Geronimo

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"Geronimo" redirects here. For the town in Oklahoma, see Geronimo, Oklahoma.
For the town in Georgia, see Geronimo, Texas.
Geronimo
Geronimo in 1887
Born
Geronimo (Goyathaly)

June 16, 1821[1]
Apachería (present-day Arizpe, Sonora, Mexico)
DiedFebruary 17, 1909
Fort Sill, Oklahoma, United States
Cause of death
Pneumonia.[2]
Other namesGoyaałé, meaning "the one who yawns," buffoon
Years active1858–1886
Notable workGeronimo, his own History Geronimo: his own History
TitleWar chief of the Apaches of North America
PredecessorMangas Coloradas
Spouse(s)Alope, Ta-ayz-slath, Chee-hash-kish, Nana-tha-thtith, Zi-yeh, She-gha, Shtsha-she, Ih-tedda, and finally Azul
ChildrenChappo, Dohn-say
Parent(s)Taa Di Tlish Hn and Gha Den Dini
Signature

Geronimo (Apachería, present-day Arizpe, Sonora, June 16, 1829 – Fort Sill, Oklahoma, February 17, 1909) was a prominent military leader of the Bedonkohe Apaches. Between 1858 and 1886 he fought alongside Juh, Victorio and Lozen against the Mexican and United States armies in the states of Chihuahua and Sonora in northern Mexico, and in the U.S. territories of New Mexico and Arizona, in the area known as the Apachería.

Despite being very well known among the different tribes, in his early days Geronimo was not officially considered an Apache chief, although, since he showed excellent qualities as a leader and strategist in everything related to raids and warfare, he frequently commanded a large number of warriors who joined his own followers.

Historical context

1814 map of North America showing the Apachería, along with the Pimas, Yuma, and other Indian tribes.

Geronimo was born in Arizpe (today the Mexican state of Sonora, Mexico) on June 1, 1821. He was the son of Taa Di Tlish Hn and Gha Den Dini ("she who is pierced by the light").

From a very young age he was taken to an Indian village of the tribe that at that time was located in the territory of the American state of Georgia (present-day U.S. state of New Mexico), within the tribe of the Bedonkohe Apaches, of which his grandfather Mahko had been chief in the area of the Nodoyohn Canyon, near the Gila River.

In that strip lay, approximately, the Apachería, which is what the region was called where the Apaches settled when they crossed the borders of the Spanish Empire in the 18th century seeking protection from the fierce raids of the Comanches.

The first document mentioning the existence of the Apaches was written in Taos in 1702. In 1720 an Apache embassy arrived there requesting permission to settle in the territory, a permission that was granted by the Spanish Governor[3].

Like many of the inhabitants of the area who had converted to Christianity, Geronimo had been baptized in the Catholic faith, as was revealed after the discovery of the baptismal records of Geronimo and his parents[4].

According to the Mexican writer Álvaro Enrigue, author of the book Ahora me rindo y esto es todo, American colonization did not find a Wild West full of hostile tribes, as Hollywood has fantasized in numerous films, but rather a Hispanic-mestizo world where the Government of the Viceroyalty of New Spain had recognized the Apaches' right of ownership over the land, a right that was later taken from them, both by the American settlers and by a Republic of Mexico that was struggling to consolidate itself after its independence.

Struggles against the Mexican government

On March 5, 1851, despite the existence of a series of non-aggression pacts, and taking advantage of the fact that many of the Apache warriors were away from the village, troops of the Mexican military governor of Sonora carried out a massacre during which they killed his wife, his three children and his mother. Geronimo then swore revenge and allied himself with Cochise, the chief of the Chiricahua Apaches. Together they attacked Sonora, where numerous Mexican soldiers died. In the following years, attacks on various Mexican towns followed one after another.[5]

It is believed that Geronimo owes his name to one of his first victories over the Mexican army, which took place on the day of Saint Jerome (September 30), the liturgical feast of the saint, probably a clash near Arizpe (Sonora), where he fought with extraordinary ferocity[5]. Other sources point to another of the later battles fought in revenge for the massacre of his relatives, which took place near Janos, Chihuahua, during the saint's feast day, and which is also described as an extremely fierce encounter in which Geronimo charged directly at the enemy lines, killing the Mexican Commander with a lance, which caused panic and religious invocations to the saint among the Mexican troops.[6] Other versions point to the possibility that it was an onomastic syncretism, and that the name had been chosen by Geronimo himself, who had been baptized a Catholic and spoke the Spanish language perfectly, as did many of the Apaches who lived in the Apachería.[5][7][8]

Geronimo assumed command of the Apache nation upon the death of his father Cochise, and after being proclaimed chief of the tribe by Naiche.

