How did the U.S. Cavalry select Indian scouts for its missions?
Categories: Ask the Marshall
By: Marshall Trimble 05/01/2008
Q
How did the U.S. Cavalry select Indian scouts for its missions?
Paul Gordon
St Thomas, Ontario
A
During the Indian War period on the Plains, the Army made use of traditional enemy tribes to recruit their scouts. For example, during the Sioux Wars, they recruited Crow warriors to scout for them.
During the Apache Wars in Arizona and New Mexico, the Apaches never saw themselves as a single tribe. Chiricahua, Jacarilla, Mescalero, Western Apache and smaller groups were named for where they resided, such as Pinal and Aravaipa. Loyalties ran from clan to band, without allegiance to larger groups (with some exceptions for great leaders like Mangas Coloradas).
Captain John G. Bourke, in his classic account of the Apache Wars, On the Border with Crook, mentions that during the campaigns against the Yavapai and Tonto Apache in 1872-73, they tried to recruit Paiute, Navajo, Maricopa and Pima scouts in Arizona’s rugged central mountains. They succeeded only in recruiting members of rival clans among the Yavapai and Apache. These warriors held some grudge against those bands the Army was pursuing, and they were only too eager to become scouts and hunt them down. Bourke wrote, “The longer we knew the Apache scouts the better we liked them. They were wilder and more suspicious than the Pimas and Maricopas, but far more reliable, and endowed with a greater amount of courage and daring.”
Furthermore, the Apache and Yavapai knew the land and could lead the soldiers right into the lair of the hostile bands. The best example of this was the Battle of Salt River Caves in December 1872.
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