The Apache ( ə-PATCH-ee) are several Southern Athabaskan language-speaking peoples of the Southwest, the Southern Plains and Northern Mexico. They are linguistically related to the Navajo. They migrated from the Athabascan homelands in the north into the Southwest between 1000 and 1500 CE.
Apache bands include the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreño, Salinero, Plains, and Western Apache (Aravaipa, Pinaleño, Coyotero, and Tonto). Today, Apache tribes and reservations are headquartered in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma, while in Mexico the Apache are settled in Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila and areas of Tamaulipas. Each tribe is politically autonomous.
Historically, the Apache homelands have consisted of high mountains, sheltered and watered valleys, deep canyons, deserts, and the southern Great Plains, including areas in what is now Eastern Arizona, Northern Mexico (Sonora and Chihuahua) and New Mexico, West Texas, and Southern Colorado. These areas are collectively known as Apacheria.
The Apache tribes fought the invading Spanish and Mexican peoples for centuries. The first Apache raids on Sonora appear to have taken place during the late 17th century. In 19th-century confrontations during the American Indian Wars, the U.S. Army found the Apache to be fierce warriors and skillful strategists.
Contemporary tribes
Federally recognized Apache tribes are:
Apache Tribe of Oklahoma
Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, Oklahoma
Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, Arizona
Jicarilla Apache Nation, New Mexico
Mescalero Apache Tribe of the Mescalero Reservation, New Mexico
San Carlos Apache Tribe of the San Carlos Reservation, Arizona
Tonto Apache Tribe of Arizona
White Mountain Apache Tribe of the Fort Apache Reservation, Arizona
Yavapai-Apache Nation of the Camp Verde Indian Reservation, Arizona
The Jicarilla are headquartered in Dulce, New Mexico, while the Mescalero are headquartered in Mescalero, New Mexico. The Western Apache, located in Arizona, is divided into several reservations, which crosscut cultural divisions. The Western Apache reservations include the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, Camp Verde Indian Reservation, and Tonto Apache Reservation.
The Chiricahua were divided into two groups after they were released from being prisoners of war. The majority moved to the Mescalero Reservation and formed, with the larger Mescalero political group, the Mescalero Apache Tribe of the Mescalero Reservation, along with the Lipan Apache. The other Chiricahua are enrolled in the Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, headquartered in Apache, Oklahoma.
The Plains Apache are located in Oklahoma, headquartered around Anadarko, and are federally recognized as the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma.
The nine Apache tribes formed a nonprofit organization, the Apache Alliance. Tribal leaders convene at the Apache Alliance Summits, meetings hosted by a different Apache tribe each time. The member tribes are the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, Fort McDowell Yavapai Nation, Fort Sill Apache Tribe, Jicarilla Apache Tribe, Mescalero Apache Tribe, San Carlos Apache Tribe, Tonto Apache Tribe, White Mountain Apache Tribe, Yavapai-Apache Nation, In 2021, "Lipan Apaches were present" at the summit.
Name
Apaches first encountered European and African people, when they met conquistadors from the Spanish Empire, and thus the term Apache has its roots in the Spanish language. The Spanish first used the term Apachu de Nabajo (Navajo) in the 1620s, referring to people in the Chama region east of the San Juan River. By the 1640s, they applied the term to Southern Athabaskan peoples from the Chama on the east to the San Juan on the west. The ultimate origin is uncertain and lost to Spanish history.
The first known written record in Spanish is by Juan de Oñate in 1598. The most widely accepted origin theory suggests Apache was borrowed and transliterated from the Zuni word ʔa·paču meaning "Navajos" (the plural of paču "Navajo"). J. P. Harrington reports that čišše·kʷe can also be used to refer to the Apache in general.
Another theory suggests the term comes from Yavapai ʔpačə meaning "enemy". The Zuni and Yavapai sources are less certain because Oñate used the term before he had encountered any Zuni or Yavapai. A less likely origin may be from Spanish mapache, meaning "raccoon".
Modern Apache people use the Spanish term to refer to themselves and tribal functions, and so does the US government. However, Apache language speakers also refer to themselves and their people in the Apache term Indé meaning "person" or "people". A related Southern Athabascan–speaking tribe, the Navajo, refer to themselves as the Diné.
The fame of the tribes' tenacity and fighting skills, probably bolstered by dime novels, was widely known among Europeans. In early 20th century Parisian society, the word Apache was adopted into French, essentially meaning an outlaw.