On May 25, 1882, his second wife, Chee-hash-kish, was captured by Mexican troops at the San Miguel River, near Casas Grandes (Chihuahua). Geronimo tried unsuccessfully to exchange her for some Mexican women he held in his power, who ended up being freed by U.S. troops during their campaign in the Sierra Madre in 1883, which ended with the confinement of the Chiricahuas on the San Carlos Reservation. Geronimo had already fled the San Carlos Reservation twice: the first time on August 1, 1878; the second on September 30, 1881; on May 17, 1885, he escaped once again for the third time.

Geronimo would marry eight more times, during a life marked by war and the continual pursuit of Mexican and U.S. forces. His last wife was Francesca, who had been captured along with three other women by Mexican troops in the summer of 1861, and they were taken to Sonora. She was held captive for about five years, until she, together with the three other women, managed to escape. On the way back she was attacked by a mountain lion that left her with horrible scars, so that no one wanted to marry her. Geronimo said that she was a very brave woman and that he would marry her, even though he himself recounted that Francisca's face "was always disfigured with those scars and she never regained the perfect use of her hands"[9].

Struggles against the United States government

Although in 1884 he was forced to enter an Indian reservation, Geronimo refused to remain on that arid piece of land and left for Mexico in 1885, accompanied by a group of warriors that included Chihuahua, Mangas (son of Mangas Coloradas) and Nachez. From then on, he went back and forth between the two places, exhorting his people not to accept being confined to a reservation and living as prisoners.

Apache Chief Geronimo (right) and his warriors in 1886

In 1886, after another escape by Geronimo, this time together with approximately thirty other Apaches, an order was issued for their search and capture, with some 3,000 soldiers being sent (which represented one third of the U.S. Army at the time) and a reward of 20 U.S. dollars being offered.

Geronimo was found in the Sierra Madre and decided to surrender voluntarily to General Miles, who had promised him a pact with the following words: "The President of the United States has sent me to speak with you. He has heard of your troubles with the settlers, and says that if you agree to sign a treaty, you will have no more troubles."

The only condition Geronimo set was that he be allowed to return to Arizona, but Miles's pact was not honored, and the Indian chief was once again regarded and tried as a criminal, spending several years at forced labor. While the Apaches (both followers of Geronimo and those who had served the U.S. Army) were sent to Fort Marion, in Florida, where the harsh conditions caused numerous deaths from disease, Geronimo was held in the prison of Fronteras (Sonora), where valuable mementos are preserved in the museum that today bears his name.

Confinement and death

Geronimo in 1905

After this time had passed, he was once again forced to remain on another Indian reservation in Oklahoma, without having the opportunity to see his people again. There he spent the last years of his life, during which he became what was then called a "model Indian," taking part in a presidential parade and in the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

At the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo (1901), the organizers reserved within the Midway, the area devoted to entertainment, a space for the Indian Village, where the customs of the original peoples of North America were represented. Nearly seven hundred natives representing forty-two tribes made up the Indian Congress, among them Crazy Snake and Geronimo, resistance leaders taken prisoner by the Federal Government, who came to the event heavily guarded by soldiers. All of them could be seen placed next to a horse that could add and subtract and a chimpanzee whose many skills included using cutlery, riding a bicycle and playing the piano.[10] Geronimo was also at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, where he sold bows and arrows and autographed photographs of himself.[11]

In February 1909, Geronimo fell from his horse while returning home and had to remain all night in intense cold until a friend found him, by then already seriously ill.

