Eventually the tribe migrated toward the United States further south, and divided itself into two basic regions, with the Rio Grande River serving as the dividing line. The Apaches were typically nomadic, meaning they traveled around, never quite settling in one place. Show They mostly survived by eating Buffalo meat, and using their hides as protective clothing. It has been said that they were one of the first tribes to learn how to ride and use horses. By 1700, a large portion of the Apache Indians had migrated to the Kansas plains. They were not accustomed to living and farming on the plains, but made due with some crops such as watermelon, beans, and corn. Eventually, their weakness was overtaken by the Comanche tribe. The Apaches were defeated and their land was seized, causing them to move onward to areas like New Mexico and Arizona. Still others went even more southward into Texas and parts of Mexico. Around the 1730s, the Apache Indians began to battle with the Spaniards. The battles were long and bloody, and often resulted in many deaths. Finally in 1743 a Spanish leader agreed to designate areas of Texas for the Apaches to live, easing the battle over land. In a ceremony in 1749, an Apache chief buried a hatchet to symbolize that the fighting was over, thus the term we use today, “bury the hatchet.” As time went on, the Apache Indians developed a strong bond with the white men of the area. At first relationships were strong, and the Apache felt protected. As things progressed, however, raids began to take place that included the slaughter of their people and the theft of their goods and livestock. As of 1940, there was a record of only 35 Apache Indians living in the state of Oklahoma, and in 1970 a record of about 1,500 were documented in New Mexico. Apache—without a doubt, the name is one of the most evocative of all Indian groups, charged with history and popularized in books and movies. However, the name Apache is a generic one, applying to several tribes that have shared—but unique—histories. The Apache include groups that have been known at various times as Apachu, Lipan, Mescalero, Faraones, Gilenos, Natagee, Querechos, Tontos, Ypandi, and Yutaglen-ne, to name but a few. Many federally recognized tribes in the United States today have names that were given to them by Europeans or by other Indian groups in early historic times. In some cases, Spaniards or other Europeans assigned a name based on physical appearances, such as hairstyle, or a cultural aspect of the group. In other cases, the first name given a native people was based on a place. For example, Querecho was the name given to the native people on the Southern Plains by the people who lived in Pecos Pueblo who had close trade relations with that group of Apache. The term Apache dates from the year 1601 when Onate used the term Apachu to refer to the people occupying the Southern Plains. The name was later changed by the Spanish to “Apache,” but the name was not universally used until the nineteenth century. Prior to that time, both they and others used distinct names for their various groups. Manuel Merino in 1804 wrote:
A number of Apache peoples have roots in Texas, but during the prehistoric period they lived in the northern Plains and Canada. As they moved south, they did not settle in the Plateaus and Canyonlands but, rather, in and around the Southern Plains of Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. While scholars dispute the route and timing of their migration south there seems to be fairly clear evidence that the Querechos and possibly the Teyas whom Coronado met on his march across the Southern Plains in 1541 were Apaches. As we can tell from their names, the Apache are not just one group of people. Either prior to or shortly after their migration south, they divided into eastern and western groups and both of these geographic divisions subdivided further. Today they retain those same subdivisions. The eastern Apache generally occupied the lands and areas of the Southern Plains. Spanish documents make clear that subdivisions of the eastern Apache existed from their earliest encounter with those native peoples. We do not know, however, if these subdivisions were an artifact of their movement to the south, where separate bands occupied different regions, or if the subdivisions were a long-standing tradition. Eventually some Apache names began to take precedence over the variety of earliest appellations. Mescalero Apache, mentioned as early as 1725, and Lipan were maintained, while Pelones, Natagees, and Fararones were less frequently used and eventually disappeared from the documentary record. The Apache in Texas began a gradual move toward the Plateaus and Canyonlands during the late seventeenth century and were gradually displaced by the Comanche as that group pushed them southward. Documents written by Spanish military officers with many years of experience on the northern frontiers and familiar with both the geography and the native peoples in the region place the Apache in the area of the Plateaus and Canyonlands by the eighteenth century. One of these military men, Joseph de Berroteran, wrote that the Apache “came from the Rio Puerco [Pecos] where it joins with the Rio del Norte [ Rio Grande].” He warned government officials that, if the presidios that had been established on the Rio Grande were not maintained, the Apache would control the Rio Grande from El Paso to San Juan Bautista (located between modern Eagle Pass and Laredo). Joseph de Urrutia, another military officer, wrote in 1733 that the Apache resided along the Pecos, frequently traveling east and west along the Rio Grande. The Apache, particularly the Lipan and Mescalero, had a major presence in the Plateaus and Canyonlands in the early eighteenth-century period. The westward movement of English-speaking settlers across North America and the Spanish colonization of the Southwest combined to create great unrest and turmoil among native peoples. As the Apache were forced from the Southern Plains by the quickly-moving Comanche, they began to align themselves with other native peoples, including the Jumano and Tonkawa, groups with whom they previously had hostile relations They also sought peace with the Spanish. Those peace efforts resulted in the establishment of a Spanish mission, Santa Cruz de San Sabá and presidio at San Sabá and, later, the two missions, San Lorenzo de la Santa Cruz and Nuestra Senora de Candelaria on the Nueces River, all during the mid-eighteenth century. Ultimately, the San Sabá mission was destined to fail because the Spanish ignored—or were unaware of—the volatile relationships among native groups. As Maria Wade notes in her 2002 volume on the Native Americans of the Edward Plateau, the Spaniards made a significant error in establishing the mission :
