Since childhood most of us who have grown up in the U.S. would be glued to the TV at 6:30am on Saturday morning to watch the reruns of western films. The names of the Indian chiefs, like Geronimo, and their Army opponents were household words. Normally the cause of the fighting was a civilian who invaded Indian land and eventually got staked out on an ant hill. Unfortunately the movies failed to tell the story in a way that was fair to both sides, or often the story told had no relationship to the events it portrayed. The story of the Apache Wars suffers from the same misconception.
The Apaches were first recorded as living in what is
now the southwestern part of the United States by Spanish
Soldiers in the late 1500's. Prior to 1850 the Navajos were
usually called Navajo Apaches. Both the modern-day Navajos
and Apaches are members of the Athapascan linguistic family.
[1]
There is strong evidence that the Athapascans were
not newcomers to the area that comprises the southwestern
U.S. and northwestern Mexico. The Pimas have a tradition that
the Apaches were among the tribes that forced the
abandonent of the large pueblo at Casa Grande Arizona. The
abandonment is believed to have taken place about 1400. [2]
While this aggressive activity appears at first glance
to conform to the traditional view of the Apaches as skilled
warriors, when the Spanish made contact with them, such a
military operation was beyond their abilities. Archaeological
evidence indicates that the Pueblo Indian culture was
experiencing a renaissance from 1300 to 1600, which was
brought to a halt by the Spanish arrival and conquest of the
area. The Apache tribes were, at the time, living in a close
relationship with various Pueblo tribes. Hostilities were
initiated as often by Pueblo groups as by Apaches.
More commonly, Pueblo tribes were at war with each
other, with Apache groups acting as allies on both sides. [3]
Trade between the plains Apaches and Pueblo tribes was
extremely important to both groups, and the Spanish records
of the period speak as such about Apache trading activities as
they do about their method of warfare. [4]
However, after 1700, the picture changes. Due to a
century of mis-rule the Apache groups began a constant war
for freedom which created a barrier to Spanish expansion into
the area of modern Now Mexico and Arizona. That barrier
outlasted the Spanish Empire, and was only taken down by
the U.S. Army after 20 years of hard campaigning.
The Apache Wars
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© Copyright 2004 by Milton Soong.
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