He died of pneumonia at the age of 79 on February 17, 1909, but not before having dictated his memoirs in Spanish, a language in which Geronimo expressed himself fluently, to an Apache interpreter (Asa Deklugie), who took charge of transcribing them. The American superintendent of education S. M. Barrett later translated that content into English for publication.[12][13][14]

On his deathbed, Geronimo also confessed to his nephew that he regretted his decision to surrender, and that he "should have fought until he was the last man alive."[15]

Geronimo as a prisoner of war of the United States in 1905.
  • In many films and television series, characters who throw themselves into free fall usually shout his name as a way of summoning courage before the jump. The custom has ended up spreading into colloquial language in general and to any physically risky situation, whether involving jumps or not. According to the most widespread version, the expression was born in 1940 within a U.S. paratrooper regiment that was in training, whose members had reportedly watched a film about the Apache together shortly before making their first jumps.
  • In 2015, the Mexican Christian singer Jesús Adrián Romero made the music video for his song "Te dejo ganar" (which is part of his album Soplando vida), in which he talks about the "Monument to the Surrender," built in honor of Geronimo.

Geronimo is mentioned in the following works:

  • Quadrinhos Geronimo e seus Apaches Assassinos
  • In film and television:
    • Geronimo's Last Raid (1912)
    • Hawk of the Wilderness (1940)
    • Geronimo (1930)
    • Stagecoach (1949)
    • Valley of the Sun (1948)
    • Fort Apache (1948)
    • Broken Arrow (1950)
    • I Killed Geronimo (1950)
    • Outpost (1951)
    • Son of Geronimo (1952)
    • The Battle at Apache Pass (1952)
    • Apache (1954)
    • Geronimo (1962)
    • Geronimo: An American Legend (1993)
    • "El indio Gerónimo," Las tres mellizas (2003)

Theft of his skull

Six members of the Yale secret society called Skull and Bones, including Prescott Bush, served as army volunteers at Fort Sill during World War I. Various parties and organizations in the United States have accused them of having stolen Geronimo's skull and some personal items of this Apache chief, including his silver reins, from the Apache Prisoner of War Cemetery at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Alexandra Robbins stated that these objects were at the sect's headquarters at Yale.[16]

In 1886, the former Apache president of San Carlos, Ned Anderson, received a letter and a photo with the skull at the Skull & Bones headquarters. Skull & Bones has met on several occasions with officials to discuss the rumor; the group's attorney, Endicott P. Davidson, denies that they have the skull and alleges that the desecration and theft of 1918 are a myth,[17] rejecting it.[18] In 2006, Marc Wortman discovered a 1918 letter from Skull & Bones member Winter Mead, addressed to F. Trubee Davison, which confirmed the theft:[19]

The skull of the worthy Geronimo the Terrible, exhumed from its tomb at Fort Sill by our club... is now safe inside our tomb ("The tomb" is the headquarters of Skull and Bones) at Yale, together with a femur and his silver reins.

— 1918 letter from Skull & Bones member Winter Mead to F. Trubee Davison[19]

But Mead was not at Fort Sill, and Cameron University history professor David H. Miller stated that, at that time, Geronimo's grave was unmarked.[19] The revelation led Harlyn Geronimo, of Mescalero, New Mexico, to write to President George H. W. Bush (also a member of Skull & Bones) asking for the return of the remains:

According to our traditions, remains of this kind, especially when the grave was desecrated so that [the remains] could be used for purposes that violate our dignity... need to be reburied with the appropriate rituals... to restore his dignity and allow his spirit to rest in peace.

— Letter from Harlyn Geronimo of Mescalero, New Mexico, to President George H. W. Bush.[20]

In 2009, Ramsey Clark represented Geronimo's descendants in a lawsuit to secure the return of the remains, against Barack Obama, Robert Gates and Skull and Bones, demanding the return of Geronimo's bones.[17] An article in The New York Times states that Clark "acknowledges that he has no substantial proof that the story is true."[21] Ramsey Clark, former Attorney General of the United States, who represents Geronimo's family, acknowledges that they have no further evidence,[21] but hopes that the court will investigate.[21]

Researchers ranging from Cecil Adams to Kitty Kelley reject the story.[22][23] A Fort Sill spokesman told Adams: "There is no concrete evidence that the bones are anywhere other than in the grave."[22] Jeff Houser, chairman of the Fort Sill Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, also called the story a myth.[18]

There was a petition before the United States Congress to repatriate Geronimo's skull.

Soy Apache

On the occasion of the centenary of Geronimo's death in 2009, the Seville publishing house Mono Azul published his memoirs in Spanish under the title "Soy Apache". This volume contains in full the oral legacy that the legendary Apache warrior dictated to another member of the Apache tribe shortly before his death, by then elderly and seriously ill after suffering a fall, on the Fort Sill reservation. To do so, Geronimo used Spanish, since it was a language in which he expressed himself with complete fluency, as attested by the school inspector Stephen Melvil Barrett, who would later take charge of translating his words from Spanish into English.

