Hundreds of years ago, long before white men came to this land, these mountains, plains and deserts belonged to the Mescalero Apaches. No other Native Americans in the Southwest caused the terror and constant fear in the settlers as the Apaches did throughout their existence. They raided Spanish, Mexican and American settlers, and were known to be expert guerrilla fighters who defended their homelands.
The Mescalero were essentially nomadic hunters and warriors, dwelling at one place for a temporary time in brush shelter known as a “Wicki up”; short rounded dwellings made of twigs or teepees made of elk hides and buffalo hides. The Mescalero roamed freely throughout the Southwest including Texas, Arizona, Chihuahua, México and Sonora, México.
Today, three sub-tribes, Mescalero, Lipan and Chiricahua, make up the Mescalero Apache Tribe. We live on this reservation of 463,000 acres of what once was the heartland of our people’s aboriginal homelands.
The Mescalero Apache Reservation – long recognized by Spanish, Mexican, and American Treaties – was formally established by Executive Order of President Ulysses S. Grant on May 27, 1873. Mescaleros on the reservation numbered about 400 when the reservation was established more than 100 years ago.
Survivors of the Lipan Apaches, a tribe which suffered heavily in the Texas wars, were brought from northern Chihuahua, Mexico about 1903. In 1913, approximately 200 members of the Chiricahua band of Apaches came to the reservation. They had been held prisoner at Fort Sill, Oklahoma since the capture of the famed Apache Geronimo in 1886. All became members of the Mescalero Apache Tribe when it was reorganized in 1936 under the provisions of the Indian Organization Act.
Today’s Mescalero Apache Tribe is governed by a Tribal Council of eight members with an elected President and Vice-President. Each official is chosen for a two-year term by secret ballot. Authority and responsibilities of the Tribal Government are defined in the Constitution of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, as revised January 12, 1965.
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