Apacheria: True Stories of Apache Culture 1860-1920

Abandon all prejudices, bigotry, and scant historical knowledge ye who enter here. Apacheria is a collection and recollection of stories written down as lived and told by the some of the last free, non-European peoples to live in the Southwest of the United States and Northern Mexico. It is a hard land, and the Apaches who made it home could outrun a horse over a long distance, disappear into the harsh landscape at a moment’s notice, outfight many times their own numbers, and tell what direction an enemy was going to come from. Cochise, Victorio, Cadette, Magoosh, Natzili, Sombrero, Salon, Geronimo, and other chiefs and leaders of the many Apache clans or peoples are heroes and villains, with greatness, honor, bravery, loyalty, pettiness, and betrayal. These people had to adjust to an inevitable tide of settlers with endless resources. They would often rebel against this suffocation, resulting in Apache wars across five states and two countries. The stories sometimes overlap; a different voice remembers details others may forget. Many of these chiefs lived into the nineteen forties and fifties, experiencing exile and return to their lands. They had hard lives. Their histories affect us for the better as we remember their struggles and triumphs in the harshest of places and the most unsettling of times.