Geronimo: The Apache Leader Who Asked to Go Home

Who Was Geronimo?

Geronimo was born around 1829 into the Bedonkohe band of the Chiricahua Apache, in the mountains of the Southwest borderlands. His Apache name was Goyahkla. After Mexican soldiers killed his mother, his wife and his children, he became one of the most determined fighters of his time, leading raids and resistance against Mexico and the United States for nearly three decades.

In September 1886 he surrendered to General Nelson Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona. He and the Chiricahua people, including scouts who had served the Army, were sent away as prisoners of war: first to Florida, then Alabama, and in 1894 to Fort Sill in Indian Territory.

The Parade and the Plea

By the turn of the century Geronimo was famous, and the government put that fame to use. He appeared at expositions, including the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis, still a prisoner.

On March 4, 1905, he rode in Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural parade with five other Native leaders, and the crowds cheered him. Days later he met the President at the White House and asked to be allowed to take his people home to Arizona. Roosevelt refused and told him the question would have to wait.

The next year Geronimo published his life story, told through an interpreter to S. M. Barrett, the school superintendent in Lawton, Oklahoma, and dedicated to Roosevelt.