🦅The American Indian Wars1886
Geronimo's Final Surrender
After nearly a decade of resistance across the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico and the Arizona Territory, Geronimo and his band of Chiricahua Apache — at times no more than 36 men, women, and children — surrendered to General Nelson Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona. The pursuit had consumed 5,000 U.S. soldiers and 500 Mexican troops. Lieutenant Charles Gatewood's negotiations, aided by Apache scouts from Geronimo's own tribe, finally convinced the exhausted but undefeated warrior to surrender.
Geronimo's surrender effectively ended the Apache Wars and the last major armed resistance in the Southwest. He had never been defeated in battle. He and his followers, including Apache scouts who had helped capture him, were sent as prisoners of war to Florida, then Alabama, then Fort Sill, Oklahoma — never permitted to return to their Arizona homeland. Geronimo died a prisoner of war in 1909.
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