The Cocopah cut their alliance with the…
May 1853 CE
The Cocopahs first besiege three Yuman villages, killing Chief Macedon, four other warriors and ten women and children.
Twelve prisoners are taken and a herd of Yuman horses captured.
Cocopahs next massacre Chief Jose Maria's camp, killing three men and twenty-three women and children.
Heintzelman will note that this massacre was an "unprovoked aggression on part of the Cocopah".
A burial detail is formed and sent to the scene of the attack, within Mexican territory and present day Arizona.
The bodies are burned according to American tradition, then the detail returned to the fort.
Days later, Chief Maria arrives at Fort Yuma and informs Heintzelman that the high Cocopah chief has released some Yuman women and children but the majority are still in captivity.
Maria also tells the captain that the Cocopah are retreating into the mountains and that the Yuma are preparing their own raid in retaliation.
The Cocopah also form an alliance with the Paipai and Halyikwamai and together they outnumber the Yuman warriors who gather at Fort Yuma, which is now a center of trade with the Americans.
So many warriors at the post alarm the garrison but the Yumans are not hostile.
When about two hundred and fifty men are assembled, they raid south into Cocopah territory and kill seven warriors and four women.
Simultaneously, the Mohave under Chief Irataba raid Cocopah territory after the Yuma ask them to join in the war.
The Mohave, by all accounts, had not wanted to fight, but because their Yuman friends fear for their safety, the Mohave come to their aid.
In the raid, three Cocopah men are killed and two women are taken captive.
When conflict with the Cocopah ceases the Americans at Fort Yuma receive a new objective, which is to prevent further bloodshed between the American tribes.
Chief Irataba goes to Fort Yuma, where he asks the Americans to deliver a sort of contract to the four other Mohave war chiefs.
All rank equally and all receive five letters from the American army, which, if accepted, they will no longer attack other Americans tribes or American settlers and they will not prevent the army from building forts and roads on their land.
If the stipulations are not met the United States will go to war against the Mohave.
With some persuasion from Aratave, the four other chiefs eventually agree to be peaceful and the Yuma War comes to an end.
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