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    The Last Indian Child
    The Last Indian Child
    The Last Indian Child
    Ebook114 pages48 minutes

    The Last Indian Child

    By Elise Benavidez

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    About this ebook

    Have you ever felt you are living a life of lies? How did you become this way? Are you living in fear or hoping no one can see through your lies and find out how a woman with difficult circumstances coped and lived through the end of her father's existence, avoiding capture, arrest, imprisonment, even the risk of death and became a survivor?

    In this book you will learn the following:

    What happened to a three-year-old Indian child born free

    The power of a mother's love

    What caused the Apache wars in 1879

    Why she had to live a life of lies

    How to survive an unbearable situation

    The Last Indian Child is based on a true story of the author's husband's grandmother. Elise Benavidez has spent twenty years researching the family history. It was an impossible task. The Apache Indians didn't record dates of birth. She had to interview family members and check government records, military, Bureau of Indian Affairs, and census records. She was so surprised to discover her husband's grandmother was the daughter of a well-documented Apache chief, Chief Victorio.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPage Publishing, Inc.
    Release dateFeb 28, 2023
    ISBN9781644240175
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      Book preview

      The Last Indian Child - Elise Benavidez

      cover.jpg

      The Last Indian Child

      Elise Benavidez

      Copyright © 2022 Elise Benavidez

      All rights reserved

      First Edition

      PAGE PUBLISHING

      Conneaut Lake, PA

      First originally published by Page Publishing 2022

      ISBN 979-8-88960-299-6 (pbk)

      ISBN 978-1-64424-018-2 (hc)

      ISBN 978-1-64424-017-5 (digital)

      Printed in the United States of America

      Table of Contents

      In honor of Alcadia Martinez Benavidez.

      May her spirit live on forever.

      And his brothers Edumdo, Desmond, Randy, and Michael.

      Foreword

      Introduction

      Ran for My Life

      Before I Was Born

      Victorio

      Family Life

      Lozen

      Living a Lie

      Death of my Mother

      Alcadia's Legacy

      Stories from the Family

      Family Tree

      Descendants of Chief Victorio

      Notes from the Author

      Conclusion

      Bibliography

      About the Author

      She started this journey in 1990, researching and writing this book. Information about ancestry can be very difficult, especially when these ancestors are considered an enemy of the state and an embarrassment to the government. This government knowingly would not honor its treaties, and with the Native Americans (the first Americans), it was an impossible task to research. Elise drove thousands of miles to visit the cemeteries, read the local history, and interview family members. She requested documents from multiple departments; she scoured the records, Calvary papers, military, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and census records. She even searched the Mormon and Catholic church records. All this helped lead to finding a pathway to the investigation and historical discovery. The academic world was also invaluable with the direction of the logistics explanation. The modern media, for example, the History Channel, corroborated the information she acquired.

      In honor of Alcadia Martinez Benavidez.

      The story she could never tell.

      May her spirit live on forever.

      For my loving husband, Marcos,

      And his brothers Edumdo, Desmond, Randy, and Michael.

      The grandsons of Alcadia Benavidez.

      The great-grandsons of Chief Victorio.

      Foreword

      My mother asked me once who should tell this story because it's a story of our family. It's important to understand that two things have been constant throughout my life: my mother's passion for family history and an awareness that our family lineage leads back to the native people of our land. My mother has been piecing together that connection with a steady and earnest passion for decades. My father knew his grandmother was Apache, presumably born in a cave on the reservation, but there were many details about her life and story that were either lost or left uncertain. Several of my family have attempted to retrace the lines that connect us back to our native heritage, but none have succeeded as thoroughly as my mother. My attempt to connect with our heritage was unguided and spontaneous.

      On the day of my eighteenth birthday, I rode my motorcycle out to my great grandmother's reservation. I didn't tell anyone about my intentions before leaving. I simply left in the early morning hours while everyone in the house was still asleep. I can't say I had a real goal or objective at the time. I think I just wanted an adventure, something that's probably quite common for most people around that age. But also, I was in search of something, a connection I suppose. I felt as if there was an absence I couldn't describe. I knew that there were details about our heritage that were missing or obscure. Perhaps I thought that reconnecting with our heritage would fill the void I felt inside so I went.

      It was a five-hundred-mile ride across two states to the reservation. I had only been riding for a few years by this point, and it was the longest solo ride I had attempted. I already had some long rides under my belt and had even ridden across the country, just never alone before. This ride was harder than I anticipated. Most of the ride was through the desert; I had prepared for the heat, but in the morning, the desert is quite cold. I rode steady all through the day, only stopping for gas, and arrived at the reservation in the early evening. I didn't know where to go or what I was looking for. There weren't many businesses open on the reservation, even the local grocery was closed. There

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