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The Battle of Cibecue Creek was an engagement of the Apache Wars, fought in August 1881 between the United States and White Mountain Apaches in Arizona, at Cibecue Creek on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. After an army expedition of scouts and soldiers arrested a prominent medicine man, they were taking the prisoner back to the fort when ambushed by hostile Apaches. During the conflict, soldiers killed the wounded medicine man, and most of the twenty-three Apache scouts mutinied, in the largest such action in United States history. The soldiers retreated to Fort Apache and on the following day, the Apache mounted a counterattack. The events sparked general unrest and led Apache warriors to leave the reservation and join Geronimo. ==Background== Nock-ay-det-klinne was a respected Apache medicine man among his people and chief of the Cañon Creek band of the Cibecue Apaches, a group of the Western Apache. He often counseled leading warriors such as Cochise and Geronimo. Due to corruption and unhealthy conditions at the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in eastern Arizona, Nock-ay-det-klinne began holding ceremonies known as ghost dances at the village of Cibecue. It was part of a late nineteenth-century spiritual revival among native Americans struggling to deal with the disruption of their societies as they were pushed onto reservations. The ceremonies often included heavy drinking and the use of hallucinogenic plants, such as peyote. Through them the Apache expressed and united under their discontent with conditions of reservation life. The American settlers of the region grew alarmed about the dances, which they thought were related to preparations for war. The United States Army came to investigate the situation and remove the medicine man from his followers. The soldiers stationed at Fort Apache included Troops D and E, 6th Cavalry; Company D, 12th Infantry; and Company A, Indian scouts. Captain Edmund Clarence Hentig was transferred to Fort Apache in 1876. He was the Captain and commanded company D.〔(Captain hentig bio )〕 Second Lieutenant Thomas Cruse commanded Company A. Of his twenty-five scouts, twelve were from Chief Pedro's band and thirteen were Cibecue Apache; Nock-ay-det-klinne was one of their own chiefs and medicine men. With the permission of the military, the scouts serving with the troops often attended Nock-ay-det-klinne’s dances near Fort Apache. Cruse later wrote, "''After the medicine dances began around the post I noticed a change. Generally they (scouts ) are very ready to communicate anything they know or may have seen, but after these dances they became very uncommunicative and would not tell anything that was going on among the other Indians or among themselves. One morning the rumor was brought to me that they had told the engineer at the saw mill that they were going to clean out the post and have it for themselves. I could not find out who made the remark from the scouts on inquiry. Formerly they had hung about the men's kitchens and quarters and would talk about themselves and their chiefs and all matters but after these dances they became changed to such an extent that all noticed it. On asking them, however, I could obtain no information.''" On about August 10, Colonel Eugene Asa Carr asked Cruse for his opinion of the loyalty of the scouts. Cruse replied that ''"he entirely distrusted his scouts in event of the rising of the White Mountains () and believed all or nearly all would go with the enemy and recommended their discharge."'' Cruse had noticed their changes in attitude and conduct. He also told Carr that the main participants in any local uprising would be friends and relatives of the scouts and, even if the scouts did not turn against the military, they would be of no use in conflict. Most officers at the post and Sam Bowman had the same opinion. On August 13 Carr telegraphed Departmental Headquarters: ''"It is the general impression here that the men of the Indian scout company will go with their friends if they break out. Please give me authority to discharge them or such of them as I may believe unreliable and enlist reliable ones in their places."'' Permission was granted for the discharge, but the telegraph line went down before Carr received it. He did not hear from the department for two and a half weeks, after he and his troops had returned from being ambushed at the Cibecue. Routinely, every Sunday morning the officers inspected the scout company. Carr directed Cruse to take the scouts’ guns after the August 14 inspection. Cruse was to tell the scouts that he would keep their arms in his office to protect them from the rain. The guns were regularly kept in the orderly room; the officers issued them only to men on herd duty, soldiers and scouts sent out on detached service, and to all men on Saturday evenings for Sunday morning inspections. The scouts took the removal of the guns as a sign of distrust, but Cruse tried to have the interpreter smooth the matter over, and thought they were satisfied. Carr decided to take his cavalry and Cruse’s scouts to the Cibecue and leave the infantry at Fort Apache. He did not feel comfortable bringing the scouts but had little choice. Later, he said, ''"I had to take the chances. They were enlisted men of my command, for duty; and I could not have found the medicine man without them. I deemed it better also if they should prove unfaithful it should not occur at the post (there were officers' families, white civilians and government property )."'' On Sunday morning, August 28, shortly after the scout Chapeau returned to Fort Apache without Nock-ay-det-klinne, Carr told Cruse to let the scouts keep their guns after their inspection and to prepare to leave the next morning to arrest the medicine man. John Byrnes, a Dublin-born Irishman assigned to Company A, knew of the respect which the Apache scouts had for Nock-ay-det-klinne and was alarmed. Byrnes warned Cruse that the scouts should not be armed, as they could not be trusted. Byrnes had earlier counseled Carr against permitting the scouts to keep their guns. Cruse told Byrnes he was acting under Carr's orders. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Battle of Cibecue Creek」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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