Battle of Cibecue Creek

An Apache warrior by William F. Farny

Date	August 30, 1881
Location	Cibecue Creek, Fort Apache Indian Reservation, Arizona Territory
Result	Apache strategic victory, United States tactical victory.

Belligerents

United States

Apache

Commanders and leaders

Eugene Asa Carr

Nock-ay-det-klinne†

Strength

86 cavalry

~125 warriors

Casualties and losses

8 killed
2 wounded

18 killed

The Battle of Cibecue Creek was an engagement of the Apache Wars, fought in August 1881 between the United States and White Mountain Apaches in Arizona, at Cibecue Creek on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation. After an army expedition of scouts and soldiers arrested a prominent medicine man, they were taking the prisoner back to the fort when ambushed by hostile Apaches. During the conflict, soldiers killed the wounded medicine man, and most of the twenty-three Apache scouts mutinied, in the largest such action in United States history. The soldiers retreated to Fort Apache and on the following day, the Apache mounted a counterattack. The events sparked general unrest and led Apache warriors to leave the reservation and join Geronimo.

Nock-ay-det-klinne was a respected Apache medicine man among his people and chief of the Cañon Creek band of the Cibecue Apaches, a group of the Western Apache. He often counseled leading warriors such as Cochise and Geronimo. Due to corruption and unhealthy conditions at the Fort Apache Indian Reservation in eastern Arizona, Nock-ay-det-klinne began holding ceremonies known as ghost dances at the village of Cibecue. It was part of a late nineteenth-century spiritual revival among Native Americans struggling to deal with the disruption of their societies as they were pushed onto reservations. The ceremonies often included heavy drinking and the use of hallucinogenic plants, such as peyote. Through them the Apache expressed and united under their discontent with conditions of reservation life. The American settlers of the region grew alarmed about the dances, which they thought were related to preparations for war. The United States Army came to investigate the situation and remove the medicine man from his followers.

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