welcome to Dayton dead guys today we have three more stories about the Elusive and terrifying Apache take a look at this picture what you see here are three Indian Scouts from the Apache Wars all of them help track down Geronimo in 1886. one of them would go on to win a medal of honor two of them would want to become Outlaws hunted by the army they used to serve their Adventures are what old west stories are made of blood feuds raids prison escapes and journeys of survival one story even as a train if you like trains but before we get started I research historical topics I find interesting and explain them in a way I would to my friends if that is your kind of thing please subscribe and leave a like on the channel if you really like it share it it supports me and will help the channel grow but let's get to our stories everyone loves a good Outlaw a good bad guy makes every story more interesting especially if you can empathize with them and that's the case with the stories we have today our Outlaws are good reservation Indians they work to Scouts helping the Army track down Rogue Apache bands the Apache were the Raiders of the Southwest fans unwilling to submit to reservation continue to plunder both sides of the U. S Mexican border to stop these war parties the military would hire Indian Scouts to help track them down the problem was other tribes feared the Apache and those Scouts would often steer the military clear of them in order to avoid conflict to find an Apache you needed Apache they were among the greatest trackers in the world and the U.
S army figured that out really fast and surprisingly many Apache were eager to help life in San Carlos Hells 40 acres didn't suit them it was embarrassing for men the Age of Warriors to be toiling away as Farmers so they took their skills out of the fields and with remarkable success eleven would go on to win Medals of Honor like rowdy from our title picture Indian Hunter General George crook stated quote I cannot too strongly assert that there has never been any success in operation against these Indians unless Indian Scouts were used end quote they were incredibly successful but sometimes the relationships with the United States would go bad front and center we have the Apache kid probably the most famous Apache Outlaw we will see him again in our second and third stories but first let's look at Maasai foreign Apache and one of the last remaining Apache outlaws like many Apache men who were kept on reservation he would struggle to find a balance between what he wanted for himself his people and the power of the Americans he worked as a scout on and off during several campaigns in the 1880s but he was also a bit of a flip-flopper finding himself escaping from reservation life several times only to then return because he missed his family or disliked life on the Run he would then join up with the Americans as a scout and literally help them catch the same Apache that he previously escaped with it's like snitching on your friends because you want someone to hang out with in prison speaking of prison when Geronimo and his Renegades were finally captured for the last time in 1886 Masai was arrested with them it's not perfectly clear why but it appears the Army was sick of his double agent routine and called for him to be sent away because they viewed him as dangerous he was sent with Geronimo on a prison train to Florida there are several versions of what happened next but one thing is not in dispute Messiah got off that train in one version he was told by an officer that all prisoners who have a red handkerchief would be hanged when they got to Florida as a scout it would make sense that Messiah would have one of those since Scouts usually were given a red handkerchief to distinguish themselves from other Indians who were not Scouts maybe the guard was lying or maybe it was a marker the prison train cars with Apache were only sporadically populated with guards they were secure prison cars but they are dirty and dingy and the guards didn't spend a lot of time in there with limited supervision Maasai teams up with a Tonkawa friend that he has on the train gray lizard together they wiggle the bars free from one of the windows and over time they make enough space to escape they waited for the train to be traveling uphill because it had to slow down they checked to see that no guards are present and Messiah and gray lizard just jump out using the classic tuck and roll technique they remain unscathed and the train just keeps moving maybe they got lucky and no guard to notice the jump maybe the guards assumed they had died in the attempt but once that train passed their problems only started they have no supplies they are dressed in Apache moccasins and breech clouds which are terrible disguises and they are in Missouri 1200 miles away from home what are a couple of bros to do they start walking West side and gray lizard travel by night and hid by day night after night they use the Dipper constellation in order to determine which way to go they tried to kill quail and rabbits with rocks with limited success they ate Roots but they didn't have enough food many years later messiah's daughter would recount the story she said quote they had nothing but breach clouds and moccasins so they suffered