Our Roots Run Deep

NIB ranch is nestled on 11 acres of indigenous Lipan Apache land 15 miles west of present-day Fort Clark / Brackettville Texas in Kinney County. CEO and founder of NIB Mande' Gonzales Garcia Davalos and her Lipan Apache family roots run deep in Brackettville Texas predating 1700's. NIB strives to honor our ancestors and to bring much needed healing to our indigenous communities thru prayer, tradition, ceremonies, indigenous foods and education.

The Lipan Apache living peacefully along Los Moras springs in Brackettville were removed from their ancestorial lands along the springs once Fort Clark was in place in 1852 cutting the Lipan Apache off from one of their major water supplies and many sacred holy sites. Several Lipan families remained in Brackettville including Mande's family after Fort Clark was completed and have remained on our ancestral homelands since time immemorial despite the Governments attempt of total annihilation and mass extermination of all Apache in Texas. Mande' and her family are survivors of many raids including Mackenzie’s Raid in El Remolino on May 18, 1873. Not all Lipan survivors were taken to Mescalero or Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania as the victors claim in their memoirs, instead many surviving Lipans remained in Brackettville Texas hiding in plain sight.  

~Decedents of broken treaty signer Nanta an’ (Chief) Cuelgas de Castro. ( Live Oak Treaty, January 8, 1838 Ratified December 19, 1838 ; Tehuacama Creek Treaty October 9, 1844 Adopted January 24, 1845, Ratified May 15, 1846; 9 Stat. 844, Presidential proclamation March 8, 1847).