Mescalero Apache: Sierra Blanca and the Reservation Wars
By Daniel R. Whitlock
Length4h 1m
About this audiobook
Sierra Blanca, the White Mountain, rises to nearly twelve thousand feet above southern New Mexico, and for the Mescalero it held everything. In late May the women climbed its eastern face before sunrise to cut the heavy hearts of the mescal, the plant that gave the people their Spanish name, and roasted them in pits while the grandchildren hauled the harvest down in hide sacks. From the mountain the bands moved with the seasons: the high country for piñon nuts and hunting in late summer, the low desert in winter, the Rio Grande pueblos for corn, cotton and news, and for the Natage band, the buffalo plains of the Llano Estacado.
Spanish iron and horses changed that world, and so did two centuries of the trade in captives. After the American conquest, the campaign of 1862-63 drove the Mescalero onto the Bosque Redondo on the Pecos. They walked away from that reservation in 1865. In 1873 the United States finally set aside a reservation in their own mountains, near Fort Stanton, and the fighting on the southern frontier went on around it.
The story runs on into the twentieth century. In 1913 Chiricahua prisoners of war, released after twenty-seven years, came to live at Sierra Blanca. The reservation built an economy on cattle and timber and weathered the push to terminate it after the Second World War. The mountain where women once cut mescal before sunrise now carries ski runs on its upper slopes, and the Mescalero Apache Tribe runs them.
Audiobook details
GenreHistory
Length4 hrs 1 min
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateSep 19, 2026
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Chapter 1: The Mountain That Holds Everything
2Chapter 2: Iron, Horses, and the Spanish Door
3Chapter 3: The Trade in People
4Chapter 4: Mangas Coloradas and the American Flood
5Chapter 5: The Long Walk to Bosque Redondo
Mostrar todos os capítulosVer menos
6Chapter 6: Fort Stanton and the 1873 Reservation
7Chapter 7: The Apache Wars on the Southern Frontier
8Chapter 8: Chiricahua at Sierra Blanca
9Chapter 9: Cattle, Timber, and the Ledger
10Chapter 10: The War Years and the Cold Wind of Termination
11Chapter 11: Sovereignty, Ski Runs, and the Modern Nation
12Chapter 12: Sierra Blanca, Still Standing
13About the Author
More from Daniel R. Whitlock
Blood and Oil: The Osage Reign of Terror, 1921-1931Daniel R. Whitlock4h 5m$6
The Tonquin's Wake: Astor's Fur Empire and the Nations of the Lower ColumbiaDaniel R. Whitlock3h 59m$6
The Dakota War of 1862Daniel R. Whitlock3h 31m$6
Between the Mountains and the Plains: The Jicarilla Apache StoryDaniel R. Whitlock4h 13m$6
The Ghost Dance and the Road to Wounded Knee: 1876-1890Daniel R. Whitlock4h 51m$6
The Great Sioux War: Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, and the Winter That Ended the PlainsDaniel R. Whitlock4h 3m$6
The Cheyenne Wars: Dog Soldiers, Roman Nose, and the Central PlainsDaniel R. Whitlock4h 52m$6
Smallpox on the Missouri: The Mandan, Hidatsa, and ArikaraDaniel R. Whitlock4h 13m$6
Comanche Rising: The Horse Lords of the Southern Plains, 1830-1875Daniel R. Whitlock5h 7m$6
A Brief History of IntelligenceMax S. Bennett12h 18m4.6 (6.6K)$29 · $0.00
