Dragoons in Apacheland: Conquest and Resistance in Southern New Mexico, 1846–1861 by William S. Kiser (review)

William S. Kiser’s Dragoons in Apacheland examines dual conflicts between Chiricahua Apaches and Anglos with differing cultural and geographic boundaries, as well as the struggle for power and prestige between Anglo civil and military officials in New Mexico from 1846 to 1861. The author and his father visited 1850s era frontier forts, where he uncovered U.S. dragoon military relics. Kiser devotes three topical chapters to soldiers, Chiricahuas, and Mescaleros, while seven chapters present a chronological narrative. He asserts that the fifteen years between the War with Mexico and the Civil War represents “a period with its own distinctive political, military, and cultural characteristics” (4). He builds upon the work of Morris E. Opler and Edwin R. Sweeney, but instead of writing ethnohistory, Kiser provides a “micro-narrative of Anglo-Apache conflict in southern New Mexico” (8). The Apaches did not produce written records, but Kiser exhaustively researched official correspondence, reports, soldiers’ diaries, and the Michael Steck Papers at the University of New Mexico to elevate average soldiers “to a level of importance comparable to that of more prominent public officials” (11).

As the United States relentlessly expanded westward during the nineteenth century the competition for mineral resources and space led to conflict between frontier settlers, miners, ranchers, and American Indians. Thus, “the Apaches fell into this irreversible march of conquest” (291). The annexation of Texas to the United States incited the War with Mexico, which concluded with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The June 1846 arrival of U.S. General Stephen Watts Kearny with 1,586 soldiers that comprised the Army of the West began the enforcement of an Indian policy of negotiation, subjugation, removal, and extermination. The 1850s was a decade of expansion into a southwestern New Mexico plagued by violence and Apache resistance to Anglo encroachment. In 1854, Indian Agent Edmund A. Graves cautioned, “You will either take care of them or destroy them” (289).

Kiser summarizes the struggle between Apaches and U.S. soldiers “as a clash of competing cultural imaginations of the landscape that originated in vastly differing pasts, presents, and desired futures” (9). General Kearny assured settlers that soldiers could provide protection from hostile Indians. Yet, throughout the late 1840s and 1850s, U.S. dragoons, mounted riflemen, and infantry endured a punishing environment, endemic malaria, equipment shortages, poor living conditions, low morale, and fruitless campaigns, which Kiser describes as “a series of blunders that defined antebellum New Mexico Indian affairs” (17). Cyclical violence resulted from short-lived treaties, longstanding animosity between Apaches and Mexicans, Indian raids, stolen livestock, the misidentification of innocent Apaches, as well as miscommunications between Indian agents, governors, military officers, and Apache leaders. U.S. infantry soldiers were ineffective against mounted Apaches, while dragoons and mounted riflemen struggled to overcome scorched-earth tactics. Kiser notes, “Outnumbered, destitute of provisions, and short on ammunition, the dragoons were in a near-helpless situation” (194).

Civil and military officials adopted a mixture of diplomacy and force that spiraled into a war of attrition by 1856. The U.S. military established numerous outposts, such as Forts Fillmore, Thorn, Craig, and Buchanan, but poor location often minimized their effectiveness. Attempts to relocate nomadic Apaches to reservations failed, providing tribes with rations proved unsustainable, and the illegal trade of plundered livestock, arms, and liquor further complicated matters. Kiser determines that American misperceptions of Apache culture produced ineffective Indian policies that failed to achieve the desired transformation of the western frontier. The author concludes that, “relations with the Apaches were far worse in 1861 than they had been when the territory came under U.S. control in 1846” (291). Kiser’s skillfully crafted study provides a detailed analysis of antebellum military history in southwestern New Mexico.