Leadership took many forms
The usual picture of Apache history centres on war leaders. That picture leaves out many people whose work shaped how their communities survived and how others came to know them: men who served as scouts, people who interpreted between languages, artists, writers and teachers. This gallery looks at a few whose roles are well documented. It is a sample and not a ranking, and it concentrates on the period from the late nineteenth century into the twentieth, when records are fuller.
Scouts and the difficult choices behind service
Apache men served as scouts for the US Army from the 1870s, and their knowledge of terrain and of other Apache groups made them central to many campaigns. Alchesay, a White Mountain Apache scout, was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1890. Chatto, a Chiricahua man, served as a scout and was among a group that travelled to Washington in 1886; on the return journey he and other Chiricahua were sent to Florida as prisoners of war, as were most Chiricahua that year. The case of Chiricahua scouts imprisoned despite their service is a painful chapter that Apache communities and historians continue to discuss.
Why men enlisted varied: pay, food and a way to remain with family, the chance to protect relatives, and sometimes local rivalries. Opinions among Apache people about the scouts are varied and should not be flattened into either praise or blame.
Interpreters and go-betweens
Interpreters stood between Apache leaders and officials, and their choices could determine whether a meeting ended in agreement or violence. Many interpreters in the nineteenth century were not Apache by birth, and some were Mexican or Anglo-American people who had spent time among Apache groups. Later, young Chiricahua who had been sent away to school learned English and were sometimes asked to interpret for their elders.
One example is Asa Daklugie, a Nednhi Chiricahua who was the son of Juh. He was sent to the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania as a child, and later became a respected figure among the Chiricahua at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and in the Mescalero community after 1913. His recollections were important to the writer Eve Ball when she collected Chiricahua and Mescalero accounts in the twentieth century. Like many Apache accounts, they should be understood as the memories of a particular person, offered at a particular time.
Writers and memory-keepers
Jason Betzinez, a Chiricahua relative of Geronimo, also attended Carlisle and later worked in industry before returning to the Apache community. His memoir, published in 1959 with the help of a co-author as I Fought with Geronimo, is one of the few book-length accounts by a Chiricahua man who lived through the wars. Memoirs like his are valuable but, as with any account, reflect the author’s viewpoint and the circumstances in which they were written. They also point to a wider body of books by Apache authors, historical and contemporary, that readers can seek out.
Artists
Allan Houser (Haozous) was born in 1914 in Oklahoma to Chiricahua parents who had been prisoners of war, and became one of the most prominent Native American sculptors and painters of the twentieth century. He taught at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe for many years and received the National Medal of Arts in 1992. He died in 1994. His career is often used as an example of a Chiricahua artist whose work reached national audiences. Many other Apache artists work today in painting, sculpture, beadwork and basketry; the field of Apache visual art is broad, and current artists and galleries are best discovered through the nations’ own cultural centres.
Educators and cultural workers
Education is another area of leadership. Chiricahua and other Apache children who returned from boarding schools such as Carlisle brought skills that some used to support their communities, though the schools themselves are remembered as part of a policy of forced assimilation and caused lasting harm. Apache boarding school history is complex, and individual experiences ranged widely. In more recent decades, Apache teachers, language workers and tribal officials have led programs in schools and cultural centres. Readers should consult each nation’s official website for information on current programs and people.
A note on who is “Apache”
Careful readers should be alert to labels. The physician and activist Carlos Montezuma, for example, is sometimes called an Apache, but he was Yavapai; he was born in Arizona, was taken as a child and went on to a career in Chicago. Such cases show why it is worth checking which nation a person belonged to before listing them under Apache history.
What this gallery shows
Looking at scouts, interpreters, writers and artists changes the picture. Apache communities needed people who could work across languages and institutions, record what had happened, and keep traditions of craft alive. Those contributions are part of the same story as the battles, and they continue in the work of Apache people today. Because oral history as evidence matters alongside written records, the more fully these accounts are heard, the better the record becomes.