Native American Women Warriors
One of the most interesting categories of Native American women is that of Warrior. In addition to educators, doctors, nurses, writers, storytellers, scientists, mathematicians, artists, activists, and indigenous leaders there were women who not only followed their men into battle but sometimes took part.
Lozen, Dahteste, Buffalo Calf Road, and Pi’tamaka (Running Eagle) are legends among their people. Their stories are part of Native American history that is familiar to us through the stories of their famous chiefs. The women deserve credit as well.
Lozen, Apache (late 1840’s – 1889)
Lozen was a gifted Apache warrior who helped her tribe to resist European domination in the 19th century. We have her story thanks to Eve Ball, a historian of the American West.[1] Eve Ball moved to Ruidoso in the 1940’s near the Mescalero Apache reservation. When she realized that her neighbors were descendants of Apache warriors she sought and was given permission to interview them. Eve Ball interviewed Apache tribal members such as Dahteste, Jaspar Kanseah (nephew of Geronimo) and James Kaywaykla (nephew of Victorio and grandson of Nana) who were eyewitnesses to events. She also interviewed other tribal members who knew the stories of Lozen and Dahteste from their oral traditions.
Lozen was the younger sister of the Warm Springs Chiricahua Apache chief Victorio. The Apaches had lived in Arizona and New Mexico for many years.
By the late 1870’s the US government had conquered most of the Apaches and were moving them onto the dreaded San Carlos Reservation about 140 miles north of Tucson. Many people on the reservation were dying due to poor living conditions and disease. The white soldiers who were billeted there referred to it as “Hell’s Forty Acres.”
Groups of Apache, led by Victorio decided to leave and continue fighting for better lives. In order to survive, the Apache were forced to raid farms and ranches for food, horses, ammunition and whatever else they needed. They had to battle White soldiers, Mexicans, and other tribes many times. Lozen accompanied her tribe as a guide and aide to her brother, Victorio. He told the tribe that “Lozen is as my right hand. Strong as a man, braver than most, and cunning in strategy, Lozen is a shield to her people.”[2]
She was also a seer and would save her tribe many times by locating the enemy by “stretching out her arms and hands and opening her palms to receive the tingling that allowed her to ascertain the enemy’s presence and location.”[3] Lozen could tell the strength and the direction from which the enemy was coming. The tribe all accepted Lozen as a spiritual leader. When she was with them they were never taken by surprise.
James Kaywaykla would later tell Eve Ball that when he was a young Apache boy he was with Lozen and other Apache women as they sought to flee from the U.S. Army. They had to cross a fast-moving river. They were afraid but then he said, “I saw a magnificent woman on a beautiful horse—Lozen, sister of Victorio.”[4]
“High above her head she held her rifle. There was a glitter as her right foot lifted and struck the shoulder of her horse. He reared, then plunged into the torrent. She turned his head upstream, and he began swimming.”
Kaywaykla further commented on Lozen’s skills as a warrior. “No man in the tribe was more skillful in stealing horses or stampeding a herd than she.” But Lozen was also well-known for her extraordinary ability to tame wild horses and to care for them. She was particularly adroit at treating the hooves and legs of lame horses.” Trained in traditional medicine, Lozen was also known as a healer for her people.
Lozen remained unmarried so that she could serve her people. She was known though as a very compassionate person loving animals and caring for helpless people. One story about her tells of the time that she left her tribe temporarily to escort a young Mescalero Apache woman with a newborn back to her territory.
Traveling with the young mother with only a 3-day supply of food and her weapons they had to overcome many hardships and threats. When they ran out of food she butchered a stray longhorn cow with her knife because she was afraid the sound of her gun would attract Anglo or Mexican soldiers. At one point she stole a Mexican cowboy’s horse for them to ride. Lozen managed to get the young woman back to the Mescalero reservation in present-day New Mexico.
