I Fought a Good Fight: A History of the Lipan Apaches by Sherry Robinson (review)

To those who want to turn back the pages of history to a more genteel time, this book will offer a soothing ointment. Author Sherry Robinson is a journalist who is fascinated by the eastern Apache Indians, who are generally called Lipans. The title for the study perhaps says it all: “I Fought a Good Fight.” Obviously, such a title suggests that there is no real thesis to the book, and the rationale for publication seems to be a dearth of studies on these people. In the introduction, the author claims that the Eastern Apaches were members of a “Confederacy of about a dozen autonomous groups, each moving frequently over vast distances” (xiii). Just how such people could have a “confederacy” and still have “autonomous” bands is never explained; indeed, while recent historians have argued over just what such terms actually mean, Robinson is oblivious to the debate.

Robinson starts with the early Spanish entradas, discusses briefly the disaster at San Saba, without giving much attention to what caused it or who actually raided the mission, and then she works her way through the colonial period into Texas statehood. The next period of interest is the Civil War and the Indian wars that followed. During all these discussions of events, there is never a clear understanding of exactly who the Lipan Apaches were or their numbers. Of course, it must be admitted that Spaniards, Texans, and American military authorities never fully came to such an understanding themselves. The author’s handling of the 1850s also overemphasizes raids and counter raids, when in fact most of the reports in newspapers regarding such raids were exaggerations. Indeed, during the late 1840s and 1850s the American government and many members of the American military in Texas sought treaties and established Indian reservations. Robinson is oblivious—or wishes to ignore—the actions of Texas Rangers who sought to break up such reservations and even attacked federal troops during the effort. The last few chapters discuss the movement to the Mescalero Reservation and twentieth-century Indian policy; yet the author says very little about the historiography of the Wheeler-Howard Act, the massive numbers of Indians who volunteered for service during World War II, or the policies of termination and self-determination that followed in the 1950s and 1960s.

This is a book where the author uses old, standard sources, many of which have long since been seriously questioned by historians. The list of frequently cited work includes that of Walter Prescott Webb (the author apparently being totally unaware of Webb’s admission later in life that his study of the Texas Rangers was racist and wrong), Anna Muckleroy, Joseph Milton Nance, William Dunn, and John Henry Brown, to name just a few. There is no attempt to separate primary sources in the bibliography like Brown (who was part of the Weatherford “Ranger” group that attacked federal troops guarding the Indians at the Brazos Agency) from secondary sources. Readers who know nothing about the Lipan Apaches will find the book an interesting read, but serious historians will wince in anguish over the author’s failure to differentiate between reliable sources and those that must be viewed with considerable suspicion. Robinson has demonstrated quite clearly that while journalists tell stories, historians explain the events behind them.