Geronimo was born in June, 1829, the fourth of eight children. He was a member of the Be-don-ko-he subtribe of the Apache Indians. In 1846, when he was seventeen years old, Geronimo was admitted to the council of warriors, and he also married the first of his eight wives. In 1858, he saw his first white men--surveyors--but he had no altercations with whites until the late 1860s, troubles which began as a result of his raids on Mexicans. In 1858, Geronimo and his tribe went to a Mexican village which they called Kaskiyeh, and set up camp outside the town. The warriors went in to trade and returned to their camp to find it massacred. Geronimo's mother, wife , and three children were dead. In 1859, Geronimo organized a return attack upon the Mexicans, whom he now considered "treacherous and malicious." Not satisfied with revenge, Geronimo continued skirmishing with the Mexicans into the early 1880s, and took his toll on white settlers who happened to be in his way. United States soldiers began pursuing Geronimo, eager to capture him and put an end to his menacing raids. Geronimo was captured in the late 1880s when General Nelson A. Miles assumed command of the Department of Arizona. After his surrender, Geronimo was moved to Fort Pickens in Pensacola, Florida, to Vermont, Alabama, and finally to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where he was living when Barrett proposed that he tell his life story. There are several chapters describing the origin of the Apaches; their tribal amusements, manners, and customs; and Geronimo?s family and early life.
S. M. Barrett
(1906), 1990, paper, 236 pp.
ISBN: 9781556133671
101-B0367
