Goyaałé (Geronimo) was born to the Bedonkohe band of the
Apache, near Turkey Creek, a tributary of the
Gila River in what is now the state of
New Mexico, then part of
Mexico, but which his family considered Bedonkohe land.
Geronimo's father, Tablishim, and mother, Juana, educated him according to Apache traditions. He married a woman from the Chiricauhua band of Apache; they had three children. On
March 5 1851, a company of 400 Sonoran soldiers led by Colonel Jose Maria Carrasco attacked Geronimo's camp outside Janos while the men were in town trading. Among those dead were Geronimo's wife, Alope, his children, and 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, 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 also a spiritual leader. He consistently urged raids and war upon many Mexican and later U.S. groups.
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 brought into the family, lost, or even given up, as Geronimo did with Ih-tedda when he and his band were captured, at that time he kept his wife She-gha but not the younger wife, Ih-tedda. Geronimo’s last wife was Azul.
While 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. At the end of his military career, he led a small band of 38 men, women, and children. They evaded 5,000 U.S. troops (one fourth 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. This came to an end on
September 4 1886, when Geronimo surrendered to United States Army General
Nelson A. Miles at
Skeleton Canyon, Arizona.
Geronimo and other warriors were sent as prisoners to
Fort Pickens, Florida, and his family was sent to
Fort Marion. They were reunited in May 1887, when they were transferred to
Mount Vernon Barracks in
Alabama for five years. In 1894, they were moved to
Fort Sill, Oklahoma. In his old age, Geronimo became a celebrity. He appeared at fairs, including the
1904 World's Fair in
St. Louis, and sold souvenirs and photographs of himself. However, he was not allowed to return to the land of his birth. He rode in
President Theodore Roosevelt's 1905 inaugural parade. He died of
pneumonia at Fort Sill in 1909 and was buried at the Apache Indian Prisoner of War Cemetery there.
In 1905, Geronimo agreed to tell his story to S.M. Barrett, Superintendent of Education in
Lawton, Oklahoma. Barrett had to appeal to President Roosevelt to gain permission to publish the book. Geronimo came to each interview knowing exactly what he wanted to say. He refused to answer questions or alter his narrative. Barrett did not seem to take many liberties with Geronimo's story as translated by Asa Daklugie. Frederick Turner re-edited this autobiography by removing some of Barrett's footnotes and writing an introduction for the non-Apache readers. Turner notes the book is in the style of an Apache reciting part of his oral history.
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