Apache History after 1500 AD
Apache rock painting, ca. 1800 AD
(Click here for Apache History before 1500)
Like their Navajo cousins, the Apache people moved south into the south-west part of North America from their home in Canada about 1400 AD. So when the Spanish invaders came in the 1500s, the Apache hadn't been in the Southwest very long.
One of the first things that happened when the Spanish came to Arizona was that the Apache got horses from the Spanish and learned to ride them. Apache soldiers became excellent riders, much better riders than most Spanish soldiers. Horses let the Apache catch and kill more buffalo than they had before, and also helped them win battles with the Pueblo people and with the Spanish settlers.
But most of the time, Apache people were trading with their Pueblo and Spanish neighbors as much as raiding them. Maybe they didn't really care very much about the difference. Either way, these different groups were exchanging stuff - sometimes more or less peacefully, other times less peacefully. Apache people traded buffalo meat and hides to the Pueblo people in exchange for corn (maize), cotton cloth, and stone tools. The Apache also traded with the Spanish villagers for guns, metal tools, and horses. This trading and raiding went on for more than three hundred years, until about 1850.
Apache people cooking, 1857
About 1850, however, English explorers found gold in Apache territory, and hundreds of miners rushed there to try to get rich quick. These miners were not used to Spanish or Apache or Pueblo people, and got into a lot of fights with them. The miners demanded that the United States government get rid of the Apache, and so United States soldiers began to force the Apache people onto reservations. After the end of the Civil War in 1865, lots of United States soldiers came West to fight Native Americans rather than go back home. By 1886, the last independent Apache people, with their leader Geronimo, were forced to surrender to the United States army.
The Apache leader Geronimo
On the reservations, Apache people found themselves with no way to get money or stuff. The buffalo they had always hunted were gone now. The reservations were on poor land, so you couldn't farm it either. As the Apache became poorer, many United States officials thought that Apache children would be better off growing up in white families, and they took many Apache babies from their parents so white people could adopt them. Today, even though nobody is taking Apache children anymore, most reservation Apache are still very poor and have trouble finding work to do.
To find out more about Apache history, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:
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Apache history before 1500 AD
Pueblo people
Ute people
Sioux people
Chinook people
Blackfoot people
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