Indian Leaders of the 1800s

Red Cloud
Makhpiya-Luta(1822-1909)
As a warrior and a statesman, Red Cloud's
success in confrontations with the United States
government marked him as one of the most
important Lakota leaders of the nineteenth
century.
Although the details of his early life are unclear,
Red Cloud was born near the forks of the Platte
River, near what is now North Platte, Nebraska.
His mother was an Oglala and his father, who
died in Red Cloud's youth, was a Brulé Red
Cloud was raised in the household of his
maternal uncle, Chief Smoke.
Much of Red Cloud's early life was spent at war, first and most often against the
neighboring Pawnee and Crow, at times against other Oglala. In 1841 he killed
one of his uncle's primary rivals, an event which divided the Oglala for the next
fifty years. He gained enormous prominence within the Lakota nation for his
leadership in territorial wars against the Pawnees, Crows, Utes and Shoshones.
Beginning in 1866, Red Cloud orchestrated the most successful war against
the United States ever fought by an Indian nation. The army had begun to
construct forts along the Bozeman Trail, which ran through the heart of Lakota
territory in present-day Wyoming to the Montana gold fields from Colorado's South
Platte River. As caravans of miners and settlers began to cross the Lakota's land,
Red Cloud was haunted by the vision of Minnesota's expulsion of the Eastern
Lakota in 1862 and 1863. So he launched a series of assaults on the forts, most
notably the crushing defeat of Lieutenant Colonel William Fetterman's column of
eighty men just outside Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming, in December of 1866. The
garrisons were kept in a state of exhausting fear of further attacks through the rest
of the winter.
Red Cloud's strategies were so successful that by 1868 the United States
government had agreed to the Fort Laramie Treaty. The treaty's remarkable
provisions mandated that the United States abandon its forts along the Bozeman
Trail and guarantee the Lakota their possession of what is now the Western half of
South Dakota, including the Black Hills, along with much of Montana and
Wyoming.
The peace, of course, did not last. Custer's 1874 Black Hills expedition again
brought war to the northern Plains, a war that would mean the end of independent
Indian nations. For reasons which are not entirely clear, Red Cloud did not join
Crazy Horse, Sitting Bull and other war leaders in the Lakota War of 1876-77.
However, after the military defeat of the Lakota nation, Red Cloud continued to
fight for the needs and autonomy of his people, even if in less obvious or dramatic
ways than waging war.
Throughout the 1880's Red Cloud struggled with Pine Ridge Indian Agent
Valentine McGillycuddy over the distribution of government food and supplies and
the control of the Indian police force. He was eventually successful in securing
McGillycuddy's dismissal. Red Cloud cultivated contacts with sympathetic Eastern
reformers, especially Thomas A. Bland, and was not above pretending for political
effect to be more acculturated to white ways than he actually was.
Fearing the Army's presence on his reservation, Red Cloud refrained from
endorsing the Ghost Dance movement, and unlike Sitting Bull and Big Foot, he
escaped the Army's occupation unscathed. Thereafter he continued to fight to
preserve the authority of chiefs such as himself, opposed leasing Lakota lands to
whites, and vainly fought allotment of Indian reservations into individual tracts
under the 1887 Dawes Act. He died in 1909, but his long and complex life endures
as testimony to the variety of ways in which Indians resisted their conquest.
Sitting Bull
At about the age of 14, Sitting Bull participated in a war
party that met Crow warriors. He overtook one of the
warriors during their retreat, and knocked the Crow off his
horse. For this, Sitting Bull earned a white eagle feather,
symbol of a first coup, and also received the name of his
father.
As Sitting Bull grew, he participated in more war parties,
gaining a red feather that signified a battlefield wound. He
performed feats of bravery, and became expert in other
weapons such as the knife, tomahawk, war club, and was
competent with firearms. In 1856, Sitting Bull again was
wounded in combat by a Crow warrior who shot Sitting
Bull in the foot. The wound caused Sitting Bull to limp for
the rest of his life. Sitting Bull's bravery gained him
access to Sioux warrior societies. In 1857, he was made a
war chief, and later that year, he was accorded the same status in the Hunkpapa tribe.
