Hardship came in different forms
It is tempting to treat “adversity” as one block of suffering. In reality, the Apache nations met different pressures at different times, and their responses were practical and specific. This article takes four of them in turn: war, imprisonment, reservation confinement and epidemic disease. It does not cover every nation or every event, and it makes no claim that these responses always worked.
War and constant insecurity
For much of the nineteenth century, many Apache communities in the Southwest lived with the threat of attack from Mexican and American forces and, at times, from other Native groups. The broader story is told in accounts of the Apache Wars, which also included times of peace and negotiation. Examples of how communities responded to the danger include:
- Mobility. Small, kin-based groups could split up, move to rugged country and re-form later. This was a long-standing way of life that proved useful under threat.
- Local knowledge. Detailed knowledge of water, shelter and food sources in a landscape allowed groups to survive in places outsiders found difficult.
- Negotiation. Leaders of various groups at times sought agreements, rations and safe camps. Some settled near military posts for protection, and some of those agreements were later broken by others.
- Service with the army. Some Apache men enlisted as scouts for the United States Army. Reasons varied and the choice has been judged differently by different people, then and now. It was one strategy within a limited set of options, and its outcome was sometimes tragic.
Wartime also meant loss of life and family separation, and in many cases the main response was simply to keep going and to look after the survivors.
Imprisonment of the Chiricahua
After the surrender of Geronimo’s group in 1886, the United States sent virtually the entire Chiricahua population, including people who had lived peacefully and scouts who had served the army, to military custody in the East. They were held at sites in Florida and Alabama, and later at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, until 1913. This is covered in more depth below and in other articles, but it is the clearest case of an entire nation held captive.
How people responded:
- Keeping families together where possible, and keeping track of relatives when children were sent to distant schools.
- Working at the sites, building houses, farming and raising livestock at Fort Sill, in conditions set by the army.
- Maintaining identity and language within the camps.
- Petitioning for change; over the years, Chiricahua leaders and supporters asked for release and for land.
When release finally came, it came with a hard choice, which is treated in the article on the prisoner-of-war era. The result is that Chiricahua descendants now belong to more than one community.
Reservation confinement
Reservations restricted travel, replaced older food economies with ration systems and often placed groups with different histories together. The Rio Verde removal of 1875 and the concentration of several Western Apache groups at San Carlos are well-known examples. Conditions at San Carlos were widely described as harsh in the 1870s and 1880s, and the Cibecue Creek incident of 1881 is one of the best-known confrontations of that period.
Responses included:
- Farming and stock-raising. In the following decades many families turned to irrigated farming, wage work and cattle, building on earlier agricultural knowledge in the case of Western Apache groups.
- Maintaining local groups. Clan and local-group ties continued to organise visiting, marriage and mutual help, even where they were not recognised by agents.
- Moving back where possible. Some people moved back toward their original country when they could, or maintained ties with it.
- Quiet continuity of ceremony and language. Religious and cultural practice sometimes continued out of sight of agents and missionaries. Details of this are not for outsiders to describe.
Epidemics and health crises
Crowded camps, poor sanitation, limited food and unfamiliar settings made communities vulnerable to illness. Tuberculosis, malaria and other diseases are reported in the records of several reservations and prison sites, and the effects on children were especially painful.
Responses were mixed. Many people continued to rely on traditional healers and plant knowledge alongside such medical care as was available. Over time, Apache nations pressed for better clinics and services, and the system of federal health care obligations developed over the twentieth century. Whether those services have met people’s needs is an ongoing question and not one this article can settle.
Patterns across the cases
Looking at all four, a few patterns stand out. Kinship was a basic resource; extended families took in orphans and the sick. Flexibility was valued, whether in movement, in food sources or in new work. And communities did not wait for outsiders: they organised whatever institutions they could, from informal assistance to formal councils.
At the same time, these responses were limited by force. People did not choose imprisonment, removal or epidemics, and describing the responses as “resilience” should never obscure the harm done. Readers looking for current information should rely on each nation’s own official sources.