One title, several relationships
The title speaks of “the Apache people,” but there is no single Apache government. Several separate nations deal with the United States, each with its own history, land base and constitution or governing document. In Arizona these include the San Carlos Apache Tribe, the White Mountain Apache Tribe, the Tonto Apache Tribe and the Yavapai-Apache Nation. In New Mexico they include the Mescalero Apache Tribe and the Jicarilla Apache Nation, and in Oklahoma the Fort Sill Apache Tribe and the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma. Among federally recognized Apache tribes, each has its own government-to-government relationship with Washington. Other Apache communities, such as Lipan Apache descendants, are not federally recognized in the same way, which often affects which federal programs they can use.
Because of this, the useful question is rarely “what did the government do to the Apache?” It is “what happened to this nation, under which law, and what does it do about it now?” This overview describes the main areas where federal policy and legal claims mattered. Each of them has more detailed articles on this site.
Land: reservations, allotment and claims
Most Apache reservations were set aside from the 1870s onward, often by executive order or act of Congress rather than by a ratified treaty. Congress ended treaty-making with tribes in 1871, which is one reason later arrangements look so different from the earlier ones; Apache treaties from the 1850s are best read as a separate, earlier chapter. Reservation boundaries were frequently redrawn, and the wider story of Apache land loss is told elsewhere on the site.
Two federal policies shaped how land was held afterward. The General Allotment Act of 1887, known as the Dawes Act allotment policy, divided many reservations into individual parcels and opened the remainder to outside settlement. It was applied unevenly, and its effect on Apache reservations depended on the nation and the period. The Indian Reorganization Act of 1934 then ended further allotment and encouraged tribes to adopt written constitutions, which many Apache nations did.
Claims for past losses took a different route. The Indian Claims Commission, created in 1946 and closed in 1978, heard claims that tribes had lost land unfairly or had been paid too little for it. It could award money but generally could not return land, and its awards were often small compared with how people valued the land itself. Nations that filed claims did so as nations, and outcomes differed. Water rights have been settled in a similar government-to-government way; Congress approved a settlement for the White Mountain Apache Tribe’s water rights in 2010, for example.
Money held in trust
Under the trust relationship, the federal government has held title to most reservation land and has managed income from it, such as leases, timber, grazing and minerals. Disputes over how that money was handled led to the Cobell litigation and a 2009 settlement that affected individual account holders across many nations. Two companion articles cover the general history of trust management and the case itself. Whether a given Apache family was affected depends on the land history of their reservation and on whether they held an individual account.
Schools and children
Federal education policy began with an aim to assimilate. Children were sent to boarding schools, some far from home, where Apache languages were discouraged and discipline was strict. That policy left lasting harm, and a later article on this site covers how families and nations remember it. Federal policy shifted over the twentieth century. The Indian Education Act of 1972 and the Indian Self-Determination Act of 1975 opened the way for Native parents and tribal governments to shape what schools do, including running schools themselves.
Child welfare followed a related path. For decades, Native children were often placed outside their families and communities by state agencies and others. The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 set rules meant to keep children connected to their families and nations, and Apache nations use it through their own courts and social services.
Health care
The federal health care obligations to Native nations are generally described as resting on treaties, statutes and the trust relationship. Since the 1950s it has been carried out mainly through the Indian Health Service, along with clinics that tribes now operate themselves under contracts and compacts. Public reports have documented persistent gaps in funding, staffing and facilities. A separate article describes how this works on Apache reservations, and the cluster on Apache health covers the longer story.
Relocation
The word “relocation” appears in two very different federal contexts. In the 1870s and 1880s the Army carried out forced relocation of Apache and neighboring peoples, including the Chiricahua prisoners of war held far from their homelands. In the 1950s the Bureau of Indian Affairs ran a civilian program that encouraged Native people to move to cities. Only the first was military; the second was a civilian program. An article in this cluster separates the two.
Citizenship and civil rights
Rights questions run alongside programs. Congress made Native people born in the United States citizens in 1924, though citizenship did not automatically bring full access to voting, and Arizona and New Mexico both kept Native people from voting until court rulings in 1948. Citizenship is also separate from tribal membership: a person can be both a US citizen and a citizen of an Apache nation. The Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 later required tribal governments to respect many individual protections similar to those in the Bill of Rights, while leaving tribal courts in place. These laws are part of the background to every program above, because they define whose rules apply on reservations and who decides.
Government to government
The common thread is that Apache nations are sovereign governments with a legal relationship to the federal government, not simply groups of program recipients. Since the 1970s the shift toward self-determination has let many nations take over services that federal agencies once ran, from clinics to schools to land management. In practice, this is the idea behind Apache tribal sovereignty, which is still limited and contested in places: it depends on federal statutes, court decisions and funding that nations do not control.
Details change often. Eligibility rules, funding, program names and legal deadlines are updated regularly, and nothing here is legal or financial advice. For current information, consult the official website or government offices of the nation concerned.