The origin of the work "Soy Apache" lies in a trip by its translator, Javier Lucini, to the Indian reservations of the United States, on one of which he acquired a copy of Geronimo's memoirs, which, together with the fact that Saint Jerome is the patron saint of translators (for having rendered the Bible into Latin), encouraged him to get to work.

Lucini is also the author of Apacherías del Salvaje Oeste, a diary of that trip mixed with the history of the Apaches, a people that, he states, "kept the North American army in check and was the symbol of resistance, and today survives in wretched conditions, with high rates of alcoholism and unemployment."[24]

See also

References

  1. ↑ GERONIMO; Barret, S.M. (October 25, 2014). Geronimo: His own History. Penguin Group. p. American History. ISBN 978-1-101-12804-6. {{cite book}}: Check date values in: |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
  2. ↑ Hurtado, Albert L..; Iverson., Peter (1994). Major Problems in American Indian History. Documents and Essays. Arizona State Univesity D.C. Heath and Company. ISBN 978-0618068548.
  3. ↑ El silencio tiene un precio, E. Roca, Revista de Occidente, September 2018
  4. ↑ Apaches. Fantasmas de Sierra Madre, M. Rojas, 2008
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 "Gerónimo". Apachería (in español). Retrieved 2026-02-17.
  6. ↑ "Gerónimo, el guerrero apache movido por la venganza". Academia Play (in español). 2019-07-03. Retrieved 2026-02-17.
  7. ↑ "Editan por primera vez en español las memorias del indio Gerónimo". ABC (in español). 2009-08-22. Retrieved 2026-02-19.
  8. ↑ "Gerónimo, el jefe apache que hablaba español". El Debate (in español). 2024-04-20. Retrieved 2026-02-19.
  9. ↑ Gerónimo apacheria.es
  10. ↑ Ricardo QUIZA MORENO (2007) "Babel revisitada: exposiciones, globalización y modernidad (1851-1905)" Revista de Historia Contemporánea. Number 7.
  11. ↑ Verner Bradford, Phillips and Harvey Blume: Ota Benga: The Pygmy in the Zoo. St. Martin's Press, New York, 1992
  12. ↑ "Geronimo's Story of His Life" (PDF). ibiblio.org. Retrieved 2026-02-19.
  13. ↑ Alfredo Valenzuela (Efe): Editan por vez primera en español las memorias completas del indio Gerónimo. Unidad Editorial Internet, Seville, 2009
  14. ↑ "Libros / España: Editan las memorias completas del indio Gerónimo". Rancho Las Voces (in español). 2009-08-23. Retrieved 2026-02-19.
  15. ↑ "American Experience We Shall Remain: Geronimo" (PDF). PBS. Archived (PDF) from the original on April 4, 2013.
  16. ↑ Geronimo's kin sue Skull and Bones over remains [1]
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Daniels, Bruce (February 27, 2009). "Geronimo Lawsuit Sparks Family Feud". Albuquerque Journal. Archived from the original on February 28, 2009. Retrieved 2009-. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |access-date= (help)
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Pember, Mary Annette (July 9, 2007). "Tomb Raiders". Diverse Issues in Higher Education. Archived from the original on October 7, 2008. Retrieved February 28, 2009.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Lassila, Kathrin Day; Mark Alden Branch (May/June 2006). "Whose Skull and Bones?". Yale Alumni Magazine. Archived from the original on March 2, 2009. Retrieved February 28, 2009. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  20. ↑ Andrew Buncombe (2006). "Geronimo's family call on Bush to help return his skeleton". The Independent. Archived from the original on October 26, 2006. Retrieved December 5, 2006.
  21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 Geronimo’s Heirs Sue Secret Yale Society Over His SkullJAMES C. McKINLEY Jr. The New York Times February 19, 2009
  22. ↑ 22.0 22.1 "The Straight Dope: Is Geronimo's skull residing at Yale's Skull and Bones? Was it stolen from the grave by Prescott Bush?".
  23. ↑ Kelley, Kitty (2004). The Family: The Real Story of the Bush Dynasty. Doubleday. pp. 17–20.
  24. ↑ Editan por vez primera en español las memorias completas del indio Gerónimo Alfredo Valenzuela (Efe)

Bibliography

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