Sitting Bull became a Sioux holy man, or wichasha wakan, during his early twenties. His
responsibilities as a holy man included understanding the complex religious rituals and
beliefs of the Sioux, and also learning about natural phenomena that were related to the
Sioux beliefs. Sitting Bull had an "intense spirituality that pervaded his entire being in his
adult years and that fueled a constant quest for an understanding of the universe and of
the ways in which he personally could bring its infinite powers to the benefit of his
people."
On September 2, 1864, Sitting Bull and the Hunkpapas attacked a wagon train of
emigrants led by Capt. James L. Fisk that was traveling through Sioux lands. Sitting Bull
again was wounded, this time through the hip and back. The emigrants forted up and a
standoff ensued until the Sioux eventually gave up and retreated to track buffalo. The
fighting from 1863 to 1864 caused Sitting Bull to harden his views about the presence of
whites in Sioux lands, and he assumed a sense of uncompromising militancy against
whites that would characterize him for the rest of his life
Red Cloud's War
Sitting Bull led numerous war parties against Fort Berthold, Fort Stevenson, and Fort
Buford and their environs from 1865 through 1868. Although Red Cloud was a leader of
the Oglala Sioux, his leadership and attacks against forts in the Powder River Country
were accompanied by Sitting Bull's guerrilla attacks on emigrant parties and smaller forts
throughout the upper Missouri River region.
By early 1868, the U.S. government desired a peaceful settlement to Red Cloud's War,
and agreed to Red Cloud's demands that Forts Phil Kearny and C.F. Smith be
abandoned. Chief Gall of the Hunkpapas (among other representatives of the
Hunkpapas, Blackfeet, and Yankton Sioux) signed a form of the Treaty of Fort Laramie on
July 2, 1868 at Fort Rice (near Bismarck, North Dakota). However, Sitting Bull did not
agree to the treaty and continued his hit-and-run attacks on forts in the upper Missouri
area throughout the late 1860s and early 1870s.
Black Hills War
Sitting Bull's band of the Hunkpapas continued to make attacks on emigrant parties and
forts in the late 1860s, but in 1871, the Northern Pacific Railway conducted a survey for a
route across the northern plains directly through Hunkpapa lands. The 1871 survey
encountered stiff Sioux resistance, and in 1872, the surveyors were accompanied by
federal troops. This survey party also was resisted by Sitting Bull and the Hunkpapa, and
was forced to turn back. In 1873, the military accompaniment for the surveyors was
considerably larger, but Sitting Bull's forces resisted this survey "most vigorously."
However, the Panic of 1873 forced the backers (such as Jay Cooke) of the Northern
Pacific Railway's into bankruptcy. This halted the construction of the railroad through
Sioux territory, but also encouraged interest in the possibility of gold mining in the Black
Hills. A military expedition led by Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer in 1874 left from Fort
Abraham Lincoln, near Bismarck, to explore the Black Hills for gold and to determine a
suitable location for a military fort in the Hills. Custer's announcement of gold in the Black
Hills triggered the Black Hills Gold Rush and increased tensions between the Sioux and
whites seeking to move into the Black Hills.
Although Sitting Bull did not attack Custer's expedition in 1874, the government was
increasingly pressured to open the Black Hills to mining and settlement based on reports
of Sioux depredations (encouraged by Sitting Bull). In November 1875, the government
accordingly ordered all Sioux bands outside the Great Sioux Reservation to move onto
the reservation, with the knowledge that these bands would not comply. These bands
living off the reservation were certified by the Interior Department as hostile on February
1, 1876. This certification allowed the military to pursue the Sioux and Sitting Bull.
Battle of Little Bighorn
For more details on this topic, see Battle of the Little Bighorn.
Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer, a decorated Union veteran of the Civil War, was an
ambitious military officer with presidential hopes in the early 1870s. His Civil War exploits
and his presence at Lee's surrender at Appomattox had made Custer a household name
by the time he began his career fighting the Sioux. He was well-known among Native
Americans and his fame among whites grew ever-larger as the result of a series of
controversial battles and early dawn attacks against Native American camps.
Sitting Bull's influence was growing larger as a result of his militant stance against white
intrusions on Sioux lands. By the mid-1870s, Sitting Bull had garnered great respect even
among other bands of the Sioux, while his guidance also impacted the Northern
Cheyenne and the Northern Arrapahoes.
