Members of the Yavapai-Apache Nation are trekking to San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation about 100 miles east of Phoenix.
At Yavapai College Verde Valley Campus, Thursday, Dec. 1, Yavapai-Apache Nation members marked the official blessing and beginning of the journey, which officials estimate will take three weeks. Thanks to a National Parks Service grant, a geographic information system technician will be accompanying the party, mapping along the way.
The 180-mile trip is an attempt to navigate and document a forced march of approximately 1,500 American Indians of Yavapai and Apache lineage from the Verde Valley to San Carlos. The event, known as The Exodus by the Yavapai-Apache, occurred in February and March 1875. In 1900, only 200 or so Yavapai and Apache were allowed to return to their homeland in the Verde Valley, forming one nation out of two tribes marked by distinct cultures.
After a 125-year gap, members of the Yavapai-Apache Nation possessed no means to accurately map the dangerous route its ancestors had taken across the state.
When Yavapai-Apache Nation Administrator of Preservation and Technology Judie Piner realized the full extent of the situation after a chance encounter with a GIS technician at Denver-based Compass Data, she and her peers decided to pursue grant options through the NPS. The stepping off point became the sight of the Rio Verde Indian Agency, now occupied by Yavapai College Verde Valley Campus and its vineyards.
Compass Data’s Everett Phillips, the technician tasked with accompanying the party, said that it is a “huge distance to travel” on foot, made more arduous by the unpredictable weather throughout December.
The task of walking the route as closely as possible while mapping, Phillips added, will be extremely difficult, as the terrain between the Verde Valley and San Carlos has changed markedly over the intervening period. Cities and towns, not to mention infrastructure such as roads, bridges and even man-made lakes, now stand in the way of the party’s path.
“What you might think of as modern conveniences become major challenges,” Phillips said, adding that the trip will demand a lot of participants as they trace the partly forgotten route.
“We are here to begin a journey through history,” Yavapai-Apache Nation Vice-Chairman Larry Jackson said. “This journey will be for our children, who have not heard about this history in their schools.”
In addition to mapping the route for future use, the party will be taking photographs and video, identifying original campsites and compiling other data for inclusion in the Place Names Map at the Yavapai-Apache Cultural Center in Camp Verde. A documentary film is also planned.
