One dimension of the Apache resistance that is often underemphasized in American popular accounts is the Mexican dimension.

The Chiricahua Apache homeland straddled the international border that was established between the United States and Mexico in the mid-nineteenth century, and the Apache resistance was conducted on both sides of that border.

Mexico had been at war with various Apache bands on and off for more than a century before the Victorio War.

The specific conflicts of the resistance period — including the Victorio War and the Geronimo campaigns — involved Mexican military forces as well as United States forces, and some of the most significant defeats of the Apache resistance came at the hands of Mexican rather than American soldiers.

The killing of Victorio at Tres Castillos in 1880 was the work of Mexican forces — specifically of the irregular fighters commanded by Colonel Joaquín Terrazas, who trapped Victorio’s band in a canyon and inflicted devastating casualties in an engagement that lasted several hours.