What the phrase covers
“Environmental justice” is a modern term for the idea that communities should not bear unfair burdens from environmental harm, and should have a real say in decisions about their lands. Apache people did not use that phrase in the nineteenth century, and “the Apache Nation” means several nations, not one. But disputes over land, water and sacred places run through Apache history. This account follows them in rough order and focuses on events that are well documented. It leaves current campaigns to a separate article.
Reservations drawn around resources
Reservations for Apache peoples in Arizona and New Mexico were created mainly in the 1870s and 1880s, and their boundaries were often changed. Several reductions followed the discovery of valuable minerals or the demand for grazing and farmland. San Carlos is a frequently cited case: parts of the original reservation were removed in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, including areas with copper and other minerals. The details differ for each reservation, but the pattern of Apache land loss in these decades is clear in the records, as are the consequences for communities that lost access to farming, gathering and hunting areas. The wider reservation system also meant that many families were moved to places far from their homelands, which separated them from places they knew.
Water: rivers, ditches and dams
Water has been central to Apache environmental history. In the late 1800s, settlers and farmers upstream diverted water from the rivers in Arizona, including the Gila, reducing flow downstream where Native farmers depended on it. Gila and Salt rivers shaped the economies of several peoples in the region, and the legal and physical fights over water continued for generations.
Large dams also changed Apache lands. The Coolidge Dam on the Gila River, built in the 1920s, created San Carlos Lake and flooded land on the San Carlos Reservation, including the site of the old agency. Water from the project went mostly to non-Apache irrigation districts downstream, a source of long-standing grievance. Readers can find more about this in the history of the San Carlos Apache and in studies of federal water projects.
Claims and compensation
In the twentieth century, tribes pursued claims through the courts and, after 1946, the Indian Claims Commission. The Commission could award money but not return land, so it offered limited remedies for land taken. Apache land claims were part of that process, and the results were mixed and often controversial in communities. Later decades saw water rights negotiations and settlements, which are still developing.
Mount Graham
Mount Graham (Dził Nchaa Si An in Apache), in southeastern Arizona, is a mountain of great importance to the San Carlos Apache and other Apache people. Beginning in the 1980s, the University of Arizona and partners proposed and built astronomical telescopes on the mountain, and Apache leaders and others objected on religious and environmental grounds, together with concerns about an endangered subspecies of red squirrel. Congress supported the project in 1988 legislation, and telescopes were eventually built despite opposition. The dispute remains a significant example of conflict between scientific development and Apache sacred places, and it shaped later efforts around Apache sacred site protection.
Oak Flat
Oak Flat, known in Apache as Chi’chil Biłdagoteel, lies in the Tonto National Forest near Superior, Arizona. It is important to Apache people, including many San Carlos Apache and other Western Apache, as a place for gathering, ceremonies and other uses, and it is part of the wider conversation about Oak Flat and Apache landscapes. The area was withdrawn from new mining claims by a federal order in the 1950s. In 2014, Congress approved a land exchange in a defense authorization act that would give the land to a company, Resolution Copper, owned by mining firms, for a large copper mine, with provisions about environmental review and consultation. Apache Stronghold, a nonprofit group of Apache and other people, took legal action. They argued in part that the transfer would violate religious freedom protections. Courts have so far rejected the main claims, and as of this writing the situation continues to develop. Readers should consult current news and official tribal sources.
The Oak Flat dispute is an important example of the limits of Apache religious freedom protections in law as applied to sacred places on public lands, and of the way federal decisions can override tribal objections even when consultation takes place.
Patterns across the record
A few patterns appear across these episodes. Apache communities often lost land and water first to settlement and mining, then to federal projects. Official processes, such as claims commissions and environmental reviews, have tended to offer consultation or money more often than control. And Apache nations and individuals have repeatedly turned to courts, Congress, public campaigns and negotiation to be heard, sometimes with success. Positions inside communities are not uniform, and some members have supported development for economic reasons. A fair historical account keeps both the documented injustices and that diversity of views in view.