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Struggle in the Southwest

On this day in 1861, the Apache wars began with an incident called the "Bascom Affair."

At that time, settlers with gold rush fever streamed westward and passed through traditional Apache territory in Arizona and New Mexico. Cochise, a Chiricahua Apache leader, became famous for his resistance to white settlement. In the Bascom Affair Cochise was unjustly arrested and shot, but he ultimately escaped to lead a series of skirmishes now called the Apache wars.

Painted seventy years after those conflicts, today's artwork highlights southwestern natives. In the 1920s and 30s, artist LaVerne Nelson Black created many paintings depicting the gatherings and events of Indian tribes such as the Jicarilla Apaches, including Jicarilla Apache Fiesta.

Black was interested in creating paintings with an interesting subject and composition rather than reproducing with ethnographic accuracy the way of life of Native Americans. This painting of a group of Apaches probably does not depict a specific event. The men, women, and children seated on horseback or in a covered wagon wear a variety of clothing, from traditional to modern. They are seen against a background of mesas, teepees, and a ramada (a shelter from the bright desert sun), meant to suggest a gathering in open scrub country.

Source: National Museum of American Art (CD-ROM) (New York and Washington D.C.: MacMillan Digital in cooperation with the National Museum of American Art, 1996).

Pictured: LaVerne Nelson Black, 1887–1939, Jicarilla Apache Fiesta, 1934, oil, 44 3/8 x 50 1/8 in., Smithsonian American Art Museum, Transfer from the General Services Administration.