While Lozen was away Mexican soldiers ambushed and killed 78 members of her tribe including her brother, Victorio. The Mexicans took 68 prisoners. This was a dreadful outcome as the Mexicans turned the captured Indians, mostly women and children into slaves. Many in the tribe said that if Lozen had been there, the Mexican army would not have surprised them. Part of the band had escaped because they were away.
Nana, Victorio’s uncle and patriarch of the tribe, decided to lead the decimated band on a campaign to avenge Victorio’s death and the slaughter and enslavement of their people. For two months they traveled southwestern New Mexico with Lozen at their side. Eventually they had to surrender.
On September 3, 1886, Lozen and the other prisoners of war were rounded up and sent to Florida by train. The government would not allow them to return to their own land, though they promised to live there peaceably. The government promised that the imprisonment would be two years and then they would be returned to ancestral lands in Arizona and New Mexico. These photos are the only actual pictures we have of Lozen.
As had happened many times, the government lied. They had no intention of returning the Chiricahua to their homelands. The Chiricahua were put on a filthy reservation in St. Augustine, Florida where many prisoners died of disease and malnutrition. The government moved some of them, including Lozen to a prisoner of war camp in Mount Vernon, Alabama. It was too late for Lozen. She had already contracted tuberculosis. She died on June 17, 1889. Lozen was buried in an unmarked grave.
Lozen is one of the most impressive and formidable women in the history of the United States. She should be remembered as an amazing female warrior, seer, and healer of the Warm Springs people of New Mexico.
Dahteste, Warrior (Mescalero Apache, 1860-1955)
Another Chiricahua Indian woman, Dahteste (pronounced Tah-des-te), fought with Geronimo during their wars with white men and Mexico. She eventually became the companion of Lozen. Though she was a great hunter and warrior like Lozen, she was different in lifestyle. While Lozen was more masculine in her dress, Dahteste took pride in her appearance and dressed in feminine clothes. She was beautiful and took care in her grooming. Lozen never married; Dahteste was married and had children.
Dahteste was well-known for her warrior skills. She participated in battles with her husband and their friend, Geronimo. She spent 3 years on the warpath with Geronimo and was with Lozen until they surrendered to General Miles in September 1886. She spoke fluent English so she became a trusted scout and mediator between the Apache people and the US military. When Dahteste could see that the only option for the Apache was to concede defeat, she helped convince Geronimo to surrender.
In spite of the fact that she was helping the US military, she was arrested and put on a train and sent to a military prison in St. Augustine, Florida with the rest of the Apaches. Prison conditions were horrible. Her friend Lozen contracted tuberculosis but Dahteste managed to avoid it. Some years later the government moved the prisoners to a swamp called Mt. Vernon Barracks in Alabama. It was here that her friend Lozen died. Years later Dahteste was shipped to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, along with Geronimo and others as prisoners of war where the conditions were better. She remained there for nineteen years.
In 1913, after 27 years of confinement as a prisoner of war, the Government freed the surviving 300 plus Chiricahuas and gave them a choice of remaining in Fort Sill, Oklahoma or moving to New Mexico to the Mescalero Apache Reservation. Dahteste chose to go to Mescalero. That is where she was living when the author Eve Ball was privileged to meet her and interview her. Eve Ball said that “Dahteste to the end of her life mourned Lozen.” When Dahteste died in 1955, she had outlived Lozen by 65 years. This picture of Dahteste with Lozen on the train ride to Florida is the only photograph we have of her.
[1] Eve Ball was a teacher who was widowed and then moved to Ruidoso in the 1940’s near the Mescalero Apache reservation. Her first book was, “Ruidoso, The Last Frontier,” in 1963. Other books include: “In the Days of Victorio” in 1970 and “Indeh: An Apache Odyssey” in 1980.
[2] Philip Thomas Tucker, PhD. The Remarkable Story of Little Sister Lozen. (PublishNation, LLC. 2022) p. 75.
[3] Ibid. p. 89
[4] From: https://southernarizonaguide.com/chiricahua-apache-warrior-women-lozen-dahteste
