Fort Apache
We are in Apache country on the border between Arizona and New Mexico. Yesterday we took a scenic side trip on Rt. 72 that actually took us right past the historic Fort Apache, but I neither knew that at the time nor did we stop. I suspect that at that time of the day we were all bone weary and perhaps not as interested as we might have been in the morning. Fort Apache was actually only one of eleven U.S. Army forts set up in the area in the mid-to-late Nineteenth Century to combat the Apache Indian uprisings led by the likes of Geronimo and Cochise. This was all part of our national history of settling the west and taking away the native lands of Native Americans and displacing them to Reservations as per the Indian Removal Act of 1830, as put in place by none other than Andrew Jackson, one of the less empathetic presidents in our national history. In the early days of the hostilities, it was Cochise who led the tribes against the scattered troops (think Dances With Wolves). It was the classic indigenous people versus “progress” program with the Army falsely accusing Cochise of kidnapping and using that as an excuse to rain down the fury of the cavalry on them. After fifty years of skirmish conflicts, the U.S. threw the gloves off and sent 5,000 troops into the region, stationed at those eleven forts and finally in 1886 secured some semblance of peace by getting Geronimo and his renegade band of 30 warriors to surrender.
I’ve never been a student of the history of Native Americans, but it is hard not to get into it a bit when you are riding these roads wondering what made this relatively unpopulated area so damn important to settlers a hundred and fifty years ago. If it was so important, you would think we would have done something with the place since then, but this area, where the conflict was the greatest, is still a rugged and relatively barren land with lots of natural beauty and still very little progress. I am writing this from inside our cabin abode for the night before heading out down the road for a bit of breakfast before our ride down to Los Cruces, New Mexico today. I am expecting to see a lot more of the same sort of scenery and still a dearth of progress. It kind of makes me think that we inflicted all sorts of harm on these people for no particularly good reason other than our Manifest Destiny (A term we coined at the time to justify our removal of native peoples in deference to the urge for white people to settle any free land that existed in the newly minted western reaches of the country).
When I brought up the issue of reparations in regard to the Native Americans, it was suggested that we had already done that with Indian Casinos. It occurs to me that the casino enablement and the tax-free status were actually quite creative and progressive means of dealing with the reparations issue. No one would mistake that as a perfect dollar-for-dollar attempt to make up for what the white man cost the Native Americans, but it is a form of reparation that is both productive and forward-looking. Some might challenge the productivity, but let’s just say that if there are casinos that are going to be built for people to entertain themselves, then allowing Native Americans an ability to have an advantaged and viable business opportunity to better their lot is not such a bad thing. I have noted that the reservations near me that have casinos also have what look to be excellent local infrastructure like fancy administrative buildings and the best looking firehouses you will ever see. Of course, the dark side of all of this and the vestigial history of abuse can also be seen in the ramshackle houses not so far away with nice shiny cars in front. There may never be any way to make up for what these indigenous people were forced to give up in terms of their way of life and the gradual cultural corruption that ensued.
Today I will look for more Apache signs as we head south to Las Cruces. Maybe I’ll have to add some Mexican heritage and harm that our white forefathers inflicted on them during the Mexican-American War that took place about the same time as the Apache Wars. We rode south on 180 from Alpine to Silver City, where we had pre-located a nice spot for lunch. Well we thought it would be a nice place, but it fell a tad short of that. I should have suspected a gap in the quality of the place when I fist spoke to the hostess/waitress. We have all come to accept tattoos on young and even not so young people. And I think we are even mostly used to a lot of tattoos, but every once in a while someone surprises you, as this hostess/waitress did. Besides being a bit surly about whether we should sit inside or outside (“I don’t know…that’s up to you”) she had amongst her plentiful tattoos a notable tattoo under her chin and written in Gothic script, “Unrepentant”. That’s sort of a dead giveaway that you’re not dealing with someone all that happy with her job, or maybe her life overall. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t a Native American of either Apache or any other tribal affiliation. I doubt her issues had a lot to do with Native Americans, so that may not be where we should lay blame for our less than wonderful lunch. That said, there just is no end to the devastation of conquest that man has inflicted on his fellow man as he marched forward in his occupation of all the empty spaces on the Western frontier. And we were riding through one of the great scenes of the crimes all day.
After lunch, with the thermometer rising as we headed south and into the heat of the day, the two women in the group who had been riding, opted to join the other three in the Princess Van for an afternoon of shopping while the menfolk headed off for Las Cruces like a posse on horseback. Here’s the thing about that though, when it gets over 98.6 degrees, the faster you go (as in on a motorcycle rather than on horseback), the hotter you get. In other words going faster has no cooling effect. Luckily, Steve had given me a wet neck gator, which I donned once it was hot enough. It really did help keep me cooler where it mattered most. All I kept thinking as we rode through the Gila National Forrest on a lovely road that wound its way through the forrest, up and down the Apache hills, was that I needed to stay hydrated. Every time we stopped (which never seemed often enough on a day like today) I tanked up on Gatorade or water until I was out. I hadn’t slept well at 8,000 feet the night before, so I was dragging for sure by late afternoon. On the last stretch down Highway 25 for 60 miles, it got particularly bad so I was popping Werther hard candies to keep my mouth salivating. To do that I needed to put the bike on cruise control and slow down while I did a one-handed Candy unwrap, something I know how to do, but is never elegant. Apparently, this caused my riding partners to think I was going delirious, so they stopped more than even I needed. I only learned this at dinner and we had a good laugh about it once I explained the candy unwrapping. I wonder if the horse soldiers or Apaches had this sort of problem?
From Las Cruces, tomorrow, we will head north through the White Sands National Park towards Alamogordo. This will be a well-timed visit since the movie called Oppenheimer is due for release later this month and I expect we will shift our gears from considering man’s inhumanity to man in the Nineteenth Century to man’s inhumanity to man in the Twentieth Century. No candy unwrapping for me.