Blue Mountain Apache of New Mexico?

On June 24, 1850, the Chiricahua Apache Geronimo and others came to peace with the Mexican community of Janos, Chihuahua. Eight months later, Apache and Chihuahua officials alike were outraged to learn that on March 5, 1851, Colonel José María Carrasco’s Sonoran troops had entered Chihuahua unannounced and attacked the location where Geronimo’s family and other Apache were located. According to legend, the army overwhelmed the small Apache guard protecting women, children, horses, and supplies. Geronimo, who was away at the time, lost his mother, wife, and children during the incident, fueling his anger and distrust of Mexicans.

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My excellent July 2024 visit to Janos, Chihuahua, included this heartbreaking location. My dissertation research at the University of New Mexico and the hospitality of Dr. Philip “Felipe” Stover, an American historian living in Mata Ortiz, allowed me access to aspects of Apache history in the region. I was emotionally overcome despite having no known familial ties to famous Western American historical Apache leaders.

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Carrasco’s military offensive caused 21 Apache casualties and the capture of 62 captives. This incident is featured in the 1993 TV movie Geronimo. The movie’s association between Geronimo and another leader, Juh (pronounced Jú), is factual. Legend has it that the two were cousins; other sources report that Geronimo’s sister married Juh. Possibly, both scenarios are correct.

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I believe my ancestors may have been present at the Carrasco Massacre, and here is why: Juh was the most famous band leader of the Ndéndai (n’dé-n’-daa-i), which means “Enemy People.” Morris E. Opler’s ethnographic research proposed “Chiricahua” as a tribal identifier. Today, the Ndéndai, Ch’úkánén (ch-úk-á-nén), Chíhéne (chí-éne), and Bidánku (bi-dán-ku) bands make up the tribe. The local groups comprise the previously stated bands. In the 1830s, my ancestor, Juan José Compa, self-identified as Gila or “Gile?o,” not Chiricahua. Opler recognized only three bands, considering Bidánku part and parcel of the Chíhéne, contradicting Geronimo's band identification as Bidánku.

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Dr. Ana María Alonso, a faculty member in the Anthropology Department at the University of Arizona, has focused her research on Namiquipa, Chihuahua. The Namiquipa community revealed to Dr. Alonso that “Juh’s stronghold was the Sierra Madre on the border of Sonora and Chihuahua, close to Namiquipa.” Based on Alonso's research, Juh, called Lino Leyva, was among the peaceful Apache living there. His father’s baptized name, Leonardo, is sometimes abbreviated as “Lino” in Spanish records.

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According to archival documents, the Apache Leonardo Prudencio and Juh’s mother, Beninga, lived in Valle de Allende before moving to Namiquipa. My fifth great-grandmother, Rita Leyva, was among the peaceful Apache of that period and was also baptized in Valle de Allende. Juh’s father, Leonardo, is recognized as being the same man as the Apache leader “Placerís (sometimes Lacerís)” of the Hai-a-hen-de, a Ndéndai local group, according to the author Edwin R. Sweeney.

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The Ndéndai Apache had two main divisions, the Janeros and the Carrizale?os. The Janero division is the focus of this editorial, given their residence in the New Mexico (NM) Bootheel, Janos, and Madera, Chihuahua. Janeros considered the southwestern NM part of their homeland. Still, they ranged south to Nacori Chico, Sonora, and Madera, Chihuahua.

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There are different local groups in the Janero division of Ndéndai. These groups include the Dzi?mora/ Blue Mountain, the Hai-a-hen-de/ Rising Sun People, and the Tú-ntsa-ndé/ Big Water People. The Ch’úkánén local groups from the Sierra Larga (Peloncillos Mountains) were united with our people, confounding our identities. The late Percy Big Mouth, a Mescalero Apache, told author Eve Ball about the little-known “Blue Mountain Band.” Big Mouth’s reference is not to be confused with the much larger Blue Mountains of the Sierra Madre Occidental. Big Mouth said that Mexicans captured many of the group and took them south, but some of my Blue Mountain family escaped and disappeared.

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Basehart maintained several of his informants confirmed the existence of a Blue Mountain occupied by the Dzi?mora people in the “panhandle” (bootheel) of New Mexico. Basehart provided coordinates as N. Latitude 31°37; W. Longitude 108°23’, locating Dzi?mora at the Hatchet Mountains. This contrasts with the modern understanding that the Ndéndai were only and always limited to a range in the Sierra Madre Occidental of Mexico occupied by the Dzi?-d’klish-ende or Blue Mountain People.

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Like the Ndéndai, the Ch’úkánén Apache, whose central range was in southeastern Arizona, also had leaders in southwest NM. The Ch’úkánén families, who lived in the NM Bootheel, allied with Ndéndai. For instance, Ch’úkánén Apache leaders Monica and Camilo's Sierra Larga bands aligned with the Leyva family. New Mexico Territory Indian Agent Michael Steck's reports to the Superintendent of Indian Affairs around the mid-1850s support this. Steck brokered treaties with this mixed group of bands. In 1853, at Fort Webster, and again in 1855, the families signed treaties with the United States.

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Placerís, Juh’s father, was a leader among Agent Steck’s Apache, as were Great-grandmother Rita Leyva’s sons – Josécito and José Nuevo. In 1855, the group signed the “Treaty with the Mimbres Band of Gila Apache,” which was never ratified. We continued our relationship with Steck, relocating with his Southern Apache Indian Agency throughout West-Central and Southwest NM.

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My mixed ancestral family of Bidánku —Ndéndai ranged from the Mogollon Uplands in Catron County south to Mexico. Mangus, a Bidánku and son of Mangas Coloradas, married Victorio’s daughter, a Warm Springs Chíhéne. Many of his small band had already been captured by Mexicans, and others had possibly escaped death. Upon Juh's passing in 1883, Mangus led some of the Ndéndai, including Juh’s sons. Mangus surrendered after Geronimo.

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Robert Julyan’s “The Place Names of New Mexico” documents the escaped “Leyva family members,” who had submitted to living in NM off-reservations, played a significant role in renaming the community of Pinoville, located near Quemado, NM, to Mangus (Mangas) in 1909. Did my Blue Mountain family once ride with Mangus? Possibly. Gila Apache families like ours have petitioned the government to re-acknowledge us as a tribe: https://www.bia.gov/as-ia/ofa/404-chnnm-nm.

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This column was published in the following newspaper(s):

Blue Mountain Apache of New Mexico?. Grant County Beat eNewspaper. Accessed August 1, 2024

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