GERONIMO - On The Centennial of His Death - February 17, 1909

[Bianca]

                        






Born

Goyathlay, Goyaałé: "one who yawns"

June 16, 1829
Gila River, Mexico



Died

February 17, 1909
(aged 79)
Fort Sill, Oklahoma



Occupation

Medicine man
Apache Warrior

[Bianca]

Goyathlay (Geronimo) was born to the Bedonkohe band of the Apache, near Turkey Creek, a
tributary of the Gila River in the modern-day state of Arizona, then part of Mexico, but which
his family considered Bedonkohe land. He had three brothers and four sisters.

Geronimo's parents educated him according to Apache traditions. He married a woman from the Chiricahua band of Apache when he was 17; they had three children. On March 5, 1851, a company of 400 Mexican soldiers from Sonora led by Colonel José María Carrasco attacked Geronimo's camp outside Janos while the men were in town trading. Among those killed were Geronimo's wife, Alope, his children, and his mother. His chief, Mangas Coloradas, sent him to Cochise's band for help in revenge against the Mexicans.

It was the Mexicans who named him Geronimo.

This appellation stemmed from a battle in which he repeatedly attacked Mexican soldiers with a knife, ignoring a deadly hail of bullets, in reference to the Mexicans' plea to Saint Jerome ("Jeronimo!"). The name stuck.



The first Apache raids on Sonora appear to have taken place during the late 17th century.

To counter the early Apache raids on Spanish settlements, presidios were established at Janos (1685)
in Chihuahua and at Fronteras (1690) in northern Opata country. In 1835, Mexico had placed a bounty on Apache scalps. Two years later Mangas Coloradas or Dasoda-hae (Red Sleeves) became principal chief and war leader and began a series of retaliatory raids against the Mexicans. Apache raids on Mexican villages were so numerous and brutal that no area was safe.



While Geronimo said he was never a chief, he was a military leader.

As a Chiricahua Apache, this meant he was just one of many people with special spiritual insights and abilities known to Apache people as "Power".



Among these were:

the ability to walk without leaving tracks;

the abilities now known as telekinesis and telepathy;

and the ability to survive gunshot ( rifle/musket, pistol, and shotgun).
Geronimo was wounded numerous times by both bullets and buckshot, but survived.



Apache men who chose to who followed him of their own free will, and offered first-hand eye-witness testimony regarding his many "powers" and declared that this was the main reason why so many chose to follow him (he was favored by/protected by "Usen", the Apache high-god). Geronimo's "powers" were considered to be so great that he personally painted the faces of the warriors who followed him to reflect their protective effect.



During his career, Geronimo was notorious for consistently urging raids and war upon Mexican Provinces and their various towns, and later against American locations across Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas.

[Bianca]

             

              Ta-ayz-slath, wife of Geronimo, and child








He married Chee-hash-kish and had two children, Chappo and Dohn-say. Then he took another wife, Nana-tha-thtith, with whom he had one child. He later had a wife named Zi-yeh at the same time as another wife, She-gha, one named Shtsha-she and later a wife named Ih-tedda. Some of his wives were captured, such as the young Ih-tedda. Wives came and went, overlapping each other, being captured and added to the family, lost, or even given up, as Geronimo did with Ih-tedda when he and his band surrendered. At that time he kept his wife She-gha but abandoned the younger wife, Ih-tedda. Geronimo's last wife was Azul.

Though outnumbered, Geronimo fought against both Mexican and United States troops and became famous for his daring exploits and numerous escapes from capture from 1858 to 1886. One such escape, as legend has it, took place in the Robledo Mountains of southwest New Mexico. The legend states Geronimo and his followers entered a cave, and the U.S. Soldiers waited outside the cave entrance for him, but he never came out. Later it was heard that Geronimo was spotted in a nearby area. The second entrance to the cave has yet to be found and the cave is still called Geronimo's Cave.

At the end of his military career, he led a small band of 36 men, women, and children. They evaded 5,000 U.S. troops (a quarter of the army at the time) and many units of the Mexican army for a year. His band was one of
the last major forces of independent Indian warriors who refused to acknowledge the United States Government
in the American West.

