On Mar. 24, 1775, Gen. Hugo Oconor, an Irish mercenary on the Spanish payroll, submitted for the viceroy’s approval an ambitious plan to annihilate the Apaches.
Although the men from Madrid preferred to parley, peace talks were doomed from the start. Given the decentralized nature of the Apaches, no one spoke for the Indians. They were neither a nation nor even a tribe, just a loose...