Geronimo

Biography

Geronimo (Goyahkla, 1829–1909) was a leader and medicine man of the Bedonkohe band of the Apache people who became one of the most famous figures of the American Indian Wars. Born in what is now western New Mexico, Geronimo’s early life was shaped by tragedy when Mexican soldiers killed his mother, wife, and three children in 1851, igniting a lifelong resistance against both Mexican and American encroachment on Apache lands. For over three decades, Geronimo led raids and guerrilla campaigns across the American Southwest and northern Mexico, evading capture by thousands of troops with small bands of warriors. His final surrender in 1886 to General Nelson Miles marked the end of the major American Indian Wars. Geronimo spent his remaining years as a prisoner of war at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where he dictated his autobiography to S.M. Barrett in 1905. Though often portrayed as a fearsome warrior in popular culture, Geronimo’s own account reveals a man fighting to preserve his people’s way of life, mourning the loss of homeland and freedom, and adapting to imposed reality with dignity.