Dispatches from the Fort Apache Scout: White Mountain and Cibecue Apache History Through 1881 - Softcover

Davisson, Lori; Perry, Edgar; The Original Staff Of The White Mountain Apache Cultural Center

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0816532117 ISBN 13: 9780816532117

Publisher: University of Arizona Press, 2016

Synopsis

In the 1970s, the White Mountain Apache Tribe and the Arizona Historical Society began working together on a series of innovative projects aimed at preserving, perpetuating, and sharing Apache history. Underneath it all was a group of people dedicated to this important goal. Dispatches from the Fort Apache Scout is the latest outcome of that ongoing commitment.

The book showcases and annotates dispatches published between June 1973 and October 1977, in the tribe’s Fort Apache Scout newspaper. This twenty-eight-part series of articles shared Western Apache culture and history through 1881 and the Battle of Cibecue, emphasizing early encounters with Spanish, Mexican, and American outsiders. Along the way, rich descriptions of Ndee ties to the land, subsistance, leadership, and values emerge. The articles were the result of the dogged work of journalist, librarian, and historian Lori Davisson along with Edgar Perry, a charismatic leader of White Mountain Apache culture and history programs, and his staff who prepared these summaries of historical information for the local readership of the Scout.

Davisson helped to pioneer a mutually beneficial partnership with the White Mountain Apache Tribe. Pursuing the same goal, Welch’s edited book of the dispatches stakes out common ground for understanding the earliest relations between the groups contesting Southwest lands, powerfully illustrating how, as elder Cline Griggs, Sr., writes in the prologue, “the past is present.”

Dispatches from the Fort Apache Scout is both a tribute to and continuation of Davisson’s and her colleagues’ work to share the broad outlines and unique details of the early history of Ndee and Ndee lands.

About this title

About the Author:

John R. Welch is a professor at Simon Fraser University, jointly appointed in the Department of Archaeology and the School of Resource and Environmental Management. He has worked for and with the White Mountain Apache Tribe for three decades and currently serves as adviser on protecting  sacred sites and on the board of the Fort Apache Heritage Foundation, a nonprofit he helped the tribe establish to rescue the Fort Apache and Theodore Roosevelt School National Historic Landmark.

Review:

“An in-depth regional history and thorough look at Ndee early contacts with Spanish, Mexican, and American outsiders.”—Janet Cantley, Curator at the Phoenix Heard Museum

“Lori Davisson and Edgar Perry are regarded as two of the foremost historians of the Western Apaches. These articles, based on primary source material, fill a much-needed void concerning the relationships between the Americans and Western Apaches.”—Edwin R. Sweeney, author of From Cochise to Geronimo: The Chiricahua Apaches, 1874–1886 

“For those of us who were privileged to know her as a friend and colleague, Lori Davisson epitomized a generosity of spirit and selfless devotion to the historian’s craft that transcended cultural barriers. Thanks to this welcome compilation of articles that originally appeared in the White Mountain Apache tribal newspaper, Lori’s valuable history of the Ndee is now available to a broad audience of scholars and general readers.”—Bruce J. Dinges, Arizona Historical Society

"Grounded in some of our old people's memories and what some of the first visitors to our land wrote down, this book is worth reading. It shows how Fort Apache became the gateway through which the non-Indians marched into our lives and changed them forever."—Ronnie Lupe, Chairman, White Mountain Apache Tribe

“The only book of its kind.”—Nancy J. Parezo, co-author of Paths of Life: American Indians of the Southwest and Northern Mexico
 

 “A book well worth including in your collection.”—Journal of Arizona History

“Turning newspaper accounts into a book is not an easy task, but Welsh has done an excellent job of melding short pieces into a narrative account from the Ndee perspective.”—Southern Historical Quarterly
 

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Arizona Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0816532117
• ISBN 13: 9780816532117
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 184
• Editor: Welch John R.