On June 25, 1876, Custer’s 7th Cavalry advance party of General Alfred Howe Terry’s
column attacked Indian tribes at their camp on the Little Big Horn River expecting a
similar victory. The U.S. army did not realize that before the battle began, more than
3,000 Native Americans had left their reservations to follow Sitting Bull. The attacking
Sioux, inspired by a vision of Sitting Bull’s, in which he saw U.S. soldiers being killed as
they entered the tribe’s camp, fought back. Custer's badly outnumbered troops lost
ground quickly and were forced to retreat, as they began to realize the true numbers of
the Native American force. The tribes then led a counter-attack against the soldiers on a
nearby ridge, ultimately annihilating the soldiers.
The Native Americans' celebrations were short-lived, however, as public outrage at
Custer's death and defeat and the heightened awareness of the remaining Sioux brought
thousands more soldiers to the area. Over the next year, the new American military forces
pursued the Lakota, forcing many of the Indians to surrender. Sitting Bull refused to
surrender and in May 1877 led his band across the border into Saskatchewan, Canada
where he remained in exile for many years near Wood Mountain, refusing a pardon and
the chance to return.
Surrender
Hunger and cold eventually forced Sitting Bull, his family, and nearly 200 other Sioux in
his band to return to the United States and surrender on July 19, 1881. Sitting Bull had his
young son Crow Foot surrender his rifle to the commanding officer of Fort Buford, and he
told the soldiers he wished to regard them and the white race as friends. Two weeks later,
Sitting Bull and his band were transferred to Fort Yates, the military post located adjacent
to the Standing Rock Agency.
Arriving with 185 people, his band was kept separate from the other Hunkpapa gathered
at the agency. Army officials remained concerned that the famed Hunkpapa chief would
use his influence to stir up trouble among the recently surrendered northern bands.
Consequently, the military decided to transfer him and his band to Fort Randall to be held
as prisoners of war. Again loaded on a steamboat, Sitting Bull's band, now totaling 172
people, were sent downriver to Fort Randall where they spent the next 20 months. He
was finally allowed to return to the Standing Rock Agency with his band in May 1883.
Wild West Show participation
In 1885, Sitting Bull was allowed to leave the reservation to join Buffalo Bill Cody’s Wild
West show. He earned about $50 a week for riding once around the arena, where he was
a popular attraction. Although it is rumored that he often cursed his audiences in his
native tongue during the show, some historians argue that he did not, and there have
been reports that Sitting Bull in fact gave speeches relaying his desire for education for
the young and the normalization of relations between the Sioux and whites. Sitting Bull
also was reported to have cursed his audience during an opening address celebrating the
completion of the Northern Pacific Railway in 1884.
Sitting Bull only stayed with the show for four months before returning home. However,
during that time, he had become somewhat of a celebrity and a romanticized freedom
fighter. He earned a small fortune by charging for his autograph and picture, although he
often gave away his money to the homeless and beggars.
Initially, Sitting Bull did not resist the arrest; however, some of his followers fought to
prevent it, fearing that the army meant to kill him. As Sitting Bull exited his cabin, about
150 of these followers had assembled. One of Sitting Bull's followers, Catch-the-Bear,
fired a shot at one of the police officers standing next to Sitting Bull, Lt. Bull Head, who
then shot Sitting Bull in the side. Another police officer, Sgt. Red Tomahawk, then shot
Sitting Bull in the head, killing him. Shortly after, Catch-the-Bear was killed by another
Indian police officer. In the end, six police officers were killed, and one other wounded,
while seven of Sitting Bull's followers were killed in the fighting, including his 17-year-old
son Crow Foot.
Sitting Bull's body was taken by the Indian police to Fort Yates, North Dakota, and buried
outside the military cemetery there. His surviving wives, Four Robes and Seen-By-HerNation, and their children moved to the community of Red Shirt Table in the Badlands of
South Dakota after being detained at Fort Yates. Some Lakota claim that his remains
were transported on the night of April 8, 1953 to an open field near Mobridge, South
Dakota, and a granite shaft and a bust by sculptor Korczak Ziółkowski mark the location.
