The Apache People are Native North Americans of the Southwest composed of six culturally related groups.
They speak a language that has various dialects and belongs to the Athabascan branch of the Nadene linguistic stock.
Their ancestors entered the area about 1100. The Navaho, who also speak an Athabascan language, were once part of the Western Apache.Other groups East of the Rio Grande along the mountains were the Jicarilla, the Lipan, and the Mescalero groups.
In West New Mexico and Arizona were the Western Apache, including the Chiricahua, the Coyotero, and the White Mountain Apache.
The Kiowa Apache in the early southward migration attached themselves to the Kiowa, whose history they have since shared.
Subsistence in historic times consisted of wild game, cactus fruits, seeds of wild shrubs and grass, livestock, grains plundered from settlements, and a small amount of horticulture.
The social organization involved matrilocal residence, a rigorous mother-in-law avoidance pattern, and working for the wife's relatives. The Apache are known principally for their fierce fighting qualities. They successfully resisted the advance of Spanish colonization, but the acquisition of horses and new weapons, taken from the Spanish, led to increased intertribal warfare.
The Eastern Apache were driven from their traditional plains area when (after 1720) they suffered defeat at the hands of the advancing Comanche.
Relations between the Apache and the settlers gradually worsened with the passing of Spanish rule in Mexico. By the mid-19th century when the United States acquired the region from Mexico, Apache lands were in the path of the American westward movement.
The futile but strong resistance that lasted until the beginning of the 20th century brought national fame to several of the Apache leaders—Cochise, Geronimo, Mangas Coloradas, and Victorio.
Remnants of the Apache now live in reservations in Arizona, where they number some 11,500.

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