The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 84, July 1980 - April, 1981 Page: 111

Book Reviews

These fierce, warlike Apache bands were just as much, if not more,
of a barrier to the settlement of Arizona and New Mexico as the Co-
manches were to the settlement of the Plains.
The conflict that took place between the Apaches and the United
States army (1865-1886) was at times more terrifying than that be-
tween the Union and the Confederacy. It seems ironic that the Civil
War was fought to abolish Negro slavery in the South while Indian
slavery continued to exist in New Mexico. It was not until 1867 that
Congress passed an act to abolish the system of peonage in the territory
of New Mexico.
Following the Civil War, the American Indian policy shifted from
wars of extermination to creation of Indian reservations and back to
extermination until 1869, when President Ulysses S. Grant was per-
suaded by eastern humanitarians to adopt the "Peace Policy," by which
less destructive methods of pacifying and controlling the Indians were
used. This, however, did not end the struggle. Relentless warfare
against the Apaches eventually decimated their numbers to the point
that they agreed to be moved to reservations in Florida, Alabama, and
finally back to Arizona and New Mexico.
Numerous articles and books have been written on the Apaches of
the Southwest, but Worcester's work represents the most satisfactory
and thoroughly researched study attempted thus far. This reviewer
believes The Apaches will take its place alongside Richardson's Co-
manche Barrier as a classic study of the Indians in the Southwest.
Worcester, who is Lorin A. Boswell Professor of History at Texas
Christian University, is to be commended for the scholarship revealed
in this book.
San Angelo, Texas ESCAL F. DUKE
The Story of Palo Duro Canyon. Edited by Duane F. Guy. (Canyon,
Texas: Panhandle Plains Historical Society, 1979. Pp. v+226.
Illustrations, index. Paperback, $7.50; hardback, $12.50.)
The Palo Duro Canyon State Park, a spectacular gash in the high
plains of the Texas Panhandle, is one of the showplaces of the South-
west. Here walls soaring over 600 feet reveal a striking geological
record of some 230 million years. First occupied by early man 12,000
years ago, the canyon became the domain of the Apache and, later, the
Comanche who lived off the great herds of buffalo that grazed its broad
floor. Spanish and American explorers crossing the Panhandle mar-