There's also an Ysleta Tigua Pueblo in El Paso. They're related peoples. Ysleta Pueblans fled the Pueblo Revolt in the 1680s. There's also a Piro Manso Tiwa group near Las Cruces that isn't recognized.
More of Saenz's claims. Some of this is similar to Maria Naylin's claims, all these Apache claimed to have hidden out from the biggest manhunt in US history that involved a quarter of the entire army.
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http://www.hcn.org/issues/45.17/an-okie-apache-fights-his-kin-to-build-a-casino-and-bring-his-people-home?b_start:int=6#body....The most prominent of these groups are the Chihene Nde' Nation of New Mexico, which consists primarily of descendants of Warm Springs Apaches who once resided on scattered Spanish land grants throughout southwest New Mexico, and the Chiricahua Apache Nde' Nation, made up of people who claim Chiricahua descent. The two groups each have about 1,200 members.
The Chihene Nde' Nation is a nonprofit corporation with an elected tribal council. According to Chairman Manuel Sanchez, who lives in Los Angeles, would-be tribal members must prove their ancestors were indigenous to the general area of the land grants.
The Chihene Nde' Nation has worked to get official tribal recognition from the BIA for more than 30 years, an effort that the Fort Sill Apache Tribe -- unwilling to give up its status as the only legal heir to the Apaches who once dwelled in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona -- has emphatically opposed.
Haozous contends that there were no remnant populations of Chiricahua or Warm Springs Apache left in southwest New Mexico or southeast Arizona after Geronimo's surrender in 1886. "I don't think there were any of our people left there," he says firmly. "They were threatened with death if they stayed after Geronimo's surrender. Family is extremely important to our people, yet you never hear anyone talking about family members being left behind after 1886, or of anyone going back to visit family members. If there were Chiricahua or Warm Springs Apache left behind in our ancestral homeland, our people would know it."
"Well, I am proof that he's wrong," says Joe Saenz, a Chiricahua who owns and operates WolfHorse Outfitters in Arenas Valley, N.M., six miles east of Silver City.
Saenz serves as secretary of State for the Chiricahua Apache Nde' Nation, a loosely knit group of people who claim to be of Chiricahua extraction. "Though we do have one member who reviews applications,
we generally take people at their word, and, if appropriate, we point them to San Carlos, Mescalero or Fort Sill to help them establish their family history," says Saenz, who feels his group's lack of rigid structure is in keeping with traditional Apache governmental style.
Saenz estimates that there are about 250 people of verifiable Chiricahua and Warm Springs Apache extraction living in the Silver City area. Chickie Beltran, a member of the Chiricahua Apache Nde' Nation who lives in Pinos Altos, N.M., seven miles north of Silver City, echoes the statement: "(Haozous) is obviously not familiar with the free Apaches that were never taken prisoner or put on a reservation."
"Or he refuses to accept them for political reasons," Chickie's sister, Gloria, adds. "Our grandfather's mom was in Geronimo's band and she married into the Torres family. That's how a lot of Apache evaded capture -- they pretended to be Mexican."
Indeed, according to Dan L. Thrapp's book, Conquest of Apacheria, a group of Chiricahua, called the Bronco Apaches, refused to surrender and took refuge in Mexico's Sierra Madre. They continued to raid across the border into Arizona until 1924, 40 years after the U.S. government declared "mission accomplished" in the Apache Wars.
Even Darrow, the Fort Sill Apache's tribal historian, admits that not all Chiricahua were taken prisoner or moved onto reservation lands.
"There were a small number, probably fewer than 20, of Chiricahua Apaches who were not imprisoned or on reservations when the majority were imprisoned," Darrow wrote in an email.
In any event, members of both Nde' Nations (Nde', meaning "The People," is the Apaches' word for themselves) tend to be skeptical of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe's motives....
