EL MALPAIS History of Occupation

Chapter V:
A GARRISON IN THE MALPAIS: THE FORT WINGATE STORY (continued)

Meanwhile, the Hispanic communities of Cubero, San Mateo, and Cebolleta located north and east of Fort Wingate, came under repeated assaults by Navajo bands. Predominantly poor, the villagers nevertheless, accumulated large herds of sheep and other livestock, which were routinely relinquished to raiding Navajos who had never gone to Bosque Redondo, or Indians returning from Bosque Redondo. Caught in the middle, the villagers sought retribution.

In May, Antonio Mexicano and citizens of Cubero paid a visit to Fort Wingate complaining of loss of livestock. With so few troops available for patrols, and the lack of serviceable horses, Eaton could offer little assistance. Mexicano proposed that Cuberoans assemble a citizen-armed force and hunt down the marauding bands who pillaged the countryside. The military normally held citizen-formed armies in low esteem, due to their excess in killing and plundering. New Fort Wingate commander, Lt. Col. Julius Shaw, endorsed the concept and forwarded the plan to Santa Fe. General Carleton realized that his Volunteers alone could not finish the job, and he too, perceived the citizen army as a means of breaking Navajo spirit.

Mexicano's contingent joined with 75 Zunis to form a formidable command. Returning to Fort Wingate May 25, Mexicano boasted a successful campaign. In less than 10 days the Cubero-Zuni column, claimed Mexicano, killed 21 Navajos and captured 5 women in a fight 9 miles from Zuni. To back his brag, Mexicano displayed 16 pairs of ears but did not elaborate from what age or gender his grisly trophies originated. [57] On the same day that Col. Shaw learned the details of Mexicano's expedition, Navajos assaulted a timber camp just 6 miles from the post wounding one teamster. A military escort drove off the assailants. Colonel Shaw, a strong supporter of the use of civilian columns in repelling attacks, sent a dispatch to General Carleton justifying the employment of civilians to hunt down the Navajos. Shaw grumped that incessant scouting missions reduced his effective fo [58]rce to a mere 69 privates and 35 serviceable horses. [59]

In June the energetic Mexicano returned to the field. On July 10 Shaw reported to Carleton that approximately 50 Hispanics under the direction of Mexicano attacked Manuelito's camp 75 miles southwest of Fort Canby. Although Manuelito escaped, the command captured 18 horses plus all camp impedimenta. Pleased with Mexicano's campaign, Shaw informed Carleton that if the military would provide ammunition and food at cost to the citizens, that the communities of Cebolleta and Acoma would place more men in the field. [60]

With army endorsement, civilian raiding parties escalated. In June Juan Vigil led fellow Abiquiu citizens on an expedition that penetrated Arizona. Vigil's party fought several running engagements with the Navajos reporting the death of 9 Indians and capturing 85 while losing two men. His force recovered a thousand head of horses and sheep, which they commandeered for themselves but promptly lost to a Navajo counterattack. [61] In August Shaw announced another non-military success as Zunis collided with Navajos near that pueblo. In the ensuing fight, Zunis killed four and captured seven while losing only one warrior. [62]

Compared to the citizen expeditions, Shaw's troops remained impotent. Two August missions led by Captains Montoya and Nicholas Hodt proved dismal. Montoya tracked Navajos toward Canyon de Chelly but netted only 4 women captives. [63] Captain Hodt's scout drifted to the southwest in search of Indians fleeing from Bosque Redondo. In a grueling march, Hodt trekked 401 miles but found no one. [64]

Because of the increased military and citizen forays, which enslaved some of their people, Navajo incursions persisted and intensified in the Ojo del Gallo region. In October Indians ambushed a party of soldiers providing escort for the mail 7 miles from Fort Wingate. The soldiers managed to return safely to the fort but citizen Manuel Martín was not as lucky. Martin fell in a rain of arrows and lead. Although severely wounded, he held off his attackers and was brought to the fort. In conjunction with the mail attack, Indians assaulted a civilian couple on the Cubero road, killing the woman and wounding the man. [65]

So persistent were the Navajo thrusts that Ramón Baca, Justice of the Peace for San Mateo, petitioned Col. Shaw to detach 20-25 soldiers to protect the settlement from numerous gangs of Navajos who robbed and murdered. [66] Shaw declined, stating he could not spare the men. He suggested that the citizens form another private expedition to punish the Navajos promising to provide a thousand rounds of ammunition. [67] The citizens accepted Shaw's offer and promptly elected the venerable Antonio Mexicano to head the expedition. With most of San Mateo's eligible males away on campaign, Carleton ordered Col. Shaw to station troops at San Mateo to protect women and property. Lt. John Feary and 11 men were detached to San Mateo for 60 days if needed. Local citizens provided quarters for the men. [68]

Based on the success of San Mateo citizens in receiving military aid against Navajo attacks, a delegation from Cubero on March 8 delivered at Fort Wingate a signed petition seeking assistance. The petition enumerated outrages committed on the citizenry between February 1 and March 6. In that span, Navajos lifted more than 2,200 head of livestock and killed one herder. [69] A sympathetic Shaw declined assistance to the beleaguered assembly noting he simply did not have any extra troops.

