"destruction of the family of Freeman Bloodgood, by Indians"

  

----Monitor readers will remember

the report was once circulated of the destruction of the family of Freeman Bloodgood, by Indians, in New Mexico. 

 But we learn that though some of the neighboring ranchmen and their families were destroyed, he learned of the approach of the Indians in time to escape from the ranch with his family; 

 but nearly all of his cattle were taken. Though, as ranchmen brand their stock, he afterwards found about a hundred head that had strayed from the rest. 

 Mr. Bloodgood occasionally visits the ranch, but does not yet consider it safe to endeavor to make it his permanent dwelling place. He has also a share in two mines."

(1883-ish) Kingston, NM 

 

"Efforts to control the Apache waned somewhat during the American Civil War and serious American settlement did not begin until the late 1870s, when settlers and cattle ranchers from Texas and Elk Falls, Kansas began moving into the basin or just nearby in the Gila suburbs. (see above News.)

The White Sands fossil footprints in the Tularosa Basin are estimated by the National Park Service to be 

 21 000 to 23 000 years old 

 and include footprints possibly showing humans stalking a giant sloth (land manatee.) The footprints are located at the shore of an ice age era lake."  

 

About two to three million years ago the Rio Grande River flowed along the southern edge of the Tularosa basin. This river brought sediments and minerals downstream into the Tularosa Basin, and eventually blocked the basin’s outlet to the sea. Water trapped by the blockage started to collect at the lowest point in the basin and eventually formed  

Lake Otero, an ancient 1,600-square mile lake that covered much of the basin. 

 

tracks are known for extinct megafauna, including ground sloths (likely either Nothrotheriops or Paramylodon) and Columbian mammoths, which appear to be contemporaneous to human footprints.^[15]

Paleo-Indians inhabited the shoreline of Lake Otero, a large lake that covered much of the Tularosa Basin. They used stone from the mountains to create projectile points, known as Folsom and Plano points, and attached them to spears for hunting mammoths, camels, ground sloths, and bison. Projectile points and stone tools have been found in the basin associated with ancient shorelines, streams, and hills. 

The Archaic people improved upon the hand thrown spear used by Paleo-Indians with the invention of the atlatl.  

After Lake Otero dried out, wind carried large quantities of gypsum sand up from the basin floor which accumulated into a large dunefield. Archaic people entered the Tularosa Basin about 4,000 years ago, after the dunes had stabilized, possibly attracted by a cereal grass called Indian ricegrass. The first evidence of agriculture is found in the Archaic period. Archaic peoples would tend to wild plants so they would produce in a more reliable manner and in larger     quantities than they did naturally.  

Over 700 years ago, bands of Apaches followed herds of bison from the Great Plains to the Tularosa Basin. 

The Apaches were nomadic hunters and gatherers who lived in temporary houses known as wickiups and teepees. The Apaches had established a sizable territory in southern New Mexico by the time European explorers arrived.  

They fiercely defended the rights to their homeland against the encroachment of colonial settlers. Apache groups, led by Victorio and Geronimo, fought with settlers in the basin and engaged in military battles with Buffalo Soldiers.  

The Battle of Hembrillo Basin in 1880 was a military engagement between Victorio's warriors and the United States Army's 9th Cavalry Regiment of Buffalo Soldiers. The battleground, located on White Sands Missile Range, is the closest archaeological evidence of the Apache Wars (1849 to 1924). The great majority of the U.S. forces engaged were either African-American Buffalo Soldiers or Apache scouts. 

victorio   

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument is a U.S. National Monument created to protect Mogollon cliff dwellings in the Gila Wilderness on the headwaters of the Gila River in southwest New Mexico. The 533-acre (2.16 km²) national monument was established by President Theodore Roosevelt through executive proclamation on November 16, 1907

The terrain around the ruins is rugged and arid, and contains steep-sided canyons cut by shallow spring rivers and mesas and bluffs forested with Ponderosa pine, Gambel's oak, Douglas fir, New Mexico juniper, pinon pine, and alligator juniper (among others)

Dendrochronology (tree ring dating) determined that the wood used in the dwellings were cut between 1276 and 1287. The region provided for growing, gathering and hunting  

Archaeologists have identified 46 rooms in the five caves on Cliff Dweller Canyon, and believe they were occupied by 10 to 15 families.