14 minute read
A Man of Two Worlds by Michael Norman
A respected Apache warrior and cousin of Geronimo, Jason Betzinez defied stereotypes and survived exile, war, and cultural upheaval to leave a powerful, firsthand legacy.
In 1958, ninety-eight-year-old Jason Betzinez, appeared on a nationally syndicated television show called I’ve Got a Secret. This particular episode focused on guests who were related to someone famous. Three of the four panelists failed to guess his mysterious relative. The fourth panelist, however, went on to correctly guess Betzinez’s famous family member.
Betzinez was a Chiricahua Apache born into the Bedonkohe band in 1860. He was the last surviving member of Geronimo’s Chiricahua fighters who surrendered to General Nelson Miles in September 1886, bringing about an end to the Apache Wars. Not only was Betzinez a member of that famous group, he was also a member of Geronimo’s family, a second cousin.
A year later, Betzinez met with a book publisher who agreed to publish his memoir. The book was published in 1959, just a few months before he died in a car accident at the age of one-hundred. The title of his memoir was I Fought with Geronimo.
The Early Years
Jason Betzinez born on July 4, 1860, in southeast New Mexico Territory, experienced a difficult childhood.. His father was killed when he was twelve, and his mother was captured twice by the Mexican Army and sold into slavery. Both times, however, she escaped and returned to Jason and her extended family.
Stability and safety hardly characterized Jason’s adolescent years. He and his family spent much of his youth moving from place to place, always under the threat of attack by one enemy or another. Life, even during peaceful times, required constant vigilance and the ability to pack and move quickly, even if they were camped in a beautiful place where there was ample water and plentiful game to feed hungry people. The Apache never lost sight of the fact that they were at war, not with one nation, but two, Mexico and the U.S.
In I Fought with Geronimo, referring to the Apache propensity to be at war, Betzinez said, “In my time, the Apache had not yet reached the same degree of civilization as the white man…. We were almost continually fighting our enemies, and if none such were available, we fought among ourselves.”
On the Warpath with Geronimo
Because warriors were difficult to replace, Apache leaders carefully planned and executed raids, always with the goal of minimizing casualties. Two key factors in planning raids were incorporating the element of surprise and outnumbering the enemy. Rarely would an Apache war party charge headlong into a well-armed enemy that outnumbered them. The number of casualties in such an attack would have been unacceptable.
Particularly while on the warpath, Betzinez argued that petty jealousy among chiefs and bands frequently led to internal conflict and hard feelings. He noted that the Apache were never able to form a strong, united confederation against their enemies because of jealousy and selfishness among the chiefs and subchiefs. Two Apache chiefs, though not necessarily the best known, stood out to Betzinez as the best Apache leaders. They were Juh and Victorio. He praised Juh and Victorio, not only because they were held in such high regard by their people, but because both were highly capable field generals and brilliant guerilla warfare strategists.
Throughout his memoir, Betzinez lamented the harm alcohol caused the Apache during both war and peace time. He observed, “The Apache never drinks in moderation. He keeps at it until the supply is exhausted or he is unconscious.” Often, the Apache were welcomed as friends by Mexican villagers, plied with alcohol until they were heavily intoxicated, and then slaughtered by their hosts. These “traps” happened repeatedly with alcohol always used as bait. These incidents contributed mightily toward the intense hatred the Apache felt toward the Mexican people, and they were always followed by Apache revenge raids.
The path to Apache warriorhood was arduous. All young men were required to pass a vigorous period of apprenticeship as they attempted to achieve full warrior status. From their father, or an extended family member, young boys learned how to use weapons, become physically fit, as well as how to track and hunt. Since the Apache often fought on foot, the young were required to run long distances. Betzinez was proud of his speed and endurance. This was not to say that the Apache wasn’t proficient on horseback. Some observers considered them second only to the Comanche as skilled, mounted cavalry.
As a young apprentice warrior, Betzinez acknowledged that he felt great fear and anxiety while on his early raids. He said, “I wasn’t sure that I was going to enjoy being on the warpath.”
While on raids, apprentice warriors performed duties such as guarding the camp, holding horses short distances from the fighting, cooking camp meals, and driving stolen livestock from raids back to the main Apache camp. Betzinez performed all these duties and more while raiding with Geronimo. However, nothing in his memoir provided any corroboration that he ever advanced to the status of a full-fledged warrior. By the time Geronimo surrendered for the final time, Betzinez would have been nearly twenty-six years of age, more than sufficient time to have completed apprenticeship training.
