The Apaches are a tribe of North. American Indians who live mostly in
the southern parts of the states of New Mexico and Arizona in the United
States and the states of Chihuahua and Coahuila in Mexico. At one time
the Apaches were the fiercest and most savage warriors among the Indians
of the Southwest. They were wonderful horsemen and wandered from place
to place raiding their more peaceful neighbors and robbing them of their
food, horses, and sheep.
The Apaches are a tribe of North. American Indians who live mostly in the southern parts of the states of New Mexico and Arizona in the United States and the states of Chihuahua and Coahuila in Mexico. At one time the Apaches were the fiercest and most savage warriors among the Indians of the Southwest. They were wonderful horsemen and wandered from place to place raiding their more peaceful neighbors and robbing them of their food, horses, and sheep. They not only fought and robbed their Indian neighbors, but they also fought against all white men. The first white men the Apaches met were the Spanish explorers who conquered what we now call Mexico. It was from the Spanish that the Apaches first learned about horses.
They stole the Spaniards' horses and learned to ride them and to fight on horseback. Later, when Mexico became an independent country, they attacked the Mexicans. When the territory that is now the states of New Mexico and Arizona became a part of the United States, the cavalry of the United States Army had to fight for years before the Apaches, who had been led by chiefs Geronimo, Cochise, and Victorio, surrendered in 1886. Geronimo was the most famous of the Apache chiefs. He was one of the most skillful of all Indian fighters.
Geronimo's family had been captured and sent as prisoners to St. Augustine, Florida, and he surrendered only when a messenger from the American General Nelson A. Miles told him that he would be allowed to live with his wife and children. But the change of climate was unsuited to the Indians, so they were sent to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in the West. Here Geronimo died in 1909. Although the Apaches were one tribe, they were divided into several bands. Today, several of these bands live peacefully on reservations in New Mexico and Arizona. There are more than 8,000 Apache Indians living on Arizona reservations and about 2,500 in New Mexico. The name "apache" is also used in the French language for dangerous criminals in Paris, the capital and biggest city of France. It is pronounced in the French manner, and means about the same as our words "hoodlum" or "gangster."
