Apaches... fantasmas de la Sierra Madre by Manuel Rojas

[philslf]

Hi all,

I’ve been searching this book for quite a long time. I hoped that the new 2018 edition would be easier to find but … nope.
Does anyone ever read it?

From the excerpts I could read, it seems a rather strange shot at mexicanising Apaches, especially Chiricahuas. He said that Apache territory was in Mexico before the US-Mexico war and the Gadsden purchase and that the main battles have been fought in old Mexico. If technically not false, it sounds weird, knowing Apache feelings towards Mexicans in general. In this book, Manuel Rojas tells something that I’ve never heard before and it sounds quite astonishing. He claims that Geronimo was born and baptized in Arispe. I always thought that Goyahkla was born on the Gila River and not Christianized before his old age. 

"Moreover, its most famous warrior, Geronimo, ‘was baptized in Arizpe’, the researcher revealed. The work includes a copy of a document from the parish of the Assumption of Mary, in Arizpe, Sonora, which certifies that Jose Geronimo (Indian), son of Hermenegildo Moteso and Catalina Chagori, was baptized on June 1st at eighteen hundred and twenty-one.

It is time to say it: Mangas Coloradas and Geronimo are natives of their mountains, the beloved ‘blue mountains’ of the Sierra Madre. I have the same right to affirm this as my Anglo colleagues, who assume it in today’s Arizona, without presenting any documentary evidence in some thirty publications… Welcome to the controversy,” Rojas said in the book.

Thoughts?

[Nahi]

Hi philslf,
I am also looking for that book but it is really difficult to achieve it (at least from Europe).
I have taken a look to a copy of that certificate of baptism which is very interesting.

I would appreciate any info, if you get to know anything.

Thanks

[Marcos]

I came across this book from one of my Chihuahua history pages. I was able to track it down via a interlibrary loan from the University of New Mexico. It says that there are only 1000 copies of this edition.

It is in Spanish and my family is from northern Chihuahua, near the area of Tres Castillos where Victorio and his band were surrounded and killed. The history of Chihuahua was ruled by the Apacheria (constant warfare) which prevented large populations/cities for 200 years and only ended with Victorio's (who was Mexican and had been taken captive as a child) death.

The range of the Apache stretched from the Sierra Madre of the states of Chihuahua/Sonora/Durango all the way to what we think of as traditional Apache lands of New Mexico/Arizona. So yes, while they may have ended up as Native American tribes, all the western tribes were actually Native Mexican tribes until the border shifted.

[Manuel Salcido]

Rojas afirma que Geronimo es nacido en Arizpe, sin embargo tengo entendido que en un atauqe contra mexicanos, despues de haberle asesinado a su familia y que Geronimo los combate con ferocidad, los soldados ante el peligro inminente de perder la vida, se encomiendan a su santo San Geronimo, pidiendo perdon por sus pecados al creador y a partir de ahi los sobrevivientes soldados mexicanos, le llaman Geronimo, precisamente por San Geronimo, como es que ahora Rojas que encuentra una acta bautismal, con el nombre de Geronimo, dice y afirma que es del famoso guerrero apache. Para mi es una falsa coincidencia que la quiere hacer valer como la verdad.

[Arevalo Mescalero]

Mar 30, 2021 23:04:58 GMT -5 Marcos said:

I came across this book from one of my Chihuahua history pages. I was able to track it down via a interlibrary loan from the University of New Mexico. It says that there are only 1000 copies of this edition.

It is in Spanish and my family is from northern Chihuahua, near the area of Tres Castillos where Victorio and his band were surrounded and killed. The history of Chihuahua was ruled by the Apacheria (constant warfare) which prevented large populations/cities for 200 years and only ended with Victorio's (who was Mexican and had been taken captive as a child) death.

The range of the Apache stretched from the Sierra Madre of the states of Chihuahua/Sonora/Durango all the way to what we think of as traditional Apache lands of New Mexico/Arizona. So yes, while they may have ended up as Native American tribes, all the western tribes were actually Native Mexican tribes until the border shifted.

Absolutely. The Apaches were also in Coahuilla, like you said before the border shift. It's ridiculous for people (anglos) to think that "Native American" only goes to the US borders. Most of the land prior to the US was MEXICO and the Apaches lived in theses regions of Chihuahua, Durango, Coahuilla, and Sonora. Just because there is a border now doesn't take away from the territory and lands of the Apaches in Mexico. Still till this day. NDE