Lesson 7: Quakers, Red Cloud, Southern Plains War, and a New President
Geronimo
In 1857 a soldier noted that Apaches were like man-eating tigers. It was a metaphor that became even truer with the rise in leadership of Geronimo after the death of Cochise. If Geronimo felt he had a right to leadership it may have been because his father could have been a chief, a position that was hereditary among the Apaches. However, his father had turned down this honor when he married into another band. This decision, made for love, ultimately canceled his future sons’ hereditary right to become chiefs. But this did not deter Geronimo, whose aim was to gain the honor of leadership by becoming a mighty warrior.
Apaches had always been warriors from the time they had arrived in their homeland in present-day New Mexico and Arizona — a time so long ago that now the memory of it was recalled only in Apache legends and tales. But now, an uncertain time just before the midpoint of the 19th Century, they were offered a peace agreement with the Mexican state of Chihuahua. And these Apaches, including a young married Geronimo, who had fathered three children, and his friend Cochise were considering this agreement as they traveled towards the town of Janos in the foothills of the Sierra Madre.
With inbred caution these Apaches mistrusted their Mexican enemies who now wanted to be friends. But when they began to consider the feasting and drinking that would celebrate the peace agreement, the situation began to seem considerably safer. Then the Apaches were attacked by their hosts. 130 Apaches men, women, and children were killed that day. 90 of them were taken prisoner. There were only a few survivors that crept away through the brush. In the attack Geronimo’s mother, his young wife and their children were all killed.
Now this young Apache who had previously been an affectionate husband and loving father turned bitter and became prone to sudden outbursts of wild violence.
In time, Geronimo’s band revived and gained strength in numbers. They lusted to take Mexican blood in revenge and the various Apache groups began to come together. These were the people of the six-foot, six-inch giant called Mangas Coloradas. These were the people of Cochise, a chief recognized to be of the same caliber of warrior as Mangas Coloradas. And these were the people of the deadly Apache the Americans came to know and fear as Geronimo, who was now following a long and bloody warpath.
In June 1876, because of the numerous offenses the Apaches had performed, Washington dissolved the Chiricahua reservation. As many of the Apaches who could be found were sent to San Carlos. This hated reservation was the largest reservation in the Southwest and was shared by some 4,000 other Apaches.
Apache Prisoners
Geronimo and his followers were not among those who relented and went to San Carlos. Instead, this group hurried across the border into Mexico.
General George Crook
Geronimo’s path of war lasted until 1886, when he surrendered to General George Crook.
Later in life, Geronimo had other wives and more children. The last of those children, a daughter, was born the year he surrendered to General Crook. She never knew her parents but still, she grew up to be quite a lady. There's more to her story at the link below.
Geronimo's Daughter Goes to War: The Story of Ruth Hill Wadsworth At: Women of the West by Mary Trotter Kion http://www.mkionwritenow.com/page6.html
Sources for this section are:
Bourke, John G. On the Border With Crook. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891.
Capps, Benjamin. The Great Chiefs: The Old West. Time-Life Books, Alexandria, Virginia, 1975.
Suggest topics for discussion from this lesson.
Was Cochise justified in killing his three prisoners because the Army had hung members of his family? If not, why wasn’t he? If so, justify his killings.
Would it have been more humane on the part of the whites to leave Cynthia Parker with the Comanches after 25 years with them?
Bibliography:
Bourke, John G. On the Border With Crook. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1891.
Brady, Cyrus Townshend. The Sioux Indian Wars, From the Powder River to the Little Big Horn. Indian Head Books, New York, 1992.
Capps, Benjamin. The Great Chiefs: The Old West. Time-Life Books, Alexandria, Virginia, 1975.
Fehrenbach, T.R. Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans. Collier Books, New York, 1968.
Wheeler, Keith. The Scouts: The Old West. Time-Life Books, Alexandria, Virginia, 1978.
Utley, Robert M. The Indian Frontier of the American West, 1846-1890. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque. 1984.
