Band of Chiricahua Apache - 1886 (Geronimo on right)
History & Culture:
The Chiricahua-Peloncillo area has been occupied nearly continuously over the past 13,000 years. Abundant evidence exists that most periods have had human occupation, although during some intervals this evidence is poorly documented. During most periods the area can be characterized as a cultural crossroads. It is the likely migration corridor followed by the first farmers of the American southwest as they brought cultivated crops northward from Mexico. It is a place where the pre-Classic and Classic Period cultures of the American southwest exchanged ideas and goods.
It represents the possible route taken by Coronado in his quest for Cíbola. Spanish explorers and later Mexican and American settlers first experienced this area as a frontier, a place “where population is sparse and civilization thins out.” Despite being at the periphery of nations, the region played a major role in the direction these nations would take. When natural resources and the drive westward motivated U.S. interest in the area, military action against Mexico and the Apache drew men away from pressing conflicts in the East. As part of the Gadsden Purchase, this remote expanse inspired fierce negotiations between Mexico and the United States.
The lives of people in this region changed in response to the transition from frontier to borderland and from Spanish, to Mexican, to U.S. control. Native Americans who had long lived in the area found themselves divided by a seemingly meaningless line, while others were displaced by military and economic policies. Former Mexican nationals abruptly found themselves, their land, and their property incorporated into a different nation, one which spoke another language and showed little respect for property claims. Additionally, the rapid migration of Anglo settlers, often from the south, changed the character of the region. Most who came to the area over time, it seems, became borderlanders. Yet each left a unique mark - a product of histories, interactions, and relationships to former homelands.
