Why a band-centered view
The repeated word in the title is a slip, and this article takes it as a cue to widen the lens. Mangas Coloradas is better understood as a leader of a community than as a lone figure, so the subject here is the Chihenne, also known as the Warm Springs Apache, one of the four bands of the Chiricahua Apache. The Chihenne name is often rendered in English as “Red Paint People”, though translations of Apache band names vary and are best treated as approximate.
The Chihenne homeland
The Chihenne lived in what is now southwestern New Mexico. Descriptions of their country usually include the Black Range, the Mimbres Mountains and river valleys, the upper Gila River region, and the warm springs near Ojo Caliente that gave their English name. The Black Range homeland is a landscape of forested mountains, canyons and open valleys, with water sources used in different seasons.
Like other Apache peoples, the Chihenne lived by moving to seasonal resources. They gathered plants such as agave, hunted deer and other game, and traded or raided as circumstances demanded. Warm springs were valuable and respected places, and the Chihenne are strongly associated with them. Specific practices differed from family to family, and outsiders recorded little in detail.
Neighbors and relatives
Chihenne families were connected by marriage to the Chokonen, the Bedonkohe and the Nednhi, which is why the Chiricahua bands are sometimes treated as a single people and sometimes as separate ones. Cochise’s marriage into Mangas Coloradas’s family is one well-known link. Beyond the Chiricahua, the Chihenne also had dealings with the Mescalero to the east and with the Western Apache to the west. Pueblo, Spanish and Mexican communities were neighbors too, a long relationship that included trade as well as conflict along the Spanish presidio frontier.
Mangas Coloradas and the shaping of a century
Mangas Coloradas led the Chihenne through the Mexican era and the first years of United States rule. His killing in 1863 while under a flag of truce is described in detail in his biography. It left a gap in leadership, which was filled by several men. Victorio rose as a Chihenne leader and fought to remain in the Warm Springs country in the late 1870s. Loco, another Chihenne leader, was known for favoring peace and for trying to keep his people alive and together on reservations. Nana, an older man, remained active after Victorio’s death in 1880, and Lozen, Victorio’s sister, is remembered as a fighter and a spiritual figure.
These men differed in approach, and it would be a mistake to treat them as a single group with one outlook. Some wanted to negotiate, some to resist, and many were simply trying to protect their families.
Removal and exile
The United States created a reservation at Warm Springs in the 1870s, then in 1877 removed many Chihenne to San Carlos in Arizona, which was far from their country. Later fighting and reservation policy scattered the band. In 1886, Chihenne people were included among the Chiricahua sent to Florida, Alabama and then Oklahoma, whether or not they had fought. Their imprisonment, including the era known as the Chiricahua prisoner of war era, lasted until 1913.
The Chihenne today
Chihenne descendants are part of the Chiricahua communities who live today in the Fort Sill Apache Tribe in Oklahoma and the Mescalero Apache Tribe in New Mexico, and their families remember the Warm Springs country. They are not figures from a closed chapter. Visitors interested in the region should follow guidance from the nations and from land managers, and respect that some places are considered sacred.
For current and authoritative information, check the official websites of the nations.