Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Photo: The Old San Carlos Memorial is located in Peridot on the San Carlos Apache Reservation. (Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ)
Nestled within the Tonto National Forest in Arizona is Oak Flat – home to one of the largest undeveloped copper deposits on Earth.
The ore could be worth a fortune to the mining companies planning to extract it, but to many Apache people, Oak Flat’s value can’t be measured in dollars.
They are connected to it – culturally and spiritually – and have been fighting to save it.
KJZZ’s Gabriel Pietrorazio explores the region’s deep Apache roots, in part one of this two-part series.
Chi’chil Biłdagoteel — the Apache name for Oak Flat — has been a spiritual site for generations of Apaches.
Resolution Copper’s No. 10 shaft, the deepest single lift mine shaft in the U.S., overlooks the Oak Flat campground in the Tonto National Forest. (Photo: Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ)
From coming-of-age and sunrise ceremonies to picking acorns underneath Emory oak trees, it’s also where some believe angels — called the Gaan — or mountain spirits reside among minerals beneath the surface.
San Carlos Apache Chairman Terry Rambler has deep ties to this land east of the Valley.
“My great-grandmother, she was from that area: Winkelman, Superior, and Oak Flat. My people, Aravaipa, in Apache they’re called Tsé Binesti’é. That means Surrounded by Rocks clan. So when you’re in the area, you can just know why my ancestors were given that name.”
Rambler’s relatives resided in the rugged Pinal Mountains, and are among at least eight Apache clans and two Western Apache bands that lay claim to Oak Flat.
In all, about a dozen modern-day federally recognized tribes in the Southwest maintain cultural connections there, including the Hopi, Zuni, and Four Southern Tribes: Tohono O’odham, Ak-Chin, Salt River Pima-Maricopa, and Gila River.
Apaches past and present, arguably, prized it the most.
Apache Stronghold founder Wendsler Nosie Sr. speaks about their ongoing religious battle for Oak Flat in 2023.
More than 60 Western Apache clans — some now extinct — and differing bands roamed the borderlands of the Southwest from modern-day Flagstaff, Ariz. to eastern New Mexico and even into Mexico.
Violence brewed between U.S. settlers, Mexicans, and Apaches.
Even the Mexican state of Sonora began, in 1835, paying out bounties for Apache scalps: 100 pesos per male, 50 pesos per female, and 25 pesos per each child under age 14.
Despite the 1848 Mexican-American War ending with the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, tensions still escalated.
Settlers encroached on Apache homelands, bringing ranching, mining, cattle, timber, and railroad interests with them to the West.
The mass migration, in part, led to the Apache Wars, a series of armed conflicts spanning decades with the U.S. Army.
Then, the Treaty of Santa Fe — an 1852 truce — was ratified and supposed to cease hostilities.
Wendsler Nosie Sr. speaks to the crowd about their ongoing religious struggle at the Apache holy site. (Photo: Gabriel Pietrorazio / KJZZ)
Jeffrey Shepherd is a history professor at The University of Texas at El Paso.
“Apaches broke it. Americans broke it. The military broke it. Mexicans broke it. They didn’t care, they just ignored it. Then there were some bands of Apaches that said, ‘This treaty doesn’t cover us. We don’t want peace. We don’t want to let people through here. Why should we trust you?’”
Two years later, Mexico sold 29,670 square miles of soil to the U.S. for $10 million through the Gadsden Purchase — eventually leading to the formation of the Arizona and New Mexico territories — with the 1863 Arizona Organic Act amid the Civil War.
At the same time, the U.S. still had to deal with Apaches in the West.
Marcus Macktima (San Carlos Apache) is an assistant history professor at Northern Arizona University.
“A lot of superintendents are saying, ‘Hey, we’re kind of thinking we should just give up the eastern half of the Arizona Territory to the Apaches, because there’s no way we’ll ever be able to control them.’”
Warfare ensued for almost four decades, with the U.S. still trying to get rid of Apaches until 1886 when Chiricahua Apache leader Geronimo surrendered near Skeleton Canyon — 30 miles northeast of modern-day Douglas, Ariz., near the New Mexico border.
Even then, renegade Apaches still raided northern Mexico until 1915, Macktima noted.
“The reports from military say that these tribes are just kind of wandering around. They don’t really have a reason to be in these places. That’s just not the case. The people knew what they were doing, and we had a cyclical nature to our culture, but in specific places at specific times, and Oak Flat was a part of that.”
They were forced out of Oak Flat in the 1870s.
In one horrific incident, 75 Apache warriors near Oak Flat plummeted to their deaths off a sheer cliff — later named Apache Leap – located just on the outskirts of present-day Superior.
Aravaipa Pinal Apaches, in particular, were persecuted.
Federal and territorial government officials sanctioned militarized citizen gangs to essentially track down and kill families.
More than 380 Apache deaths were documented in 35 encounters between 1859 and 1874, according to Simon Fraser University anthropology professor John Welch, a former historic preservation officer for the White Mountain Apache Tribe.
Terry Rambler recalled those days.
“The rifles defeated the bows and arrows, and so our people, including my great-grandmother, were herded like cattle from that area to Old San Carlos. They had the help of the U.S. soldiers and the PR campaign by the local papers, depicting us as savages and that we were in the way of Manifest Destiny.”
California lawmakers this week voted to support four new bills by Assemblymember James Ramos (Serrano/Cahuilla/D-CA), the state’s first and only Native American legislator.
All four passed with full support, according to Asm. Ramos’ office.
One bill creates a three-year pilot project granting peace officer status to California tribes in limited capacity.
Another bill involves campaign finance and government ethics.
A third bill focuses on suicide prevention by having experts work with state transportation to make bridges safer where suicide attempts have happened.
The fourth bill seeks to have the California State University system work with tribes to find land for respectfully reburying Native American remains.
All four bills now move to the Senate.
Get National Native News delivered to your inbox daily. Sign up for our daily newsletter today.
