Dan Carlin in his latest Hardcore History talks at length about the Apaches. I don’t want to be too critical here, but if the Apache were acting like your average highwayman (OK, super average highwayman) I’m not surprised they were nearly wiped out. You be the judge, go by the site and have a listen. Or pick up a copy of the reference works he cites, listed here. He had high praise for the works of Eve Ball, you might want to start there.
For myself, I have a passing interest in the subject. I’ve read Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee, and I’ve read several accounts of Custer’s Last Stand, one or two from the native perspective.
If you are lazy, don’t think you can just watch the HBO film, Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee and get the cliff notes version of the book. The movie is a lame adaptation of the book that tries to make a linear narrative out of the varying stories contained in the book, told from what is essentially one native’s point of view. There were several scenes imposed on the storyline that were meant to assuage the guilt of the white eyes, but they just end up sticking out like sore thumbs.
I have more of an interest in the architecture that the natives left behind (as you might imagine) consequently I’m more interested in relics of the Pueblo cultures than I am in nomads like the Apache. Still, a line from a podcast I listened to recently keeps echoing in my head, a lamentation that we had the misfortune to stumble across the last vestiges of a stone age culture, at a time when Western society was ill equipped to do anything other than destroy it. So much insight into our shared history could have been gained if we had only taken the time to study the American natives, instead of pursuing the genocidal goal of converting or killing them.
Postscript
From the perspective of the Americans who lived here before the Europeans showed up and trashed the place, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee sends the wrong signal, tells the wrong story:
The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee: Native America From 1890 to the Present by David Treuer
