LAUREN GILGER: It’s been more than 150 years, but a small piece of Arizona land has been returned to the Apache people. The Oklahoma-based Fort Sill Apache Tribe recently bought 55 acres of land in the Dragoon Mountains in Southeastern Arizona.
It is land that was taken away from them by President Ulysses S. Grant in the late 1800s, just years after they exchanged it for peace.
The Arizona Daily Star’s Henry Brean has the story and is on the line now to tell us more. Good morning, Henry.
HENRY BREAN: Good morning.
LAUREN GILGER: So, let’s start with a little history here, because this is a story I think a lot of Arizonans probably don’t remember from their history classes. This is 1872. The Chiricahua Apaches made a peace deal with the U.S. government. They were promised millions of acres, like 2.7 million acres of land in southeastern Arizona. What happened after that?
HENRY BREAN: Yeah, so Chief Cochise, the leader of the Chiricahua Apaches, had a fairly famous meeting in the Dragoon Mountains in a place called Cochise Stronghold with a U.S. Army general where they hashed out a peace agreement. And then Ulysses S. Grant issued an executive order that established this reservation. And these people moved into this huge swath of southeastern Arizona. But then four short years later, Grant rescinded the executive order and dissolved the reservation, and these people were moved elsewhere.
LAUREN GILGER: Right. So, how did they end up in Oklahoma? Like, descendants of the Chiricahua and Warm Springs Apaches were part of the story, right, prisoners of war essentially?
HENRY BREAN: Yeah, so the tribe was essentially moved to the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation, but some of the members of the tribe, including Geronimo, famously didn’t want to be there and continually left the reservation to go back to where they felt they belonged, their ancestral homelands, and were chased by soldiers from the U.S. and Mexico. And eventually Geronimo surrenders in, I think it’s 1886. And then they’re rounded up as prisoners of war, and they’re taken to the Deep South, first to Florida and I think Alabama. Eventually they end up in Oklahoma where they’re held as prisoners of war for almost 30 years at Fort Sill before finally winning their freedom.
LAUREN GILGER: Right. Now the tribe called the Fort Sill Apaches has bought back a small piece of that land that was taken away so long ago. How did this deal come about?
HENRY BREAN: So, there’s this nonprofit group called the Trust for Public Land. They’re based in San Francisco, and a lot of what they do is they find private inholdings of land near national parks and other treasured spots. And when they become available for sale, they’ll move in and buy them, and then sell them to either the Park Service or the Forest Service. But they also have a tribal lands program they’ve had for decades where they find pieces of land that are significant to various tribes and purchase them and then sell them to the tribes so the tribes can have this land back. And that’s what happened in this case. It was 55 acres that came up for sale, and the trust grabbed it up and sold it to the tribe.
LAUREN GILGER: This is something that this, as you say, this Trust for Public Land does, first time doing it here, though. Is there a question, Henry, about like why tribes have to pay for this land that was taken from them?
HENRY BREAN: Yeah, that’s a good question. That didn’t really come up in my reporting, but there’s obviously this large LandBack movement that is sort of building momentum in recent decades. But that’s just how this particular deal was structured, and I’m not really sure why there was a purchase in this case.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah, the LandBack movement is definitely kind of the broader context here as well. But this specific piece of land is interesting, too, because it was owned by, you report, a couple from Green Valley, a widower in Phoenix, who kind of went in on it together. They camped on it. They never built a house there. It sounds like they were happy to sell it to the tribe.
HENRY BREAN: Yeah, it sounds like it was just two couples that staked out this what sounds to be a beautiful piece of land in the mountains overlooking this Sulphur Springs Valley, and I think their plan was to eventually build maybe escape cabins or retirement home there or something for them to settle on. And time went on, they didn’t build on it, and then they decided to sell it. Once they found out that it might be sold for conservation, they apparently were in favor of that idea, and then when they found out the tribe was involved, they were excited about that, too.
LAUREN GILGER: Tell us about this piece of land in the Dragoon Mountains. What’s it like there?
HENRY BREAN: I haven’t actually been to the site myself, but the photos are beautiful, and the description for me was sort of a varied piece of land. There’s some flat country there, some grasslands, and then there’s these striking cliffs that rise up behind it. Apparently, there’s an arroyo that runs through it for part of the year. When conditions are right, there’s a huge waterfall that comes down from the cliffs and into this arroyo. It sounds like a beautiful piece of property.
LAUREN GILGER: Do you know what the tribe will use it for?
HENRY BREAN: The tribe has said that they’re going to kind of use it as a gathering place. I guess a lot of the members of the tribe — I think there’s around 800 enrolled members of the tribe, but a lot of them don’t live in Oklahoma. They’re sort of scattered. And I think it’s seen as a place where they can gather and reconnect with their ancestral homelands and with their history and with their traditions and maybe pass that stuff along to younger generations.
LAUREN GILGER: What did tribal leaders have to say about this return, this deal? Is it symbolic for them as well?
HENRY BREAN: Yeah, I certainly think so. Yeah, it’s definitely part of their ancestral homelands. It’s a significant piece of their recent history as being a place called Cochise Stronghold. It was a place that Cochise and the Chiricahua people actually sort of hid out when they were being pursued. It was about 5 miles away from where this historic peace agreement was negotiated, even though it was eventually violated. But so there’s just a lot of history there, and there’s obviously deep ancestral ties to these mountains.
LAUREN GILGER: Yeah. All right, well, we’ll leave it there. The Arizona Daily Star’s Henry Brean, joining us from Tucson. Henry, thank you for coming on The Show. Thanks for telling us this story. Appreciate it very much.
HENRY BREAN: Yeah, my pleasure.
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