with cold as well as hunger but it is hard to starve in Apache end quote then just when they needed it they catch a break in the Ozark Mountains a big fire LED them to a mining camp gray lizard and massage snuck up on the camp they patiently waited and in the morning when the workers entered the mine they stole everything they could carry meat bread coffee and maybe most importantly two guns ammunition and knives now they could hunt as they move west through Oklahoma and Texas the climate gets drier and more desert-like using an old Apache trick they used the stomach of a deer as a water bag so they could stay hydrated that is until gray lizard tripped while holding it and it got torn by a prickly pear a day later thirsty and unable to go on the two dropped the ground they prayed for rain in a stroke of luck or divinity they got it for the second time just when they needed it they got some relief as it poured the two men were able to drink and keep going they made their way to New Mexico they knew where they were when they saw the capitans they were not far from the Sierra Blanca and mesco Mountain this is now the fall of 1887. it had been a full year in 1200 miles since they escaped the train the two friends then separated Messiah stayed in the Sierra Blanca gray lizards split to go to his family in the Mescal mountains but gray lizard didn't make it there something happened and no one ever saw him again Messiah on the other hand was now one of the most Wanted Renegade Apache but we will get to what happens to him in our third story first I want to tell you about the most famous Apache outlaw following the capture of Geronimo the most famous of the Apache Outlaws was haske bene diato but that's hard to pronounce so many American soldiers will refer to him as the Apache kid he was born around 1860 a member of the western Apache as a child he was captured by Yuma Indians but was freed by the U. S he stuck around the Army Camps and this is where he meets Al Seaver shiver was the chief of army Scouts he was famous for it everyone in these camps thought the kid was smart and friendly but sieber saw how skilled and ambitious he was and he took him under his wing he effectively adopted the boy by the time he was a teenager as early as 1879 the Apache kid enlisted in the Army as an Indian Scout and he thrived he was promoted within his first year and he became one of sieber's most trusted men serving in several campaigns to help catch Geronimo as well as other battles against the coyotaro and White Mountain Apache the kid even adopted an American style of dress although that wasn't uncommon among the Apache it was considered very fashionable to dress like the Americans but the kid in siebers relationship took a dark turn the Apache kid's real father lived at the San Carlos reservation but in 1886 he was murdered and the incident escalated into a blood Feud one man the kid believed to be involved in the murder named Rip had gotten away and that was unacceptable Apache culture is not one to wait for arbitration the kid was honor bound to go out doctor rip for vengeance it was his duty knowing that going after this man would cause problems the kid goes to sieber first to seek his permission but he's denied the kid doesn't take it well but he respects sieber in the moment he listens but he doesn't forget he decides to be patient six months later in May of 1887 sieber had to leave San Carlos and he left the Apache kid in charge of the Guard house while he was gone this was his opportunity the kid tracks down rip and kills him as he had felt on her bound to do but sieber's coming back and he knows that what he did May cost him everything the kid goes on the run with friends of his that helped him and when sieber gets the news of the murder he orders him to return and face Justice staying on the Run means that he will be tracked by the Army as other Apache had been the kid knows sieber has a temper but he hopes that he will understand enough that the Army might be lenient so after some negotiating mostly just to make sure army guns were not going to be amazing the second they saw him he returns to meet with sieber sieber and the kid meet in the street and a crowd gathers during the meeting someone in the crowd fires their guns maybe friends of rip who were going after the Apache kid maybe Friends of the kid going after the officers regardless sieber is shot in the ankle and it shatters he lived but it left him a the kid doesn't stick around and again he takes off to escape he saw the running on the wall if he stayed Jack Ruby was going to get him this was the last straw for sieber he already felt betrayed but now he blamed the kid for his injuries a man who he used to think of as a son and from his perspective the kid caused this whole mess then took off and didn't even try to help him from that point on he will hold on to his Grudge the kid only made it a few weeks on the run before surrendering again no violence took place this time he was then court-martialed and charged for his crimes originally he was actually sentenced to death but the sentence was soon reduced to 10 years and he was sent to Alcatraz prison in San Francisco the kid was in prison for a year but in a stroke of luck his case fell under military review in April of 1888.
