Well, these two interests come together with the story of Cochise and Tom Jeffers.
Thomas Jonathan Jeffers was born in Chautauqua County, New York on New Year's Day, 1832. In 1862, he came west to be a scout for the Army. This was right after Cochise had been accused of kidnapping that 10 year old boy. Then Jeffers won the contract for carrying mail across Apache lands to California - a contract that later evolved into a portion of the Pony Express route.
Jeffers found that keeping his riders alive in their run across Apache territory was, to say the least, not an easy thing. Accepting personal responsibility for their deaths, Jeffers boldly rode, all by his boy lonesome, into Cochise's camp for a pow-wow. He so impressed the Indians with this bold move and their perception of his honesty and trustworthiness that the meeting resulted in Cochise granting Jeffer's riders safe passage. Thus began probably the closest relationship between an Indian and a white man to exist in America. They are said to have sealed that relationship by becoming "blood brothers," cutting each of their thumbs and pressing the cuts together in order to mingle their blood, and professing eternal loyalty to each other.
It was this relationship that ultimately gave peace to the Arizona Territory. In 1871, when President Grant sent General Oliver Howard out to work out a treaty, Howard tapped Jeffers as his go-between. Jeffers knew Howard was the kind of man Cochise would respect and after laying the proper groundwork, Jeffers took Howard to Cochise's camp. When Howard and Jeffers agreed to Cochise's requirements - that his people be allowed to remain in the Chiricahua Mountains and that Jeffords be made Indian agent for the region - the treaty was signed.
A year or so later, Cochise died, Jeffers was removed as Agent because the miners wanted onto Apache lands for gold and silver mining, and the Apache were forced to relocate to the San Carlos Reservation.
Jeffers did a stint as a stagecoach driver and later as a deputy sheriff of Tombstone. The final two decades of his life were spent prospecting from his homestead near the Owlhead Buttes in the Tortolita Mountain north of Tucson. He lived into his 80's, dying on February 21, 1914, and is buried in Tucson's Evergreen Cemetery.
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