Looking past the fighting
Popular accounts of the Spanish and Mexican periods usually concentrate on raids and campaigns. They matter, but some of the deepest changes for Apache peoples came through slower processes: new animals, new tools, new markets, shifting territory, and the pressure of neighbouring colonies. This article surveys those effects over the roughly three centuries from the 1500s to the 1840s. It should be read alongside the accounts of specific conflicts, and as with all the articles in this series, “Apache” refers to many nations with different experiences.
Horses and livestock
Probably the most far-reaching effect was the introduction of horses, and with them cattle, sheep, goats and mules. Spanish colonists brought these animals into the Southwest, and Native peoples acquired them through trade, theft, capture and the movement of strays. Apache groups were among the early adopters of horses in the region, and the animals changed hunting, travel, warfare and trade. On the southern plains, horses made bison hunting more productive and allowed groups to cover longer distances, a transformation described in the article on the Southern Plains horse era.
Livestock also became food. Mules and cattle appear in accounts as sources of meat, and raiding for animals became part of the economy of some groups, particularly in the 1700s and 1800s. Not all Apache groups relied on livestock in the same way. Some mountain and desert communities continued to depend heavily on gathering, hunting and farming, supplemented by what they could acquire. It is a mistake to treat horse raiding as the whole of Apache life, a stereotype addressed in the discussion of the raiding-only stereotype.
Trade goods and trade networks
Spanish and Mexican settlements brought new goods: iron and steel tools, knives, cloth, glass beads, and eventually firearms. Apache groups gained these through trade at Pueblo villages and Spanish towns, through rations during periods of peace, and through raiding. At the same time, Apache hides, meat and other products entered colonial markets. Earlier Apache trade networks history shows that exchange with Pueblo communities predated the Spanish, and the colonial economy added new participants and new demands.
Access to trade goods affected power. A leader who could distribute goods or secure rations gained influence, and the dependence created by ration systems, as in the peace establishments of the late 1700s, could be both a lifeline and a means of control. After 1821 the ration system faded, and the loss was felt.
Territory and mobility
Spanish settlements, ranches, mines and presidios claimed land and water in places Apache families had used. Mining was a notable example. Copper mining at Santa Rita del Cobre in southwestern New Mexico, in an area associated with the Chihenne band, brought settlers and soldiers into a region of importance to Apache families. Ranching in Sonora, Chihuahua and Texas brought herds onto grazing land and put pressure on springs and rivers.
Territory also shifted because of other Native nations. Comanche expansion in the 1700s pushed several Apache groups south and west, as described in the articles on Lipan Apache history and the Spanish presidio frontier. The Spanish colonial presence interacted with these movements, sometimes encouraging Apache groups to settle near forts and sometimes forcing them from contested areas.
None of this means that Apache peoples were passive. They chose where to camp, which agreements to accept and which to reject, and they used mountains and remote springs as places of refuge. The Mexican period, in particular, left large areas of the northern frontier lightly held, and Apache groups used them. But by the mid-1800s the growth of settlements and the arrival of the United States brought new pressures, a process explored in the discussion of Apache land loss.
Disease, captives and population
Epidemic diseases introduced from Europe affected Native communities across the continent, and Apache groups were not immune. Documentation for specific Apache groups is thin, and numbers are rarely reliable, so any claim about population loss should be treated cautiously. The impact of epidemic disease is considered in its own article.
Captive-taking had a demographic effect on both sides. Apache women and children captured by Spanish forces might be absorbed into Hispanic households or sent far away, while Apache groups took captives who joined their families. Descendants of these captives and adoptees formed part of the frontier population on both sides. The result was a mixed borderland in which kinship crossed the lines of conflict.
Religion and culture
Spanish missions aimed at conversion and settlement. Apache groups mostly declined to join missions in large numbers, but contact brought Christian ideas, names and practices into some communities, and individual Apache people were baptised, particularly in captivity or at presidio settlements. Over time some Apache families developed ties with Catholicism, and the history of Christian missions among Apache peoples continues into the reservation era. Apache cultures also borrowed material elements, such as certain tools, textiles and foods, while maintaining their own languages and ceremonies. Cultural exchange of this kind ran in several directions, and the Spanish and Pueblo worlds were themselves influenced by Apache neighbours.
Why the long view matters
By 1848, when the United States took control of much of the former northern Mexico, Apache economies, territories and alliances had already been reshaped by three centuries of colonial contact. The Apache nations that faced the American Army and settlers were not the same as those that met the first Spaniards. Understanding that background clarifies why later events unfolded as they did, and why the experiences of the Chiricahua, Western Apache, Mescalero, Jicarilla and Lipan differed. For current information about any nation, readers should turn to its official sources.