The term Apachean includes the related Navajo people.
Difficulties in naming
Many of the historical names of Apache groups that were recorded by non-Apache are difficult to match to modern-day tribes or their subgroups. Over the centuries, many Spanish, French and English-speaking authors did not differentiate between Apache and other semi-nomadic non-Apache peoples who might pass through the same area. Most commonly, Europeans learned to identify the tribes by translating their exonym, what another group whom the Europeans encountered first called the Apache peoples. Europeans often did not learn what the peoples called themselves, their autonyms.
While anthropologists agree on some traditional major subgrouping of Apaches, they have often used different criteria to name finer divisions, and these do not always match modern Apache groupings. Some scholars do not consider groups residing in what is now Mexico to be Apache. In addition, an Apache individual has different ways of identification with a group, such as a band or clan, as well as the larger tribe or language grouping, which can add to the difficulties in an outsider comprehending the distinctions.
In 1900, the US government classified the members of the Apache tribe in the United States as Pinal Coyotero, Jicarilla, Mescalero, San Carlos, Tonto, and White Mountain Apache. The different groups were located in Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma.
In the 1930s, the anthropologist Greenville Goodwin classified the Western Apache into five groups (based on his informants' views of dialect and cultural differences): White Mountain, Cibecue, San Carlos, North Tonto, and South Tonto. Since then, other anthropologists (e.g. Albert Schroeder) consider Goodwin's classification inconsistent with pre-reservation cultural divisions. Willem de Reuse finds linguistic evidence supporting only three major groupings: White Mountain, San Carlos, and Dilzhe'e (Tonto). He believes San Carlos is the most divergent dialect, and that Dilzhe'e is a remnant, intermediate member of a dialect continuum that previously spanned from the Western Apache language to the Navajo.
John Upton Terrell classifies the Apache into western and eastern groups. In the western group, he includes Toboso, Cholome, Jocome, Sibolo or Cibola, Pelone, Manso, and Kiva or Kofa. He includes Chicame (the earlier term for Hispanized Chicano or New Mexicans of Spanish/Hispanic and Apache descent) among them as having definite Apache connections or names which the Spanish associated with the Apache.
In a detailed study of New Mexico Catholic Church records, David M. Brugge identifies 15 tribal names that the Spanish used to refer to the Apache. These were drawn from records of about 1,000 baptisms from 1704 to 1862.
Tribes and bands
The list below is based on Foster and McCollough (2001), Opler (1983b, 1983c, 2001), and de Reuse (1983).
The term Apache refers to six major Apache-speaking groups: Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Plains, and Western Apache. Historically, the term has also been applied to the Comanches, Mojaves, Hualapais, and Yavapais, none of whom speak Apache languages.
Chiricahua – Mimbreño – Ndendahe
Chiricahua historically lived in Southeastern Arizona and Northern Sonora and Chihuahua. Chíshí (also Tchishi) is a Navajo word meaning "Chiricahua, southern Apaches in general".
Ch'úúkʾanén, true Chiricahua (Tsokanende, also Č'ók'ánéń, Č'ó·k'anén, Chokonni, Cho-kon-nen, Cho Kŭnĕ́, Chokonen) is the Eastern Chiricahua band identified by Morris Opler. The name is an autonym from the Chiricahua language.
Gileño (also Apaches de Gila, Apaches de Xila, Apaches de la Sierra de Gila, Xileños, Gilenas, Gilans, Gilanians, Gila Apache, Gilleños) referred to several different Apache and non-Apache groups at different times. Gila refers to either the Gila River or the Gila Mountains. Some of the Gila Apaches were probably later known as the Mogollon Apaches, a Central Apache sub-band, while others probably coalesced into the Chiricahua proper. But, since the term was used indiscriminately for all Apachean groups west of the Rio Grande (i.e. in southeast Arizona and western New Mexico), the reference in historical documents is often unclear. After 1722, Spanish documents start to distinguish between these different groups, in which case Apaches de Gila refers to the Western Apache living along the Gila River (synonymous with Coyotero). American writers first used the term to refer to the Mimbres (another Central Apache subdivision).
Mimbreño are the Tchihende, not a Chiricahua band but a central Apache division sharing the same language with the Chiricahua and the Mescalero divisions, the name being referred to a central Apache division improperly considered as a section of Opler's "Eastern Chiricahua band", and to Albert Schroeder's Mimbres, or Warm Springs and Copper Mines "Chiricahua" bands in southwestern New Mexico.
