The Apache Campaigns

The Apache Campaigns. . , Anthropologists tell us that ancestral Apache people had entered the Southwest in the early 1500s. When the United States acquired much of the Southwest through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848, it also inherited the difficult and risky task of protecting settlers from attack by Indians, most notably the fierce Apaches. In the late 1840s and early 1850s, settlers began to arrive in the Fort Craig region intent upon exploiting mineral wealth and using land for agriculture and raising stock. Frequent clashes between settlers and Indians were inevitable, To minimize such encounters, the U.S. government hired Indian agents and instituted a reservation system. Many Apaches were resistant to the long-term incarceration on the reservations that the government had established for them, and military tactics were called to the fore, employed by troops stationed at Fort Craig and other Western forts. From time to time, the United States was also able to garner the cooperation of the Mexican army. Legendary Apache chiefs such as Cochise, Victorio, and Geronimo stood in battle against American military icons such as Colonel Bonneville, and generals Carleton, Crook, and Miles. In the end, the U.S. government banished hundreds of Apaches to prisons in Florida and Alabama, and confined others to reservations. Some converted to Christianity and sought assimilation into American society. Today, the Apache Indians have reservations in Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, and Oklahoma., Captions , San Juan, a Mescalero Apache Chief , National Archives and Records Administration