Editing Apache (section)

===Conflict with Mexico and the United States===
{{Further|Apache Wars|Apache–Mexico Wars}}
In general, the recently arrived Spanish colonists, who settled in villages, and Apache bands developed a pattern of interaction over a few centuries. Both raided and traded with each other. Records of the period seem to indicate that relationships depended on the specific villages and bands: a band might be friends with one village and raid another. When war occurred, the Spanish would send troops; after a battle both sides would "sign a treaty" and go home.

[[File:Geronimo (Goyathlay), a Chiricahua Apache, full-length, kneeling with rifle, 1887 - NARA - 530880 restored.jpg|thumb|[[Geronimo]]]]

The traditional and sometimes treacherous relationships continued after the independence of Mexico in 1821. By 1835 Mexico had placed a bounty on Apache scalps (see [[scalping]]), but certain villages still traded with some bands. When [[Juan José Compà]], the leader of the Copper Mines [[Mimbreño Apaches]], was killed for bounty money in 1837, ''[[Mangas Coloradas]]'' (Red Sleeves) or ''Dasoda-hae'' (He just sits there) became the principal chief and war leader; also in 1837 [[Soldado Fiero]] (a.k.a. Fuerte), leader of the Warm Springs [[Mimbreño Apaches]], was killed by Mexican soldiers near Janos, and his son ''[[Cuchillo Negro]]'' (Black Knife) became the principal chief and war leader. They (being now Mangas Coloradas the first chief and Cuchillo Negro the second chief of the whole Tchihende or Mimbreño people) conducted a series of retaliatory raids against the Mexicans. By 1856, authorities in horse-rich [[Durango]] would claim that Indian raids (mostly Comanche and Apache) in their state had taken nearly 6,000 lives, abducted 748 people, and forced the abandonment of 358 settlements over the previous 20 years.<ref>DeLay, Brian, ''The War of a Thousand Deserts''. New Haven: Yale U Press, 2008, p. 298</ref>

When the [[Mexican–American War|United States went to war against Mexico]] in 1846, many Apache bands promised U.S. soldiers safe passage through their lands. When the U.S. claimed former territories of Mexico in 1846, ''Mangas Coloradas'' signed a peace treaty with the nation, respecting them as conquerors of the Mexicans' land. An uneasy peace with U.S. citizens held until the 1850s. An influx of gold miners into the [[Santa Rita Mountains]] led to conflict with the Apache. This period is sometimes called the [[Apache Wars]].

The United States' concept of a [[Indian reservation|reservation]] had not been used by the Spanish, Mexicans or other Apache neighbors before. Reservations were often badly managed, and bands that had no kinship relationships were forced to live together. No fences existed to keep people in or out. It was common for a band to be allowed to leave for a short period of time. Other times a band would leave without permission, to raid, return to their homeland to forage, or to simply get away. The U.S. military usually had forts nearby to keep the bands on the reservations by finding and returning those who left. The reservation policies of the U.S. caused conflict and war with the various Apache bands who left the reservations for almost another quarter century.

War between the Apaches and Euro-Americans has led to a stereotypical focus on certain aspects of Apache cultures. These have often been distorted through misunderstanding of their cultures, as noted by anthropologist [[Keith H. Basso|Keith Basso]]:

{{blockquote|Of the hundreds of peoples that lived and flourished in native North America, few have been so consistently misrepresented as the Apacheans of Arizona and New Mexico. Glorified by novelists, sensationalized by historians, and distorted beyond credulity by commercial film makers, the popular image of 'the Apache'—a brutish, terrifying semi-human bent upon wanton death and destruction—is almost entirely a product of irresponsible caricature and exaggeration. Indeed, there can be little doubt that the Apache has been transformed from a native American into an American legend, the fanciful and fallacious creation of a non-Indian citizenry whose inability to recognize the massive treachery of ethnic and cultural stereotypes has been matched only by its willingness to sustain and inflate them.<ref>Basso, p. 462</ref>}}