The two-hour opening episode establishes the background to the action, bringing "Big John" Cannon and his family and brother Buck to the frontier high desert scrubland in the southern Arizona Territory near the border with Mexico, where they buy a run-down
hacienda and establish a cattle ranch on it. The Apaches, under the leadership of
Cochise, are hostile; John's wife Anna-Lee is killed in an early attack, and to survive, the Cannons are compelled to enter into an alliance with a rich and powerful neighboring rancher, Don Sebastian Montoya, who owns a huge estate on the Mexican side of the border adjoining the "High Chaparral". Part of the price for the alliance is the sealing of the pact by the marriage of John Cannon to Montoya's beautiful, dark-haired, sophisticated daughter, Victoria, 30 years younger. Montoya's reckless son, Manolito, whose relationship with his father is strained, accompanies his sister to get away from Don Sebastian. John's son, Blue, is vehemently opposed to the strange "mixed marriage", coming so soon after Anna-Lee's death. Reinforced by Montoya's men, the Cannons are able to fight off the Indian attacks, and with the services of Manolito as interpreter, manage to negotiate a truce, albeit a fragile one, with the Apache leader. The main reason for its fragility is that the
U.S. Cavalry refuses to recognize Cannon's right to negotiate a private peace with the Apaches, and continued Army interference constantly threatens the unofficial treaty. Problems also frequently occur between the Cannons and the arrogant, resentful Don Sebastian, usually concerning the terms of their alliance. Big John's brother, Buck, notionally the ranch's head cowhand, was a hard-bitten former soldier, who fought in the
American Civil War, 10 years previously, on the side of the
Confederacy. From time to time, Buck's past comes back to haunt him, usually in the person of other Confederate soldiers drifting through the territory, forever unable to return to their homes in the defeated
South. Occasionally, friction occurred because foreman Buck's brother Big John had also fought in the war, but on the other side, as a
captain in the
Union Army. The series gradually evolved to make Manolito and Buck the most prominent characters, as they were the ones who tended to get into trouble; both were somewhat irresponsible, particularly under the influence of drink. For what was generally regarded as a serious
Western television series, their scenes provided "
comic relief" for the show. The other characters were gradually marginalized. Cattle ranching almost never featured in the storylines, which, whenever Mexican bandit or Indian troubles were not imminent, were much more likely to revolve around personal issues of drama with Manolito or Buck and some form of hell-raising – gambling, fighting, women, or whiskey (or a combination of them). There were two significant cast changes in the final season.
Mark Slade (Blue Boy) was replaced by
Rudy Ramos as Wind, a passing, mysterious half-
Pawnee cowhand who often acted as go-between for the ranchers and the Indians.
Frank Silvera (Don Sebastian Montoya) died during production, and his place was taken by
Gilbert Roland as Don Sebastian's brother, Don Domingo, inheritor of Rancho Montoya. The fourth season also had new opening titles and a new arrangement of the popular theme music.
Name of the ranch The name was explained by the following dialogue in episode one: :
Anna-Lee Cannon: Isn't it beautiful, John? It should have a name. :
Big John Cannon: You name it. :
Anna-Lee: What is that bush called — that green one? :
Big John: Chaparral. :
Anna-Lee: That's it — Chaparral. I christen thee "The High Chaparral" — the greatest cattle ranch in the whole territory ... the whole world! In the true sense of the word, "chaparral" is not a single species of shrub, but a bionomic community of desert flora located near a coast, especially that in coastal southern
California. The name comes from the
Spanish word for
scrub oak,
chaparro, which is seldom found further east in Arizona as native flora. Some colloquial use of the term in Arizona describes the low-growing
sage,
mesquite, and
palo verde, which are native to the area, especially in the higher desert, but the high
Sonoran Desert in southern Arizona plant community is more properly called a "
xeric" shrublands biome. ==Production==