Frederick Peso interview

Navajo Name is bizhiiguulin

Frederick Peso
My name is Frederick Peso.  I'm a member of the Mescalero Apache Tribe from Mescalero, New Mexico.  Your question on how did the Mescalero meet with the U.S. Military?  Our first encounter was probably when the United States made the Guadalupe-Hidalgo treaty. And previous to that we were working with the Spaniards and the Mexicans, and then we had our first encounter with the United States when they made the treaty.  The Mescalero owned all of the land, they were in control of all the land, but when the United States came in then they wanted all of the land, so this where the hostilities began because they didn't want to share our lands—they wanted them all. So this is our first encounter with the United States military. 

Interviewer
How do you feel the Mescaleros have been treated by the U.S. military?

Frederick Peso
We did make a treaty with the United States, but they have not continuously lived up to their part of the treaty.  We still have a lot of problems with health care.  We still have a lot of educational problems, and the Federal Government is constantly cutting their programs—the entitlement programs that they have for the tribe and things that would be covered under the treaty.

Interviewer
Historically, how were they treated?

Frederick Peso
At the very beginning the United States was hostile towards the Mescalero Apache people.  Our people were friendly, they greeting them, but the United States did not treat the Apache as they were people—they wanted all of their land. They began fighting with them. And the Apache were raiders.  They were— anyone that came into their territory, anyone that invaded their lands, they fought with them. So looking at this the United States felt that they were hostile and they didn't want to have them in the area, so they wanted them eliminated.  This goes back to the treaty that the Mescalero Apache had with the United States in 1852.  The United States had agreed to several different things in the treaty and they said they would seed the land and the United States would eventually build a reservation, set up a reservation for the tribe.  However, the government did not set up a reservation until after forty years.  Prior to that time, the confederates came in from the South and tried to take over the lands.  However, and the Mescaleros did fight with them.  In the treaty, and with the agreements that the tribe stay within the reservation, they would provide them rations, they would provide them with clothing, they would provide them with all of the necessities: farm implements, teach them how to farm, teach them how to do a lot of the things for survival, and mostly in the farming and working with the animals.  However, when the confederates began fighting with the union, then the United States abandoned Fort Stanton and when they did that they forgot that they did not provide for the tribes.  They had no means of support.  They had no means of gathering food or hunting because they had taken all of their weapons.  They had taken everything—their horses—everything from them.  So they had no means to protect themselves.  So they did go out and make their weapons and began leaving the reserve area and fighting with the confederates and fighting with anyone else that fought with them.  They began their raiding again, to some extent, to survive.  After the war with the confederacy was over, then the United States came back and the Apaches were blamed for starting these wars, for not following their part of the treaty.  But the United States had not looked to see what they had done to cause these problems.  So at that point, President Abraham Lincoln was in the presidency, and under his administration they had General Carleton to come and round up the Apache and subdue the Mescalero.  This was one of the experiments they had been using to put Indians on the reservation.  Using Kit Carson as their lead man, they came into Mescalero, occupied all of the tribal lands—their strongholds, their water—and subdued the Apache into nearly starvation, then made them surrender, and then they transferred them to the Bosque Redondo, and the Bosque Redondo was only suppose to be two-years that they had promised, and then they would be able to return to their lands.  However, that was not the case.  When they were removed from their lands in this area, then General Carleton enticed the people from all over the country to move into the territory because the Apache threat had been removed.  So this is why we have people in the surrounding communities—Rio Del Sol, El Mirador, Lincoln, Capitan—all of the surrounding communities around Mescalero were occupied when the Mescaleros were imprisoned at Bosque Redondo.

Interviewer
Tell me a little bit about the conditions at Bosque Redondo.  What were they like?

