The Apache (/əˈpætʃi/ 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.[5]
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.[6] 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.
Federally recognized Apache tribes are:
The Jicarilla are headquartered in Dulce, New Mexico,[9] 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.[11] The other Chiricahua are enrolled in the Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, headquartered in Apache, Oklahoma.[7]
The Plains Apache are located in Oklahoma, headquartered around Anadarko, and are federally recognized as the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma.[7]
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.[12] 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,[12] In 2021, "Lipan Apaches were present" at the summit.[13]
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.[citation needed]
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").[note 1][14] 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".[15] The Zuni and Yavapai sources are less certain because Oñate used the term before he had encountered any Zuni or Yavapai.[14] A less likely origin may be from Spanish mapache, meaning "raccoon".[14]
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.[16]
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.[17]
The term Apachean includes the related Navajo people.
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,[20] 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.[21]
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.