Geronimo

by Read Listen Learn

About two hundred years ago in North America, groups of settlers, English-speakers moving south and Spanish-speaking Mexicans moving north, began to move into the desert lands between Mexico and the U.S.A. Caught between the two, and ready to fight to keep the land, were the American Indians of the region. They were mostly of the 'Apache' tribe and they knew the desert very well. Soon, the settlers and the Apache were fighting all the time. Surprise attacks on the enemy's home were the usual way. No-one knew who started it or when it would end.

Geronimo, an Apache chief, was born in the middle of June, 1829, into the Bedonkohe Apache clan in what is now the U.S. state of New Mexico but was still part of Mexico at the time. His grandfather was chief of the Bedonkohe clan in his day. He had a traditional Apache education and tribal childhood. He married at 17 years old and went on to have three children.

One day, the men left to get provisions in the town but, on the way home, they learned that the Mexicans had attacked their homes. Many women and children were killed in the attack and, when Geronimo got home at night he found that the Mexicans had killed his wife, his three children and his mother, an old woman. When the others who had lost family came together to plan their revenge on the Mexicans, Geronimo made sure he was there.

For decades, the Apache were at war with both Mexico and the U.S.A., killing thousands of Mexicans and hundreds of Americans. Sometimes, there were peace talks but Geronimo said that the whites of both sides broke their word too often; especially the Mexicans, he felt. Geronimo fought both nations and became famous as a brave and clever guerrilla leader. The Apache fighters knew the land very well and would often lose U.S. or Mexican soldiers chasing them by going into caves. The soldiers would wait for them to come out but the Apache knew secret exits.

But, in the end, Geronimo and his now small group of thirty-six men, women and children, surrendered to the U.S. army. They became prisoners of war of the U.S.A. Geronimo was to stay a prisoner of war for the rest of his life. Of course, as he grew old, he was allowed to travel and even appear in shows but he could never go back to his old Apache lands. In the end, Geronimo, aged around eighty, fell off his horse and lay in the cold all night. It killed him. He was buried in the Apache prisoner of war cemetery in an unmarked grave.

Why is his name still known? For many, he was a brave defender of his people who, after his family was murdered, went to war against the Americans and Mexicans who were taking his people's lands. He did kill many people, men, women and children, sometimes in terrible ways but he was a man born into very violent times.

He is still a very political character. At the time of the Vietnam War, he was seen as a symbol of resistance to the 'American Empire', a shining light for native peoples everywhere who resist invaders. And, again, when the U.S. organised the operation to kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan, they used the codename 'Geronimo' for Osama bin Laden and for the operation itself. Geronimo's descendants in America complained to the U.S. government. They said it showed how, even today, the U.S.A. sees Geronimo as a foreign enemy and not a Native American.