The High Chaparral is an American Western action-adventure drama television series that aired on NBC from 1967 to 1971, starring Leif Erickson and Cameron Mitchell.

The show is set in the 1870s, and revolves around "Big John" Cannon (Erickson), a rancher living in the dry desert of the southern Arizona Territory, near the Mexican border, in Apache Indian country.

Anthony Caruso, Chief Dan George, Dennis Cross, Jim Davis, John Dehner, Bruce Dern, Charles Durning, Paul Fix, Steve Forrest, Ron Foster, Ted Gehring, Frank Gorshin, Ron Hagerthy, Ron Hayes, Myron Healey, Barbara Hershey, Don Keefer, Dan Kemp, Robert Loggia, Jack Lord, Tyler McVey, Ricardo Montalbán, Joanna Moore, Robert Pine, Nehemiah Persoff, Denver Pyle, Stuart Randall, Gilbert Roland, Ned Romero, Kurt Russell, Frank Silvera, Barry Sullivan, William Sylvester, William Tannen, Dub Taylor, Paul Winfield, and Morgan Woodward.

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.

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.

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.

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).

The name was explained by the following dialog in episode one: 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.