Customer Reviews

Massacre at Camp Grant: Forgetting and Remembering Apache History

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

For anyone looking for a keen insight to the massacre of 1871, this book provides clear and well-presented evidence that the Apaches at Camp Grant were grossly mistreated and falsely accused of murder.

The author is a passionate Tucsonan who has written and co-authored several well-researched Apache books. This book was born after a joint research project with several other anthropologists and Native Americans in the lower San Pedro Valley of southern Arizona.

This book is an attempt to show why there were differences in the studies done on this grave incident, the 1871 Camp Grant Massacre, by Anglo-American historians, why the Apache version was rarely acknowledged, what differences there were between the US Americans and the Apaches when describing this event and the points of view focused on by the two main parties.

The chapters are short. There are five chapters, each dealing with a different topic. The first chapter, "Phantom History," explains the methodologies used in this book. Using older versions written by US soldiers involved in this raid and massacre, the author points out grave and not-so-grave differences between every version. He also explains that much of the one-sided versions were simply because of the American attitudes toward all Native Americans at the time: the natives were savages that needed either to be destroyed or completely assimilated. Until they were assimilated, their culture was to be ignored.

I enjoyed the second and third chapters the best, writing about six Apache versions of the same massacre. This was the one chapter devoted to Apache oral history. The rest of the chapters were more of an anthropological analysis of the sometimes vast differences between Anglo-American and Native American versions of this country's history.

The third chapter, by far the longest chapter, is a synopsis of all the histories of southern Arizona that eventually led to the 1871 massacre, starting with the Spanish conquistadores, the Gadsen Purchase, the Civil War, westward expansion across the region, Mexican miners and other prospectors. Based on the author's analysis of food ration documents, he believes that the Camp Grant Apaches could not have committed the murders in and around Tucson on the dates that they happened because the murders were on the same date as when food was distributed. Also, travel time from their encampment to the murder scenese would have taken over a day by horse and was too far to be doable. The author claims that the Camp Grant Apaches were falsely accused of these murders and blames the real killers on the more eastern Chiricahua Apaches.

Historical imagination is unavoidable, the author then goes on to say, as all things are subjective. But all versions of an event must be given equal consideration in order to provide more balanced reportage of history. White man has been grossly ethnocentric when it comes to writing its own history. The versions of the Native Americans must be given more of a voice to make our history more accurate.

The final chapter, "History, Memory and Justice" suggests that although White Americans can not change the past, we can work on improving the future and the co-existence of Native Americans. By writing from the Native American perspective and including that perspective in our own historical books, we are working on a new social justice for our future. This type of "informal restorative justice" is the best way to amend the wrongs of the White Man and to heal the pains our indigenous peoples have endured.

This book is a compact analysis of the Camp Grant massacre. For the uninformed reader this book may appear dry and confusing. However, for anyone wanting a new perspective of this event, this is a good read.

and discusses approaches on how to remember this event. The author goes into detail on the massacre at Camp Grant on April 30, 1871; he goes through the events that led up to the incident and the key players involved. I think what we should take away from this volume is that history is not black and white and that there was blame on both sides with regards to the general conflict. However, this event was unique in that the collection of Anglo-Americans, Mexican-Americans and Tohono O'odham tribesmen went on a reprisal raid on a group of people that had nothing to do with the then-recent raids on settlers near Tucson. In actuality, the raids were conducted by Cochise's Chiracahua Apaches who came from the east and the Apaches that were killed were Aravaipas. Moreover, this event was horrifying in that most of those killed were women and children and that the balance of the children were kidnapped and most of them were sold into slavery south of the border. In addition to this, the perpetrators of the massacre were let off the hook by a sympathetic jury, thus no justice was done.

The author tries to sort out what could be done today with regards to this incident that occurred more than a century ago. Discussions about restorative justice and reconciliation are brought up. Included in this is monetary compensation, but the author seems to discourage that as the victims and the assailants are long dead. He states that the object of this book is to state that history should shape contemporary identities and that revealing truth can advance justice. I concur as one should never forget the past.

This short book has 116 pages of text, endnotes, a bibliography, a glossary of terms and a short index. I recommend this book for one to understand obscure southwest history.

A scholarly history of the massacre at Camp Grant. It chronicles the incident from various viewpoints, especially from the native-American side which was not fairly covered at the time of the massacre. It is not an easy read, but interestingly points the finger of shame at some of the people after whom streets and neighborhoods in Tucson are named.

Mr. Colwell-Chanthaphonh offers important perspectives and significant reflections on this regrettable event of American history. All of the studies now being done about this massacre--its background, the event itself, the aftermath, and its meaning in American history--have been sorely needed. This book is a wonderful contribution to remedying such ignorance.