For the second time in two years, the Apache chief Geronimo
breaks out of an Arizona reservation, sparking panic among Arizona settlers.
A famous medicine man and the leader of the Chiricahua
Apache, Geronimo achieved national fame by being the last American Indian to
surrender formally to the United States. For nearly 30 years, Geronimo and his
followers resisted the attempts of Americans to take away their southwestern
homeland and confine them to a reservation. He was a fearless warrior and a
master of desert survival. The best officers of the U.S. Army found it nearly
impossible to find Geronimo, much less decisively defeat him.
In 1877, Geronimo was forced to move to the San Carlos,
Arizona, reservation for the first time, but he was scarcely beaten. Instead,
Geronimo treated the reservation as just one small part of the vast territory
he still considered to belong to the Apache. Fed up with the strictures and
corruption of the reservation, he and many other Apache broke out for the first
time in 1881. For nearly two years, the Apache band raided the southwestern
countryside despite the best efforts of the army to stop them. Finally,
Geronimo wearied of the continual harassment of the U.S. Army and agreed to
return to the reservation in 1884, much on his own terms.
He did not stay long. Among the many rules imposed upon the
Apache on the reservation was the prohibition of any liquor, including a weak
beer they had traditionally brewed from corn. In early May 1885, Geronimo and a
dozen other leaders deliberately staged a corn beer festival. Reasoning that
the authorities would be unlikely to try to punish such a large group, they
openly admitted the deed, expecting that it would lead to negotiations. Because
of a communication mix-up, however, the army failed to respond. Geronimo and
the others assumed the delay indicated the army was preparing some drastic
punishment for their crime. Rather than remain exposed and vulnerable on the
reservation, Geronimo fled with 42 men and 92 women and children.
Quickly moving south, Geronimo raided settlements along the
way for supplies. In one instance, he attacked a ranch owned by a man named
Phillips, killing him, his wife, and his two children. Frightened settlers
demanded swift military action, and General George Crook coordinated a combined
Mexican and American manhunt for the Apache. Thousands of soldiers tracked the
fugitives but Geronimo and his band split into small groups and remained
elusive.
Crook's failure to apprehend the Indians led to his eventual
resignation. General Nelson Miles replaced him. Miles committed 5,000 troops to
the campaign and even established 30 heliograph stations to improve
communications. Still, Miles was also unable to find the elusive warrior.
Informed that many of the reservation Apache, including his own family, had
been taken to Florida, Geronimo apparently lost the will to fight. After a year
and a half of running, Geronimo and his 38 remaining followers surrendered
unconditionally to Miles on September 3, 1886.
Relocated to Florida, Geronimo was imprisoned and kept from
his family for two years. Finally, he was freed and moved with this family to
Indian Territory in Oklahoma. He died of pneumonia at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in
1909.
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