prejudice was found in the trial and he was released and sent back to San Carlos the kids demeanor now matched the change we had previously saw in sieber formerly outgoing friendly and ambitious he was now jaded with life on reservation as a scout he had a job in status now he had nothing and he didn't trust the Americans he didn't cause trouble he mostly just stayed at the fringes of the territory but sieber still holding his Grudge wasn't done with the kit a new Supreme Court ruling had kicked federal crimes of Indians back to the territories where they lived even though illegal the territorial courts retried any Indians they felt were troublemakers under the new rules a crippled Seaver forced to live on crutches took his Vendetta with the kid to trial and made sure the kid was put up for trying to kill him the thing was that everyone knew the kid had not fired the shot that had shattered sieber's ankle sieber had said as much in the days after the initial incident but the kid was once again convicted and this time was sentenced to seven years at the Yuma Prison in Arizona the relationship had crumbled but alciebrew had gotten his revenge he thought the guards still to get the Apache kid to Yuma and now he had nothing to lose eight people were being sent to Yuma with the kid the first leg of the trip was by Stagecoach and they were meant to get the rest away there by train the Apache prisoners had a stagecoach driver and two guards sheriffs one was Glenn Reynolds fit in his mid-thirties the other was William hunky dory Holmes a less formidable man with heart problems on the second day in the stage coach they reach a stretch of road called Kelvin grade it was Steep and the area had been raining from the two days before most the prisoners were required to walk up the hill to take the burden off the horses but not the Apache kid he stayed in the coach because Reynolds and Holmes considered him too dangerous to be set free it does turn out that other Apache are also dangerous while trudging up the hill some of the Apache prisoners saw an opportunity they slowly surrounded homes before pouncing on him he was quickly overpowered and the prisoners took its gun both he and Reynolds were shot before they were able to react meanwhile the coach driver Eugene Middleton was plotting up the hill with his horses when he had heard gunshots just as he saw the Apache with loose he was shot in the face and the bullet came out his neck laying on the ground helpless to Apache approach Middleton with a rock the Apache kid was let out of the stagecoach and he too walked up the Middleton he had every reason to finish him but he didn't according to Middleton he actually survived despite being shot in the face because the Apache kid called the others off saving his life knowing better than to trust the justice system at this point he and the others then scattered into the bush within a year by late 1890 all of the prisoners from the Escape called the Kelvin grade Massacre were captured except for the Apache kid but not for lack of trying rewards first capture Dead or Alive were offered up to five thousand dollars a lot of money in those days although there are many reports for what may have happened to him he would never be definitively found foreign were not the only two Apache Outlaws hidden in the Sierra Madre Mountains into the 1890s well into the early 1900s many people in the region felt there could be at least a hundred or more Apaches still out there the Mexicans called them Bronco Apaches messiah's escape and the Apache kids took place within a few years of each other afterward dozens of unknown crimes were accredited to both men but very few are known to be truly committed by either so what happened to them we don't actually know for sure but we are not lacking rumors a great article by Lee Paul had this to say quote between the years of 1890 and 1906 numerous reports circulated that both Messiah and the Apache kid were dead John Horton Slaughter Hualapai Clark Jack ganzhorn and Mickey free all claim to have killed the kid while in New Mexico Posse said they had got Masai one or the other of the two Renegades was said to have been found dead in a cave killed in a cornfield and bushed a water hole shot off his horse or brought down by Mexican rule Alles yet no one ever produced a body or collected a reward end quote we don't know definitively but there are a couple stories that pique my interest one by messiah's own daughter around 1900 Maasai was traveling north in the Sierra Madres with his wife and young child they were traveling to a reservation Messiah thought life in the mountains had become too dangerous he couldn't go live on reservation himself but he could have scored his family while traveling Masai spotted dust Rising on the trails in the distance behind them someone was following them the Mexican rulales were always trying to track them down Messiah sent his family up the trail but he stayed behind and waited concealed by a tree then he saw them two Mexicans he shot one but the other was able to rescue His companion and get him on his horse before riding off within hours they had reported what happened and the military came after Messiah and force within a day he was found and shot no reward for his killing was ever claimed instead it said they built a big fire decapitated him and boiled his head it's possible they didn't know who he was or maybe they wanted to send a message the brutality between the Mexicans and the Apaches are well documented in Apache religion mutilation is a fate worse than death because you go into the Afterlife as you are buried the fate of the Apache kid is just as mysterious it's likely he had gotten help from his mother she allegedly they would leave caches of ammunition food and clothing in a cave for him it was common for the Apache to keep Goods hidden like this his sister says that he visited her frequently until 1896 when he stopped was he dead well in 1899 Mexican rulales reported that he was living peacefully in the Sierra Madres the kid's nephew said he was alive in Sonora in 1924 and others reported he visited friends at San Carlos as late as 1935.
