Camp Grant Massacre

Location: Camp Grant, Arizona
Date: April 30, 1871
Attack type: Mass murder
Death(s): 144 killed
Perpetrator: United States Army

April 30, 1871. The Camp Grant Massacre was an attack on Pinal and Aravaipa Apaches who surrendered to the United States Army at Camp Grant, Arizona Territory, along the San Pedro River. This is part of the decades long Apache Wars.

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The attack

On the afternoon of April 28, six Caucasians, 48 Mexicans, and 92 O’odham, gathered along Rillito Creek and set off on a march to Aravaipa Canyon. At dawn on Sunday, April 30, they surrounded the Apache camp. O’odham were the main fighters, while Americans and Mexicans picked off Apaches who tried to escape. Most of the Apache men were off hunting in the mountains. All but eight of the corpses were women and children. Twenty-seven children had been captured and were sold into slavery in Mexico by the Papago and Mexicans themselves. A total of 144 Aravaipas and Pinals had been killed and mutilated.

Government reaction

The U.S. military and Eastern press called it a massacre. President Grant informed Governor A.P.K. Safford that if the perpetrators were not brought to trial, he would place Arizona under martial law. The trial lasted five days, and after 19 minutes of deliberation, the jury acquitted every defendant.

In October 1871, a Tucson grand jury indicted 100 of the assailants with 108 counts of murder. The trial two months later focused solely on Apache depredations; it took the jury just 19 minutes to pronounce a verdict of not guilty. Western Apache groups soon left their farms and gathering places near Tucson in fear of subsequent attacks. As pioneer families arrived and settled in the area, Apaches were never able to regain hold of much of their ancestral lands in the San Pedro River Valley.