APACHE, a-pa'che (Pima, ((enemy))), the name of a large Indian tribe of the Athabascan stock, kindred of the Navajos, and. originally occupying the region from central Texas to the Colorado River in Arizona. The Spaniards ap plied the name, borrowed from the Pimas, to all the races just north of Mexico, whom they classed as Apaches de Xila, Apaches de Navajo, and Apaches Vaqueros, the first-named being our Apaches. When the United States by the Gadsden Purchase (q.v.) first came in contact with them they numbered about 10,000 and had long been at mortal feud with the Mexicans. For a few years they gave the Americans rela tively little trouble of an acute kind, but after a serious raid in 1857 it was urged by those with knowledge that they should be settled north of the Gila, taught industries, and watched. This was not done, however, and in 1860 the whole tribe went on the warpath. The next year the Civil War caused the troops to be withdrawn, and in a short time the Apaches had murdered or driven out every white in habitant of the Arizona Territory except a few hundred who took refuge in Tucson. For nearly 10 years the Territory was the scene of one of the most awful Indian wars in history, which practically stopped all progress there. On the Indian side it was entirely an affair of ambushes or of sudden raids from mountain strongholds, with burning and slaughtering, and carrying off of captives to be mutilated or outraged and then tortured to death. About a thousand men, women and children perished. Military operations were repeatedly stopped for a considerable period by the government com missioners, who wished to institute a policy of kindness, but finally Gen. George H. Crook was allowed to proceed without interruption in 1872-74, and put an end to the operations of the bands as a whole in 1874. But the govern ment policy of concentrating them all on one reservation of San Carlos, Arizona., had unfor tunate results. They objected to live with other
bands with whom they were as much at feud as with the whites, and also to leave their chosen districts once given them by the govern ment; but both General Crook and his successor, who opposed the transfers, were removed to other departments. Again and again the bands escaped while being removed, and renewed their outrages; and for six years more there was a succession of bloody raids which swelled the total of horrors in the unfortunate Territory and New Mexico. In 1882 Crook was restored., and by tact and their confidence in him in duced about 1,500, or over a fourth of them, to live on the reservation without rations. But the rest liked their life much too well to give it up; repeatedly they surrendered and returned with Crook only to break their promise and return to the warpath. The last time was in March 1886, when they escaped before en tering Arizona and continued their outrages along the border for five months. The uproar against Crook for being duped (he had upheld the essential justice of their cause, and his be lief in their willingness to behave, against the people) caused his replacement by Gen. Nelson A. Miles, who finally cornered the band and forced it to surrender. But the attempt to set tle the Chirichuas and Hot Springs bands— the fiercest Indians on the continent, according to General Crook—on a reservation in Arizona roused such a storm of protest from Arizonians that they were removed to Florida instead, then to Alabama, and finally to Fort Sill, Okla., where they still remain, to the number of some 300. In all there are now about 5,200 Apaches. The name is sometimes applied to the Jicarillas, Mescaleros and Lipans by reason of linguistic affinities; but incorrectly. Consult Bancroft, 'Native Races of the Pacific States' (Vol. XVII, 1880).