Early Chiricahua Apache Reservations (1872-1877)

In 1872, the government corralled Ch’uk’ánde, Ndéndaande, and Bidankaande on the Chiricahua Apache Reservation in southeastern Arizona. It confined Chíhénde on the Tularosa River Reservation in New Mexico. Two years later, it moved Chihénde to the Ojo Caliente in New Mexico.

The government closed the Chiricahua Reservation in 1876 and the Ojo Caliente Reservation in 1877. U. S. troops and Indian police forcibly relocated people to the San Carlos Indian Reservation in Arizona. By concentrating all Apaches in one place, the United States intended to open more land for Anglo-Americans, make way for the Southern Pacific Railroad, and control Apaches more cost-effectively.

“But for (the Apaches), mines would be worked, (and) innumerable sheep and cattle would cover these plains…. A war must be prosecuted until they are compelled to submit….” (Territory Governor John N. Goodwin, Journals of the First Legislative Assembly, 1864:43. Quoted in Wagoner1970:34. )

” . . . (D)estruction of the hostile Apaches is necessary to enable the proprietors to build the Southern Pacific Railroad.” (William Tecumseh Sherman, Commanding General of the Army, May 22, 28, 1880. Quoted in Thrapp, 1967:192ff. and Thrapp 1967:200ff. , 201, 277-278. )

“(The concentration policy) was an outrageous proceeding, one for which I should still blush had I not long since gotten over blushing for anything that the United States Government did in Indian matters.” (Captain John Gregory Bourke, Third U. S. Calvary, Staff Member, General George Crook, Commander, Department of Arizona, In On the Border with Crook, 1962:217. Quoted in Porter 1986:144 and in Wagoner 1970:144. )

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Apaches Before 1886