The Apache Wars were a series of armed conflicts between the United States Army and various Apache nations fought in the southwest between 1849 and 1886, though minor hostilities continued until as late as 1924. Its origins started a year before the first conflict when a fraction of Mexico became part of the United States in the aftermath of the Mexican-American War. Therefore the Native Mexicans had become Native Americans for the series of conflicts where a significant part of the Westward Expansion Trails in the American frontier. The Confederate Army participated in the wars during the early 1860s in Texas, before being diverted to action in the American Civil War in New Mexico and Arizona.