Apache Hegemony

Apache hegemony on the plains was ending in the 1720s. At one time they were the only ones with portable housing. But, when Carlana was tracking the Ute and Comanche in 1719, he followed "the track of the tent poles which they were dragging along."

For years the Apache were the only ones with pack animals. In 1719 Antonio Valverde noted "the dogs, on which were loaded the poles for tents and other utensils they used," at El Cuartelejo. However, when Bourgmont visited the Kansa in 1724, they also were using dogs. When they started west toward their hunting grounds, they had "about 300 women and 500 children and at least 300 dogs that dragged part of their baggage." His chronicler recorded, "one dog drags the skins to make a shelter big enough to sleep 19 or 20 persons, along with their dishes, pots, and other utensils, weighing around 300 pounds."

Bourgmont discovered that, while dogs were better than nothing, they could only travel a few miles a day, with stops during the midday heat.

The Apache had grown so comfortable with their life style, they didn’t see the possibilities of horses. The Sierra Blanca living near the Rockies killed deer by surrounding them, then driving them into camp. Valverde recorded, they provided "good fat meat."

The Cuartelejo on the plains hunted buffalo in groups of 50 to 60 mounted men. "They start to torment them and run them hard until their tongues stick out a foot. Then they choose the fattest ones and shoot arrows into them which penetrate a foot into the animals’ bellies." Philippe de la Renaudiére added, "Many of the horses are killed also. They never have colts, for their mares always abort on the hunt."

One day the Comanche would become the only tribe that understood horse breeding. In the meantime, the chief of the Skidi Pawnee accepted the French proposal of peace with the Apache "in order to have horses, which will help us carry our equipment when we go into winter quarters, because our women and children are terribly overburdened on our return."

The Apache were confronted with the dilemmas faced by any innovator grown too complacent to face unexpected competition. Most bands adapted the way many would on the rim of the herds. They abandoned what agriculture they knew to live all year on the plains. They joined El Cuartelejo.

The rest, who stayed with La Jicarilla, saw themselves more as merchants who traded dressed skins than as hunters who killed the animals and tanned the hides. After the rout of Pedro de Villasur by the Pawnee, and before Bourgmont’s successful diplomacy between the Pawnee and El Cuartelejo, the Comanche attacked "with such daring and resolution that they killed many men, carrying off their women and children as captives."

Three chiefs traveled to Santa Fé in November of 1723 to bargain with Valverde’s successor, Juan de Bustamante. They offered to accept baptism and oversight by a priest and alcalde in return for protection. The governor visited the rancherías of Churlique, Carlana and El Coxo on the Cimarron river, then sent a letter to the viceroy asking authority to implement the existing order to build a presidio at Jicarilla.

The Faraón Apache continued to attack the eastern borders of Nuevo México. Soon after Bustamante announced plans for a campaign against them, the Comanche attacked the Jicarilla in January of 1724. Bustamante led troops on a recovery mission that recovered many of the "women and children."

This time when he notified the viceroy, he added the Jicarilla were considering moving west to join the Navajo. The viceroy’s agents urged him to prevent that alliance. In October, the viceroy forwarded plans for a presidio to Pedro de Rivera Villalón.

Rivera finally visited Santa Fé in 1726 as part of his review of military installations and collection of information on the former governor’s role in the Villasur massacre. While he was there, "a group of Apaches of the nations Escalchufines and Palomas brought prisoners who were Comanches" The Comanche captives told Bustamante the Apache had been aided by the French at El Cuartelejo.

Bustamante also was told by the alcalde mayor of Taos "a number of the nation Xicarilla are in that pueblo." They apparently had fled there to avoid a retaliatory attack.

Rivera was not impressed with the Apache. He believed they were more interested in protection than they were Catholicism, and that the defensive needs to the area south of El Paso were more important than those on a remote frontier. He recommended the band move to the area of Taos and that no new presidio be built. Instead, he "asked the local priest to ‘advise, induce, and persuade them to remain in the vicinity of that pueblo’."

The Taos priest at the time was Juan José Pérez de Mirabal. He had urged Bustamante to recover the Jicarilla captives in 1724 because some had been baptized. He left Taos in July of 1727. Dolores Gunnerson suspected he went to serve the Apache who had settled in a high valley on the Río de las Trampas that flowed north to the Embudo. It was on the east side of the Sebastían Martín grant and southwest of land associated with Cristóbal de la Serna.

Notes: Fat was still needed by people who lived through cold weather. The viceroy in 1724 and 1727 was Juan de Acuña. Rivera’s visit was mentioned in the post for 28 June 2015.

Bustamante, Juan Domingo de. Decree for Council of War, Santa Fé, 8 November 1723, translation in Thomas; quotation on 1723 Comanche attack on Apache.

_____. Diary of Governor Bustamante, visit to Jicarilla rancherías, November 17-27, 1723, translation in Thomas.

_____. Report to viceroy, 30 May 1724, translation in Thomas; quotation on 1724 Comanche attack on Apache.

_____. Letter to viceroy, 30 April 1727, translation in Thomas.

Gunnerson, Dolores A. The Jicarilla Apaches, 1974.

Renaudiére, Philippe de la. Journal of the Voyage of Monsieur de Bourgmont, translation in Frank Norall, Bourgmont, 1988; quotations on El Cuartelejo buffalo hunting. Norall called them the Skiri Pawnee.

Rivera, Pedro de. Report to viceroy, 26 Sept 1727, translation in Thomas; quotations on Comanche prisoners, on Jicarilla in Taos, and on advise to Taos priest.

Thomas, Alfred B. After Coronado, 1935.

Valverde y Cosío, Antonio. Diary of the campaign against the Ute and Comanche, 1719, translation in Thomas; quotations on tent poles of Comanche, on Apache use of dogs, and on deer as fat meat.

Map: United States, Department of the Interior, Geological Survey. "Trampas Quadrangle New Mexico, 7.5 Minute Series (Topographic)," 1952; references to Tramps Grant boundaries are to a grant made later to Spanish-speaking settlers that shared some of the same territory.