riorated over the issue of
unchecked white settle-
ment, Victorio accompa-
nied Mangas and Cochise
on many frontier raids.
He was probably present
at the July 14, 1862, Bat-
tle of Apache Pass in
western Arizona, where
Mangas was wounded,
and shortly thereafter
succeeded him as head
chief of the Chiricahua
band. Whites who knew
Victorio characterized
him as having a relatively
short stature, but pos-
sessing a bright eye, an
alert mind, and a com-
manding presence. He
conducted numerous and
bloody raids against fron-
tier settlements, stagecoaches, and cavalry
patrols on both sides of the U.S.-Mexico bor-
der until 1865. That year the Apache nation
had grown weary of incessant strife and
agreed to be placed upon reservations in Ojo
Caliente, their own territory.
After many years of peaceful existence, the
resettled Chiricahua Apache bands were
slowly adapting to farming and a sedentary
way of life. However, in 1877 Victorio’s band
was summarily uprooted by Indian agents and
forced to relocate to the hated San Carlos
Reservation, unbearably hot and foreboding.
This also placed the Chiricahuas in the midst
of a competing band, the Mescalero Apaches,
and relations were tense. Victorio was con-
cerned for the safety of his band, so on Sep-
tember 2, 1877, he departed the reservation
with 300 men, women, and children. The army
promptly rounded up the escapees and re-
turned them to San Carlos, but Victorio and
about 50 warriors escaped again to the
Mescalero Apache Reservation near Fort
Stanton, New Mexico, in July 1879. The new-
comers settled down peacefully for a few
weeks, but nearby white settlers, who remem-
bered Victorio well for
his earlier raiding activi-
ties, indicted him for
murder and horse steal-
ing. The chief, fearing he
would be imprisoned and
murdered like Mangas,
fled with his warriors a
third time on August 21,- “From now on it
will be war,” he vowed.
“War to the death. There
is no other way.” De-
prived of food and shel-
ter, the band commenced
doing what Apaches war-
riors excelled at: hit-and-
run guerrilla raiding.
Within a year, Victorio
spread blood and terror
along the southwestern
frontier and into northern
Mexico, where he established a refuge. He
was vigorously pursued on both sides of the
border by determined bodies of Mexican and
American soldiers. Foremost among these
were detachments of the 10th U.S. Cavalry, a
noted African American unit under Col. Ben-
jamin H. Grierson. But on several occasions
Victorio bested his pursuers in combat and
even wiped out two successive detachments
of Mexican militia. Success further embold-
ened the Apaches, so the following year they
returned to New Mexico, spreading mayhem
and death. A major military effort was
launched by the Americans to destroy Victo-
rio’s band, and at one point a party of soldiers
under Henry K. Parker (ironically, employing
Apache scouts) trapped him in a canyon. Vic-
torio, however, managed to escape when the
Americans ran out of ammunition. Such
bravado enthralled Apaches living on the
reservations, and many Mescalero warriors,
including Geronimo, slipped away to join the
proceedings. Returning to Mexico, Victorio
resumed his depredations with near impunity
until Chihuahua Governor Luis Terrazas dis-
patched his cousin, Lt. Col. Joaquin Terrazas,
VICTORIO
Victorio
National Archives