Political life before colonial rule
Apache political life varied among nations, and this summary cannot capture all the differences. In general, the basic political unit was the local group: an extended family cluster, often tied through women’s kin, that camped, farmed and traveled together. Western Apache societies, for example, had local groups linked into larger bands, and clans that connected families across them. Leaders were usually respected men, and sometimes women in specific roles, whose influence came from skill, generosity, good judgment and the ability to persuade, not from the power to give orders. Anyone who disagreed could often move to another group.
This style of leadership suited a people who lived in dispersed groups and moved across a large territory. It also meant that there was usually no single person who could speak for an entire nation. Apache governance and traditional leadership were therefore flexible and varied; the focus here is on how outside powers changed them.
Spanish and Mexican approaches
Spanish officials on the northern frontier dealt with Apache groups mainly through military and diplomatic means: campaigns, alliances, and the rationing system of the late eighteenth century. Their approach assumed that individual headmen could commit their followers, and it rewarded leaders who accepted rations and lived near presidios. That could raise the standing of some leaders and weaken others.
Mexican authorities after independence continued some of these practices but with fewer resources. Where rations lapsed, leaders who had taken part in peace arrangements lost credibility, and their followers might return to older ways of getting food. The policies of the period thus put pressure on Apache political life at its most basic level, by tying a leader’s authority to goods supplied from outside.
United States policy
Under the United States, the main changes came through treaties, reservations and agency administration.
Treaties and the search for a “chief.” American officials often wanted to deal with a single chief who could sign for a whole people. Apache treaties of the 1850s and later were signed with individual leaders whose authority was in reality limited to their own followers. When others did not feel bound, officials sometimes took it as bad faith. This mismatch is a recurring explanation for why many agreements failed.
Reservations and agents. On reservations such as San Carlos, an agent appointed by the federal government controlled rations, movement and the distribution of goods. Families were counted, assigned places, and sometimes mixed with unrelated groups. Agency police and, in some places, Apache scouts and courts of Indian offenses were created, which gave authority to people chosen by outsiders rather than by the community. Tensions arose between those who held these positions and traditional leaders, and also between groups forced to share the same area.
Division and pressure. Federal officials sometimes favored cooperative leaders and treated others as hostile, which fed disagreements. Apache scouts and US Army service was another source of division: some Apache men enlisted for pay, to protect their families, or to settle disputes with other groups, and others were seen as having sided with the army. These are hard histories to describe fairly, and the memory of them is not uniform.
Imprisonment and exile. In the case of the Chiricahua, policy went further still. After 1886 the entire community was held as prisoners of war, and leaders such as Naiche remained important but had no formal independence. Political life continued within the limits of captivity.
Relations between Apache groups
Colonial pressure changed how Apache nations related to one another. Before the nineteenth century, groups had a mix of alliance, trade, intermarriage and occasional conflict, much as in other regions. Forced concentration at San Carlos brought together Western Apache, Chiricahua and Yavapai people whose earlier relations were varied. Some formed new ties through marriage and shared hardship, and others experienced conflict. Differences between Apache nations also grew, since each had a different path: the Mescalero and Jicarilla reservations, the Chiricahua captivity, and the Plains Apache and Lipan histories took separate courses. Understanding Apache nations diversity today means seeing how those paths diverged.
Cooperation did also occur, and there are cases of Apache groups sheltering one another, or combining forces against a common threat, though the details are complicated and uneven in the sources.
Reorganization in the twentieth century
In the early twentieth century, federal policy shifted again. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 encouraged tribes to adopt constitutions and elected councils, and several Apache nations organized governments in the following years. These tribal constitutions gave a legal form to self-government, but they were modeled in part on American patterns and did not always match older ways of making decisions. Many Apache nations today combine elected government with respect for family and community leadership.
Later laws, such as the Indian Self-Determination Act of 1975, allowed tribes to take over the running of federal programs. The long-term result has been that Apache nations govern themselves as sovereign nations, which is a continuation of political life that colonial policy tried to change and did not end. Details of any nation’s current government are available from that nation’s official website.