Apache Wars

The Apache Wars were a series of armed conflicts between the United States Army and various Apache tribal confederations fought in the American Southwest between 1849 and 1886, though minor hostilities continued as late as 1924. They followed the 1846 Mexican-American War, after which the United States annexed territory from Mexico that both settlers and Apache tribes inhabited, and conflict grew as American settlers pushed into traditional Apache land for livestock, farming and mining; the Army built forts to fight Apache raiding parties and move tribes onto reservations. The United States, including Confederate forces from 1861 to 1865, fought the Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Mescalero, Lipan, Western and Plains Apache, and the wars ended in United States victory, effectively concluded by Geronimo's surrender in 1886 after more than five thousand soldiers had been deployed against him, though sporadic violence continued afterward.