Correcting the picture of a single journey
The phrase “the long journey to their current homelands” suggests one group of people setting out together and arriving at a destination. The history is more complicated, and it is better described in three parts: a gradual arrival of Southern Athabaskan speakers in the Southwest and Plains, many centuries of living there, and a nineteenth-century period of forced moves that settled some nations far from, and others near, their older territories.
Another correction is that “current homelands” is not a single place. Apache peoples are several nations, each with its own homeland, and each with its own story of how it came to be where it is.
The arrival
Scholars generally explain the Apache and Navajo languages as part of a Southern Athabaskan branch, related to Athabaskan languages in the far north. They propose that ancestors of the Apachean peoples moved south over a long period, though the dates and routes are debated and no single year can be given. Apache oral traditions give accounts of their own, and these are not required to match scholars’ models.
The key point for this article is that the arrival was not a quick event. When Spanish expeditions and settlers wrote about the region in the 1500s and 1600s, Apachean peoples were already established across large areas. Over the following centuries they had lived in these places for many generations, and they knew the country well. The notion that the Apache are “recent arrivals” with a lesser connection to the land is not supported by this history; ancestors of today’s nations have lived in the Southwest for centuries before the United States existed.
Becoming distinct nations
Over time the descendants of the early Apachean peoples divided into groups with different languages and dialects, ways of life and territories. Environment shaped them, as did neighbours. The Western Apache were in the mountains and river valleys of Arizona, the Chiricahua in the borderlands, the Mescalero in south-central New Mexico, the Jicarilla in the north of that state, the Lipan in Texas, and the Plains Apache on the southern Plains. All speak languages in the Southern Athabaskan language family, as do the Navajo, who are a separate nation.
From homelands to reservations
In the 1800s, the United States took control of the region and created reservations. Some reservations lay inside older territories. The Mescalero Reservation and the Jicarilla Reservation are in country their ancestors knew, as are the San Carlos and White Mountain (Fort Apache) reservations for the Western Apache, though the borders are far smaller than the earlier ranges.
For others, the story of homeland is more complicated. The Chiricahua were removed in 1886 as prisoners of war to Florida, then Alabama, then Oklahoma, and the Fort Sill Apache Tribe today has its headquarters in Oklahoma. Many Lipan were pushed out of Texas, and Lipan Apache descendants now live in several places, including Texas, Oklahoma and New Mexico. The Plains Apache are in southwestern Oklahoma, where a reservation was established for them with the Kiowa and Comanche.
Homelands as memory and place
Even where a nation lives far from earlier territories, the older homeland is not forgotten. Place names, stories and cultural ties link people to country they know about even if they no longer live there. The Western Apache in particular are known for strong connections between place names and stories, and the Chiricahua remember their ranges in Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico. Those who want to understand a particular nation’s relationship to its country should rely on that nation’s own publications and programs.
Apache nations today
The Apache nations today are separate, self-governing communities, among them the Mescalero Apache Tribe, the Jicarilla Apache Nation, the San Carlos Apache Tribe, the White Mountain Apache Tribe, the Tonto Apache Tribe, the Yavapai-Apache Nation, the Fort Sill Apache Tribe and the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma. Some Lipan Apache communities and other Apachean groups are not federally recognized. These are living nations, with governments, languages, schools and enterprises, not historical remnants.
Since names, status and programs can change, readers should consult each nation’s official website for current information. This site is independent and does not speak for any nation.
A better way to say it
A more accurate way to describe the history is not “the Apache journey to their homelands” but “Apachean peoples, over centuries, built homelands in the Southwest and Plains, and many were later displaced from or confined within them.” The first part is about belonging and deep roots; the second is about what happened under colonial and United States rule, and why the present map of Apache communities looks as it does.