Geronimo: The Last Great Native American Resistance Leader

Podcast Transcript

Few figures in American history embody resistance and resilience quite like Geronimo.

A leader of the Apache who defied both Mexican and U.S. forces, his name became synonymous with courage and defiance.

But beyond the myths lies a complex story of survival, conflict, and cultural upheaval. In the process, he became an icon to the very people he fought against.

Learn more about Geronimo and how his story shaped the history of the American Southwest on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Before the Mexican-American War and the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, the lands inhabited by the Apache people included areas under both Mexican and United States control.

It was here, around the year 1823, when a child named Goyahlka or “One Who Yawns” was born. Later known as Geronimo, he would spend his formative years in the Apache homelands of the Desert Southwest.

In 1858, Geronimo and his band of Apache, known as the Bedonkohe, were in what is now Sonora, then considered part of the Mexican state of Chihuahua. During this time, the Apache in the region conducted raiding missions that disrupted local trade and shaped ongoing resistance.

Raiding was key to Apache survival. It was a tradition, but also a necessity. Options were few for the Apache living in the arid region of Northern Mexico and the American Southwest.

When raiding, the Apache primarily targeted wealthy landowners and ranchers in Northern Mexico, often seeking food but occasionally taking rare items for trade.

In response to the threat posed by the Apache’s raiding tactics, the Mexican government issued a bounty of 25 dollars for the scalps of any Apache raider, hoping to deter further attacks and protect local interests.

A militia of 400 Mexicans answered the call and fell on the Apache camp at a place known as Kas-Ki-Yeh. While most of the men were away at a nearby trading post, the Mexican militia attacked the tribe, killing Geronimo’s mother, wife, and three children.

Returning to Kas-Ki-Yeh, unspeakable agony struck Geronimo as he realized the catastrophic loss of his family. In his 1905 autobiography, Geronimo chronicled the gruesome discovery: “When all were counted, I found that my aged mother, my young wife, and my three small children were among the slain.”

Historians debate the exact year of the massacre, as some sources cite 1851, while Geronimo’s memoir states it occurred in 1858. While historians may debate the year, the massacre ignited a clear and enduring rage in Geronimo.

Following a vision of invulnerability, he launched a campaign of retribution. Geronimo said, “We will attack them in their homes. I will fight in the front of the battle. If I am killed, no one need mourn for me.”

In contrast to the peaceful Ghost Dance movement on the Great Plains, Geronimo’s campaign was marked by violence. The Apache, under the leadership of Chief Cochise, favored small raiding parties, unlike the tribes on the Northern Plains.

Geronimo mastered guerrilla warfare, using stealth and speed to haunt his enemies. Legend has it that his name derives from St. Jerome, whom the Mexicans prayed to for assistance. Mexican forces noted that Geronimo seemed able to vanish into the landscape, as if they were attacking the wind.

Geronimo’s autobiography reveals a lifelong rage towards Mexico for his family’s murder. This rage fueled fierce campaigns deep into Mexican territory as the conflict escalated.

Geronimo’s autobiography notes that he viewed every Mexican he encountered as an enemy. However, challenges for the Apache extended beyond conflicts with Mexico. As circumstances shifted, new adversaries emerged, broadening the scope of their struggle.

Apache warriors living on the border between the United States and Mexico often straddled the border, taking advantage of international restrictions on armies going from one country to the other.

Life for Geronimo and the Apache nation became significantly more difficult in 1861. After a boy was kidnapped by a group of Apaches, Lieutenant George Bascom wrongly accused Cochise’s band and attempted to detain him at Apache Pass in Arizona. Cochise escaped, but several of his relatives were held hostage.

Forces converged on the Apache in an attempt to bring Cochise to justice. Instead, they killed several members of his family. This tumult ended the relative peace between the United States and the Apache and launched the nearly 40-year-long Apache Wars.

The most prominent battle in the early Apache Wars was the Battle of Apache Pass in July 1862. During the battle, Geronimo’s warriors ambushed 2,500 Union troops near Apache Spring as they were marching to halt a potential Confederate advance in the West.

Geronimo’s Apache warriors had secured the pass overlooking Apache Spring. They had the battle well in hand until the Union troops brought out two mountain howitzers, a devastating weapon new to the Apache, which changed the course of the battle.

After the victory, the Union troops recognized the danger posed by Apache Pass. They built Fort Bowie to protect the route and, more importantly, secure one of the region’s few primary water sources.

A stronger federal presence in the region was a catastrophic setback for the Apache.

Fort Bowie changed the complexity of the war as Federal troops now had a well-fortified base in the region to launch campaigns against the Apache. The Apache knew they could not match the Federal forces’ weapons. If they were to survive, they would have to rely on stealth, speed, and their knowledge of the land.

One year after the Battle of Apache Pass, soldiers captured the chief Mangas Coloradas under a white flag of peace, only to torture and murder him, igniting a fresh wave of fury in Geronimo, who revered Mangas Coloradas as his mentor.

As these events unfolded, the Apache position became increasingly perilous, foreshadowing even greater hardships ahead.