The mis-step by the Spanish led to an assault on the mission, orchestrated by Tonkawa, Comanche, Bidais, Wichita, and Caddo Indians, all enemies of the Lipan and other Apache. Mission San Lorenzo de la Santa Cruz, established in 1762, postdates the disaster at San Sabá. Although it lasted longer, San Lorenzo was never officially approved and was burned and then abandoned in 1771. Situated on the upper Nueces River at present-day Camp Wood, Texas, the mission was founded to serve the Lipan Apache. Missionaries reported that some 3,000 Lipan were at the mission; Spanish reports, however, indicate that there was a regular coming and going of individual bands of groups of Lipan. The priests sought to teach the Lipan to grow corn and other crops. However, raids by hostile native groups plagued the mission and in 1771 it was abandoned. Curiously, however, the Lipan and Mescalero continued to frequent the area of this mission and Mission Candelaria in the century to come, often to grow crops when they could not access other food In the second half of the eighteenth century and after their mission on the San Sabá was destroyed, the Apache ranged from the Bolson de Mapimi to the Rio Grande to the Nueces. In 1772, 300 Lipan Apache attacked haciendas and pueblos in Coahuila. A Spanish military map dated 1773 continued to call the Pecos River the “Salado o rio del Apache del Nataje que la Fora lo llama del Pecho y Danville de los 7 Rios,” meaning “the Salty River or river of the Nataje Apache whom Spanish engineer and cartographer Nicolas la Fora calls the Apache of the Pecos and whom Danville calls the Apache of the Seven Rivers.” On that same map, several other Apache groups are shown in or close to the Plateaus and Canyonlands—the Apaches Jumanes just north of the Lipanes and on the east side of the Pecos, with the Natajes and Mescaleros depicted on the west side of the Pecos. Two years later, Juan del Ugarte also noted their presence in the region. Traveling north of Monclova some 740 miles in an effort to force the Apache away from Coahuila, he found them on the Rio San Pedro or Devils River. The Mescalero were, by the late eighteenth century, roaming the Plateaus and Canyonlands, and Spanish armies repeatedly found them between the Rio Sabinas, Piedras Negras, and the mouth of the Pecos, either alone or in the company of Lipan, or other Apache bands. The Apache maintained a presence in northern Mexico in subsequent decades, but the Lipan and Mescalero were often found in the region of south and Central Texas, particularly on the Nueces, the San Antonio, and Guadalupe river areas as well as the Colorado. Their presence on the Pecos River can be well documented in the nineteenth century including the area of Toyah Creek’s confluence with the Pecos. The Apache presence in the Plateaus and Canyonlands was quite broad during the nineteenth century. Manuel Merino, a prominent government official in Chihuahua, issued a report on the Apache in 1804 that describes their territory. He wrote that the Apache nation “inhabits the vast empty expanse living between 20 and 38 degrees of latitude and 264 and 277 degrees of longitude…to that of La Bahía del Espiritu Santo.” Elsewhere, Merino described the territories of the various Apache subdivisions:
Other names for Apache:  Southern Plains and southwest Texas in pre-horse times, showing location of early Apache groups, Teyas and Querecho, in Panhandle area. (Map after Newcomb 1961: Map 2.) Lipan Apache brave wearing breastplate. Watercolor by Frederich Richard Petri, circa 1850s. The artist lived in the area of Fredericksburg, Texas, and was on peaceful terms with many of the native peoples. Rancherias of the Natagee, an early Apachean group, are shown in a 1729 map of Coahuila, Nuevo Leon, and Texas in 1729, drawn by Francisco Alvarez Barreiro. Note the Pecos River in west Texas is also identified as Rio de Natagee. Click to see larger image. Documentation of Apache Groups in Plateaus/Canyonlands in 1700s Hattie, Chiricahua Apache, circa 1899. She is wearing traditional hide clothing, with added brass tinklers at neckline, and bone and shell bead necklaces. Where did the Apache live originally?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.
When did the Apache tribe originate?Historians believe that the Apaches came to Southwest America sometime between 1000 and 1400 C.E. The Apache tribe was broken up into many smaller tribes. The basic unit for the Apache was extended family. These family groups acted completely independent of one another.
Are Apaches Mexican?The N'dee/N'nee/Ndé, more commonly known as “Apaches”, are the peoples indigenous to the southern United States and northern Mexico.
What are 3 interesting facts about the Apache tribe?The Apache are a Native American tribe that have been on this continent since 850 CE. They moved to Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico in 1000 CE. 'Apache' means 'enemy in Zuni'. Ancient Apache spoke Athapaskan, which is very hard for English speakers to pronounce.
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