At the Crossroads of Captivity, Kinship, and Survival
By Ruben Q. Leyva
This story begins with a single line in a military report, one that forces us to look deeper at the overlapping names, identities, and classifications of the Apache people. My approach centers on kinship and oral history alongside church and military records because these perspectives, often dismissed in historical narratives, are the strongest threads connecting past and present.
In July 1864, amid the final years of the American Civil War, Lieutenant Colonel Julius C. Shaw of the First New Mexico Cavalry led an expedition from Fort Wingate to the Gila and San Carlos Rivers. In his report—published in the War of the Rebellion official records—Shaw describes a field consultation with two Apaches in the upper reaches of the San Carlos River: Soldado, a chief, and a man he refers to as “Mexican Francisco,” who served as an interpreter. Francisco and Soldado, meaning “soldier” in Spanish, were returning from Zuni, where they were trading.
This brief appearance—just a paragraph in the military record—has become a flashpoint for speculation about the identity and background of “Mexican Francisco.” Was he the figure later known as Apache Francisco Leyva? A Mexican captive turned warrior? A Chiricahua (Gila) emissary? Or someone altogether different?
The distinction matters. After his people suffered heavy casualties at the hands of Mexican troops, the Chiricahua leader Manuelito signed a peace treaty in 1842. He later led the Apache Mansos, or tame Apaches, at the Janos Presidio with the title of “General” as bestowed by the Mexican officials. He served as an auxiliary, guiding the Mexican military on campaigns designed to bring hostile Apache bands to peace. Spain, before Mexico, had also used peaceful Apache auxiliaries in campaigns against warring groups, trailing them and coercing them with promises of rations as a less costly alternative to war.
In later accounts—particularly in Victor of Old San Carlos by Paul R. Nickens and Kathleen M. Nickens— Manuelito’s son Francisco (our Frank) is portrayed in a drastically different light. The inference is made that Frank, as a young man of presumed Mexican descent, was likely a captive. But that narrative more closely resembles another Apache leader: the Eastern White Mountain chief Francisco—known thereafter as the Big One (Gochaahá),” whom José Mendívil describes in his first-hand account. Mendívil , like that White Mountain Apache leader, the Big One, was also taken as a child. Mendívil was captured from San Xavier, Sonora, by the White Mountain Apaches in 1857 and held until his escape in 1864. That same summer, Lieutenant Colonel Shaw encountered Apache Frank, documented as “Mexican Francisco”—free, serving as a negotiator and interpreter, and notably unlisted as anyone’s prisoner.
Except for Shaw’s reference to a “Mexican Francisco,” Francisco Leyva is better known as Apache Frank, a more fitting way to distinguish the man at the center of this story from the big Eastern White Mountain chief who bore the same Spanish name.
The historical record places Apache Frank’s appearance in the Shaw report years before Chiricahua men began enlisting as scouts. Most Chiricahua participation in the U.S. military occurred later, during the campaigns led by officers such as Second Lieutenant James A. Maney. If Apache Frank were identified as Chiricahua in 1864, he would have been among the earliest Chiricahuas to assist the U.S. military, well before more formal enlistments of Chiricahua scouts became common.
Complicating matters, Paul Nickens—writing in Soy Gente, Soy Gente—draws on the Shaw report to describe a figure he associates with the Eastern White Mountain Apaches. He references local accounts of a militant Apache leader known as “Francisco the Butcher (the Big One),” though the label should be used cautiously due to its charged connotations. Nickens is careful to distinguish the Big One from our younger namesake. The Big One, a member of the White Mountain Apache, was possibly a Mexican captive who rose to leadership. However, in contrast, Shaw’s report does not portray Apache Frank as violent, but instead as a trusted emissary involved in diplomacy and trade. Sixteen years later, Second Lieutenant Maney, 15th Infantry, lists Frank among the Indian Scouts at 5 feet 4 inches, a relatively small man in contrast to the other.
The confusion comes from overlapping names and stories. Nickens also suggests that while different from the Big One, Mexican Francisco might have been a former captive. This scenario places him in the same category as figures like Costales and Jelikine, who rose from captivity to lead Chiricahua bands. While the confusion is understandable, as Frank’s direct descendants, we know differently. His parents are identified in his baptismal record as Norberta Leyva—also known as “Ishnoh’n”— a Mimbreña of the Warm Springs (Chihene) band, and Prudencio Manuel “Manuelito” Mariscal, a Gileño from what is now southern Arizona. This baptismal record underscores Max L. Moorehead’s (1975) description that the conversion of Apache (Mansos) was desired, and the “civilizing influence” of presidio life could make Apaches more receptive to Christianity during times of peace.
After Manuelito’s death from natural causes, Norberta remarried a Navajo man named Hastiin, who helped raise the young, fatherless Frank. Hastiin came from the region just south of Fort Wingate, near the sacred Zuni Salt Lake.
