Geronimo
APACHES
APACHES
The Apaches roamed the regions now known as Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. They belong to the Southern Athapascan language group. Many Apache words have distinct sounds. They were the major nomadic tribe in the American southwest and the last major tribe to surrender to the government control in the 1880's. The name apache derives from apachu, the Zuni word for "enemy". it is also the Yuma word for "Fighting Men". The Apache call themselves N'de, Inde, or Tinde, from the term tinneh meaning "people". Some subgroup names include Chiricahua (Mountain), Jicarilla (LITTLE BASKET), and Mescalero (MENSCAL PEOPLE).
The Chiricahua once lived in Colorado and New Mexico in the Rio Grande drainage, and were first noted by Franisco Vasquez de Coronado in 1540. They were described as a "gentle people, faithful in their friendships," They were known for their superior skills in warfare strategy and inexhaustible endurance. They reached Arizona in the 1600s. By 1660 Spanish settlements were losing horses to Apache raiding parties. Prior to this time, trade had been carried out between them. The Apaches that lived in the Canadian River country of Texas and Oklahoma were frequently at war with the Comanche. In 1723, the Apache were defeated by the Comanche in a nine-day battle on the Wichita River, after which the Apache moved farther south.
On marriage, men customarily take up residence with their wives kin. Maternal clans exist among the Western Apache, who depend more on cultivation than did other groups. All Apache rely primarly on hunting of wild game and gathering of cactus fruits and other wild plant foods. The Western Apache (COYOTERO) traditionally occupy most of eastern Arizona and includes the White Mountain, Cibuecue, San Carlos, and Northern and Southern Tonto bands. The Chiricahua occupy southwestern New Mexico, southeastern Arizona, and adjacent Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora. The Mescalero (FARAON) live east of the Rio Grande in southern New Mexico, with the Pecos River as their eastern border. The Jicarilla (TINDE) range over southeastern Colorado, northern New Mexico, and northwest Texas, with the Lipan occupying territory directly to the east of the Jicarilla.
BY 1736, the Apaches were conducting guerrilla-style raids against the Navajo to the west, the Spanish to the south, and the Comanche to the north. A peace treaty was signed in San Antonio, Texas on August 19, 1749. The Spanish misionary Father Santa Ana set out to convert the Apaches to Catholicism, with a decided lack of success.
The JICARILLA Apaches' name means "little basket," deriving from the expertise of their women in making baskets of all sizes, shapes, and colors. Within recent times, they make their homes in southeastern Colorado and northern New Mexico, though a few groups went to Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. Originally they came from northwestern Canada among the migration of Athapascan language tribes, then along the eastern flank of the Rocky Mountains. When first met by explorers in the 1540s, they were called the VAQUEROS by the Spanish. Though the Spanish established a mission for JICARILLAS in 1733 near Taos, New Mexico, it did not succeed. Later, in 1880, the government set aside a reservation for the JICARILLAS in the Tierra Amarilla region of New Mexico. Today they live on thier reservations in Arizona and in Rio Arriba and Sandoval Counties, New Mexico.
On July 1, 1852, a treaty was signed in Santa Fe, New Mexico between the US government and the Apaches of Arizona and New Mexico. The majority of the CHIRICAHUA who inhabited that region had little prior contact with the white man and could see little good coming from thr treaty. Under their chief Mangas Colorado, the Apache continued the raids, which became particularly serious after 1858, when the Butterfield Overland Mail route began running its stagecoaches through the Apache hunting grounds.
Cochise, son-in law of Mangas Coloradas, was the second important CHIRICAHUA chief to have contact with the white man, and his relations with them were good from 1856 to 1861. During that time, he not only permitted the Butterfield Overland to operate through his territory, but openly supported it and helped establish a stage station at Apache Pass. In February 1861, Cochise was arrested at Apache Pass by the US ARMY for a kidnapping perpetrated by a rival band. He escaped but sought revenge on the Army by blocking the stage line. Wagon trains were attacked and miners driven out. Cochise and Mangas Coloradas joined forces in opposition not only to the US Army but to the Army of the Confederacy that attempted to move into the Southwest from Texas during 1863.
