Geronimo Surrenders: Apache Resistance Ends

Geronimo, the Apache war leader whose name had become synonymous with resistance across the American Southwest, surrendered to General Nelson Miles in Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, on September 4, 1886, ending nearly three decades of Apache warfare against Mexico and the United States. The surrender came after a grueling pursuit in which 5,000 U.S. Army troops, roughly one-quarter of the entire standing army, had chased Geronimo and a band of just 38 Apaches, including women and children, through the mountains of the Sierra Madre. Geronimo was not a chief but a medicine man and war leader of the Chiricahua Apache whose family had been murdered by Mexican soldiers in 1851. That massacre transformed him into a relentless warrior who conducted raids on both sides of the border for over three decades. He had surrendered and been confined to reservations multiple times, only to break out again when conditions became intolerable. His final breakout from the San Carlos Reservation in May 1885 with 35 warriors and 109 women and children triggered the largest military operation against Native Americans in the Indian Wars. Miles, who replaced General George Crook after Crook's resignation over disagreements about Apache policy, employed Apache scouts and a system of heliograph communication across mountain peaks to track Geronimo through the most forbidding terrain in North America. Lieutenant Charles Gatewood, who had earned Geronimo's respect, entered the Apache camp alone and persuaded the leader to negotiate. Miles promised Geronimo that his people would be reunited with their families and eventually given a reservation in the Southwest. Neither promise was kept. Geronimo and the Chiricahua Apache, including the scouts who had helped capture him, were shipped as prisoners of war to Florida, then Alabama, and finally Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Geronimo spent the remaining 23 years of his life as a prisoner, becoming a celebrity who appeared at the 1904 World's Fair and rode in Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade, yet was never permitted to return home. He died of pneumonia at Fort Sill in 1909, still a prisoner of war.