After a prolonged period of raiding on both sides of the border, in 1884, Geronimo surrendered and returned temporarily to the reservation at San Carlos. In 1885, Geronimo and a small band of followers again fled the reservation and traveled south into Mexico. Betzinez and his mother were initially a part of that group. However, Betzinez soon became disillusioned with Geronimo in what was to be his cousin’s last flight. So, he and his mother returned to San Carlos. Geronimo surrendered for the last time in southern Arizona in September 1886.
Surrender and Confidant
After Geronimo’s celebrated surrender, approximately 550 men, women, and children were exiled to Florida as prisoners of war, Betzinez and his mother among them. Within a year, a visit from Captain Richard Pratt, Superintendent of the Carlisle Indian School in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, would dramatically change Betzinez’s life. Pratt was determined to recruit a group of the Florida Apache prisoners to attend the Carlisle School.
During that initial meeting with the Apache young people, Pratt asked for volunteers. Not surprisingly, no one volunteered. Pratt, however, unwilling to take no for an answer, eventually selected sixty-two boys and girls and thirteen young men, including Betzinez, to attend Carlisle.
Like the other conscripts, Betzinez was frightened about attending the school. The move required forced family separation to a place he’d never been. Moreover, Betzinez had never attended any school and didn’t know a word of English. He also believed that, at twenty-seven years of age, he was too old to become a school boy.
Upon arrival at the school, boys and girls were assigned to different dormitories. Betzinez stated that new students received a bath, haircut, and new clothing (uniforms). The students were not allowed to sing any Indian songs, nor were they permitted to speak their own native language unless they couldn’t speak English. The use of profanity was forbidden, as was the use of tobacco. Strict rules of conduct applied, and violators could receive a variety of different punishments. The atmosphere at Carlisle seemed much the same as that of any military school.
During his years at Carlisle, Betzinez developed a profound appreciation and respect for Pratt. Pratt helped to instill in him a sense of confidence and a strong work ethic. He eventually came to believe that hard work was the key to building a new life for himself despite all the suffering he and his people had experienced from their Anglo captors.
During his Carlisle years, Betzinez underwent a conversion to Christianity. He noted, “The most powerful influence of my life at this or any other time was my introduction to the teachings of Christianity. This influence became stronger and stronger as I came to understand English better. It changed my whole life.”
Smoke Signals & Hollywood Nonsense
Betzinez disapproved of Hollywood’s role in promoting stereotypes about the Apache, such as the use of smoke signals. Hollywood’s portrayal of smoke signals suggested they were used to communicate entire conversations. Betzinez called that complete nonsense. He clarified: “The Apache used smoke on mountaintops mainly as signals of distress. The smoke meant there is some kind of trouble here. Come and investigate.”
Additional stereotypes propagated by Hollywood included the use of peace pipes and bows and arrows, as well as the practice of scalping one’s enemies. The use of peace pipes was not a practice adopted by the Apache people. Further, Hollywood exaggerated the use of the bow-and-arrow as a weapon. By the time he had become a young man, the use of the bow and arrow had significantly declined. The Apache relied primarily on the use of rifles and handguns. Finally, regarding the practice of scalping, Betzinez stated, “The Apache did not practice the custom of scalping a fallen enemy. There may have been exceptions to this but they were very, very rare. Concerning Geronimo, I never knew him to bring in a scalp. Much nonsense has been written about this.”
Life & Legacy After Emancipation
After his departure from the Carlisle School, Betzinez agreed to return to Fort Sill, arriving in January 1900. He had become a skilled blacksmith and planned to continue his career at Fort Sill. He enlisted in the U.S. Army, and over the next 14 years, developed a thriving blacksmith business. Betzinez provided free blacksmith services for all the Fort Sill Apache. Because his skills were in high demand, it didn’t take long for him to expand his services to paying white customers.
Three overriding themes would guide the remainder of Jason Betzinez’s life after his years at the Carlisle School. The first was his conversion to Christianity. The Carlisle School heavily influenced the spiritual part of his life. The teachings of the Christian missionaries spoke to him in ways his Apache religious beliefs did not. Betzinez’s Christian beliefs would soon test his relations with his own people. By 1899-1900, the work of the missionaries had successfully resulted in the conversion of many of the Fort Sill Apache to Christianity. A church had been built, and regular attendance at Sunday services had grown slowly, but steadily.
