The incarceration of the Chiricahua Apaches, 1886-1914: A portrait of survival

The United States government incarcerated a large group of Chiricahua Apaches for twenty-seven years, from 1886 to 1914. The Chiricahuas were prisoners of war in Florida, later in Alabama, and finally in Oklahoma. As a result of their incarceration, the Apaches sustained devastating losses in terms of population, disruption of cultural traditions, and forced acculturation in alien environments. The whole process began in 1876 when the United States government closed the mountainous Chiricahua reservation at Fort Bowie in Arizona Territory. It chose San Carlos Reservation, located some 100 miles northwest, to operate a more efficient agency and to bring a majority of the Apache peoples together at one location. The San Carlos environment was hot, dry, barren, and malarial, and it became a factor in the difficulty of keeping Indian people on the new reservation. Geronimo, a Bedonkohe Chiricahua war shaman, along with members of different Apache bands, departed and reappeared at San Carlos numerous times between 1876 and 1885.