The ongoing debates about whose history is taught in American schools, whose stories are included in the historical narratives that shape how Americans understand their country, are debates about what America is and what it is for.

A historical narrative that includes Lozen — that acknowledges the specific character of the Apache resistance, the specific capabilities of the people the United States was fighting, the specific cost that the conquest of the Southwest imposed on the people who were there before the settlers — is a more accurate and more complete narrative than one that leaves her out.

The history of Indigenous people in the United States is not a history of passive victims waiting for their land to be taken.

It is a history of intelligent, capable people who fought for their homes and their way of life, who produced remarkable individuals under conditions of extreme pressure, and who, having lost the specific military confrontation with the United States, continued to survive, adapt, and resist in every available way.