Upon arrival at Fort Sill in 1900, Betzinez discovered a religious practice brought by an Apache medicine man taking root among his people, while, at the same time, undermining the work of the Christian missionaries. The practice was called the medicine dance, and it was designed to draw the Apache away from Christianity and return them to the “old ways.”
The medicine man convinced many Apache that the white man’s religion only worked for whites. Part of the medicine man’s attraction was that he claimed to have healing powers capable of curing various diseases. This appealed to the Apache people because of the terrible death toll taken by tuberculosis during their captivity.
With Sunday Christian church services in serious decline, Betzinez felt compelled to act. He pleaded repeatedly to the Fort Sill military commander, who eventually imposed new rules banning tribal gambling and the medicine dance during the cold winter months. The military commander asked Betzinez to distribute and explain the new rules to the various small villages scattered around Fort Sill. Betzinez did what he was asked to do, despite having misgivings. He understood the paradox: refuse to follow the Christian path and alienate the missionaries or refuse to support the tribal medicine man and the medicine dance and feel the anger and resentment of his own people. Betzinez chose the Christian path.
In 1907, Betzinez met the woman who would eventually become his wife, Anna Heersma, a missionary from the Dutch Reformed Church who lived at Fort Sill and worked with the Apache people. They eventually married and remained together for the rest of their lives.
The second theme that would guide Betzinez in his later years was his strong belief in the “Protestant work ethic.” He believed the key to improving one’s lot in life was the willingness to get up each day and work hard. That’s what he did, and that’s what he expected of others. In his lifetime, he’d worked in a steel mill, farmed, and built his own blacksmith business. If he could do it, he believed other Apache could as well.
The third theme that guided Betzinez’s life was his strong opposition to the reservation system. He likened it to a welfare system that reinforced idleness and poor work habits. He believed the system would prevent the Apache people from gaining self-sufficiency, and that independence would occur only as the result of employment and hard work.
After their prisoner of war status was removed in 1913, the Apache were given the choice to remain at Fort Sill or join the Mescalero Apache tribe in southeastern New Mexico. Betzinez disapproved of the Mescalero reservation and lobbied aggressively for the Fort Sill Apache to remain in Oklahoma. Some did remain at Fort Sill while others relocated to New Mexico.
As for Betzinez, in 1914, he chose to continue his life of independence off the Fort Sill reservation. He built his own home a short distance away— a home that he and his spouse, Anna, would live in for the remainder of their lives.
The couple both died in 1960, she on May 1, and he on November 1. They were buried together at the Beef Creek Apache cemetery in a grave adjacent to Geronimo. Betzinez remained forever proud of his Apache heritage.
In a fitting legacy to the life of Jason Betzinez, W.S. Nye wrote in the Forward to his memoir, “He braved the enmity of his own people to advocate a course of action contrary to their wishes, where he saw they were ruining themselves. He sought and gained the assistance of high U.S. officials to promote the welfare of the tribe.”
Author’s Note
The cultural genocide imposed on indigenous peoples in the Americas during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, however well intended, was both odious and repugnant—a blight on our history. That said, if one were to choose a poster child for the forced assimilation of indigenous peoples, Jason Betzinez would be a perfect candidate. I don’t say this as a criticism of Betzinez–far from it. He rebuilt his life under the most difficult and trying circumstances.
Michael Norman is the author of five murder mysteries, three of which are traditional stories, and two that are contemporary Western novels set in the desert of Southern Utah. His debut novel, The Commission, received a starred review and was named by Publisher’s Weekly as one of its best 100 books of 2007. His other traditional novels include, Silent Witness and Slow Burn. Michael’s contemporary Western novels have been declared by some as reminiscent of the late Tony Hillerman’s southwestern mysteries. These titles include, On Deadly Ground and Skeleton Picnic. Recently, Michael has written seven Western short stories, the first two of which won Copper and Gold medals from the Will Rogers Medallion organization. The award winners included, “A Death of Crows” and “Lozen’s War.” “A Death of Crows” also was declared the winner of the first and now annual Longhorn Prize from Saddlebag Dispatches magazine for best western short story of 2023. Michael currently resides in Mexico with his wife, Diane, and their pit bull, Kady.