Frederick Peso
When they first moved to the Bosque Redondo there was hardly anything there.   It was a new fort.  They had to rebuild.  They had to make adobes.  They had to clear the land so they could do the farming, and when they did that our people were not used to that.  They were warriors; they were hunters; they were fighters.  They were brave and they had to come and grovel in the dirt, which was something different for them, something new because they were not farmers like the Pueblos.  So they had to learn a whole new way of life.  There were no sanitary facilities because our people never stayed in one place long enough and there were no sanitary facilities.  The food was bad.  They were given rations that were not edible.  They were given rations that our people knew nothing about.  They didn't have utensils.  Sicknesses came about and there was not medical care for the people, so the conditions at Bosque Redondo were terrible, and no human being should ever have to go through that. 

Interviewer
How about the brutality?  Was there brutality perpetuated against the Mescalero people?

Frederick Peso
There was always brutality by the soldiers when they wanted the Apache to do something that just was not allowed. Well then, they would punish them, lock them up into the stockades, and they would punish the people so that anyone else could see what they were doing; that they would do what they were told and they were beaten, yes.  This is what the old people say.  You read the military books; the military books say that well they enjoyed it there, but that's not the case when you talk to our own people that have given these stories to me. 

Interviewer
Do you have a specific story that you could tell?

Frederick Peso
They would just tell about how bad it was there—how they had mistreated the people.  When they got ill, we had people dying and it was just bad.  It was a totally different world to them.  You know they were a nomadic people, a free people, and all of a sudden they were put in sedentary conditions that they knew nothing about.  So that, in itself, was brutal.  That was brutal to the people.  They had no clothing.  They had no materials.  Their shelters were bad.  They built shelters out of whatever materials they could find there and it was cold.  The water went through.  The farming they had done was...the corn weevils and all of the droughts and anything else that could happen happened to their crops.  And on top of that they moved the Navajo in, and then they gave them all of the cultivated lands that they had done, and left them without crops because they gave them to the Navajo because they brought them in late.  They had no way to start new farming or anything so they gave them the crops of the Mescalero.  They gave them the lands that they had cultivated and cleared up and this was brutal.  It's all brutality. 

Interviewer
How did the Mescalero get along with the Navajo? 

Frederick Peso
Traditionally the Mescalero and the Navajo were fierce enemies.  Maybe in some parts they were friends, but the majority of the people were enemies with the Navajo. 

Interviewer
How did they inter-relate at Bosque Redondo?

Frederick Peso
It wasn't good.  I was told that what they did was bad—that the Navajos were there and there were constant battles.  They were constantly fighting with the Navajos.  The Navajos were constantly stealing their crops, stealing their food and there were constant battles.

Interviewer
Describe how the Mescaleros sort of vanished into the night at Bosque Redondo.

Frederick Peso
Because of all the problems that they had been having, that they had been experiencing, and the promise that General Carleton had made to these people in the early days before they were sent to Bosque Redondo— that they would only be there for two years—the conditions were bad, and the government did not live up to the promised they had made.  So they said that Chief Cadete had told General Carleton that they were going to leave because he didn't live up to his promises.  They said on several occasions they were going to leave so as things never changed; he got all these people together at a certain time and in the middle of the night they disappeared.  They were not to be seen again until the early 1870's. 

Interviewer
We were talking about the Mescalero vanishing into the night.  Tell me what happened there and why?

Frederick Peso
When General Carleton met with Chief Cadete, and told him that he was going to place them on the reserve in Bosque Redondo, he promised that they would only be there for two years and all of the things that they were supposed to do for the tribe.  However, none of these things were kept, none of these promises were kept, and the problems that were going on continued, so Chief Cadete informed General Carleton's people that they would be leaving because he did not keep his promises, and he told them on several occasions.  However, they didn't believe that anything that he had said, so one night, I guess with all of this being planned for some time, they completely left the reserve—everyone except for nine people.  Nine people were left there to keep the fires burning and walk back and forth and make the appearance that everything was o.k.  But the next morning they found that they had all left, and the military records and the books show that they were left alone.  They weren't pursued.  However, our old people say that the soldiers pursued them, went after them and hit them with the butts of their guns, shot them down.  Men, women and children were shot on the way out.  As many as could get away got away, but those that they could catch, they punished them by killing them.  The books don't say that.  So this is what the old people say happened to ours.  Our people vanished... they didn't vanish.  They vanished according to the white man.  But they vanished into the plains—they went into the plains.  They went down to the Guadalupe's; they went into the Fort Davis Mountains; they went into the Sacramento Mountains; and some of them went into Mexico.  They scattered all over, and eventually, those that were from the Sacramento Mountains, returned to the Sacramento’s, but under cover and they were not seen again until the early 1870's when they began negotiations with the United States again for a reservation. 

