Failure of relocation

After waiting for military reinforcements to arrive, Clum began the relocation in early June. Cochise's sons Taza and Naiche agreed to the move and killed several Chircahuas, including Eskinya, Cochise's trusted ally, when he insisted they go to war. Nednhi Chirica led by Juh also requested transfer. Clum granted them three days to round up their kinsmen. They used that time to elude the cavalry and flee south. Of the more than 1,000 Chiricahuas enumerated in Jeffords's infrequent censuses, only 42 men and 280 women and children accompanied Clum north.

The firing of Jeffords and the abolition of the reservation in southeastern Arizona drove the Chiricahuas deeper into Mexico or over to the Ojo Caliente reservation in New Mexico. In April 1877 the Interior Department ordered Clum to remove the bands at Ojo Caliente to San Carlos as well. Victorio and the Chihenne Chiricahuas acquiesced at first. Geronimo, on the other hand, appeared "defiant" to Clum, so he supposedly hid his Apache police in the commissary building at Ojo Caliente and surprised Geronimo, seizing his rifle and throwing him in shackles.

A total of 453 Chiricahuas, 100 from Geronimos band and the rest under Victorio, reached San Carlos in late May. From the very beginning they began quarreling with the other Apaches confined there. Clum's feuds with the military escalated until he resigned and left San Carlos on July 1, nearly three years after he had arrived. He was replaced by a series of agents who were renowned for their corruption. Two months later, Victorio, Loco, and 308 other Chiricahuas bolted for New Mexico, killing twelve ranchers before surrendering at Fort Wingate in early October.

Victorio and his people returned to Ojo Caliente, where they lived peacefully for less than a year before the government attempted to transfer them to San Carlos again in October 1878. Victorio escaped, and after a year of unsuccessful peace negotiations, he gathered Chiricahuas, Mescaleros, and a few Comanches and embarked on a guerilla campaign. He and his 125 to 150 men always traveled with women and children, some of whom were accomplished warriors themselves. For more than a year Victorio's little band outran thousands of soldiers and killed hundreds of settlers across New Mexico and west Texas.

In July and August 1880, Black cavalrymen in West Texas relentlessly harried Victorio and his people, keeping him from the few sources of water in the nearby land. To escape them, Victorio crossed the Rio Grande near Fort Quitman and drifted south into the deserts of northeastern Chihuahua. There he met his end at the hands of Mexican militia. On October 15, Joaqín Terazas, 260 Chihuahuans, and Tarahumara Indians hunted the Apaches down on three rocky outcrops called Tres Castillos. Victorio and his band fought until their ammunition ran out, and then they died, 78 of them, 62 of whom were men. Terrazas also took sixty-eight prisoners. Victorio did not survive.