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The Johnson Massacre
Last updated on Friday, July 18, 2003
Animas Peak in New Mexico's bootheel, where the massacre actually took place
Photo by Donna Johnson.
Certain stories are so evocative of time and place, they enter a zone of both fiction and common knowledge. The story of the Johnson Massacre is such a story. It has been retold in books and magazines claiming to report real life in early New Mexico. The story has been borrowed by the movies, for its dramatic qualities give themselves to the medium of film. Let me tell you the legend, and the real incident which gave rise to it.
In New Mexico in 1837, 'James' Johnson, a bounty hunter, the legend goes, invited some Apaches to a feast. The Apaches eagerly accepted the invitation, and came to eat and drink their fill at Santa Rita del Cobre (outside present-day Silver City, New Mexico) where the Spanish operated a copper mine. While he had them gathered in one place, the dastardly Johnson touched off a cannon loaded with glass, nails, and a length of chain, felling the innocent Apaches. Among the slain was Juan José Compá, the Apache chief. In retribution for this terrible deed, the Apaches cleaned out Santa Rita, and escalated the Apache war throughout the Southwest, including Mexico.
It is a sensational story by any standard, containing treachery, the victim-perpetrator theme, and a bloodbath. These elements have led many a storyteller astray, and never more than in the legend of the Johnson Massacre.
Historians otherwise thought to be reliable have told it incorrectly. Josiah Gregg in Commerce of the Prairies, Philip St. George Cooke in his diary, John Russell Bartlett in his Personal Narrative, and John C. Cremony in his Life Among the Apaches, all tell the mythologized version of the Johnson Massacre. These works are considered primary sources on southwestern history. Any student of the southwest will find the legend, but nowhere the truth.
The Johnson Massacre legend made its most recent appearance in the 75th Anniversary Issue of New Mexico Magazine, (July, 1997) as recounted by John Sinclair. He wrote it as any good writer would, sensationalizing the dramatic parts and helping the reader picture how events actually could have happened. The trouble is, he echoes the inaccuracies that have been repeated in print for years. (Editor's note: See "related links" at the end of this article for a link to the Sinclair story.)
Sinclair's, and all the other accounts, give three facts which are just plain wrong. One is the location of the incident, another is the man's name, and last, his occupation. His name was John, not James, Johnson. He was not a bounty hunter, as they all put it, but a trader from Missouri who lived in Moctezuma, Mexico. The Johnson Massacre was not a heinous premeditated crime, but an act of self defense, one of many in the ongoing Apache wars of the time, one which led to a southwestern legend loaded with sentimental feeling.
When the Spanish first came to New Mexico 400 years ago, they found indigenous peoples living on a great deal of otherwise empty land. After a deposit of native copper was found in Southwest New Mexico, the Spanish moved into this area, opening the Santa Rita mine in 1804. They sent the red metal south on the Janos trail into Mexico for coinage. This mining enterprise went on at great peril to themselves, for this was Apachería, the land of the Apaches, the greatest guerrilla fighters the world has ever known.
Fierce and protective, living in extended family units, the Apaches exacted merciless vengeance on those who invaded their domain. They bargained when they could, cannily playing U.S. Indian Agencies for sustenance, time, and space. But in the end their talent for war was no match for government bureaucracy. The Apaches are gone now from this, their homeland: All that is left of them are the stories.
There is a kernel of truth in the legend of the Johnson Massacre, but key elements have been left out. The entire context of the encounter of John Johnson with Juan José Compá's Apaches has been lost, due to the fantastical picture of the discharge of the hidden cannon on the Apaches.
Was Johnson a pre-meditated, craven murderer? Were the Apaches simple-minded victims of superior intelligence and technology?
Many good historians have asserted that John Johnson was a scalphunter. While it cannot be said that he never participated in that pursuit, he could not have been out scalphunting in the spring of 1837, because both Chihuahua and Sonora were bankrupt and offered no bounty of any kind that year. In Professor Strickland's paper on the Johnson Massacre (see author's note at end of article), evidence comes to light that the taking of scalps and paying bounties for them began after the Johnson incident.
John Johnson first traveled to Oposura, Mexico in the year 1827 with two other adventurers, James Glenn and the loquacious James Ohio Pattie. He settled there, obtaining a license to trade, and became known as "Johnson of Oposura." This town changed its name to Moctezuma in 1828, and here Johnson remained, trading and buying up mining properties. He married Delfina Gutiérrez there in 1835; four sons would be born to this union.
In the spring of 1837, the events leading to the Johnson Massacre were set in motion when Juan José Compá's Apaches attacked a town thirty miles north of Moctezuma. They fought the adults and helped themselves to children and horses. Making off to the north, they used the old Mimbreño war trail that took them in the direction of Janos, Mexico.
The community of Moctezuma was still stirred up about this raid when a group of Johnson's friends, Missouri traders, rode into town. They complained to Johnson of the lack of horses and mules which they wanted to take back to Missouri with them for trade.
