TREATY OF SANTA FE, Chiricahua Apache Nation and the United States of America (1 July 1852, ratified March 1853)

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By the 1840s, the American people, armed with a sense of entitlement and an ideological commitment to the principle of Manifest Destiny, were encroaching into lands over which the Chiricahua Apache Nation had stewardship responsibilities.  Miners and settlers, encouraged by the U.S. government, caused unprecedented conflict with the Chiricahua Apache Nation.  By the late 1840s, the Chiricahua Apache Nation was fighting a war against the U.S. to stop territorial expansion miners into Chiricahua lands and aggressive wars against the Chiricahua people.  Skilled Chiricahua warriors, with extensive knowledge of the battlefield and superior tactics, could not be defeated militarily by the U.S., but nor could the Chiricahua Apache Nation match the resources and numbers of the U.S. Army.

In 1852, rather than continuing to commit their respective peoples to endless destruction and death, the Chiricahua Apache Nation and the U.S. negotiated a way to live alongside each other peacefully.  The Treaty of Santa Fe, entered into by the Chiricahua Apache Nation and the United States of America on 1 July 1852, is a solemn treaty still in force as the law of the United States, the law of the Chiricahua Apache Nation, and the law of the international legal system.  The express purposes of the Treaty of Santa Fe are to terminate the state of war between parties and establish peace, commerce, and friendship between the Chiricahua Apache Nation and the U.S.[1]

By negotiating and entering into the Treaty of Santa Fe, the Chiricahua Apache Nation and the U.S. reciprocally recognized each other’s sovereignty.  In sum, each treaty party recognized that the other party met the four required criteria for recognition as a state/nation under international law:  (1) the existence of a defined people that (2) live within a defined territory with a (3) government that exercises authority over its territory and its people while (4) engaging in relations with other states/nations. 

Furthermore, in the spirit of peace and friendship, the Chiricahua Apache Nation and the U.S. pledged to take measures to perpetuate their mutual desire for peace and harmony, including by preventing the citizens of one nation from attacking those of the other and by defining and punishing offenses against the peace.

COCHISE-HOWARD AGREEMENT OF 1872 (I need to get you the doc number)

The Treaty of Santa Fe did not expressly delineate the territory of the Chiricahua Apache Nation as the parties did not see it necessary to do so.  The absence of definitive boundaries, however, coupled with U.S. violations of the Treaty occasioned by American repeated refusal to enforce its own laws against trespass within Chiricahua lands and crimes against Chiricahua people, led to another war between the parties.  After a decade of vicious warfare, the parties met in 1872 at Council Rock in Arizona to resolve differences and otherwise elaborate the meaning of the Treaty of Santa Fe.

The parties, represented by Cochise and General Howard, in what came to be known as the “Cochise-Howard Agreement,” negotiated a peace that recommitted them to abiding by the terms of the Treaty of Santa Fe but also clearly delineated a “Chiricahua Reservation.”  In exchange for accepting peace with the U.S. and agreeing to cede much of Chiricahua ancestral lands, Cochise secured U.S. recognition of, and a commitment to defend and protect against unauthorized use or entry of any third parties, a large area of land that includes large parts of western and southern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona as sovereign Chiricahua territory.  The U.S. further committed to punish crimes against the Chiricahua Apache Nation and to otherwise redress violations of Chiricahua reserved rights.

The Cochise-Howard Agreement is best understood as a further elucidation, clarification, and codification of the principles and articles of the Treaty of Santa Fe, but it is not itself a treaty because Congress, in 1871, the year prior to the Agreement, passed a statute removing the power of the President to enter into treaties with Native nations and lodging that power solely with Congress.  Congress never made such a treaty subsequent to this statute.

SOVEREIGNTY OF THE CHIRICAHUA APACHE NATION

The U.S. neither kept its promises under the Treaty of Santa Fe or under the Cochise-Howard Agreement.  In fact, the U.S. withdrew its promised protection, leaving a vacuum for illegal, criminal, and destructive encroachment by invading miners, settlers, swindlers, and profiteers from both the private and public sector.  Moreover, the U.S. never provided justice, compensation, or reparations as promised.

Despite a century of subsequent practice in which the U.S. inflicted and allowed to be inflicted internment as prisoners of war, captivity on reservations, forcible relocations, and genocide on the Chiricahua Apache Nation, the U.S. is not released from its obligation to fulfill the terms of the Treaty and the Agreement, both of which have never been abrogated by Congress.  In fact, the U.S. government remains legally responsible.

Because of these two legal transactions, the sovereign Chiricahua Apache Nation retains the authority as well as the stewardship obligation to defend and protect the lands, waters, air, and spirit world within the Chiricahua Reservation, independently and in conjunction with local, private-sector, State, and federal partners.  We continue to honor the freedom of all beings respectfully to live on, use, and enjoy most areas within the Chiricahua Reservation.  Naturally, we protect the sanctity of tribal headquarters and sacred ceremonial spaces within our Reservation.

For reasons that have to do with politics and economics, the U.S. has failed to fulfill its treaty obligations to protect, compensate, and repair the Chiricahua Apache nation against harms suffered from third parties, and it has not sufficiently acknowledged the sovereign Chiricahaua Apache Nation.  We hope to work with all parties to help the U.S. live up to the entirety of its commitment under the Treaty of Santa Fe and the Cochise-Howard Agreement.

Shii-kayo.

[Link to the Articles of The Treaty of 1852]
[Link to the US Government Executive Orders Act of Congress Relating to Indian Reserves, 1855 to 1902] [Link to the Articles of The Treaty of 1852]

[1] For the Chiricahua Apache Nation f/k/a “The Apache Nation” Cuentas Azules, Blancito, Negrito, Capitan Simon, Capitan Vuelta, and Mangus Colorado, chiefa; for the U.S. Army, Col. E. V. Sumner, 9th Department (commanding) and Executive Office of New Mexico; for the U.S., John Greiner, Indian agent in and for the Territory of New Mexico, and acting Superintendent of Indian Affairs of New Mexico.