[Bianca]

               

               Geronimo (right) and his warriors in 1886








Geronimo was raised with the traditional religious views of the Bedonkohe. When questioned about his views on life after death, he wrote in his 1905 autobiography,

"As to the future state, the teachings of our tribe were not specific, that is, we had no definite idea of our relations and surroundings in after life. We believed that there is a life after this one, but no one ever told me as to what part of man lived after death...We held that the discharge of one's duty would make his future life more pleasant, but whether that future life was worse than this life or better, we did not know, and no one was able to tell us. We hoped that in the future life family and tribal relations would be resumed. In a way we believed this, but we did not know it."

Later in life, Geronimo embraced Christianity, and stated, "Since my life as a prisoner has begun I have heard the teachings of the white man's religion, and in many respects believe it to be better than the religion of my fathers...Believing that in a wise way it is good to go to church, and that associating with Christians would improve my character, I have adopted the Christian religion. I believe that the church has helped me much during the short time I have been a member. I am not ashamed to be a Christian, and I am glad to know that the President of the United States is a Christian, for without the help of the Almighty I do not think he could rightly judge in ruling so many people. I have advised all of my people who are not Christians, to study that religion, because it seems to me the best religion in enabling one to live right."

He joined the Dutch Reformed Church in 1903 but four years later was expelled for gambling.  To the end of his life, he seemed to harbor ambivalent religious feelings, telling the Christian missionaries at a summer camp meeting in 1908 that he wanted to start over, while at the same time telling his tribesmen that he held to the
old Apache religion.

[Bianca]

                                   








In 1918, certain remains of Geronimo were stolen in a grave robbery.

Three members of the Yale secret society of Skull and Bones served as Army volunteers at Fort Sill during World War I; one of those three members was Prescott Bush, father of the forty-first President of the United States George H. W. Bush and grandfather of George W. Bush. They reportedly stole Geronimo's skull, some bones, and other items, including Geronimo's prized silver bridle, from the Apache Indian Prisoner of War Cemetery.

The stolen items were alleged to have been taken to the society's tomb-like headquarters on the Yale University campus, and are supposedly used in rituals practiced by the group, one of which is said to be kissing the skull of Geronimo as an initiation. The story was known for many years but widely considered unlikely or apocryphal, and while the society itself remained silent, former members have said that they believed the bones were fake or non-human, possibly in an attempt at misdirection.

 
In a contemporary letter discovered by the Yale historian Marc Wortman and published in the Yale Alumni Magazine in 2006, society member Winter Mead wrote to F. Trubee Davison:

"The skull of the worthy Geronimo the Terrible, exhumed from its tomb at Fort Sill by your club... is now safe inside the tomb ("tomb" is the building at Yale University's Skull and Bones) and bone together with his well worn femurs, bit and saddle horn."



This prompted the Indian chief's great-grandson, Harlyn Geronimo of Mescalero, New Mexico, to write to President Bush requesting his help in returning the remains:


"According to our traditions the remains of this sort,
especially in this state when the grave was desecrated ...
need to be reburied with the proper rituals ...
to return the dignity and let his spirits rest in peace."

[Bianca]

Geronimo's grave at Fort Sill, Oklahoma in 2005

[Bianca]

               









-  The 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment's motto and slogan was named after him. In 1940, the night before their first mass jump, U.S. paratroopers at Fort Benning watched the 1939 film Geronimo, in which the actor playing Geronimo yells his name as he leaps from a high cliff into a river, depicting a
real-life escape Geronimo successfully attempted in which he jumped off Medicine Bluff at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, into the Medicine Creek with his Cadillac horse. Private Aubrey Eberhardt announced he would shout the name when he jumped from the airplane to prove he was not scared. The trend has since caught on elsewhere, becoming widely associated with any sort of high jump in popular culture. This unit was the first parachute battalion of the United States Army.



-  In 1943, a U.S. Liberty ship named the SS Geronimo was launched.
   It was scrapped in 1960.



-  Three towns in the United States are named for him:

    one in Arizona,
    one in Oklahoma, and
    another in Texas.






                                                       Movies & television






Geronimo is a popular figure in cinema and television.

