Casino Ticket Home for Apaches…..
Posted by Pete | Posted in News | Posted on 26-02-2012
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Reference: Geronimo, His Own Story, The Autobiography of a Great Patriot Warrior, Published by Duffield, 1906, reprinted by Meridian, the Penguin Group, 1996……also see, Albuquerque Journal, Sunday, Feb. 2012, Casino Plan Ticket Home for Tribe by Rene Romo, for further reading…..
Since I started writing a few years ago, one of my favorite subjects has been the Apache Nation of the Southwestern United States and The Buffalo Soldiers who took a big part in fighting them. Victorio, of the Warm Spring Apache(Chi–hen-ne), Cochise of the Chiricahua (Cho-kon-en), Whoa of the Ned-ni Apache and Mangus Colorado of the Be-don-ko-he (Geronimo’s tribe), for the most part. There are others but for this writing this will cover it. The Apache people lived to roam and gather as they moved, sometimes staying in a place long enough to harvest crops, etc. They roamed Northern Mexico, what is now Arizona and New Mexico, but in those days it was just “Apache Territory”. Territory they were born in, considered their own. Territory that contained gold and silver, timber for building, grass for vast ranches, territory that the white man needed. And more than any other tribe, the Apache nation wanted their land and their freedom. You know the end of the story, from 1886 until 1913 we kept them prisoners of war…in Florida, Alabama and Oklahoma…. A few of them came to live with the Mescalero Apaches but most of them remained in Ft. Sill, Okla until this very day. Some time back they came up with some land down between Deming, NM and Lordsburg, NM, (Akela Flats) land that has not changed very much since they roamed it, and they wanted to build a casino on it. Governor Richardson said no….Now they are working on it again. The Interior Dept and Governor Martinez both have to give approval for this to happen. We really do not need another casino in New Mexico in my opinion, but it would be travelers on I-10, eastbound and westbound, that would support this venture….Governor Martinez and Dept of Interior, let them come home…Let them bring Geronimo’s bones back to the Apache Territory….Neither one of them, the Ft. Sill Apache or the bones of their loved ones belong in Oklahoma….LET THEM COME HOME…….126 YEARS LATER, PLEASE, LET THEM COME HOME….Pete Hester
I agree that the Apache and other Indian (Native American) peoples should be allow to go home if they so chose, but it is time that these people assimulate into the larger curlture, be it Anglo-European, Asian, African-American, or Hispanic. New Mexico probably does not need another casino, but New Mexico, or the nation, does not need significant portions of its population chosing to live apart, separated from the larger culture and in conflict with it. After 300 years, it is time that any people living in a larger, more dominant culture, assimulated into that culture and make a life for themselves within that culture, both contributing and benefiting from it. The Anglo portion of the population is facing the same pressure to assimulate as its population decreases due to low birth rate and the Hispanic population increases with a high birth rate. Of course, as the Hispanic population subsists on American junk food, packaged on hazwaste containers made from barrels of oil, their birth rate may decrease as well.
The greatness of America in the past has consisted in its ability to assimulate many diverse peoples and cultures into one, but we have largely failed to assimulate our own native American peoples. If the Apache is allowed to establish casinos, and other gambling establishments, on their own land while living comfortably apart from the larger culture with minuscule understanding of it other than a knowledge of how to act a vultures upon it for their own gain, then they will never become real Americans, preferring to be Apaches first, and Americans second, if that, secretly preferring ancient old ways to the fresh realities of the modern world.