For more than 120 years our people, the Chiricahua Apaches, now the Fort Sill Apache Tribe have sought to return to our New Mexico homeland. As chairman of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe, my goal is to fulfill this long-held dream.

As reported in the Albuquerque Journal on Dec. 18th, the tribe filed a lawsuit against Gov. Susana Martinez and her administration in the New Mexico Supreme Court asserting that the governor is violating state statute in failing to recognize the Fort Sill Apaches as a New Mexico tribe.

Unfortunately in response to this necessary suit, the governor’s office issued a statement that made some inaccurate assertions, most notably that the Fort Sill Apache is not a New Mexico Tribe.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In 1886 the U.S. government took our Apache ancestors as prisoners of war from the lands where they once lived in southwestern New Mexico and southeastern Arizona. When they were taken, the government promised to return them within two years.

That did not happen. Instead tribal members endured 28 years of imprisonment and eventual release in Oklahoma without a designated home.