The Pyramid Mountains Campaign
Historian Edwin R. Sweeney documents an 1877 campaign that would shape Frank’s future. The campaign was led by Lieutenant Rucker and Chief of Scouts Jack Dunn into the Pyramid Mountains. They launched a surprise attack on a Chiricahua winter camp believed to belong to Geronimo and Esquine. According to scout reports, the group had just finished an all-night dance. The ensuing battle forced the Chiricahuas to flee, leaving behind weapons, supplies, and a child who was captured by the troops—Geronimo’s nephew. Among the fallen were ten Apaches. While Frank’s name does not appear in the military records, his kinship ties to Esquine and the subsequent arrest of Frank, Geronimo, and others by Indian Agent John Clum and the San Carlos Apache Police at the Ojo Caliente (at Cañada Alamosa) suggest his participation. Figures like Felatay (possibly Frank) and Esquine operated within these same overlapping circles of leadership and survival. If so, he survived—again—through mobility, kinship, and endurance.
Though Apache Frank’s name is not listed in the Pyramid Mountains engagement, the context suggests that he might have been there. If he was indeed associated with Esquine, his father-in-law, and Geronimo, his survival and adaptability became emblematic of a broader pattern of Apache resilience. Many Apaches were navigating shifting alliances and fluid identities in a post-war world where roles could change rapidly—from captive to scout, from emissary to fugitive.
The Carlisle Indian School
After serving under Maney as an Indian scout, in mid-1880, Frank was captured. The precise details of his capture are unclear. Here is what we know: According to Historian Gillett Griswold’s 178-page report, conducted under the direction of the U.S. Army, Apache Frank was captured initially by Mexicans before being handed over to white authorities and sent to the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in 1882, where he lived for several months. Carlisle records list him as “Francisco,” son of the Navajo—Hastiin Bisii' Łigai (incorrectly recorded as Hostee del-a Bisha Legay)—a member of the Dibé Tłizhíní (Black Sheep Clan) from the Zuni Salt Lake region. Zuni Salt Lake holds spiritual significance for Chiricahuas (Gila Apaches) and Navajos who lived there, indicating Frank’s deep roots in the area.
Ultimately, the mystery of Apache Frank’s identity is not simply one of mistaken identity—it reflects the complexity of the time. The Civil War-era Southwest was a region in flux, where scouts, captives, traders, and survivors blurred lines of language, kinship, and allegiance. Frank, whether called Mexican Francisco or identified as Chiricahua, stood at the crossroads of these histories. Although sometimes used to refer to a distinct local group, ‘Gileño’ can be used interchangeably with ‘Chiricahua.’ These people are rooted in shared ancestry but defined by the choice, or circumstance, of never leaving the homeland. Documented possibly in an 1885 Baker & Johnston photo as Felaytay and again in the 1890 San Carlos Apache Census as 'Lava,' a Mojave-Apache, Frank benefited from a mistaken identity that prevented his deportation to Florida along with other Chiricahua and Warm Springs Apache. This same classification later allowed him his freedom in 1900, when the Yavapai, also known as Mojave-Apache and Yuma-Apache, were released from San Carlos and allowed to return to their homelands.
Some scholars claim the Apache Mansos vanished into the Mexican towns of the borderlands—absorbed, urbanized, and forgotten. But that view echoes the old BIA definition of Indianness: land-based, enrolled, and reserved. It dismisses those who stayed in place but were renamed or misclassified. We were not lost. We were redefined—by policy, not by ourselves. And academics and policy cannot destroy what they did not create. Through kinship, memory, and ceremony, we endured.
Frank settled for a time near Tucson to reconnect with his biological father’s people, the Apache Mansos of the former San Agustin del Tucson Presidio. In some Mexican circles, Frank was known simply as Jesús—a devotional echo from his baptismal name, Francisco de Jesús—a name that, in its simplicity, helped him navigate between fear and familiarity. This Apache group, called the Bá̱ch’i, was a community that avoided exile and erasure due to its peaceful relationship with southern Arizona settlers, serving as a refuge for dislocated Chiricahua (Gileño) Apache people.
Frank died among family on February 6, 1941, at the age of 97. His baptismal record, dated January 28, 1844, supports his presence in the historical record as early as 1864 and explains his enduring role into the early 20th century.
To understand Apache Frank is not just to distinguish him from namesakes like the Eastern White Mountain leader, the Big One. It is to grasp the layered realities of survival—being Gileño, Chiricahua, or Navajo in a world shaped by conflict and adaptation. Just because Apache Mansos carried baptized Spanish names and spoke Spanish didn’t mean they were Mexican captives or less Apache. Baptism and the adoption of Christian names were often terms of peace—conditions for survival at presidios like Janos and Tucson.
In reclaiming his story, we also illuminate the endurance of our ancestors, who walked in multiple worlds and refused to be erased. This is the lesson of Apache Frank—and the families who preserved his memory through kinship and ceremony, even when the records failed to do so.
Footnote:
1. Eli Johnston and Charles S. Baker, Fel-ay-tay – Yuma scout; San Carlos Apaches, photograph, University of Wyoming, American Heritage Center, Baker and Johnston Photographs, Accession Number 7420, Box 3, Resource Identifier ah07420_082. Digital version created November 23, 2010.