The Daughter of AuschwitzTova Friedman, Malcolm Brabant7h 54m4.6 (16.7K)$26 · $0.00
Lily's PromiseLily Ebert, Dov Forman8h 54m4.6 (16.1K)$29 · $0.00
On Democracies and Death CultsDouglas Murray10h 38m4.6 (6.5K)$29 · $0.00
Across the RiverKent Babb11h 40m4.6 (927)$29 · $0.00
Balcony Over Jerusalem: A Middle East Memoir - Israel, Palestine and BeyondJohn Lyons12h 37m4.6 (1.4K)$33 · $0.00
BeyondStephen Walker15h 39m4.6 (3.2K)$33 · $0.00
Kings and PawnsHoward Bryant10h 9m4.6 (678)$29 · $0.00
No EscapeNury Turkel9h 30m4.6 (809)$28 · $0.00
Jubal Stone: U.S. Marshal: Blood Trail To Hell: A Western Adventure NovelCasey Nash3h 42m4.6 (3.2K)$18 · $0.00
Fall and RiseMitchell Zuckoff17h 23m4.6 (9.8K)$40 · $0.00
The SurvivorJosef Lewkowicz, Michael Calvin9h 22m4.6 (2.5K)$29 · $0.00
Always FaithfulThomas Schueman, Zainullah Zaki12h 12m4.6 (977)$29 · $0.00
The State of Society in France Before the Revolution of 1789 (Annotated)Alexis de Tocqueville17h 25m4.6 (1.2K)$2 · $0.00
All the Gallant MenDonald Stratton, Ken Gire5h 55m4.6 (11.8K)$24 · $0.00
Saint Joan (Annotated)George Bernard Shaw6h 20m4.6 (1.2K)$1.20 · $0.00
Medgar and MyrlieJoy-Ann Reid10h 52m4.5 (27.8K)$29 · $0.00
The History of the Peloponnesian War (Annotated)Thucydides24h 3m4.6 (1.1K)$2 · $0.00
Where the Birds Never SingJack Sacco10h 31m4.6 (3.8K)$29 · $0.00
Serviceman J: The Untold Story of an NZSAS SoldierJamie Pennell5h 51m4.6 (452)$24 · $0.00
You may also like
The NegroW. E. B. Du Bois6h 20m4.3 (477)$2.30
Life Among the Piutes: The First Autobiography of a Native American WomanSarah Winnemucca Hopkins9h 10m4.2 (1.4K)$1.99 · $0.00
The Last BalladWiley Cash14h 7m4.1 (14.4K)$33 · $0.00
Impossible Takes LongerDaniel Gordis11h 59m4.2 (488)$29 · $0.00
Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black HawkSauk chief Black Hawk5h 9m3.9 (2K)$1.99 · $0.00
Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black HawkSauk chief Black Hawk6h 58m4.0 (1.9K)$2 · $0.00
Tall Order: The Goh Chok Tong Story Volume 1Peh Shing Huei7h 53m4.2 (668)$9 · $0.00
The Whale Hunters of Montauk: Long Island's First ReservationsMargaret Ellsworth Hathaway4h 10m$6
The SikhsJohn James Hood Gordon4h 19m3.9 (32)$1 · $0.00
The Catawba Nation: River People of the Carolina PiedmontMargaret Ellsworth Boyd4h 40m$6
Three Years on the Plains: Observations of Indians, 1867-1870Edmund B. Tuttle5h 1m$2 · $0.00
Reading the English: Uncas and the Making of Native ConnecticutEleanor M. Crandall4h 29m$6
The Zuni and the Pueblo World: A History of Sovereignty and SurvivalMarcus Hale Whitfield4h 21m$6
The Red River War: Quanah Parker and the End of the Comanche Buffalo WorldDaniel K. Whitfield4h 11m$6
Sir William Johnson and the Six NationsWilliam Elliot Griffis7h 27m$1 · $0.00
The Autobiographies & Biographies of the Most Influential Native AmericansGeronimo, Charles A. Eastman, John Stevens Cabot Abbott, Black Hawk, Charles M. Scanlan35h 48m4.4 (12)$1 · $0.00
The Snake War and the Bannock War: Northern Paiute and Bannock ResistanceDuncan H. Ridgeway3h 56m$6
The Lipan Apache: Defiant People of the Texas BorderlandsMarcus T. Calloway4h 14m$6
Dummer's War: The Abenaki and the Fight for the Northern BorderlandsEleanor M. Chadwick3h 57m$6
Mayflower ChroniclesKathryn Brewster Haueisen11h 26m4.3 (88)$23 · $0.00