Johnson suggested that they go after the Apaches and steal the animals back. To this end, he obtained official permiso from the local government, which entitled the party to half of whatever they recovered from the Apaches.
The party of 17 white men left Moctezuma headed north. At the presidio of Fronteras, the commandant advised them to give up the chase, saying there were hundreds of Apache warriors ahead of them. The commandant refused the assistance of his 100 men to the small party, considering even that number insufficient to go up against so many Apaches. He did, however, lend Johnson a swivel gun, of a size that could be dismantled and packed upon the mules.
The party resumed its northward trek. Soon after Johnson located the Apache trail, he realized from the signal fires on the hills that the Apaches knew of their presence. The Johnson party camped and considered what to do; they were outnumbered five to one. When Juan José approached them and questioned the party, they claimed to be going to Santa Rita del Cobre (75 miles away) with supplies, and offered to trade with Juan José.
The chief accepted, for Apaches observed no laws regarding with whom to trade, and where. The parley between the Apaches and the small party of Missouri traders lasted three days. During that time Johnson "redeemed by purchase" a Mexican captive, a 12-year-old girl, who told him the Apaches planned to ambush his party, and were sending to other camps for assistance. Johnson had already noticed what he considered "acts of mistrust and treachery" among the Apaches. He could see they were planning an attack.
Johnson's party knew themselves to be in great danger. The nearest presidio had already refused assistance, and sending elsewhere for help would take days. They must go on the offensive or be killed, so they hatched the scheme of hiding the swivel gun. Whose idea it was we will never know.
At the final trading party, the Apaches were dividing up sacks of flour and sugar when the Missouri traders loosed the swivel gun and their Kentucky rifles on them. Juan José, his brother Juan Diego, and another chief, Marcelo, were killed in the first fusillade. Total dead Apaches was twenty. (Subsequent accounts inflated this by hundreds.) Johnson lost his pack outfit, including the money with which he planned to pay his packers. He took the time to retrieve several scalps as proof of his activities. The party, intact but pursued by infuriated Apaches, retreated to Janos.
The Johnson Massacre stirred the Apaches to hornet-like activity all over the southwestern frontier. Apaches had long lived by the code of vengeance, reserving their purest hatred for murderers of Apache leaders. While they had been at war with Mexico since time out of mind, they now went after the Americanos who were coming into the country.
Of greatest interest to us now is the retelling of this story to early New Mexico historians Josiah Gregg, John Russell Bartlett, John C. Cremony, and others. How was it that only half the story was told?
It is as if the Apaches themselves told it, portraying themselves as sinned against rather than sinning, for no mention is ever made of their raid outside Moctezuma, Mexico. Nor do we read of the danger the Johnson party was in. Perhaps the story did come from the Apaches, for we can conjecture that they guided the white men first making their way through the Southwest, and we have seen that they traded freely.
The Mexicans of Sonora told the story in a corrido, a folk ballad, accurately placing the massacre in the Animas Mountains in New Mexico's bootheel. Details of the encounter between Johnson and Juan José are told in the ballad, and the last verse tells of the broken chain fired from the swivel gun, which killed Juan Diego, Juan José's brother.
It is easy to see, comparing the legend with the real story, the truth from which elements of the legend were drawn. Johnson did take scalps, although not for money. The party did have official sanction to claim half of what they could recover from the Apaches, hence the inference of bounty hunters. The hidden swivel gun was certainly present, although by accident rather than design, pressed into service for the emergency. The ghastly detail of the chain fired into Juan Diego's torso is probably true.
The truth about the Johnson Massacre shows each party in character. The Apaches had been out doing what they did so well, raiding; and John Johnson took action in the face of chilling odds to save his own party. By putting the record straight, we see each culture as it really was then.
We find in the voices of 19th century historians a curiously modern indignation at the dastardly white man, and sympathy for the pitiful Apaches. Anyone could see that a few white men with better guns were going to beat the Apaches in the end.
The legend of the Johnson Massacre carries with it a great deal of southwestern color, hence its most recent incarnation in New Mexico Magazine. The story contains that quality of strange fate that would make it irresistable for retelling around a campfire. And haven't we seen a version of it in a Spaghetti Western? It captures a time, in the not so distant past, of terrible violence.
Now the myth, told for 160 years, can be balanced by the truth, known only to a few. Those few would include John Johnson descendants, for they still live in Sonora, and are leading citizens there.
Author's note: The true story of the Johnson Massacre is found in "The Birth and Death of a Legend: The Johnson 'Massacre' of 1837"; Arizona and the West, Vol. 18, No. 3; Autumn, 1976. The article is by Rex W. Strickland, Emeritus Professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. The Mexican newspaper El Noticioso de Chihuahua, May 5, 1837, is cited in this article. The newspaper printed the text of the Mexican corrido, or folk ballad, written about the Johnson Massacre. The newspaper article includes a letter from Johnson himself explaining what happened, and naming the members of his party. Strickland presented his paper at a meeting of the Arizona State Historical Convention, held in Tucson, Arizona, on May 5, 1967.
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