Geronimo

Biography

Geronimo (Goyaałé — 'one who yawns') became the last armed holdout of the Apache Wars, but his story began in tragedy. In 1851, Mexican soldiers massacred his wife, three children, and mother at Janos, Chihuahua. The grief transformed him into a war leader of legendary ferocity and endurance, and his guerrilla campaigns across the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico and the Arizona desert confounded two armies for nearly a decade. Geronimo was not a hereditary chief but earned leadership through his reputation as a warrior and medicine man. He and his band of Chiricahua Apache — sometimes as few as 36 people — evaded 5,000 U.S. troops and 500 Mexican soldiers across some of the most brutal terrain in North America. His ability to appear and disappear across international borders made him a phantom to his pursuers. He surrendered for the last time in 1886 and was exiled to Florida as a prisoner of war, then Alabama, then Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He never saw Arizona again. He became a celebrity late in life — riding in Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade, appearing at the 1904 World's Fair — but the celebrity was a cage. He died a prisoner of war in 1909, having spent 23 years in captivity.

Key Battles