When those requests were consistently denied in favor of a relocation policy that served the interests of settlers and administrators rather than the Apache people, the decision to fight became the only remaining form of political assertion.

Lozen’s participation in the resistance was therefore not merely military.

She was part of a political act — the assertion, through force of arms, that the Apache people had rights that the United States was obligated to respect.

The specific choice to fight rather than to accept the conditions being offered was a political statement, and every individual who participated in the resistance was endorsing that statement with their body and their risk.

The political failure that produced the Victorio War — the bad faith of the reservation system, the corruption and incompetence of the Indian Bureau, the indifference of the federal government to the specific interests of Apache people — is part of the background against which Lozen’s story must be understood.