Santana: War Chief of the Mescalero Apache

268 Pages·2000·2.99 MB·English

by  Almer N. Blazer

Drawn from previously unpublished firsthand accounts of the years 1862 to 1880, this
book tells the story of a great chief who was targeted for death by the U.S. military as
“the worst of all the Apaches.” After disappearing for eight years with his band,
Santana emerged as war chief of all the Mescalero bands and eventually won the
confidence of the U.S. Government. Using his gifts as a leader and negotiator, Santana
was able to persuade the American authorities to prevent the surviving Mescalero
Apache from being exterminated by the military. He was finally able to secure a
reservation on their traditional homeland in the mountains of south-central New
Mexico. Written in the 1940s, Almer N. Blazer’s historic manuscript is a vivid
recreation of the day-to-day history of Santana and the beleaguered tribe who looked to
his leadership during their gravest crisis. Blazer writes sympathetically of the tribe’s
struggle for survival and gives accurate, authoritative descriptions of Mescalero life
before it was forever changed by contact with European culture.
Almer Blazer grew up at his father’s mill, an isolated white outpost in Mescalero
territory near Tularosa, New Mexico. The story of Santana’s life and achievements
comes from the detailed recollections of the author’s father, Dr. Joseph H. Blazer, who
was Santana’s close personal friend and his firm ally in negotiations with the
government. Growing up in close association with the Mescalero, Almer Blazer was
present at rituals and participated in the typical activities of Mescalero boys. In his
manuscript, Almer Blazer presented a vital picture of daily tribal life, customs, and
religious beliefs. He faithfully transmitted what he saw, heard, and experienced,
preserving oral history and cultural information that might otherwise have been lost
during the Mescalero’s brutal transition to “modern” life.
Dr. Pruit’s introduction reconstructs the historical events leading up to the time
when Santana emerged as war chief. The book includes rare early photographs of the
Mescalero Apache, many of which are from the Blazer family collection.
Dog Soldier Press
Taos, New Mexico
SANTANA
WAR CHIEF OF THE MESCALERO APACHE
To the Memory of
ALMER N. BLAZER
Some seed the birds devour,
And some the season mars,
But here and there will flower The solitary stars.
—A. E. Housman
SANTANA
WAR CHIEF OF THE MESCALERO APACHE
Almer N. Blazer
Edited by A. R. Pruit
Foreword by Jerry D. Thompson

Dog Soldier Press
Taos, New Mexico
Copyright © by Dog Soldier Press, 1999.
ISBN-13: 978-0-9718657-8-4
Kindle Edition
Dog Soldier Press
PO Box 1782, Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico 87557
www.dogsoldierpress.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publisher.
Photographs (cover and facing title page): Courtesy Rio Grande Historical
Collections, New Mexico State University Library; (back cover):Don Begley.
Contents
Back Cover
About the Book
Half-Title
Dedication
Title Page
Copyright Page
Foreword by Jerry D. Thompson
Preface
Acknowledgments
Editor’s Introduction
1 Santana
2 Tularosa
3 The Mill
4 The Armistice
5 Ambush
6 The Treaty
7 Hunting
8 Haheh
9 Datlih’s Romance
10 Conflict and Complications
11 An Eastern Tour
12 Passing on Tradition
13 Santana’s Medal
14 Comanche and Buffalo
15 Back to the Mountains
16 Iti’s Second Wife
17 Gold
18 Loss and Change
19 Antelope Hunt
20 Law and Tradition
21 Smallpox
Conclusion by Almer N. Blazer
Appendix I: Joseph H. Blazer, 1828–1898
Appendix II: Almer N. Blazer, 1865–1949
Notes
Bibliography
Glossary
About the Author
FOREWORD
B
eneath the towering, snowcapped summit of Sierra Blanca in south-central New
Mexico Territory in late 1867 or early 1868, two very different men met for the first
time. One was Dr. Joseph Hoy Blazer, a big, blue-eyed, solidly built Iowa Civil War
veteran, who never saw an Indian until he was forty years old. The other man was also
tall, with a broad, calm face and great dignity of manner. He was Mescalero War Chief
Santana. In the years that followed, the two men formed a unique and trusting
friendship. In the words of C. L. Sonnichsen, Blazer was “one of the very few white
men whom the Mescalero trusted and accepted.”1 Blazer had purchased a sawmill, La
Maquina, in the Sacramento Mountains in the heart of the Mescalero country; in time, it
became known as Blazer’s Mill.
Often preyed on by crooked traders, harassed by land-hungry settlers, starved, lied
to, and attacked by the army, Santana and the Mescalero found Blazer to be a striking
contrast to other white men they had known. Blazer was to learn much from Santana,
who had been a leader of considerable influence among the Mescalero since at least
1830. Long at war with the Mexicans, the Mescalero had watched in 1850 as a new
invader penetrated the traditional homeland of the White Mountain Apache. A
detachment of bluecoats out of the Rio Grande Valley crossed the Organ Mountains, the
arid Tularoso Basin, and rode into the rugged, pine- and fir-crested mountains to the
east. With perhaps as many as three hundred warriors, Santana, by sheer intimidation,
drove off the invaders. Yet shortly thereafter, Santana, along with the Jicarilla Apache
and Comanche, proposed peace to the governor of New Mexico. When peace failed, the
chief exerted every effort to keep his band, which never numbered more than a few
hundred, as isolated and far away from the white man as possible. Yet again in January
1855 Santana was at the head of the Mescalero band that confronted the army on the
Peñasco River and killed Captain Henry Whiting Stanton.
After the death of chiefs Barranquito in 1857 and Manuelito in 1862, Santana
continued to rise in the Mescalero hierarchy. During the relentless and genocidal 1862–
1863 campaign against the Mescalero by General James H. Carleton, Santana managed,
probably by secluding himself and his followers in the rugged canyons of the
Sacramento and Guadalupe mountains, to avoid capture and the humiliation of
confinement at the Bosque Redondo Reservation.
During the following decade, through clever negotiations and with the mediation of
Joseph H. Blazer and other whites who supported the Mescalero, Santana was able to
secure a reservation that preserved a substantial remnant of his people’s homeland. In
the great smallpox epidemic of 1876 that swept the area, Santana, an old man by this
time, was seriously afflicted and was taken in and nursed by Joseph H. Blazer at The