However, the actual location of Sitting Bull's body was and still is disputed.
CRAZY HORSE
Crazy Horse was born along Rapid Creek near
present-day Rapid City, South Dakota, to the east of
Paha Sapa, the Black Hills.
He was the son of an Oglala medicine man of the
same name and his Brule wife, the sister of Spotted
Tail. His mother died when he was young, and his
father took her sister as a wife and she helped raise
Crazy Horse.
He spent time in both Oglala and Brule camps. His
childhood name was Curly. Before he was 12, Curly
had killed a buffalo and received his own horse.
About that age, on August 19, 1854, he was in
CONQUERING BEAR’s camp in northern Wyoming
when the Brule leader was killed in the GRATTAN Fight. Although he was away from
camp during the Battle of Ash Hollow the following year, he witnessed the destruction of
Sioux tepees and possessions by the soldiers during General WILLIAM S. HARNEY’s
punitive expedition through Sioux territory along the Oregon Trail, experiences that helped
shape his militant attitude toward whites.
After the Grattan Fight, Curly underwent a Vision Quest in which he had a vivid dream of
a rider in a storm on horseback, with long unbraided hair, a small stone in his ear, zigzag
lightning decorating his cheek, and hail dotting his body. Although a warrior, he bore no
scalps. People clutched at the rider, but could not hold him. The storm faded and a redbacked hawk flew over the rider’s head. When Curly later related the dream to his father,
the medicine man interpreted it as a sign of his son’s future greatness in battle.
At about the age of 16, now bearing his father’s name, Crazy Horse rode for the first time
as an adult warrior in a raid on Crows. Like the rider in his dream, he wore his hair free, a
stone earring, and a headdress with a red hawk feather in it. His face was painted with a
lightning bolt and his body with hail-like dots. The raid was successful, but Crazy Horse
received a wound in the leg, because, his father interpreted, unlike the rider in the vision,
he had taken two scalps. For the remainder of his career as a warrior, it is said that Crazy
Horse never again took a scalp.
Crazy Horse became further known to many of the Sioux bands for his courage in the
War for the BOZEMAN Trail of 1866-68 under the Oglala RED CLOUD , when the army
began building a road in Powder River country from the Oregon Trail to the goldfields of
Montana. He was one of the young chiefs, along with the Miniconjou HUMP and the
Hunkpapas GALL and RAIN-IN-THE-FACE , who used decoy tactics against the soldiers.
Near Fort Phil Kearny, Wyoming, Crazy Horse participated in the Indian victories known
as the FETTERMAN Fight of December 21, 1866, and the Wagon Box Fight of August 2,
1867. With the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1868, in which the army agreed to abandon the
posts along the Bozeman Trail, Red Cloud and Spotted Tail settled on reservation lands.
Crazy Horse became war chief of the Oglalas, with some Brule followers as well.
Moreover, he made friends and followers among the Northern Cheyennes through his first
marriage to a Cheyenne woman. He later married an Oglala woman too.
Crazy Horse again waged war in the early 1870s, leading his warriors in raids on Northern
Pacific Railway surveyors. The Black Hills Gold Rush, which brought more whites to the
region, increased tensions.
When the nomadic hunting bands ignored the order to report to their reservations by
January 31, 1876, the military organized a campaign against them.
Crazy Horse’s band fought in the opening engagement of the War for the Black Hills of
1876-77, the Battle of Powder River.
In March 1876, when his scouts discovered an Indian trail, General GEORGE CROOK
sent a detachment under Colonel Joseph Reynolds to locate the Indian camp along the
Powder in southeastern Montana. At dawn on March 17, Reynolds ordered a charge.
The Indians retreated to surrounding bluffs and fired at the troops who burned the village
and rounded up the Indian horses. Crazy Horse regrouped his warriors and, during a
snowstorm that night, recaptured the herd.
Meanwhile, SITTING BULL of the Hunkpapas, who, during the 1860s, had been active in
raids in northern Montana and North Dakota along the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers,
came into prominence as the spiritual leader of the allied Northern Plains tribes. Gall
acted as his leading war chief. Crazy Horse joined the Hunkpapas on the upper Rosebud.