April 30, 1871, marked one of the Apache Nation’s darkest days: the Camp Grant Massacre.

A band of Aravaipa Apache, led by Chief known as Eskiminzin, had been living under the protection of the U.S. Army and were receiving rations while attempting to farm and avoid conflict.

Despite this, tensions in nearby Tucson remained high due to ongoing raids in the region, many of which were not carried out by this group. A vigilante force of roughly 140 men marched to the Apache camp.

At dawn, they attacked while most of the Apache men were away hunting, leaving the camp largely defenseless. The attackers killed over 100 people, overwhelmingly women and children, and captured around 30 children who were later sold into slavery in Mexico.

The following year, realizing that Apache life had changed, Chief Cochise reached a verbal agreement with General Oliver Howard of the United States to move onto the Chiricahua reservation.

This agreement not only defined the land but also included provisions and aid to help the Apache transition to their new life as farmers.

Cochise understood that transitioning from a nomadic to a sedentary way of life would be a challenge. He felt confident that the agreement would hold, and even sent Apache runners throughout the region to bring in any remaining bands, including Geronimo and his warriors.

General Howard’s verbal agreement restored much of the original Apache lands, eventually winning the consensus of the Apache chieftains, including a deeply skeptical Geronimo.

Tom Jeffords, a friend of Cochise, was to be the agent for the reservation and set out to ensure the best deal for the Apache. In a letter to the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Jeffords complained that the provisions promised to Cochise by Howard had not been realized; in fact, as he noted, “Not a dollar was furnished to meet expenses, nor as much as a hammer to work with.”

Beyond its status as a non-ratified agreement, the reservation deal faced additional obstacles that would further test Apache resilience. The peace fractured as copper discoveries drew miners to Apache land, while the Mexican government under Porfirio Díaz pressured the United States to stop Geronimo’s cross-border raids.

Díaz had granted the United States massive mining and agricultural interests, and as a result, the United States could no longer ignore the raids. If Cochise was the man who made the reservation possible, Geronimo was the man whose defiance made it impossible for the U.S. government to ignore.

His refusal to stop raiding across the border gave the Bureau of Indian Affairs the excuse they needed to tear up the treaty and send the Apache to the San Carlos desert in Arizona.

The San Carlos Reservation presented great challenges to the Apache as the region is home to severe droughts, limited water resources, and inhospitable soil.

In 1877, federal troops captured Geronimo as he fled the reservation, the only time they ever caught him by force. Federal troops marched him back to the reservation in chains, where he endured four long years of confinement.

During those four long years, the Apache endured constant agricultural failures, battled corrupt Bureau of Indian Affairs agents, and suffered under a total loss of freedom.

Following the murder of an Apache Holy man and a short battle with Federal troops, Geronimo and a group of 70 fled into the heart of Mexico. Moving at great speed, they cut telegraph wires as they sped into the Sierra Madre mountains that he knew so well.

Geronimo thought he could disappear as he had done before, using the border as a weapon against both forces hunting him. What he didn’t realize was that the Díaz regime and the United States had struck a deal; in their push to modernize the border, both nations now allowed the other’s army to pursue fugitives across the international line.

While in Mexico, Geronimo resumed raiding, built a fort, disrupted the cattle trade, and re-established the ethos of the invisible warrior. He even displayed the courage to return to the San Carlos reservation and smuggle fellow resisters back to his Mexican stronghold.

Aware of Geronimo’s movements, the United States dispatched General George Crook in 1883. Crook led a battalion of US troops and Native American adversaries of the Apache to track Geronimo to his stronghold.

He evaded capture until 1886, when General Nelson Miles and 5,000 troops finally surrounded his tiny band. Only after he ran out of supplies did Geronimo agree to surrender and return to the reservation.

Ironically, the kidnapped boy who sparked the Apache Wars, Felix Ward, was raised by the Apache only to later become “Mickey Free”, the Army scout who helped track Geronimo to his final surrender.

Once Geronimo was in custody, the government betrayed the capture agreement and changed the terms of his surrender. Geronimo then began a long odyssey as a prisoner of war, moving from Florida to Alabama, and finally to the plains of Oklahoma, where he died of pneumonia in 1909.

There is one thing I should address because many of you are probably wondering it: Why do people shout Geronimo when jumping out of airplanes or off a high object?

According to legend, the use of “Geronimo” as an exclamation when leaping into the unknown originated with Private Aubrey Eberhardt of the 501st Parachute Infantry Battalion during WWII.

He adopted the name after watching a film about Geronimo, using it as a symbol of fearlessness before his initial jumps. The practice took hold and spread, eventually becoming a common phrase in popular culture for any dramatic leap or jump.

Despite being a prisoner of war, Geronimo became a symbol of courage and liberty. He leveraged his renown to critique the destructive effects of the reservation system on the Apache way of life, speaking out forcefully against the restrictions it imposed, the limits placed on indigenous freedom, and the pervasive corruption.

His autobiography only built his fame and legacy as a warrior who refused to yield in the face of injustice.

Yet, in the end, he even doubted the path he took when he surrendered in 1886, when he said, “I should never have surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man standing.”