132 An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States
in 1848 that later became the states of New Mexico and Arizona, as
well as across the new border into what remained Mexico. The First
and Second US Army Dragoons (cavalry troops) were employed for
this purpose, elite mounted troops well equipped and trained for
the desert terrain. During the period between the Mexican War and
the Civil War, Indigenous resistance was led by Gila Apache leader
Mangas Coloradas to maintain the Apaches' traditional lands and
way of life. The dragoons employed the "first way of war," total
war, encouraging field units to attack Apache villages and destroy
crops and kill livestock, slaughtering women and children and old
men left in the villages while the young men were engaged elsewhere
fighting the dragoons. 25 This kind of warfare against Indigenous
peoples continued throughout the Civil War and ratcheted up in the
northern plains and Southwest afterward, producing the term that
the US military use to this day all over the world when referring to
enemy territory: "Indian Country."