Peace was tried many times
Histories of Apache peoples often dwell on fighting, but there were also long stretches of trade, negotiation and uneasy coexistence. Agreements were made repeatedly over more than three centuries. Looking at them shows both that many Apache leaders and communities sought peace, and why the arrangements frequently collapsed. The record is incomplete and uneven, so this article describes patterns rather than precise terms.
Spanish and Mexican arrangements
During much of the eighteenth century, Spanish officials on the northern frontier alternated between military campaigns and negotiation. Apache and Spanish relations were far from one-sided; some Apache groups traded with Spanish settlements and some also allied with Spanish forces against other Apache or Plains peoples at various times.
In the late 1700s, Spain adopted a policy of “peace establishments” (in Spanish, establecimientos de paz) near some presidios. Apache families who settled nearby received rations and sometimes weapons, and in return were expected to stop raiding. This approach is generally credited with lowering violence for a time at some posts, including several near the Spanish presidio frontier. Apache communities, however, were often divided, and groups that stayed away from the establishments were not bound by them.
The arrangement began to fail in the early nineteenth century. Funding became unreliable as Spain’s empire weakened, and the new Mexican government struggled to keep up supplies. Without rations, the basis for peace weakened. Later, some Mexican states offered payments for Apache scalps, which many historians consider to have undermined trust severely. Apache raids in Sonora and Chihuahua increased and so did retaliation; the pattern of Sonora and Chihuahua raids and counter-raids lasted for decades.
The United States and early treaties
After 1848 the United States negotiated treaties with several Native nations in the Southwest. An 1852 agreement made at Santa Fe is an example, in which some Apache leaders pledged peace in exchange for recognition and promises of support. The reality was complicated. Treaties of this kind were signed by individuals who could not necessarily speak for every band, and the terms were not always carried out by the United States. A broader discussion of Apache treaties shows how often promises on both sides went unfulfilled.
An important point is that leadership in Apache societies was generally based on persuasion and consensus, not command. A headman who signed an agreement could commit his own followers, but not necessarily neighbors who had their own leaders. Outside governments, expecting a “chief” who could bind a whole people, frequently misunderstood this, and the result was agreements that one side thought were binding and the other did not.
Peace and its failures in the 1860s and 1870s
Several famous episodes show how fragile arrangements were. In 1861, a meeting at Apache Pass between a young army officer and Chiricahua leaders, including Cochise, ended with accusations, an attempted arrest, and hostages taken on both sides; the hostages died, and war followed. The Bascom affair is often credited with beginning a long period of Chiricahua-American conflict, though historians point out that tensions already existed.
In 1872, the general sent by the president, Oliver Otis Howard, negotiated with Cochise, and the Chiricahua obtained a reservation in their homeland in southeastern Arizona. This is among the best-known peace agreements in Apache history. Cochise died in 1874, and in 1876 the reservation was closed and its people were ordered to San Carlos. Many Chiricahua did not accept the move, and conflict resumed.
Peace also failed because other events overtook it. The Camp Grant attack of 1871, in which a large number of Aravaipa Apache were killed after they had sought peace at a military post, showed that even settled groups could be attacked. The Rio Verde removal of 1875 showed that arrangements made in one year could be reversed in another.
Why agreements often did not last
Historians point to several recurring problems:
- Unequal understanding. Each side often had a different idea of what was promised, and translation was imperfect.
- No single authority. Neither Apache societies nor the colonial governments spoke with one voice. Settlers, local officials and the army sometimes acted against national policy.
- Broken supply. Peace based on rations failed when the rations did not arrive.
- Changing policy. Reservations were created, shrunk or abolished as policy shifted, leaving people with no say.
- Violence by third parties. A single incident by a few individuals could undo an agreement and bring retaliation on groups that had nothing to do with it.
Apache traditions of resolving disputes
Apache peoples had their own ways of settling disputes within and between groups, based on kinship, mediation by respected elders, and compensation. Apache conflict resolution of this kind was designed for relations between peoples with shared understandings, and did not translate easily to dealings with distant governments.
Endings and continuing negotiation
The final surrender of 1886 was also a negotiated event, and what was promised there is still disputed. The Apache peoples’ later dealings with the federal government, through claims, court cases and agreements, have continued the pattern of negotiation in a different form. Today, Apache nations are governed by their own councils and deal with governments as sovereign nations. Their own official sources are the place to find current positions.