Cochise was the leader of the Chock!onen band of Chiricahua Apache's. He was originally one of the least hostile Apache leaders allowing overland stages to run through his peoples territory. He also supplied the stage station at Apache Pass with firewood and permitted their use of the vital spring in the pass to water both livestock and personnel.
However the the Bascom affair (in 1861) turned Cochise into an unforgiving enemy of the Americans or as he himself put it "your soldiers did me a very great wrong and I and my people went to war with them..."
Driven from Apache Pass during the Apache wars Cochise established a hidden stronghold in the Dragoon Mountains of South-west Arizona. General George Crook's Cavalry combed the mountains without success engaging Cochise's warriors in a protracted guerrilla war.
In 1872 Tom Jeffords, a stage driver and prospector, who was also a personal friend of Cochise brought General Oliver O. Howard to Cochise's stronghold for peace talks. The terminally ill Cochise secured from him a promise that his people would be allowed to return to live in peace at Apache Pass in returning for laying down their weapons. Detesting the white mans lies to which the Apache had been subjected he warned General Howard "We want nothing but to live in peace, but I warn you if you try to move us again there will be war once more; it will be a war without end."
Howard agreed to Cochise's demands, but the generals promise died with Cochise in 1874 and the Apache were never allowed to reclaim Apache Pass. Following his death Taza, Cochise's son, assumed the leadership of the tribe, but it would be the man known to the white's as Geronimo who would lead the continuing Apache resistance.