Two weeks later Carleton received a report from Fort Wingate detailing another attack on troopers escorting the mail. This time the expressmen were not so fortunate. Three soldiers fell in the assault, the fourth was missing but later turned up unharmed at Cubero. [70] The new post commander, Capt. Edmund Butler of the 5th United States Infantry, could spare only ten men under Capt. Hodt to give pursuit because other columns were already in the field--reconnaissances to Canyon de Chelly and Datil Mountains. Hodt's small punitive force pressed the Indians. On the fourth day, Hodt ambushed the warriors, killing 1 and wounding several. As proof that these Indians were responsible for the expressmen killings, Hodt found in the camp a horse belonging to one of the dead troopers. He noted that most of the Indians appeared to be Apaches, not Navajos. Hodt pursued the Indians toward Sierra Blanca but turned back because of worn-out horses. [71]

Expeditions from Fort Wingate increased after the death of the expressmen but proved largely ineffective owing to the vastness of the territory and the guerrilla-like tactics of the Navajos and Apaches. Nevertheless, Capt. Butler predicted that if the Indians were hotly pressed, they will either "starve or surrender because of shortage of food." [72] Butler's assessment of the Navajo's plight was accurate. Military patrols combed the region. Citizen caravans roamed the countryside. Puebloan Indians organized war parties. And now the Utes, arch-enemies of the Navajos, initiated a war on the suffering Navajos. The few Navajos who remained in their shrinking domain, crumbled under the constant pressure. It was either death by starvation or acceptance of Bosque Redondo. On September 1, Manuelito sent word to Fort Wingate that he, too, desired to lay down his arms. In company of officers, Capt. Edmund Butler rode out to the Navajo camp located southwest of the post in the direction of Agua Fria. Butler found Manuelito and 23 of his followers. Manuelito presented himself to the cadre of officers, his left arm dangling uselessly by his side, pierced by a bullet in a skirmish several weeks earlier. [73] Manuelito's capitulation spurred the remaining holdouts to surrender. On November 7 the redoubtable Barboncito, a defector from Bosque Redondo, turned himself in at Fort Wingate with 64 of his people. By mid-December, Butler reported to headquarters the processing and deportation of more than 550 Navajos. [74]

The surrender of Manuelito marked the high point of Fort Wingate's service in the Navajo wars. Companies B and F of the 1st New Mexico Cavalry, who served the longest stint at the post, along with Company G, 1st California Volunteers, witnessed Manuelito's surrender. A week later the Volunteers were ordered to Albuquerque for mustering out of the Army. [75] Indian attacks diminished but did not vanish following the capitulation of Manuelito's and Barboncito's forces. U.S. Regulars from Company C, 5th U.S. Infantry and Company L, 3rd U.S. Cavarly, stationed at Fort Wingate in 1867, were constantly engaged in blocking the path of Navajos streaming from Bosque Redondo. Indian sightings by San Mateo citizens and the report of Hispanic killings at Cebolleta kept Capt. Butler's garrison in a state of flux. [76]

While Butler endeavored to maintain a representative force to deter sporadic Navajo and Apache raids, he focused his summer attention to dealing with the rapid deterioration of the fort's fabric, which rendered the post unfit for human habitation. A Board of Officers convened on July 29 to examine the allegations and report recommendations. In their inspection, the board found the post "insufficient and so much out of repair as to be unfit for use." The board noted that the walls of the officers quarters, company quarters, commissary, and quartermaster building, hospital, and guardhouse were gradually settling due to an absence of a foundation to support them. Moreover, they added, "alkaline is eating away portions of the walls" and that adobes used in the construction were of inferior quality. The board recommended that the buildings be condemned as unsafe and unfit for use. [77]

Major General George Getty, Carleton's replacement as district commander, returned the report to Capt. Butler requesting his recommendations. Butler responded suggesting the post's abandonment and reconstruction 1500-2000 yards to the southwest, away from the alkali swamp that now inundated and infested the fort. Butler characterized the adobe decay as so wretched that "in some places a ramrod can be pushed through the foot of the walls." In other places, walls listed so much that orders to tear them down had be issued. [78]

Superiors vacillated on Fort Wingate's course--to repair or rebuild. In May 1868, General William T. Sherman, now commanding the Military Division of the Missouri, provided some persuasive advice. On an inspection tour, he denounced the Bosque Redondo experiment as a failure citing "that the Navajos had sunk into a condition of absolute poverty and despair." [79] Sherman advocated the return of the Navajos to their homeland. In addition, he saw the need to build posts closer to the seat of Navajo activities to better manage their affairs. Fort Wingate, at Ojo del Gallo, was too far removed from the Navajos. Sherman suggested that it be closed and another post built closer to the Navajos. Military officials bit on Sherman's recommendations.

Figure 2. Ground Plan of Fort Wingate, 1867.
See Captain Edmund Butler to AAG, August 21, 1867, LR, Dist NM, roll 3, RG 98,
from New Mexico State Archives and Records Service, Santa Fe.

Fort Wingate was officially abandoned on July 22, 1868, the same day that the Navajos passed under the walls of the crumbling adobe post. [80] A new or second Fort Wingate was ordered constructed some 50 miles west at the ruins of Fort Lyon, near present-day Gallup. After the military closed the malpais garrison, nearby Hispanics moved into the region and utilized the surplus lumber and adobe to build new homes. Today the largely Hispanic community of San Rafael occupies the site of the former post.

Fort Wingate played a pivotal role in shaping the destiny of the Navajos serving as a staging ground for the Navajo war and as a deportation center for forwarding Navajos to Fort Sumner. Today no extant ruins of Fort Wingate exist, but its significance is recalled in the dynamics of two cultures struggling to control portions of arid New Mexico. In its brief six-year life, Wingate had played a leading role in pacifying the Indians. Thousands of Navajos had been channeled through Wingate on the way to Fort Sumner. The establishment of Wingate went far beyond its military life, 1862-1868, for its creation had expanded the frontier from Cubero to the malpais themselves. With its demise, the frontier did not recess, instead Wingate spawned the foundations for future frontier settlements. [81]

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