The Apaches were by far the most troublesome of the Indians in New Spain. Fierce, fearsome, and filthy, they resisted all efforts at conversion, and their resistance to the Spaniards may have been partly a result of the cruel attitude of the early discoverers. They ranged over most of Sonora and the southern part of what is now New Mexico, and they terrorized Spaniard, Mexican, and Yankee intruders for more than two hundred years. The mestizo soldiers were even less effective against the Apaches than the Spanish dragoons.