Interviewer
What is the opinion of the Mescalero of General James Henry Carleton? 

Frederick Peso
The attitude towards General James Carleton was very poor, very bad because he wouldn't listen to anything.  He was very brutal in his demands when he wanted someone... I'll give you an example: When he told his people that any time they encountered the Mescalero that they were to be shot; there was to be no quarters, they were to be sent to prison immediately without any negotiations.  It was final.  They were to go to prison, and several of the smaller groups were shot into and killed, and some of the larger groups they did come in, but they had to go and meet with General Carleton.  So the people had very bad feelings towards them.

Interviewer
How about Kit Carson?

Frederick Peso
Kit Carson was more understanding and sympathetic to the Apache and to the Indian people, so he would listen. And people went to him to ask him for things or try to surrender to him rather than to Carleton because Carleton was brutal. And Kit Carson would not kill people just to kill them; he was more sympathetic and understanding.  He did disobey some orders, and I imagine was punished for it. 

Interviewer
Talk a little bit more about the Navajo and Mescalero interaction at the Bosque Redondo.   Did the Mescalero feel the Navajo received favorable treatment?  I understand there were quite a few more Navajos there.

Frederick Peso
The Mescalero that were sent to Bosque Redondo numbered... the Mescalero numbered about 480 people at Bosque Redondo when they were first imprisoned and the Navajo, the first wave came in about three months after them… the Mescaleros were put there, but there were about 7,000 Navajos that were placed above the Mescaleros.  The conditions were bad.  A lot of the cultivated areas were given to the Navajos.  The food was stolen by the Navajos, was taken by the Navajos. And being at war with the Navajos most of the time, and enemies of that tribe they just did not get along, and they should never have been put together on that one.  It was promised to the Mescalero and then they brought the Navajo in. 

Interviewer
What are the lessons learned from Bosque Redondo?

Frederick Peso
I think this is a lesson that should be learned by the United States.  This can never, never happen again.  We are a people.  Just because we were a nomadic people, just because we were and indigenous people and not having the technologies, nothing like that should happen to any people anymore.  We suffered for it.  We fought for our land.  The only thing we were doing was fighting for what was ours.  The only thing we were doing was fighting for what belonged to us and it was taken away and the lessons learned from that should be that this should not happen to anyone or it should not be allowed to happen to any one else regardless of who they are. 

Interviewer
How do you feel about your ancestors in that era?

Frederick Peso
They were a brave people.  They were a strong people.  They were a religious people, understanding people, and I just wish that we were able to have learned everything we could have from them, or everything they could passed down to us without the interference of the government. 

Interviewer
How do you feel about the way that your ancestors were treated?

Frederick Peso
The Federal Government has not always been there for us.  They've got a treaty that they've got to uphold, but they haven't always held that.  We continue to have problems with that.  They continue to, from the early days up to now; it's the same old thing—not enough money.  Treaties don't seem to mean anything. 

Interviewer
What do treaties mean between the U.S. Military and the U.S. Government and the Mescalero?

Frederick Peso
A treaty is a treaty.  Treaty of the United States is the law of the land, and the treaty that they made with us is the law of the land.  However, it was not always recognized or looked at in such a way.  It's no different than the treaty with Russia, the treaty with England, the treaty with any other country—France.  It's the same; it's a treaty.  It should be recognized as such.