National Park Service White Sands U.S. Department of the Interior

White Sands National Monument Apachean

The Mescalero Apache are the living descendants of the first Apache to settle here, and they maintain an active cultural affinity to the landscape of their ancestors. (NPS Photo)

ver 700 years ago, bands of Apaches followed herds of bison from the Great Plains to the Tularosa Basin and Osettled here. The Apache utilized the landscape very differently than the agricultural Jornada Mogollon. From mountain slopes to mounding dunes, the Apache made all parts of the basin their home. The Mescalero Apache living in the Sacramento Mountains today are descendants of the first Apache settlers.

The Apaches were nomadic hunters they also gathered salt from the was a military engagement between and gatherers, distantly related to basin floor. We know the Apache Victorio’s warriors and the United Athabascan speakers in Alaska and utilized the dunes throughout history States Army’s 9th Calvary of Buffalo Canada. They were constantly on because of the reference to the Soldiers. The battle ground, located the move, enlarging the territory dunes in their oral histories as well on present-day White Sands Missile that they called home and the ranges as by Apache pottery and datable Range, is the closest archaeological that supported their subsistence. charcoal that has been found at evidence to the monument of About 700 years ago, bands of hearth features within the dunes. the Apache Wars (1849 to 1924). Apaches moved into southern New Archaeologists discovered over Mexico and made the Tularosa The Apaches’ had established a 800 cartridges discharged during Basin their home. Their homeland sizable territory in southern New the battle, which they were able to encompassed the Tularosa Basin and Mexico by the time European determine were fired from 39 pistols all the land surrounding their four explorers arrived. They fiercelyand 147 rifles. Conflict between the sacred mountains: Sierra Blanca, defended the rights to their homeland Apaches and the American settlers Three Sisters Mountains, Oscura against the encroachment of colonial over their conflicting interests in the Mountain Peak and the Guadalupe settlers. Fear of Apache warriors Tularosa Basin ultimately ended in Mountains. They lived in temporary engaging in raids and warfare on the forceful removal of the Apaches houses known as wickiups, round colonial settlements insulated local from the full extent of their ancestral brush huts. They also lived in teepees tribes against colonial control far homelands and their instatement covered in animal hides. By their own longer than the rest of the Southwest. on the Mescalero Apache Indian accounts, the Apache traversed the Apache groups, led by Victorio and Reservation. The Mescalero Apache Tularosa Basin to hunt and gather. Geronimo, began to fight with settlers are the living descendants of the There are two historic Apache trails in the Tularosa Basin and engage in first Apache to settle here, and they that cross the White Sands, one of military battles with Buffalo Soldiers. maintain an active cultural affinity which passes through tsetosayanela The Apache were fighting against to the landscape of their ancestors. tuseka, a salt lake located just south forceful reinstatement to reservations. of the malpais lava flows, indicating The Battle of Hembrillo Basin in 1880 Revised 10/03/2016