Journal of American History

June 2005

Book Review:

On the Bloody Road to Jesus: Christianity and the Chiricahua Apaches

Catherine Corman navigation to writing samples See the original on-line article

On the Bloody Road to Jesus: Christianity and the Chiricahua Apaches.
By Stockel H. Henrietta. (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2004. xxii, 314 pp. $29.95, ISBN0-8263-3208-0.)
Journal of American History, Volume 92, Issue 1, 1 June 2005, Pages 230–231
Published: 01 June 2005

 

The independent scholar H. Henrietta Stockel has written a spirited, engaging history of the Chiricahua Apaches and their relationships to both Christianity and traditional ritual practices. Stockel is a prolific writer who has been particularly interested in the history of Apache women, children, and religion. In On the Bloody Road to Jesus, Stockel summarizes much of her previous work, adding interviews she conducted with contemporary Apaches about their incorporation of Protestantism and Catholicism into Chiricahua ways.

On the Bloody Road to Jesus is not always rigorous or focused, but it does provide a good overview of important events in Apache history. Generalists will enjoy Stockel’s introduction, eight chapters, and brief conclusion surveying Chiricahua Apache history, starting with creation myths and moving through a description of the Jesuit period in New Spain, the Franciscan period in Northern Mexico, an exploration of hardships…