Geronimo

Geronimo

  

Geronimo (1829-1909), Native American, chief of the Chiricahua Apache tribe, born in present-day Clifton, Arizona. After his wife, children, and mother were killed by Mexicans in 1858, he participated in a number of raids against Mexican and American settlers, but eventually settled on a reservation. In 1876 the U.S. government attempted to move the Chiricahua from their traditional home to the San Carlos Reservation; Geronimo then began ten years of intermittent raids against white settlements, alternating with periods of peaceful farming on the San Carlos reservation. In March 1886, the American general George Crook captured Geronimo and forced a treaty under which the Chiricahua would be relocated in Florida; two days later Geronimo escaped and continued his raids. General Nelson Miles then took over the pursuit of Geronimo, who was chased into Mexico and captured the following September. The Native Americans were sent to Florida, Alabama, and finally to Fort Sill, Oklahoma Territory, where they settled as farmers. Geronimo eventually adopted Christianity. He took part in the inaugural procession of President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905. Geronimo dictated his memoirs, published in 1906 as Geronimo's Story of His Life. He died at Fort Sill on February 17, 1909.