had moved around the Spanish Presidios. The military governors of Chihuahua and Sonora began operations against the Nde, again vying for resources with the tribes.

The tribes, without any centralized government, made their own decisions as to their response – some bands would send out their own small parties on raids against the ranches and settlements; some bands would form short-term alliances for larger raids; and other bands would negotiate with individual Mexican state officials for peace.

This changed in 1835, when the governments of Sonora and Chihuahua put a bounty on the Nde:

• 100 pesos (at the time a peso was equal to a US silver dollar) for each scalp of a male 14 or older,
• 50 pesos for the capture of an adult female,
• 25 pesos for a child under 14.
• Bounty hunters were allowed to keep any Apache property they captured.

100 pesos was more than most people in the area made in a year.

That bounty drew both Mexican and US bounty hunters eager to cash in.  One US bounty hunter, James Johnson, with a company of men, set off a boom in bounty hunting when in 1837, in Hidalgo County, New Mexico, with a concealed canon, fired upon a settlement of Nde at close range, killing warriors, women and children. The marauding Johnson and company, set upon the entire settlement killing and scalping.

Johnson took the scalps to Sonora and cashed in even though the scalps were taken in an entirely different jurisdiction. Others soon followed in his quest for cash finding a quick profit was to be had.

 

 

Her Story…

 

“Lozen is my right hand . . . strong as a man , braver than most, and cunning in strategy, Lozen is a shield to her people.”       ~Chief Victorio

 

Lozen (“dexterous horse thief”) was born, in approximately 1840, to a Chihenne Chiricahua Nde Chief, in Apacheria.  Her older brother (born in 1825), Victorio, became an important Chief of the Warm Springs band of the Chihenne Chiricahua Nde. The exact location of her birth is unknown but it is said she was born within sight of the “Sacred Mountain” near Ojo Caliente (warm springs near Taos, New Mexico)

By 1840, the Nde had been dealing with white European colonizers for nearly 300 years.  First the Spanish, and the Spanish colonized area, Mexico, then the United States. By 1840, the “Apache-Mexican Wars” had spanned 200 years and were gearing up again.

Actions against the Nde, from the slaughter and scalping of an entire village by James Johnson, to the slaughter of 130 peaceful Apaches at Galeana, Chihuahua, by US mercenary, James Kirker ,working for the governor of Chihuahua, did little to assuage the rising number of raids on white colonizer settlements. Instead, these actions enraged the Nde. Mangas Coloradas (“Red Sleeves“), Chief of the Mimbreno band Chiricahua, wanted revenge.

Mangas Colorados had been the one who had taken charge of the survivors of the Johnson massacre; He also took charge of the revenge exacted on the colonizers who had slaughtered the Nde,

He rose to fame with “the people” and infamy with the colonizers.

The Mexican-American war (1846-1848) brought enemies from both sides of the white colonizers’ war; the American land grab, that followed that war, made things worse for the Nde. The Nde had enemies on all sides, invading their land, taking their food, killing their people, selling their scalps as trophies. This was the brutal reality of Lozen’s childhood.

It was also in those early years of life that Lozen decided she had no interest in learning women’s duties; She wanted to be a warrior. She was of “Two Spirits”.

As a child she demonstrated abilities far beyond her years but those abilities were not suited for “maintaining the hearth”.  Her natural athletic ability, fearlessness, protectiveness, keen intellect and indomitable will were more suited to the warrior’s path.

Lozen learned to ride a horse when she was 7 years old. She, quickly, become one of the best riders in the Chihenne band. She was an outstanding marksman, extremely adept with a knife, and was a gifted military strategist.

As a young girl, she enjoyed rough housing with the boys and usually prevailed in any physical contest.

It was her brother, now Chief Victorio, who recognized her abilities and taught her the skills that she would need to defend her people. She, soon, became a respected warrior accepted and supported by all the top warriors in her band. This was a unique honor since Apache warriors didn’t typically allow single women to ride with raiding parties, they made an exception for Lozen.

