I enjoy reading about strong women heroines in fiction and
in history. Sometimes the fictional women might appear over the top or unrealistic.
Historically, though, women have proven themselves to rise to a challenge—especially
when it means remaining with or protecting family. Recently, I was reading
about heroines of the Old West in Mike Wright’s WHAT THEY DIDN’T TEACH YOU
ABOUT THE WILD WEST.
An Apache woman named Dilchthe was a middle-aged grandmother
captured by Sonoran mercenaries at then Esqueda, Mexico south of present day
Douglas, Arizona in the mid 1860’s.
Dilchthe and several other women watched the Apache men executed and
were then herded toward the Gulf of California. There they were sold into
slavery and shipped across the Gulf to a penal colony on the Baja Peninsula.
Many of the women died there, but Dilchthe hung on to life. She was sold again
with several women and put to work at a nearby hacienda.
Of course we have no idea what Dilchthe looked like, but I'm including several free photos of Apache women to give readers an idea. Above is a San Carlos Apache Woman.
She was treated fairly at the hacienda, but she wanted
freedom. Wouldn’t we? She hid food and planned her escape to return to her
family. I wonder if she realized how far from them she had been moved?
Finally, she freed several other women and they escaped.
They traveled only at night and Dilchthe led them north along the Gulf. The
women evaded the mounted guards sent to track them down and bring them
back. Even conserving supplies, they ran
out of food. They ate insects and desert plants.
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| Apache Couple |
At the mouth of the Gulf, the faced crossing the Colorado
River. Imagine how forceful this river was before damning and pumping to large
cities commenced a hundred years later. None of the women raised in the desert
could swim. Dilchthe promised the women she would find a way.
She made friends with an elderly Mexican man who told her
where she could safely ford the river. The women pushed northward to the spot
the man had described. This was at the confluence of the Colorado and Gila
Rivers and later became the site of the Yuma Territorial Prison. Of course the
women were afraid, but Dilchthe waded into the water. Her feet struck a sandbar
and she waded across the river, followed by the other women.
Near the Yuma Valley, the women met sweltering heat. She
insisted they follow the river, and they persevered for she knew the mountains
held powerful enemies. Three nights after they crossed the river, a band of
Yuma (also called Mojaves) raiders ambushed them. Only Dilchthe and one woman survived by
fleeing into the brush.
Again they were hunted, but Dilchthe walked over the hot,
mostly dry, river bottom past Gila Bend and present-day Pheonix. They skirted
Puma and Papago camps and villages. Can you imagine crossed that area with no
water, no food, and weary from trudging so far?
These two women were strong!
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| Cochise's son Nach-ti and his wife |
They were too weak to travel at more than a slow walk, and
almost crazed from hunger and grief. At a spot near present day Safford, they
collapsed. Dilchthe managed a signal fire. Incredibly enough, the man who saw
the smoke was Dilchthe’s son in law. She and her friend were saved.
She had walked more than a thousand miles to be reunited
with her family. Can you imagine her welcome as a hero and how her stories were
retold again and again? She had outmaneuvered pursuers, carried no map, no
weapons, and almost no provisions.
I love this story. We never know what we can do until we are
faced with the challenge. Would you be like Dilchthe or one of those who was
killed?
Another story of trekking across the land from Central Texas’
Hill Country to North Central Texas is my new book, THE MOST UNSUITABLE
COURTSHIP, now available at Amazon and Smashwords.
Smashwords in ebook
Thanks,
Caroline
Source:
WHAT THEY DIDN’T TEACH YOU ABOUT THE WILD WEST, by Mike
Wright, Presidio Press Inc., pp 285-286
Free photos from www