Characters based on Geronimo have appeared in many films, including:



Geronimo's Last Raid (1912)

Hawk of the Wilderness (1938)

Geronimo (1939)

Stagecoach (1939)

Valley of the Sun (1942)

Fort Apache (1948)

Broken Arrow (1950)

I Killed Geronimo (1950)

Outpost (1951)

Son of Geronimo (1952)

The Battle at Apache Pass (1952)
 
Indian Uprising (1952)

Apache (1954)

Taza, Son of Cochise (1954)

Walk the Proud Land (1956)

Geronimo (1962)

Geronimo und die Räuber (West German, 1966)

I Due superpiedi quasi piatti (1976)

Mr. Horn (1979)

Geronimo:
A Thought-Provoking Look Into the Gang Lifestyle
(Starring Paul Jeans)
(1990)

Gunsmoke:
The Last Apache
(1990)

Geronimo
(Starring Joseph Runningfox)
(1993)

Geronimo:
An American Legend
(1993)

Hot Shots! Part Deux
(1993)

Geronimo
(1993)

War of the Buttons
(1994)



SEE ALSO:

Apache Wars

[Bianca]

Further reading



Carter, Forrest. "Watch for Me on the Mountain". Delta. 1990. (Originally entitled "Cry Geronimo".)

Opler, Morris E.; & French, David H. (1941). Myths and tales of the Chiricahua Apache Indians.
Memoirs of the American folk-lore society, (Vol. 37). New York: American Folk-lore Society.
(Reprinted in 1969 by New York: Kraus Reprint Co.; in 1970 by New York; in 1976 by Millwood, NY:
Kraus Reprint Co.; & in 1994 under M. E. Opler, Morris by Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
ISBN 0-8032-8602-3).

Pinnow, Jürgen. (1988). Die Sprache der Chiricahua-Apachen: Mit Seitenblicken auf das Mescalero
[The language of the Chiricahua Apache: With side glances at the Mescalero].
Hamburg: Helmut Buske Verlag.

Davis, Britton "The Truth about Geronimo" New Haven: Yale Press 1929

Bigelow, John Lt "On the Bloody Trail of Geronimo" New York: Tower Books 1958

Geronimo (edited by Barrett) "Geronimo, His Own Story" New York: Ballantine Books 1971

Debo, Angie. Geronimo: The Man, His Time, His Place. University of Oklahoma Press : Norman, 1976
 
Pember, Mary Annette. (July 12, 2007). "'Tomb Raiders': Yale's ultra-secret Skull and Bones Society is believed to possess the skull of legendary Apache chief Geronimo." Diverse Issues in Higher Education
24(11), 10–11. Retrieved April 23, 2008.

Faulk, Odie B. The Geronimo Campaign. Oxford University Press: New York, 1969.
ISBN 0-19-508351-2





External links



 Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Geronimo
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Geronimo 

E. A. Burbank website – Select 1944 tab, then Burbank Among the Indians

Geronimo : His own story

Geronimo's Story of His Life – page images of the 1906 first edition in Google Book Search

Geronimo's Story of His Life – HTML and PDF ebooks of the 1906 first edition, including all 25 of the original full page illustrations and some text corrections based on the 1907 edition

Geronimo at Indians.org

New York Times obituary

Photograph of Geronimo hosted by the Portal to Texas History

Geronimo Surrender Monument at Apache, Arizona.

Geronimo - bronze sculpture



RETRIEVED FROM:

wikipedia.org

[Bianca]

February 18, 1909
OBITUARY



                                              Old Apache Chief Geronimo Is Dead






Special to
The New York Times
LAWTON, Okla.,
Feb. 17.

--Geronimo, the Apache Indian chief, died of pneumonia to-day in the hospital at Fort Sill.

He was nearly 90 years of age, and had been held at the Fort as a prisoner of war for many years.

He will be buried in the Indian Cemetery tomorrow by the missionaries, the old chief having professed religion three years ago.

As the leader of the warring Apaches of the Southwestern territories in pioneer days, Geronimo gained a reputation for cruelty and cunning never surpassed by that of any other American Indian chief. For more than twenty years he and his men were the terror of the country, always leaving a trail of bloodshed and devastation. The old chief was captured many times, but always got away again, until his final capture, in 1886, by a small command of infantry scouts under Capt. H.W. Lawton, who, as Major General, was killed at the head of his command in the Philippines, and Assistant Surgeon Leonard Wood, today in command of the Department of the East, with headquarters at Governors Island.

