Grant revoked the Chiricahua Reserve.
Executive Order—Revocation of Chiricahua Reserve
October 30, 1876
EXECUTIVE MANSION, October 30, 1876.
It is hereby ordered that the order of December 14, 1872, setting apart the following-described lands in the Territory of Arizona as a reservation for certain Apache Indians, viz: Beginning at Dragoon Springs, near Dragoon Pass, and running thence northeasterly along the north base of the Chiricahua Mountains, to a point on the summit of Peloncillo Mountains, or Stevens Peak Range; thence running south-easterly along said range through Stevens Peak to the boundary of New Mexico; thence running south to the boundary of Mexico; thence running westerly along said boundary 56 miles; thence running northerly, following substantially the western base of the Dragoon Mountains. to the place of beginning, be, and the same is hereby, canceled, and said lands are restored to the public domain.
U. S. GRANT
This has a peculiar history.
Grant was revoking the Chiricahua Reservation that had been set up in 1872, part of a series of on again, off again Apache Reservations in the Southwest, and in this case Arizona. In April he'd earlier shrunk the size of the White Mountain Reservation. The Indian Wars were very much on, of course, in 1876 and they'd remain on for along time thereafter in regard to the Apaches which are a group of bands, not one single band. The land ultimately became the Chiricahua National Monument. On October 20 of this year Donald Trump signed a law making the monument a National Park. In September of this year the Fort Sill Apaches purchased 55 acres of the old reservation which had been the territory of Cochise.
No formal treaty had ever been entered into concerning the Chiricahua Reserve and therefore there was nothing to restrain a unliteral executive move such as this.
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