A Study of the Apache Indians by Albert H. Schroeder

[naiches2]

Only for those who are truly deeply passionate about the study of Apache history. I've been looking for this book for a quarter of a century, and now it's here.
Here:link
You can take file PDF there.

[ouroboros]

Many thanks naiches2 for the link!

[kingsleybray]

Very useful indeed to all serious Apache researchers! Are Parts I to III available online as well?

I'm not an Apache specialist, but wanted to ask what do the experts on American-tribes think about the possible connection from the Jocome, mentioned in late 17th and 18th century Spanish sources, to the Chokonen band of Chiricahua Apache in the 19th century?

[ouroboros]

Jul 2, 2022 10:17:03 GMT -5 kingsleybray said:

I'm not an Apache specialist, but wanted to ask what do the experts on American-tribes think about the possible connection from the Jocome, mentioned in late 17th and 18th century Spanish sources, to the Chokonen band of Chiricahua Apache in the 19th century?

Interesting question. I am neither a specialist nor an expert, and my knowledge of the history of Native American peoples is rather limited. I have read sometime ago the article by Forbes, 'The Janos, Jocomes, Mansos, and Sumas Indians', New Mexico Historical Review, 32, 2, 1957, pp. 319-334, which presents some interesting arguments for the identification of the Jocome with the Chokonen.

He argues that the Jocomes had a definite homeland which is located in the territory between the Pima-Sobaipuris territory of the San Pedro River Valley and the Chiricahua Mountains, and between the Gila River valley and the northern border of Opateria" (p. 321). This in turn would overlap with the territory of the Chiricahua. So Forbes argues that name Chiricahua replaced after 1710 the name Jocome.

The second argument is that the very name "Jocome" is a Spanish derivation of the Nde word "Chokonen".

The first argument is in my opinion the strongest.

It is an exciting hypothesis but Forbes in my opinion is to eager to ascribe Athapascan language affiliation for groups for whom there is little evidence  - e. g. for him the Janos, the Jocomes, and even the Jumano of Texas were Athapascans. As Schroeder pointed out, the Apaches were named as a separate group from the Jocome and the recorded traits of warfare practiced by them are not similar to those practiced by the Apaches, but to Yuman speaking groups.

However the fact that the name Jocomes dissapears in the XVIII century makes the possibile that they were indeed absorbed by the Apaches. I am very fond of Gary Clayton Anderson's thesis of the Apacheanization of the Southwest and it could be that the Jocomes were apacheanizated during the XVIII century.

[kingsleybray]

Here is a link to a very useful summary article by A. H. Schroeder, 'Shifting for Survival in the Spanish Southwest', which fits the Apache experience in the 17th-18th centuries into a wider regional context.


digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2050&context=nmhr

He sums up the evidence on Jocome-Gila Apache alliance and raiding in the 1680s-1710 timeframe like this (pp 300-301):

"[p. 300] Northern Gila Apaches to the west
of the Rio Grande continued to hammer the Zuni pueblos, while
the Apaches of southern New Mexico ranged south of the present
international border in the early 1680'S. In 1684 the latter formed
an alliance with the Sumas, Janos, and Jocomes of western Chihuahua and eastern Sonora.33
During the 1690'S a vanguard of southern Gila Apaches, in
company with Janos and Jocomes of northern Mexico and southeastern Arizona, began attacking Opata Indians in Sonora, Sobaipuri Indians along the upper San Pedro River of present southeastern Arizona, and mission rancherias which were expanding
north at this time. By the opening of the eighteenth century these
Apaches began to use the Chiricahua Mountain area as a home
[p.301]
base, absorbing or displacing the local Jocomes in the process."

The way I see it is that the Jocome were a non-Apache, non-Athapaskan speaking group. They became tightly allied to the Gila Apache from the 1680s into the mid-18th century, ultimately merging into the Chiricahua Apache as the Chokonen band or division. I don't agree with Forbes that the Jocomes (and others) were always of Apache stock. It seems possible that the Nedhni were derived in a similar way from the Janos people.