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Chief Loco: Apache Peacemaker. By Bud Shapard. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2010. xii, 364 pp. $34.95, isbn 978-0-8061-4047-6.)
The Apache chiefs Victorio, Cochise, and Geronimo gained notoriety in books and cinema as leaders of Native American tribes devoted to stealing livestock and killing whites and Mexicans along the southwestern U.S.Mexico border. Bud Shapard argues that Chief Loco, the leader of the Warm Springs band of Chiricahuas, was an advocate for peace that historians have ignored. Beginning in 1855, rhe chief sought accommodation with whites instead of warfare but was unsuccessful owing to government corruption, treachery, bickering, inconsistent policies, and Apaches who continued to raid. According to Shapard, Loco was rhe first chief to recognize that warfare would lead to "certain annihilation of the entire Warm...