At the start of the Mexican-American War in 1846, many Apache bands promised U.S. soldiers safe passage through their land. When the U.S. claimed the former frontier territories of Mexico in 1848, Mangas Coloradas signed a peace treaty, respecting them as conquerors of the Mexicans' land.
The Athabaskan people originally lived in what is now Alaska and Northern Canada. In the 1500s they began a slow migration South. The Athabaskan people we now know as Apaches migrated as far as southern Texas and Mexico.
Cochise was born about 1805 in an area that is now the northern Mexican region of Sonora, New Mexico, and Arizona as a member of the Chokonen-Chiricahua Apache tribe.
Present-day Lipan Apaches mostly live throughout the U.S. Southwest, in Texas, and on the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona, as well as with the Mescalero tribe on the Mescalero Reservation in New Mexico. The San Carlos and Mescalero tribes have federal recognition. The Lipan Apache Tribe is a state-recognized tribe headquartered in McAllen, Texas. Some Lipans also live in urban and rural areas throughout North America (Mexico, United States and Canada).
The Apache Tribe of Oklahoma consider themselves as having always been a distinct linguistic and cultural group. They are descendants of Athabascan-speaking Apache groups who have inhabited the Plains since the 15th century
The Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma is made up of the descendants of the Chiricahua and Warm Springs Apache people that lived in Southern New Mexico until 1886, when they were forcibly removed and held by the U.S. Government as prisoners in Florida for 28 years. The Chiricahua were the last American Indian group to be relocated to Indian Territory.