Cochise was born around 1810, and matured during a relatively peaceful period of Apache and Mexican affairs.  In 1831, however, relations deteriorated and war came.  This state of war continued throughout Cochise's life. 

In 1856, he became the leader of the Chokonen band of Chiricahua's.  Two years later, he had his first contact with Americans at Apache pass (in Arizona) with an agent named Michael Steck.  He had no reason to react militarily to him since he had no reason to fear or mistrust him.  However, in just a few years, things began to get troublesome. 

War with the US soldiers began in February, 1861 with the senseless senseless encounter at Apache pass with an army 1st Lieutenant.  First Lieutenant George N. Bascom, with a detachment of soldiers, arrived at Apache Pass and requested a parley with Cochise. Bascom, seeking a boy recently captured by Western Apaches, believed that Cochise's people were responsible. Bascom ordered his soldiers to surround the tent when Cochise and his family came in to parley. Cochise, discovering that he was a prisoner, cut his way out of the tent to freedom (the Chiricahuas would forever refer to this incident as "Cut the Tent"). But five members of Cochise's family were unable to escape. A few days later, Cochise captured a stage employee and soon after attacked a freighter train, killing all the Mexicans with the train and capturing three Americans. He offered to exchange the hostages for his relatives, but Bascom refused to budge unless Cochise returned the boy. Frustrated, Cochise tortured his prisoners to death. Bascom retaliated by hanging Cochise's brother and two of his nephews. Later, Bascom released Cochise's wife and son. The execution of his relatives aroused in Cochise a passionate hatred of Americans and touched off the fierce conflict that was to last throughout the 1860s.

Initially he raided and killed for revenge; later, even as his rage abated, he continued to wage war, for the conflict had evolved into a bloody cycle of revenge--American counterstrikes and Apache retaliation. Cochise assumed an aggressive posture for the first five years of the war as he enlisted the aid of other Chiricahua bands, notably the Bedonkohes and Chihennes under his father-in-law, the 6-foot 5-inch statesman Mangas Coloradas.

Cochise's fury was ignited again in January 1863 when Americans duped Mangas Coloradas into a parley and executed him--which, to the Chiricahuas, "was the greatest of wrongs." For Cochise, the loss of his father-in-law and fighting ally was a deep and unquenchable grief. Mangas' execution reminded Cochise that he could not trust Americans, especially soldiers. In early 1865 the Chihenne band in New Mexico, under Victorio, discussed terms with Americans, but Cochise refused, declaring that he would never make peace. He still feared Anglo treachery. In fact, 1865 was destined to be one of his most active years in Arizona. He attacked ranches, travelers and troops on both sides of the border.

From 1866 through 1868 he was forced to adopt guerilla warfare against Americans and Mexicans. By late 1868, however, Mexican campaigns had pushed him northward into Arizona, and now, for the first time, he reluctantly considered the prospect of making peace with the Americans. Over the next four years (1869­1872), Cochise came to understand clearly the inevitability of peace.

In his day, Cochise embodied the essence of Apache warfare. But he was more than just a warrior--much more. He was an Indian who so loved his family, his people and the mountains in which he was reared that he would fight fiercely to protect and preserve all that was Apache. There can be no question that he was capable of unspeakable cruelties and violent acts of revenge upon innocent whites. The fact that Cochise was terribly wronged and misunderstood and forced to witness the disappearance of his homeland and his people perhaps cannot, in the view of history, justify everything that he did. Still he represents, probably as well as any single figure, a people's natural resistance to the invasion of their land. The warrior known as Cochise will enjoy forever a giant place in the history of the American Southwest. In consistently heroic fashion, he occupied his place at the head of his threatened people through the violent years. His physical skills were so extraordinary that those skills alone would have conducted him to the head of his Chokonen band. One American frontiersman who knew him well insisted that Cochise "never met his equal with a lance"; another frontiersman claimed that no Apache "can draw an arrow to the head and send it farther with more ease than him." And we have many eyewitness accounts to testify to Cochise's prowess as a horseman. During one furious encounter on horseback, an American scout tried over and over again to dispatch Cochise, but his efforts were all in vain, for the Indian "would slip over to the side of his horse, hanging on the horse's neck." Yet it was more than his strength and physical skills that inspired the warriors of Cochise. The Chiricahua chief had often expressed his great regard for those who displayed two attributes: courage and devotion to the truth. Nobody exhibited both more persistently and dramatically than did Cochise himself. His courage in skirmishes and battles is now legendary. He always led his men into combat and was frequently the central figure throughout the fight. One American officer reported that "many efforts were made to kill Cochise who [led] his mounted warriors" in several charges. Always during an engagement, no matter how chaotic and confused, Cochise managed complete control of his men. "A private soldier would as soon think of disobeying a direct order of the President as would a Chiricahua Apache a command of Cochise," one observer declared. The warrior-chief also respected and much admired bravery when it appeared in his enemies. One reason that his friendship with General Howard and Lieutenant Sladen developed so quickly and so firmly was that they had the "courage to visit him when to do so [might] have caused their death." And Cochise scorned a liar. He held to a simple philosophy about the truth: "A man has only one mouth and if he won't tell the truth he [should be] put out of the way." He clearly had a great instinct for the truth and a keen capacity for distinguishing deceit and falsehood. All Americans, with but a few notable exceptions, he distrusted out of both instinct and experience. This distrust of Americans prevented him from revealing much of his career to inquisitive whites. He remained honest to his creed as he steadfastly refused to discuss the past. If pressured, he would simply say, "I don't want to talk about that." In the end, Cochise came to the best terms ever really possible for him. His last years were a time of peace in America, the kind of peace that came only because the struggle was over. He obtained a reservation in his ancestral homeland, an agent in whom he could repose absolute and complete trust, and the promise of freedom from military interference. Today, he enjoys a hallowed place in the history of the great American Southwest: Cochise, the Chiricahua Apache, the leader of his people.  He died on June 8, 1874.