Big Sycamore Stands Alone: The Western Apaches, Aravaipa, and the Struggle for Place (review)

2010Book Reviews407 power. Squeezed by Comanches to the north, Americans to the east, and Mexicans to the south, the Lipan Apaches found themselves incapable of maintaining their traditional life. Constant conflict and repeated disease episodes gradually reduced their numbers until only a handful remained. By the early twentieth century, the surviving Lipansjoined their Apache relations in Oklahoma and New Mexico or were absorbed into the population of northern Mexico. Britten paints a portrait of a resilient people who refused to give up their freedom, even if it meant their destruction. Although the book is well documented, it suffers from one major lapse in research. In the epilogue, Britten discusses two private organizations in Texas that claim Lipan descent and fits them into his theme of the Lipans as a resilient people who have survived to the present. However, there are serious questions regarding the authenticity of these groups. While they have convinced the Texas Legislature of their claimed Lipan identity, they have not convinced any federally recognized tribe of Apaches. The Mescalero Tribe has advised state and federal agencies not to accept claims of either group regarding the repatriation of Lipan cultural artifacts or biological remains. Some tribal members believe these organizations have misappropriated and misused Mescalero traditions. Unfortunately, unsubstantiated assertions by these organizations have had a negative impact on studies of Texas prehistory. One of the groups was instrumental in the reburial of the 7,500-year-old Buckeye Knoll cemetery (to which they had no cultural or biological connection) . The resulting loss of anthropological knowledge is one of the greatest travesties in the history of Texas archeology. Britten's uncritical acceptance of these two groups is a major flaw in an otherwise well-researched and highly readable work. Panhandle-Plains Historical MuseumMatthew S. Taylor Big Sycamore Stands Ahne: TL· Western Apa^s, Aravaipa, and tL· Strugglefor Place. By Ian W. Record. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2008. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN 9780806139722, $39.95 cloth.) I have listened recently to the many difficulties some researchers, even tribal members, have had getting approval to do their research from tribal Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) to the point where some have gone elsewhere to do their research. Ian W. Record's BigSycamoreStandsAhneshov/s how getting local approval and cooperation can gready strengthen one's research. The oral history gathered by Record complements his extensive use of primary and secondary sources to give a detailed ethnohistory of one Apache group. He gives an extensive account of the "subsistence matrix" (224) of the Western Apaches that provided them with a "spartan life style" (38) as they moved from place to place to find food in their often harsh environment until the disastrous and pivotal Camp Grant massacre led to their concentration on the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona where their descendent^ live today. The intrusion of first the Spanish, dien the Mexicans, and finally the Americans drastically altered the traditional Apache way oflife. The Apache were forced 4o8Southwestern Historical QuarterlyJanuary into raiding because some of their best lands (especially for the Western Apache along the Aravaipa River), were taken by successive waves of colonization. Besides the detailed description of how Western Apaches lived off the land by farming, gathering, and hunting, Record uses oral history and primary sources to document how Tucson merchants, who tended to live off the U.S. Army, stirred up antagonism against Apaches to the point where Tucsonans took the law into their own hands and organized a punitive exhibition against the Western Apaches. Military expenditures were the largest part of the Arizona economy in the 1870s, with one tenth of the U.S. Army stationed in the state. The immigrant merchants, miners, and ranchers advocated genocide, but the U.S. government and the Army, backed by eastern humanitarians, sought peace—not at the expense ofhalting the encroachment onto Apache lands, however, which was die major cause ofApache resistance. When the Army persuaded a relatively large group of Western Apaches to halt hostilities and gather near Camp Grant under the nominal protection ofthe army, Tucson merchants organized a party of six Americans, forty-seven Mexicans, and ninety-two O'odhams who launched a surprise attack on April...