Desert Hawk Books

 

 

608  pages
46 Illustrations 
3 Maps
6" x 9"
Hardcover

Quantity:   $34.95 & S/H  

 

     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 Apacheria that made the two of them the most feared warriors in the Southwest. In this first full-length biography of the legendary chief, Ed 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 great physical strength with a sagacity and wisdom that had made him the acknowledged 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 into his country because they treated his people well and joined him in his fight against the Mexicans. But as more white miners, ranchers, and farmers encroached on the Apaches' home territory, tragic incidents caused inevitable retaliations - events 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 own land, inflamed American-Apache relations and led to another twenty-three years of war.

"Mangas Coloradas is a thorough and sympathetic biography of one of the most famous and long-lived Apache chiefs. Edwin R. Sweeney traces the life of Mangas Coloradas and clears him of responsibility for a multitude of acts randomly attributed to him. The book presents new concepts, for in the past writers have generally accepted the unproven charges at face value. It is revisionist, and a solid contribution to the story of the Apaches and the history of the Southwest." - Donald E. Worcester, author of The Apaches: Eagles of the Southwest

Edwin R. Sweeney began research on the Apaches in 1975. He is the author of the award-winning book Cochise: Chiricahua Apache Chief and the editor of Making Peace with Cochise: The 1872 Journal of Captain Joseph Alton Sladen, both published by the University of Oklahoma Press.