The capture was made in the Summer, after a long and very trying campaign of many months, in which Lawton and Wood gained a reputation which will be long remembered in the annals of the army. Geronimo was at first sent to Fort Pickens, but was later transferred to Fort Sill. Until a few years ago he did not give up the hope of some day returning to the leadership of the tribes of the Southwest, and in the early years of his imprisonment he made several attempts to escape.

Geronimo was a Chiricahua Apache, the son of Chal-o-Row of Mangus-Colorado, the war chief of the Warm Spring Apaches, whose career of murder and devastation through Arizona, New Mexico, and Northern Mexico in his day almost equaled that of his terrible son. According to stories told by the old Indian during his last days, he was crowned war chief of his tribe at the early age of 16. For many years he followed the lead of old Cochise, the hereditary chief of the Apaches, who died in 1875 and was succeeded by Natchez, his son, who, however, was soon displaced by Geronimo with his superior cunning and genius for the Indian method of warfare.

After trailing the band led by Geronimo for more than ten years Gen. Crook would probably have captured him in 1875 had he not been transferred to duty among the Utes just as success seemed to be near at hand. For seven years after this the situation in the Southwest was the worst ever faced by the settlers. Crook was sent back in 1883. A large body of troops was placed at his disposal, and in a month he had succeeded in driving Geronimo back to his reservation, capturing him and his men on the Mexican border.

In 1885 Geronimo broke out again, and this time was surrounded by Crook in the Canon de los Embidos. But the Indians succeeded in slipping away, and Crook was removed and Nelson A. Miles placed in command. Miles had already gained a reputation as an Indian fighter, and while he did not exactly cut the field wires behind him to prevent interference from Washington, stories are told of the frequent disregard of troublesome messages.

Lawton and Wood were placed in command of the scouts late in the Summer of 1885. They asked permission to take a picked body of men into the hostile territory and endeavor to run down Geronimo. Gen. Miles finally sent them off with many misgivings. There followed months of privation and hardships which were never forgotten by the men who went with the two young officers. They were gone nearly a year, Gen. Miles often not knowing even where they were or whether or not they had been destroyed by the enemy. On the night of Aug. 20, 1886, the General was sitting at the telegraph instrument in the office at Wilcox, Ariz., waiting for dispatches, when the key suddenly clicked off the news that Geronimo and his men had been surrounded at the junction of the San Bernardino and Baische Rivers, near the Mexican border. Miles hastened there and met the chief on his way north under guard of Lawton. The old warrior was surrounded by about 400 bucks, squaws, papooses, and dogs. They had little else than their blankets and tent poles, and as Gen. Miles afterward stated in his memoirs, "The wily old chief had evidently decided to give up warfare for a time and live on the Government until his tribes gained sufficient strength to return to the warpath."

Gen. Miles writes: "Every one at Washington had now become convinced that there was no good in the old chief, and he was, in fact, one of the lowest and most cruel of the savages of the American continent." The people of the West demanded that he be not allowed to go back to the reservation. He and his bucks were accordingly sent to Fort Pickens and the squaws and papooses to Fort Marion, Florida. It was finally decided to keep Geronimo confined as a prisoner of war. His desire to get back to the West was so pitiful, however, that he was transferred to Fort Sill, where he spent the remainder of his days.

Gen. Wood tells an interesting anecdote of an incident which occurred one afternoon when he was guarding the old chief while Lawton went in search of his command, the location of which he had lost soon after the surrender: "About 2 o'clock in the afternoon the old Indian came to me and asked to see my rifle. It was a Hotchkiss, and he said he had never seen its mechanism. When he asked me for the gun and some ammunition I must confess I felt a little nervous, for I thought it might be a device to get hold of one of our weapons. I made no objection, however, and let him have it, showing him how to use it. He fired at a mark, just missing one of his own men who was passing. This he regarded as a great joke, rolling on the ground and laughing heartily and shouting, 'Good gun.'"

Gen. Miles, in his memoirs, describes his first impression of Geronimo when he was brought into camp by Lawton, thus:

"He was one of the brightest, most resolute, determined-looking men that I have ever encountered.
He had the clearest, sharpest dark eye I think I have ever seen, unless it was that of Gen. Sherman."

[Bianca]

IN THE BOOKS ON LINE SECTION



                                             THE BIOGRAPHY OF GERONIMO:



http://atlantisonline.smfforfree2.com/index.php/topic,16279.0/topicseen.html