Copper Mines Mimbreño (also Coppermine) were located on upper reaches of Gila River, New Mexico, having their center in the Pinos Altos area. (See also Gileño and Mimbreño.)
Warm Springs Mimbreño (also Warmspring) were located on upper reaches of Gila River, New Mexico, having their center in the Ojo Caliente area. (See also Gileño and Mimbreño.)
Ndendahe were a division comprising the Bedonkohe (Mogollon) group and the Nedhni (Carrizaleño and Janero) group, incorrectly called, sometimes, Southern Chirichua.
Mogollon was considered by Schroeder to be a separate pre-reservation Chiricahua band, while Opler considered the Mogollon to be part of his Eastern Chiricahua band in New Mexico. This is not to be confused with the precontact Mogollon culture.
Nedhni were the most southern group of the Central Apache, having their center in the Carrizal (Carrizaleño) and Janos (Janero) areas, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.
Jicarilla
The Jicarilla primarily live in Northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. The term jicarilla comes from the Spanish word for "little gourd."
Carlana (also Sierra Blanca) is Raton Mesa in Southeastern Colorado. In 1726, they joined the Cuartelejo and Paloma, and by the 1730s, they lived with the Jicarilla. The Llanero band of the Jicarilla or the Dáchizh-ó-zhn Jicarilla (defined by James Mooney) might be descendants of the Carlana, Cuartelejo, and Paloma. Parts of the group were called Lipiyanes or Llaneros. In 1812, the term Carlana was used to mean Jicarilla. The Flechas de Palo might have been a part of or absorbed by the Carlana (or Cuartelejo).
Lipan
Lipan (Ypandes) primarily live in New Mexico today on the Mescalero Apache Reservation. Other Lipan Apache descendants merged with the Tonkawa tribe in Oklahoma. Historically, they moved from what is now the Southwest into the Southern Plains before 1650. In 1719, French explorer Jean Baptiste Bénard de La Harpe encountered the Lipan Apache near what is now Latimer County, Oklahoma.
They were mentioned in 1718 records as being near the newly established town of San Antonio, Texas. They expanded into Texas and south the Gulf of Mexico and Rio Grande. In the mid-18th century, some Lipan settled in and near Spanish missions in Texas. Clashes with Comanche forced them into southern Texas and northern Mexico.
Briefly in the late 1830s, the Lipan allied with the Republic of Texas; however, after Texas gained statehood in 1846, the Americans waged a brutal campaign against the Lipan, destroying Lipan villages and trying to force them from Texas. Most were forced onto the Mescalero Reservation and some went to Oklahoma.
Pelones ("Bald Ones") lived far from San Antonio and far to the northeast of the Ypandes near the Red River of the South of North-Central Texas, although able to field 800 warriors, more than the Ypandes and Natagés together, they were described as less warlike because they had fewer horses than the Plains Lipan, their population were estimated between 1,600 and 2,400 persons, were the Forest Lipan division (Chishį́į́hį́į́, Tcici, Tcicihi – "People of the Forest", after 1760 the name Pelones was never used by the Spanish for any Texas Apache group, the Pelones had fled for the Comanche south and southwest, but never mixed up with the Plains Lipan division – retaining their distinct identity, so that Morris Opler was told by his Lipan informants in 1935 that their tribal name was "People of the Forest")
Mescalero
Mescaleros primarily live in Eastern New Mexico.
Faraones (also Fahanos, Apaches Faraone, Paraonez, Pharaones, Taraones, or Taracones) is derived from Spanish Faraón meaning "Pharaoh." Before 1700, the name was vague. Between 1720 and 1726, it referred to Apache between the Rio Grande, the Pecos River, the area around Santa Fe, and the Conchos River. After 1726, Faraones only referred to the groups of the north and central parts of this region. The Faraones like were part of the modern-day Mescalero or merged with them. After 1814, the term Faraones disappeared and was replaced by Mescalero.
Sierra Blanca Mescaleros were a northern Mescalero group from the Sierra Blanca Mountains, who roamed in what is now eastern New Mexico and western Texas.
Sacramento Mescaleros were a northern Mescalero group from the Sacramento and Organ Mountains, who roamed in what is now eastern New Mexico and western Texas.
Guadalupe Mescaleros. were a northern Mescalero group from the Guadalupe Mountains, who roamed in what is now eastern New Mexico and western Texas.