The Outcome of the Tonto Apache War
The Last to Surrender
The campaign against the Yavapai and Apaches continued into the spring of 1873. The army followed General Crook's methodical strategy of taking the fight into the mountains, using native scouts, and destroying one rancheria at a time. One of the last surrenders was on April 6, when Cha-lipun, an Apache - Mohave/Yavapai Chief, came in. Chief Delshay surrendered on April 25, telling Crook that he was down to only 20 warriors.
Forced Relocation
Following the war, some 1,500 Yavapai and Tonto Apaches were relocated to the Rio Verde reservation, extending northwest from Fort Verde. Many Tonto Apaches were also sent to the San Carlos Reservation on the Gila River. Neither place was particularly hospitable and the first years were miserable for the people at both reservations. There was not enough food and people were not permitted to leave the reservations to hunt or gather. They suffered from malaria, smallpox, and other diseases. By the summer of 1873, many lives had been lost. There were breakouts by chiefs such as Delshay, and Cook found it necessary to direct a second war against some of these Tonto Apaches.
Concentration Policy
By 1874 conditions had improved on the Rio Verde. With the army's assistance, the Natives had created an irrigation system and began productive farming. Their best customers for hay and other farm products was the army itself at nearby Fort Verde. This improved situation was unacceptable to the so-called "Tucson Ring", businessmen who profited by contracting to supply the army. Local white settlers had their eyes on the Rio Verde Reservation as potential land for development. Business and bureaucratic interests prevailed and a "concentration policy" was implemented: all Apaches were to be concentrated on one reservation, the San Carlos on the Gila River.
The Exodus
This began the terrible episode, known to the Yavapai and Tonto Apaches as the Exodus. Rather than allowing the people to travel by the longer and easier Crook Trail Wagon Road, the exodus route covered a fairly direct, but very difficult 150-mile trail through the Tonto Basin. The two week trek was made in February and March of 1875. The Salt River crossing, probably not far from Tonto National Monument, was described as particularly hard with water that was both high and cold. Of the 1,450 Apaches and Yavapais who began the journey, at least 100 died along the way. The Yavapai-Apache Nation commemorates Exodus Day each February.
Life in San Carlos
At the San Carlos Reservation, John Clum, a government agent, arrived in 1874 and immediately went to work on infrastructure, adequate food distribution, and the beginnings of native self-government. However, fair treatment of the Apaches didn't last. Disagreements over policy caused Clum to resign in 1877 and the reservation reverted to its more typical history of misery and corruption. The Chihuahua bands also were forced onto the San Carlos. Their discontent and frequent breakouts led to another decade of Apache warfare in the southwest, most famously lead be Geronimo. Reservation life became even worse when the federal government completed Coolidge Dam in 1928. The project displaced San Carlos residents from farmland along the Gila. For the Yavapai and Tonto Apaches, this was the third time that their land was taken away from them due to government policy.
New Reservations on Ancestral Lands
During the century after its inception the concentration policy was slowly disassembled. The Fort McDowell Reservation was established by Executive Order in 1903 and continued to be home for the Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation. In 1934, Congress recognized the Yavapai Apache Nation and created a new reservation in the Verde Valley, much smaller and more marginal than the original Rio Verde. Many Tonto Apaches are part of the Yavapai Apache Nation, a tribe that recognizes that they are made up of two distinct peoples. Other Tonto Apaches, beginning around the turn of the last century, returned in small numbers to the National Forest land near Payson. In 1972, 97 years after the Exodus, the Tonto Apache Reservation- only 85 acres, the smallest in Arizona- was created on Tonto National Forest land near Payson. There are 110 enrolled members.