Apache

The Apache are several Southern Athabaskan-speaking peoples of the Southwest, the Southern Plains and northern Mexico, kin to the Navajo, who migrated from northern Athabaskan homelands into the Southwest between 1000 and 1500 CE. Their bands, the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan, Mescalero, Mimbreno, Plains and Western Apache, each politically autonomous, hold “Apacheria”: high mountains, watered valleys, deep canyons and deserts across eastern Arizona, New Mexico, west Texas, southern Colorado, Sonora and Chihuahua. Masters of raid-and-hide warfare, they fought Spanish, Mexican and American invaders for centuries, from the first Sonora raids of the late 17th century to Geronimo's surrender in 1886, the last armed Indigenous resistance in the continental United States. Puberty rites for girls, mountain-spirit dancers and a raiding economy shaped by scarcity define a culture that refused removal; Apache tribes and reservations endure today in Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma and northern Mexico, holding high mountains, sheltered valleys and deep canyons their ancestors defended against Spanish and Mexican invaders for centuries.