Apache Log D
Abbey Synnott
Apache bands include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreo, Salinero, Plains, and Western Apache (Aravaipa, Pinaleo, Coyotero, and Tonto). Today, Apache tribes and reservations are headquartered in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma, while in Mexico the Apache are settled in Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila and areas of Tamaulipas.[6] Each tribe is politically autonomous.
Historically, the Apache homelands have consisted of high mountains, sheltered and watered valleys, deep canyons, deserts, and the southern Great Plains, including areas in what is now Eastern Arizona, Northern Mexico (Sonora and Chihuahua) and New Mexico, West Texas, and Southern Colorado. These areas are collectively known as Apacheria.
The Apache tribes fought the invading Spanish and Mexican peoples for centuries. The first Apache raids on Sonora appear to have taken place during the late 17th century. In 19th-century confrontations during the American Indian Wars, the U.S. Army found the Apache to be fierce warriors and skillful strategists.
The Jicarilla are headquartered in Dulce, New Mexico,[9] while the Mescalero are headquartered in Mescalero, New Mexico. The Western Apache, located in Arizona, is divided into several reservations, which crosscut cultural divisions. The Western Apache reservations include the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, Camp Verde Indian Reservation, and Tonto-Apache Reservation.
The Chiricahua were divided into two groups after they were released from being prisoners of war. The majority moved to the Mescalero Reservation and formed, with the larger Mescalero political group, the Mescalero Apache Tribe of the Mescalero Reservation, along with the Lipan Apache.[11] The other Chiricahua are enrolled in the Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, headquartered in Apache, Oklahoma.[7]
The nine Apache tribes formed a nonprofit organization, the Apache Alliance. Tribal leaders convene at the Apache Alliance Summits, meetings hosted by a different Apache tribe each time.[12] The member tribes are the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, Fort Sill Apache Tribe, Jicarilla Apache Tribe, Mescalero Apache Tribe, San Carlos Apache Tribe, Tonto Apache Tribe, White Mountain Apache Tribe, Yavapai-Apache Nation,[12] In 2021, "Lipan Apaches were present" at the summit.[13]
Apaches first encountered European and African people, when they met conquistadors from the Spanish Empire, and thus the term Apache has its roots in the Spanish language. The Spanish first used the term Apachu de Nabajo (Navajo) in the 1620s, referring to people in the Chama region east of the San Juan River. By the 1640s, they applied the term to Southern Athabaskan peoples from the Chama on the east to the San Juan on the west. The ultimate origin is uncertain and lost to Spanish history.[citation needed]
The first known written record in Spanish is by Juan de Oate in 1598. The most widely accepted origin theory suggests Apache was borrowed and transliterated from the Zuni word ʔapaču meaning "Navajos" (the plural of paču "Navajo").[note 1][14] J. P. Harrington reports that čiššekʷe can also be used to refer to the Apache in general.
Another theory suggests the term comes from Yavapai ʔpačə meaning "enemy".[15] The Zuni and Yavapai sources are less certain because Oate used the term before he had encountered any Zuni or Yavapai.[14] A less likely origin may be from Spanish mapache, meaning "raccoon".[14]
The fame of the tribes' tenacity and fighting skills, probably bolstered by dime novels, was widely known among Europeans. In early 20th century Parisian society, the word Apache was adopted into French, essentially meaning an outlaw.[17]
Many of the historical names of Apache groups that were recorded by non-Apache are difficult to match to modern-day tribes or their subgroups. Over the centuries, many Spanish, French and English-speaking authors did not differentiate between Apache and other semi-nomadic non-Apache peoples who might pass through the same area. Most commonly, Europeans learned to identify the tribes by translating their exonym, what another group whom the Europeans encountered first called the Apache peoples. Europeans often did not learn what the peoples called themselves, their autonyms.
While anthropologists agree on some traditional major subgrouping of Apaches, they have often used different criteria to name finer divisions, and these do not always match modern Apache groupings. Some scholars do not consider groups residing in what is now Mexico to be Apache. In addition, an Apache individual has different ways of identification with a group, such as a band or clan, as well as the larger tribe or language grouping, which can add to the difficulties in an outsider comprehending the distinctions.
In 1900, the US government classified the members of the Apache tribe in the United States as Pinal Coyotero, Jicarilla, Mescalero, San Carlos, Tonto, and White Mountain Apache. The different groups were located in Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.
