Jicarilla Apache Case Study

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Question 1: The Jicarilla Apache tribe is located in the central northern part of New Mexico in the United States. This has been the primary region of the tribe for many centuries, but it has dwindled due to the expansion of Spanish, and then American settlements throughout northern New Mexico. In many ways, some of the ancient lands of the Jicarilla Apache are still inhabited. The tribe stills lives on these lands in the 21st century. Question 2: Yes, the Spanish forcibly removed the Jicarilla Apache tribes from their ancestral lands in the 1700s, and furthermore, more land was taken due to the increasing expansionist policies of the American government throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The policies of Manifest Destiny and the Indian Wars were a major part of the violent actions taken by the American government to remove the Jicarilla Apache from their ancestral lands. The Ollero and Llanero bands lost battles with the American 1st Cavalry at the Battle of Cieneguilla in 1854, which resulted in vast amounts of land being taken by the U.S. federal government. In one instance, Lt. John W. Davidson lost a pitched battle with the Jicarilla Apache, but then exaggerated the aftermath of this attack to promote more violent military measures: “His inflated and inaccurate report of the …show more content…

However, the federal government often exploited the Jicarilla Apache’s natural resources by taking oil, and other natural resources without seeking consent. The federal government then financially repaid ($9.15 million) the Jicarilla Apache tribe for these stolen natural resources in the early 1970s. These legal aspects of the Jicarilla Apache tribe define the somewhat ambiguous aspects of ownership and land rights, which have historically been a barrier to tribal sovereignty throughout the 20th

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