The Gila Wilderness is Gila Apache homeland - Part Two

This year marks the Centennial Anniversary of the creation of the Gila Wilderness. The Chihene Nde (Gila Apache) are the people from which the Wilderness is named. The tribe’s ancestors, Gila and Mimbres Apache, signed treaties with Spain, Mexico, and the United States. Geronimo, who never signed a treaty, distinguished four different groups in his life story, "Bedonkohe, Chokonen, Chihene and Nednai, who were fast friends in the days of freedom…”. Today, the families who never surrendered to the U.S. comprise a non-reservation tribe seeking federal acknowledgment – the Chihene Nde Nation.

In the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, U.S. governing officials promised to prevent Apache incursions into Mexico. New Mexico Territory Governors William Carr Lane and David Meriwether negotiated with Chihene Nde Nation ancestors, who, in the 1850s, signed three treaties with the U.S. The last treaty, signed at Fort Thorn in 1855, ceded the Gila region to the U.S. in exchange for a reservation in our homelands.

?Unlike the 1852 Treaty of Santa Fe, the 1853 Fort Webster and 1855 Fort Thorn treaties were not ratified. But why? The land surveyed for the Mimbres Bands of Gila Apache reservation comprised most of present-day Grant County. The surveyor’s findings, which included a mine on the proposed reservation, were reported to Washington, D.C. Potential commercial wealth and desires for a railway to California blocked congressional support. The 1855 reservation was not established. The Del Cobre, Hurley, Tyrone, Hanover, Georgetown, Pinos Altos, and Silver City mines are on the then-proposed reservation. In 1860, new lands were identified and reserved for the Gila Apache. These reserve lands are near the current communities of Cliff and Gila.

?Even so, the reserve lands were not used. In 1871, it was decided the reservation should cover 600 square miles of the valley of the Tularosa River from Reserve north to Aragon in present-day Catron County. My ancestor José Leyva and his family lived peacefully with other Apaches at the new Tularosa Valley Indian Agency. Internal friction among Apaches led to reservation violence. Bitterness and resentment created a political division between the two groups. The short-lived reservation closed in 1874, and my Gila Apache family remained behind in the Tularosa Valley. By choice, Apache Victorio and his followers, at peace with the U.S., relocated east to the Ojo Caliente on the Ca?ada Alamosa in present-day Socorro County along with the Indian Agency.

The Leyva and Eligio families in the Gila had kin in Mexico, and they sought peace with Mexican officials in July 1874. These were the same families who previously had received rations from the U.S. at Fort Thorn in the 1850s. While peace was being finalized, an Apache raiding party crossed into Sonora from the U.S. Feeling betrayed, military officials entered Chihuahua to search for Eligio’s people, who they believed had bargained in bad faith. The Sonoran military executed Eligio and three Apache women in their mountain camp. In 1877, the relocated Hot Springs reservation at Ojo Caliente closed due to political pressure.

By 1879, Victorio, who had tentatively agreed to live at the Mescalero Reservation, fled with the U.S. military in pursuit. Victorio’s time at Mescalero contrasts with the stories of my Gila and northern Mexico family. The 1880 U.S. Census records confirm José Leyva, Eligio (also spelled Elicio), and other families’ ongoing presence in the Gila. José Leyva desired to purchase the land where he had remained. My digital copy of the land survey maps the “Leiva Ranch” within the now-defunct Tularosa Valley reservation. Leyva traveled to Santa Fe to purchase land at one dollar per acre. He was later charged $435 for the land survey that included his ranch in what became the Gila National Forest, 100 miles north of the land reserved in 1860 for the Gila Apache.

It was later discovered that José had been defrauded in Santa Fe and was forced to relocate. By this time, the U.S. motivations to establish a permanent reservation had faded. The land set aside for Gila Apaches was returned to the public domain by 1882. The 1885 Report to the Board of Indian Commissioners by Merrill E. Gates describes José Leyva’s situation. Gates asserted an agent informed him, "I knew a most deserving Indian who selected a ranch 100 miles from the reservation twelve years ago. He has lived there since quietly, raised seven children, and built a house and a corral. Four years ago, he went to Santa Fé to get a title to his land. He paid some scoundrel $160 for a worthless paper, the man representing himself as the United States land agent. I reported these facts and sent the paper the Indian had received from this swindler to your office, but nothing was done. That sort of work discourages others who are willing and have both the desire and the ability to become independent men.”??

The surrender of Geronimo and the Chiricahua Apaches to the U.S. Army in 1886 exiled many families to Florida, where the U.S. imprisoned them. Author Neil Goodwin contends people believed “…all of the Apache bands were supposed to be accounted for – either on reservations, or as were Geronimo and all of the Chiricahua Apaches… Only a few knew that there were Apaches who never surrendered.” Apache families remained in New Mexico and were sequestered in the Upper Gila. Other families integrated into farming, ranching, and mining communities. Some reunited with family south of the U.S.-Mexico border, becoming refugees. My great-grandmother Praxedis Elías, who married a Leyva, descends from the Elías and Gardea families who lived in the Sierra Madre Mountains with the Leyva and Eligio families. My family continued to exist in the Tularosa and Mogollon Mountains and the Sierra Madres of northern Mexico. One family… One nation… One border… Silence.

Chairman Manuel Sanchez states, “We have the right to some space, a reservation. Like other tribes, we deserve the government’s support for health, welfare, and education services. This begins with federal and state recognition.”

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

The Gila Wilderness is Gila Apache homeland 1 & 2. Arizona Silver Belt Newspaper. Accessed May 6th & 13th, 2024