Unlike the few women who were considered “warriors” for the Nde, Lozen dressed and lived as her fellow warriors; She fought alongside her brother, Victorio, against the U.S. occupation of the Apache homeland and depletion of resources. Many battles were fought between the Chihenne Nde band and the European occupiers – be they miners, settlers or military – from 1852-1862

Lozen was also a shaman who, as her people believed, had supernatural powers. It is said she used her powers in battle, successfully determining the movements of the enemy and always eluding capture while leading any band she accompanied out of danger and out of the hands of those who sought them.

In an oral accounts given by Harlyn Geronimo, the great-grandson of Geronimo, as well as others, Lozen could locate her people’s enemies by out-stretching her arms, turning her palms toward the sky, and walking in a complete circle until the veins in her arms turned dark blue thus indicating the direction from which the enemy would come.

Lozen became an expert strategist for and advisor to Victorio.

She learned the power of the plants and herbs used for healing.  She used song and ceremony for healing and for war.

 

Mangas Coloradas, Cochise, and Geronimo – The Call to War

In the summer of 1860, Chief Mangas Coloradas, wanted peace, not war, with the colonizers. In his advancing age, he could see the U.S. invasion surging relentlessly, threatening to engulf the Nde people. Facing the inevitable, Mangas searched for ways to protect his band’s land in southwestern New Mexico; insure the safety of his people and his family; and develop a relationship with the U.S. based on trust and honor.

Unfortunately, American ranchers, farmers, stagecoach employees and miners (protected by U.S. soldiers) had already begun their grab of Chihenne range. Homesteads with livestock and farms took over desert and grasslands; Mines dug into hillsides; and hunters depleted the game on the mountain slopes. The settlers and colonizers hunted the Nde with impunity, killing any and all they could find, (often with government sanction). Extermination was the plan.

The tension and conflict came to a head in May, 1860, with the discovery of gold near Pinos Altos.  The miners accelerated the assault on the Nde, clear cutting timber, driving out or taking the game, and digging up the landscape in search of gold.

It appeared “peace” was still not an option.

 

Mangas Coloradas and Cochise, Chief of the Chokonen band, joined forces and called upon all other bands of the Chihenne to join them in war against the U.S. government. Geronimo, prominent leader and medicine man of the Bedonkohe band, joined them.

Kas-tziden (“Broken Foot”) or Haškɛnadɨltla (“Angry, He is Agitated”), better known as “Nana”. Chief of a Warm Springs band of the Chihenne, and Victorio, along with Lozen, joined Cochise and Mangas Coloradas.

The allied bands under Cochise led raids across southeastern Arizona; The allied bands under Mangas Coloradas focused their raids in southwestern New Mexico, especially in the gold mining region around Pinos Altos.

In 1862, Mangas Coloradas tried or peace once again.

In 1863, a group of miners and military, under General Carleton, raised a white flag to signal an invitation for a peace council at Pinos Alto. Mangas Coloradas decided to meet them in person. Upon his arrival, he was seized, taken to the ruins of Ft McLane and thrown in an adobe cell.  That night, he was tortured, killed and buried in a shallow grave. The next day, the soldiers dug up his body, cut off his head and boiled the flesh from the skull. They sent the skull to the Smithsonian Institution.

The murder and desecration of Mangas Coloradas enraged he Nde. Their response was more retaliation and revenge against the colonizers.

 

San Carlos Reservation, Escape and Re-Capture

With the end of the Civil War, the U.S. sent troops back into the Apacheria.  More forts were built, more settlers came and the Nde were being displaced no matter how hard they fought.

The Chihenne and other bands were constantly on the run. Both the U.S and Mexican Calvaries killed or enslaved thousands of the Nde.

By 1869, Lozen had joined Victorio and other leaders and the U.S. government for a meeting to establish peace.  The Nde leaders agreed to settle at Ojo Caliente (aka Warm Springs) – an area within the traditional Chihenne homelands. Victorio, after consulting with Lozen, agreed to the terms.

