Skeleton Cave massacre
| Skeleton Cave massacre | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Yavapai wars | |
| Location | 33°34′57″N 111°21′57″W / 33.5826°N 111.3659°W Tonto Basin, Arizona Territory |
| Date | 28 December 1872 |
| Target | Yavapai people |
Attack type | Massacre |
| Deaths | 76-100+ killed |
| Perpetrator |  United States |
The Skeleton Cave massacre was the killing of Yavapai people by the US army on December 28th, 1872 in the Arizona Territory during the Yavapai wars.
Background
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Massacre
[edit]On December 28, 1872, the US army men encountered the Yavapai hiding out at Skeleton Cave, located in the Salt River Canyon northeast of present-day Phoenix, Arizona. The US forces were composed of men from the 5th Cavalry Regiment led by Captain William H. Brown, and were accompanied by 30 Apache scouts. Captain James Burns also participated and led a force of 100 Pima people in the attack.[1]
At least 76 Yavapai were killed in the attack including women and children.[2] Women and children who survived the attack were taken as prisoners to Camp Grant.[3]
Legacy and analysis
[edit]A Yavapai boy named Hoomothya, later named Mike Burns, who witnessed the massacre wrote that "over 225" Yavapai were killed in the attack.[4][5]
Historian Jeffrey P. Shepherd called the massacre a "genocidal act".[6]
References
[edit]- ↑ Michno, Gregory (2003). Encyclopedia of Indian Wars: Western Battles and Skirmishes, 1850–1890. Missoula: Mountain Press Publishing Company. pp. 261–262. ISBN 0-87842-468-7.
- ↑ Braatz 2003, Surviving Conquest: A History of the Yavapai Peoples, p. 138, https://archive.org/details/survivingconques0000braa
- ↑ Braatz 2003, Surviving Conquest: A History of the Yavapai Peoples, p. 138, https://archive.org/details/survivingconques0000braa
- ↑ Burns, Mike (Hoomothya). All of My People Were Killed: The Memoir of Mike Burns (Hoomothya), A Captive Indian. Edited by Sandra Lynch, Sharlot Hall Museum Press, 2010
- ↑ Crandall, M. (2014). Wassaja Comes Home: A Yavapai Perspective on Carlos Montezuma’s Search for Identity. The Journal of Arizona History, 55(1), 1–26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24459861
- ↑ Jeffrey P. Shepherd, Review of All of My People Were Killed: The Memoir of Mike Burns (Hoomothya), A Captive Indian, Western Historical Quarterly, Volume 42, Issue 3, Autumn 2011, Pages 389–390, https://doi.org/10.2307/westhistquar.42.3.0389
- 1872 conflicts
- 1872 in Arizona Territory
- Massacres in the Apache Wars
- Battles involving the Apache
- Battles involving the United States
- History of Gila County, Arizona
- Massacres of Native Americans
- 19th-century military history of the United States
- Murder in Arizona
- December 1872 in the United States
- 1872 murders in the United States
- Massacres in 1872
- Criminal rock-throwing
- Tonto Apache