Selling Tainted Beef to the States

The Tucson Ring - Almost everyone knows the story about Geronimo, how he broke out of the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona and went on a rampage before he was finally captured in 1886. What most people don't know is the front end of that story, that the Indian Agent there, a fellow named Tiffany, had formed a syndicate with a group of businessmen, later called "the Tucson Ring," who sold tainted beef to the reservation, pocketing the difference. This caused Geronimo and other bands to bolt the reservation, and go on their sprees. After a few years, many deaths, many soldiers and dollars, and several dime novels, Geronimo surrendered to a Florida prison an American folk hero, while Agent Tiffany and the Tuscon Ring were finally rounded up, indicted and punished.

(On a melancholy note: Grover Cleveland was president at the time so this is probably the only recorded incident in American history in which a government employee was both fired and prosecuted criminally under a Democrat administration. So, remember Grover Cleveland in your prayers.)

What follows is a sordid tale of selling tainted beef by tainted salesmen.

As promised in Part I, I won't rehash the Article V argument substantively. I've provided links here where you can review aspects of it, but in the context of the tone of the parties, and as a prelude to possible motivations of its promoters.

Because of the length, this will require a Part III, for as with most investigations, new leads keep popping up.

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