The Apache Treaty of 1852: Power, Race, and Diplomacy in the US/Mexico/Apache Borderlands

Sandwiched between the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and the Treaty of Mesilla (Gadsden Purchase) of 1854, the Apache Treaty of 1852 is the only treaty the U.S. ratified exclusively with Apaches. Building on previous scholarship, I argue that the 1852 Treaty with the Apache (signed at Acoma Pueblo) grew out of the U.S. War with Mexico and the inability of the U.S. to enforce Article 11 of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Article 11 required the U.S. to stop Native “raids” across the border and it mandated that Natives return captives and property to Mexico. As the U.S. realized this was impossible, it pressed for a treaty with the Apache to bind them to U.S. law and project its sovereignty upon Nde’ landscapes, requiring them to end their cross-border movement. The Treaty symbolized U.S. settler colonialism, but as an “Indigenous borderlands treaty,” it demands attention for what it reveals about Nde’ diplomatic expectations, traditions of peace, aboriginal land claims, and their relationships with Mexicans on both sides of the border. Situated at the nexus of U.S. and Mexican nation building, the Treaty reflected the simultaneous power and weaknesses of both nation-states, as Apaches continued to thwart multiple conquests on both sides of the international boundary. Because the U.S. was incapable of enforcing the terms of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, and thus incapable of fully projecting its power onto Indigenous landscapes, the Apache Treaty punctuates a transitional and transnational moment in borderlands history. Apache bands moved across the newly imagined boundaries, shaped borderlands power relations, and expressed their unique vision of what it meant to be Indigenous in the 19th century.