The warfare was particularly bloody during 1862, with the CHIRICAHUA and MESCALERO successfully doing battle against the US Army, the Confederate Army, and the California Volunteers, who sought to hold the region against the Confederates. Mangas Coloradas was taken prisoner while under a truce flag in January 1863, severly tortured and finally killed. Cochise and his 300 men continued the war Aginst the whites untill well after the conclusion of the Civil War. The raids were particulary fierce in 1870, forcing the US goverment to make serious peace overtures in 1871, after 10 years of warfare. When a band of ARAVAIPA Apache under chief ESKIMINZIN attempted to surrender only to be massacred, peace seemed farther away than ever. Finally, in September 1872, General Oliver O. Howard reached an accord with Cochise and the latter agreed to a ceasefire. The CHIRICAHUA remained at peace until after the death of Cochise in 1874.
When the US government decided to move the Chiricahua out of their traditional lands in 1876, Taza, Cochise's son and heir, reuctantly agreed to move. Some of the younger men who had grown up fighting alongside Cochise disagreed and began the guerrilla war anew. Prominent among the leaders of the dissident factions were Naiche, Victorio and a man named Goyathlay, who would later become known as Geronimo. Victorio was persuaded to join the Chiricahua Reservation at San Carlos, but conditions there were so bad that he took to the hills with his band in September 1877. Two years later he had a band of 200 CHIRICAHUA and MESCALERO and was making raids throughout the Southwest from a base in Mexico. In a rare instance of cooperation, the US and Mexican governments agreed to work togather to track him down. In October 1880, he was located and killed in a vicious battle with Mexican troops.
This left Geronimo as the principal warrior chief of the Apache. Pursued by US Army General George "Gray Wolf" Crook, Geronimo followed Victorio's pattern, raiding the Southwest from a base in Mexico Crook finally caught up with him in May 1883 and convinced him to surrender. From February 1884 to May 1885, Geronimo remained on the San Carlos Reservation, during which time he was the subject of numerous newspaper articles recounting his deeds, both real and contrived by imaginative writers. When he left the reservation in May1885, it was front page news on a national scale.
Crook located Geronimo in March1886 and once again the Chiricahua were talkee into surrender. The short-lived surrender brought Cook's forced resignation and his replacement by General Nelson "Bear Coat" Miles, who had made a name for himself during the Sioux and Nez Perce campaigns of the 1870's. Milessucceeded in capturing Geronimo for the last time in August1886. He and hisChiricahua band of 340 were sent to Fort Marion, Florida where many of them died. In October1894, Geronimo and the remaining 296 men, women and children of his band were sent to Fort Sill,Oklahoma, a more agreeable climate for the southwestern Indians. Though he would technically remain a military prisoner of war for the rest of his life, Geromino was considered harmless enough to be invited to ride in Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural prade in 1905 and in Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show in 1908. Geronimo died of pneumonia on February 17, 1909 in a small hut near the Fort Sill hospital at the age of 80. The Chiricahua at Fort Sill, including those born in Florida and Oklahoma after Geronimo's surrender, were considered prisoners of war untill their official "release" in 1913. In that year, 87 of them were given land in Oklahoma.
Today the Apache occupy reservations in New Mexico and Arizona, with some Chiricahua, Lipan, andKiowa Apache in Oklahoma. In1680 the Apache population was estimated at 5,000. In 1950, there were about 200 Chiricalua, 30 Lipan, and 400 Kiowa Apache still living in Oklahoma out of an estimated total US population of 8600 Apache, most of whom were living in the Southwest. In1985, there were 2,411 people at the Jicarilla Agency and Reservation in New Mexico, 2,899 at the Mescalero Agency and Reservation in New Mexico , 8,311 at Fort Apache Agency and Reservation in Arizona, and 485 at the Anadarko Agency in Oklahoma. In 1989 the Apache were estimated at about 30,000, of whom most lived on reservations. While accommodating to changed economic conditions, the Apache on reservations have maintained much of their traditional social and ritual activities. Their invincible spirit is still shown today by an energy and fire that makes them a strong and hardy people in modern day society.
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