Taza: Apache Chief

Washington, DC

Taza became Chief of the Chiricahua Apache upon the death of his father, the famous Apache Wars veteran Cochise. In 1876 the U.S. Government forcibly removed the Chiricahua to the San Carlos Reservation. This prompted Taza to trek from what is now Arizona to Washington, DC.

Taza took ill during his stay in the district and died. Some accounts say that he succumbed to pneumonia, but there were rumors that he was poisoned.

For nearly a hundred years Taza lay in an unmarked grave in Congressional Cemetery. He finally received a tombstone on September 26, 1971, the 95th anniversary of his death, through the efforts of Washington's American Indian Society. Atop a small stone base sits a 16.5-inch-high bust of Chief Taza. The photograph used to create the likeness was an 1886 image of a different Chiricahua Apache man, Notshi, but at least it wasn't Rock Hudson, the white actor who played Taza in the 1954 western movie, "Taza: Son of Coshise."

[Grave report by Kurt Deion]