The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 44, July 1940 - April, 1941 Page: 400

Southwestern Historical Quarterly

any money for their land in Texas, not even five or ten cents per
acre. When, however, there is so much interesting material in
a book as in Wave of the Gulf, one should not complain too much
of such slips as the ones just indicated.
R. L. BIESELE.
The University of Texas.
Federal Control of the Western Apaches, 1848-1886. Historical
Society of New Mexico, Publications in History, Volume
IX. By Ralph Hedrick Ogle.
Albuquerque, New Mexico: The University of New Mexico Press,
1940. Pp. viii, 259.
Apache! The very word has a terrifying ring. No other name
in all American history calls up such scenes of rapine and
plunder, diabolical cruelty, and general hellishness.
Before they had come within the scope of written history the
Apaches had left their Athapascan kinsmen in the Yukon and
Mackenzie river valleys and moved into the Southwest. The
eastern bands once lived in the southern Great Plains, but were
driven westward into the mountains by the Comanches early
in the eighteenth century. The western Apaches, with whom
this study deals, lived during historic times in a land bounded
on the east and west respectively by the prongs of Spanish
settlements extending into New Mexico and California. The
elements through the ages have struck that country with a
heavy hand. It is cut by gorges and canyons; here and there
are mountains, skirted by bad lands and separated by broad,
waterless, cacti-strewn plains and plateaus. No land in the
world was better calculated to toughen a primitive people or to
afford them safe retreats. The Apache's country fought for
him; but it must be added that the Apache gave his country
very substantial aid.
Dr. Ogle tells how the Anglo-Americans during the war with
Mexico took over the Apache problem which had vexed the
Spaniards for two centuries, without comprehending its nature
and without any plan or system. After the Civil War con-
fusion became confounded. The Indians were divided into nu-
merous tribes or bands with no central tribal control. They had
long since learned that it was easier to live by plunder than
by means recognized by white men as more legitimate, and
nearly as safe. On the side of the white people there were three
distinct elements working at cross purposes and often hostile,

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