What the reservation era was
Between roughly the 1860s and the early twentieth century, the United States confined Apache peoples to defined reservations, often far smaller than their earlier ranges. The timing differed by group. The San Carlos and White Mountain reservations in Arizona were established in the early 1870s, the Mescalero reservation in New Mexico in the 1870s, and the Jicarilla reservation in 1887. Some Chiricahua were held as prisoners of war from 1886 until 1913, and then either returned to New Mexico to join the Mescalero Apache or remained in Oklahoma. The Plains Apache received allotments in Oklahoma. In every case, the shift ended a way of life based on movement across wide territories.
This article focuses on what that change did to daily life, and what held steady through it. The wider political history is covered in other articles.
From seasonal movement to fixed places
Before confinement, many Apache families moved through the year to follow ripening plants, game, water and farming plots, the pattern often described as a seasonal round. Reservation boundaries and government rules restricted that movement. Rations, roll calls and permit systems tied families to agency centers, and at times people were moved to unfamiliar places, sometimes far from their own country. Western Apache groups that had lived in separate areas were sometimes placed together on the same reservation, which created new neighbors and, at times, tensions as well as new alliances.
Over time, camps gave way to more permanent settlements. Some families kept using traditional shelters seasonally or as extra dwellings for years, while the government encouraged wood-frame houses and later built housing programs. In many communities the shift from traditional shelters to frame houses, then to modern homes, took decades and was uneven.
Economy: rations, farming, ranching and wages
Reservation economies changed sharply. Hunting and gathering had been key sources of food, and farming and trading were central for several groups. Under the reservation system, access to wild plants, game and trade routes was limited. Government rations were often inadequate and sometimes delayed, and families supplemented them in many ways.
Agents encouraged farming and, in some places, stock raising. Apache people took up cattle ranching, and ranching became a lasting livelihood and a source of pride in several communities. Others worked as freighters, laborers, wood cutters, army scouts, or in the timber industry and later in federal programs. Land policy also mattered. Where Dawes Act allotment policy divided land into individual parcels, it often complicated shared use and inheritance, though its effects varied by nation. Later federal laws, including the Indian Reorganization Act of 1934, encouraged tribal constitutions and councils in many communities, changing how decisions were made.
Social life and authority
Political life changed with the loss of independence. Leadership once rested on reputation, ability and kin ties, and leaders were followed by choice. Under agency rule, the government recognized some men as spokespeople, issued orders, and sometimes pushed aside the people whom communities trusted. Courts of Indian offenses and agency police replaced earlier ways of settling disputes.
Family structure showed both pressure and strength. Kinship networks remained the main basis of support, and in many groups relatives continued to follow the older pattern of connections traced through women. At the same time, illness, hunger and the deaths of family members during these years left deep wounds. Epidemic disease and malnutrition affected many reservations in the early decades. Children were sent away to Apache boarding schools, which interrupted the transmission of language and customs.
Religion and ceremony
Government and mission policy often discouraged or tried to ban traditional ceremonies. Missions and churches were established on many reservations, and many Apache people became members. Some ceremonies went on in private, some changed in form, and others were set aside. Girls’ coming-of-age ceremonies, for example, continued in some communities through these years and are still held today in some. The details of such ceremonies belong to the communities, and this article does not describe them.
What persisted
Despite the changes, several things held:
- Languages, which were spoken at home even where schools forbade them.
- Kinship ties and the obligations that came with them.
- Knowledge of places and their names, often passed down through stories.
- Skills such as basketry and beadwork, which also became a source of income through sales to visitors.
- Ceremonial and healing practices, in changed or private forms.
Persistence was not passive. People made decisions every day about what to keep, what to modify and what to adopt, and these decisions are part of why cultures continued.
A mixed legacy
It would be inaccurate to describe the reservation era only as loss or only as adaptation. It was both: a period of confinement, hardship and cultural pressure, and also a time when families rebuilt economies, formed new communities and kept their identities. Many of today’s tribal governments, enterprises and cultural programs grew out of this period. For specifics about any one nation’s reservation history, consult the nation’s own official sources.