After only 2 years at the new reservation, the U.S. government changed their minds and forcibly removed the Chihenne to Fort Tularos and again, in 1877, to the San Carlos Reservation (also known as “Hells Forty Acres”) in Arizona.  They were met with deplorable conditions:

• The reservation was set up to merge multiple bands and tribes together, many were enemies of each other – the result of a plan to continue the extermination of the tribes.
• At the reservation, all those living there were to receive housing and food, but the funds rarely got to the reservation and the Nde suffered.
• The Nde were not allowed to hunt and only allotted a few meager rations to the people.
• The reservation was dirty and over-crowded, allowing contagious diseases to run rampant and ravage the community
• The U.S. Army showed both animosity toward the Indians and disdain for the civilian Indian Agents. Soldiers and their commanding officers sometimes brutally tortured or killed the Indians for sport.

In 1877, Victorio, Lozen and other Chihenne fled the reservation preferring war over the reservation life. In order to evade capture, they disbanded and spread out in different directions. They were chased relentlessly by both the U.S. and the Mexican Army.

For the next three years, they were chased, relentlessly, by the U.S. and Mexican Army. During this time, Lozen’s skills detecting the enemy were in constant demand. She treated the wounded and frequently ferried vulnerable women, children and elderly to safety when soldiers got too close.

On one occasion, Lozen gathered together a group of women and children, who had fled the reservation and the U.S. Army, with the plan to escort them across the Rio Grande River into Mexico.  Once she delivered her group, safely, across the raging river, she turned and left, alone, to rejoin her brother in the war.

On another occasion, Lozen left the band to help a young pregnant woman cross the Chihuahuan Desert of Mexico, back to her family on the Mescalero Apache Reservation, equipped with a single rifle, a cartridge belt, a knife and a three-day supply of food. While in route, she hid the mother from the Mexican and American cavalries, who were in pursuit, and assisted the woman in the delivery of her child.  Along the way, killed and butchered a longhorn cow for food, and stole a Mexican cavalry horse for the new mother and a vaquero’s horse for herself.

Unfortunately, every time she left the band on these missions, the band was left vulnerable.

 

In the Fall of 1880, Lozen led a group of women and children to Mescalero.

On October 15, 1880, Mexican and Tarahumara Indian forces ambushed Victorio’s band in Tres Castillos, Mexico. 78 Nde were killed, including Victorio and all of the warriors. The soldiers scalped the bodies for the bounty and captured 100 women and children to sell into slavery. Only 17 members of the band escaped.

Lozen found out about the ambush when she arrived in Mescalero. She immediately headed south to find the survivors (now led by Nana). Weaving undetected between the Mexican and American military, she stole a couple of horses and supplies on the way. She found the survivors from her band in the Sierra Madres Mountains. She rode into camp with an extra horse and supplies that she stole on the way.

Between 1877-1880, Lozen lost her brother, her homeland, and half her people to the U.S. and Mexican armies.

By 1881, Lozen and Nana joined Geronimo.  They fought side by side or the next two years before being captured and returned to San Carlos Reservation.

On May 17, 1885, Geronimo led Lozen, Nana, 42 warriors and 92 women and children out of he San Carlos Reservation for the last time.

It took the U.S. Army, and thousands of troops, three more years to locate and negotiate a surrender by Geronimo.

In 1888, Geronimo negotiated his surrender with an agreement to go to the reservation in Florida for two years then return to their homeland’s. Those who negotiated the terms, or the U.S., openly lied when they agreed – they knew the U.S. had no intention of allowing any of the Nde to return to their homelands.

Geronimo didn’t recognize the betrayal and surrendered. He sent out the first group of Nde, 24 men and 14 women (including Lozen), as a “good faith” gesture.

 

The soldiers loaded them into overcrowded cattle cars and shipped them east. Like the reservations, the camps were filthy, filled with contagious diseases and malnutrition – the camps became a typhoid and tuberculosis petrie dish and the death toll was high.

Lozen died there within 3 years. Succumbing to tuberculosis as a prisoner of war in Mount Vernon, Alabama on June 17, 1889. She was buried in an unmarked grave with 50+ other Nde who died at that camp.

 

 

Lozen, leader in battle, healer, and protector of her people, embodies the Warrior Spirit…

Learn from her, feel her power, absorb her strength