In the 1930s, the anthropologist Greenville Goodwin classified the Western Apache into five groups (based on his informants' views of dialect and cultural differences): White Mountain, Cibecue, San Carlos, North Tonto, and South Tonto. Since then, other anthropologists (e.g. Albert Schroeder) consider Goodwin's classification inconsistent with pre-reservation cultural divisions. Willem de Reuse finds linguistic evidence supporting only three major groupings: White Mountain, San Carlos, and Dilzhe'e (Tonto). He believes San Carlos is the most divergent dialect, and that Dilzhe'e is a remnant, intermediate member of a dialect continuum that previously spanned from the Western Apache language to the Navajo.
John Upton Terrell classifies the Apache into western and eastern groups. In the western group, he includes Toboso, Cholome,[19] Jocome, Sibolo or Cibola, Pelone, Manso, and Kiva or Kofa. He includes Chicame (the earlier term for Hispanized Chicano or New Mexicans of Spanish/Hispanic and Apache descent) among them as having definite Apache connections or names which the Spanish associated with the Apache.
In a detailed study of New Mexico Catholic Church records, David M. Brugge identifies 15 tribal names that the Spanish used to refer to the Apache. These were drawn from records of about 1,000 baptisms from 1704 to 1862.[20]
The term Apache refers to six major Apache-speaking groups: Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Plains, and Western Apache. Historically, the term has also been applied to the Comanches, Mojaves, Hualapais, and Yavapais, none of whom speak Apache languages.
Lipan (Ypandes) primarily live in New Mexico today on the Mescalero Apache Reservation.[25] Other Lipan Apache descendants merged with the Tonkawa tribe in Oklahoma.[25] Historically, they moved from what is now the Southwest into the Southern Plains before 1650.[25] In 1719, French explorer Jean Baptiste Bnard de La Harpe encountered the Lipan Apache near what is now Latimer County, Oklahoma.[25]
They were mentioned in 1718 records as being near the newly established town of San Antonio, Texas.[14] They expanded into Texas and south the Gulf of Mexico and Rio Grande. In the mid-18th century, some Lipan settled in and near Spanish missions in Texas.[26] Clashes with Comanche forced them into southern Texas and northern Mexico.[26]
Briefly in the late 1830s, the Lipan allied with the Republic of Texas; however, after Texas gained statehood in 1846, the Americans waged a brutal campaign against the Lipan, destroying Lipan villages and trying to force them from Texas. Most were forced onto the Mescalero Reservation and some went to Oklahoma.[25][26]
Western Apache include Northern Tonto, Southern Tonto, Cibecue, White Mountain, and San Carlos groups. While these subgroups spoke the same language and had kinship ties, Western Apaches considered themselves as separate from each other, according to Goodwin. Other writers have used this term to refer to all non-Navajo Apachean peoples living west of the Rio Grande (thus failing to distinguish the Chiricahua from the other Apacheans). Goodwin's formulation: "all those Apache peoples who have lived within the present boundaries of the state of Arizona during historic times with the exception of the Chiricahua, Warm Springs, and allied Apache, and a small band of Apaches known as the Apache Mansos, who lived in the vicinity of Tucson."[27]
The Apache and Navajo speak related languages of the Athabaskan language family.[28] Other Athabaskan-speaking people in North America continue to reside in Alaska, western Canada, and the Northwest Pacific Coast.[28] Anthropological evidence suggests that the Apache and Navajo peoples lived in these same northern locales before migrating to the Southwest sometime between AD 1200 and 1500.[28]
The Apaches' nomadic way of life complicates accurate dating, primarily because they constructed less substantial dwellings than other Southwestern groups.[29] Since the early 21st century, substantial progress has been made in dating and distinguishing their dwellings and other forms of material culture.[30] They left behind a more austere set of tools and material goods than other Southwestern cultures.[citation needed]
The Athabaskan-speaking group probably moved into areas that were concurrently occupied or recently abandoned by other cultures. Other Athabaskan speakers, perhaps including the Southern Athabaskan, adapted many of their neighbors' technology and practices into their own cultures. Thus sites where early Southern Athabaskans may have lived are difficult to locate and even more difficult to firmly identify as culturally Southern Athabaskan. Recent advances have been made in the regard in the far southern portion of the American Southwest.[citation needed]
There are several hypotheses about Apache migrations. One[who?] posits that they moved into the Southwest from the Great Plains. In the mid-16th century, these mobile groups lived in tents, hunted bison and other game, and used dogs to pull travois loaded with their possessions. Substantial numbers of the people and a wide range were recorded by the Spanish in the 16th century.[citation needed]