Mangas Coloradas: Chief of the Chiricahua Apaches (Volume 231)

by Edwin R. Sweeney

Mangas Coloradas led his Chiricahua Apache people for almost forty years. During the last years of Mangas’s life, he and his son-in-law Cochise led an assault against white settlement in Apachería that made the two of them the most feared warriors in the Southwest. In this first full-length biography of the legendary chief, Edwin R. Sweeney vividly portrays the Apache culture in which Mangas rose to power and the conflict with Americans that led to his brutal death. A giant of a man, Mangas combined strength with wisdom and became leader of the Chiricahuas by 1842. Leading war parties against the Mexicans of Sonora, Mangas returned to his homelands in southwestern New Mexico with livestock, booty, and captives. In 1846 he welcomed Americans who joined in his fight against the Mexicans. But as more white miners, ranchers, and farmers encroached on the Apaches’ territory, tragic incidents caused retaliations that pressured Mangas, along with Cochise, to fight back in desperation. When Mangas finally tried to make peace in 1863, he was captured and killed by American soldiers. Ironically, the death of Mangas Coloradas, who had wished only to live in peace in his land, inflamed American-Apache relations and led to another twenty-three years of war.

608 pages, Hardcover

First published October 1, 1998

Reviews

[Erik · Rating 5 out of 5]

I enjoyed this a lot. Having read more about the Chiricahuas than any other Native American band--other than the Nez Perce--most of my interest was in the more famed figures of Cochise and Geronimo and their times that largely came after Mangas. This book is much more about the things happening in relation to Mangas and his people than about the person himself. And it serves as a bedrock to appreciate the glories of Cochise and Geronimo. As for the writing, it reads much more like a book of reference than the telling of a story--something I enjoyed. There's no glorification in the book, save for Mangas' reported physique and the last page of the entire book. The downfall for a mainstream reader is that the meat of the book is very tedious, almost painstaking. There are a lot of names of people that are difficult to track and short accounts of relations (depredations mostly) between natives and Spanish/Mexicans/Americans that stack up without much reflection. Each chapter ends with a very brief recap and segue to the next but it left me wanting the author to stitch it together for me. That said, I can appreciate the dispassionate approach to let the reader decide. It does make it a more intense read however. But for all my criticism, this was an exceptional book for what it is--a more scholarly deep-dive into the existing research and accounts of the 70 years this man lived as it pertained to the Chiricauhuas living, surviving, parleying, and fighting in parts of New Mexico, Arizona, Sonora, and Chihuahua.

[Qhenn Manns · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. There are so many names of people, places, and tribes that I just got completely lost.