Near Chosa Draw, Eddy County
Pre-Contact Territory: New Mexico, Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, Texas, and Mexico
Language: Eastern Southern Athapaskan
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Traditional Homelands
The Lipan Apache Tribe is the descendent American Indian tribe of confederated eastern Apache bands that used to defend a homeland spanning from the Southern Great Plains to the Gulf of Mexico and who have had a long-standing existence in the vast area of Texas which pre-dates European settlements.
In the mid-1650s, the Lipan Pache developed trade with Pecos Pueblo.
The Lipan Apaches have entered into treaties, alliances, and pledges of friendship with the governments of Spain, Mexico, the German Confederation, and the United States. When Anglo settlers came to Texas in the early 1800s, the Lipan people traded bison, venison, hides, pecans, and other staples with them and, in general, helped the newcomers adapt to Texas. In 1838, President Sam Houston and the Republic of Texas formally acknowledged a friendship with the tribe through the Treaty of Live Oak Point.
From 1872-1875, the U.S. Army forceed Mescalero Apaches and a few Lipan Apaches onto a reservation in New Mexico.
Although some Lipan settled on the Texas Brazos Indian Reservation in 1855, most refused to comply. Their defiance resulted in prolonged military operations against them. While some Lipan found refuge in Mexico, others were forced by U.S. military to join the welcoming Mescalero Apache. Ithers joined the Plains Apache in Oklahima. Seventeen Lipan who resided near Fort Griffin, Texas were removed to Oklahoma in 1884. There they were incorporated into the Tonkawa, with whom they shared a reservation in present Kay County, Oklahoma.
Today, the Lipan Apache Tribe is made up by historical Lipan communities who have persisted intact in the Rio Grande Valley, South Texas, and the Big Bend region of West Texas and by the remnants of many other Lipan bands, all fused together as one tribal unit. The Tribe is represented by a tribal government, the Tribal Council, with a constitution and bylaws and is a full voting member of the National Congress of American Indians. Further, due to a federal law suit by Tribal Council Vice-chair Rev. Robert Soto, the United States Department of Interior has acknowledged the religious and legal rights of more than 200 tribal members to use eagle feathers in their ceremonial practices.
In 2022, five buffalo were returned to Lipan Apache lands in Texas through a program by the Nature Conservancy that has given 270 bison back to Indigenous nations throughout the country.
The Lipan Apache are currently recognized by the State of Texas and they have an application in process for federal recognition with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. There is also a group of Lipan Apache in Químicas del Rey, Mexico that is working to gain official recognition as the sole Apache remaining in Mexico.