On June 17, 1876, at the Battle of the Rosebud, Crazy Horse, Gall, and other war chiefs
led their warriors in repeated assaults that forced Crook’s troops to retreat.
The Indians then moved their camp to the Bighorn River. On June 25, at the Battle of
Little Bighorn, Crazy Horse led the victorious assault on GEORGE ARMSTRONG
CUSTER’s men from the north and west, while Gall’s warriors attacked from the south
and west.
Following Little Bighorn, the Indian bands split up, and Crazy Horse led his people back to
the Rosebud.
The next autumn and winter, Colonel NELSON A. MILES led the 5th Infantry from a base
at the confluence of the Tongue and Yellowstone rivers in a relentless pursuit of the
militants, wearing them down and making it difficult for them to obtain food. When the
Indians attempted hit-and-run strikes, the soldiers responded with heavy artillery to repel
them. On January 8, 1877, at Wolf Mountain on the Tongue River in southern Montana,
Crazy Horse led 800 braves in a surprise attack. Miles had disguised his howitzers as
wagons and opened fire with them. The Indians withdrew to bluffs and, when the soldiers
counterattacked, retreated under the cover of a snowstorm.
More and more of the fugitive bands were surrendering.
Crazy Horse received a promise from Crook through Red Cloud that if he surrendered, his
people would have a reservation of their own in the Powder River country. His people
weary and starving, Crazy Horse led some 800 followers to Fort Robinson on the Red
Cloud Agency in northwestern Nebraska on May 5, 1877.
But the promise of a reservation fell through.
Crazy Horse remained at the Red Cloud Agency, and his presence caused unrest among
the Indians and suspicion among the whites. Older chiefs resented the adulation he
received from young braves. He remained aloof from whites and refused Crook’s request
to send him to Washington, D.C., for a meeting with President Rutherford Hayes.
Crazy Horse’s wife became sick. On hearing unfounded rumors that Crazy Horse was
planning a rebellion, Crook ordered his arrest. Taking his family with him, Crazy Horse
headed for the Spotted Tail Agency to the northwest. In a parley with troops sent to
capture him, Crazy Horse agreed to return, and the next day, September 5, 1877, he was
led back to Fort Robinson.
What exactly happened at the Red Cloud Agency is unknown. It is thought Crazy Horse
had not expected to be imprisoned. On realizing he was being taken to the stockade, he
resisted and, while the Indian police attempted to regain control, he was bayoneted in the
abdomen by a soldier.
Crazy Horse died that night.
His father and stepmother were given his body and, following their son’s request, buried
him in his homeland—somewhere near Wounded Knee, according to legend.
"Chief Joseph"
Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt (1840-1904)
The man who became a national celebrity with the
name "Chief Joseph" was born in the Wallowa Valley
in what is now northeastern Oregon in 1840. He was
given the name Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt, or Thunder
Rolling Down the Mountain, but was widely known as
Joseph, or Joseph the Younger, because his father
had taken the Christian name Joseph when he was
baptized at the Lapwai mission by Henry Spalding in
1838.
Joseph the Elder was one of the first Nez Percé
converts to Christianity and an active supporter of the
tribe's longstanding peace with whites. In 1855 he
even helped Washington's territorial governor set up a
Nez Percé reservation that stretched from Oregon
into Idaho. But in 1863, following a gold rush into Nez
Percé territory, the federal government took back
almost six million acres of this land, restricting the
Nez Percé to a reservation in Idaho that was only one tenth its prior size. Feeling himself
betrayed, Joseph the Elder denounced the United States, destroyed his American flag
and his Bible, and refused to move his band from the Wallowa Valley or sign the treaty
that would make the new reservation boundaries official.
When the tribes most respected leader died in 1871, Joseph inherited a situation made
increasingly volatile as white settlers continued to arrive in the Wallowa Valley. Joseph
staunchly resisted all efforts to force his band onto the small Idaho reservation, and in
1873 a federal order to remove white settlers and let his people remain in the Wallowa
Valley made it appear that he might be successful. But the federal government soon
reversed itself, and in 1877 General Oliver Otis Howard threatened a cavalry attack to
force Joseph's band and other hold-outs onto the reservation. Believing military
resistance futile, Joseph reluctantly led his people toward Idaho.
Unfortunately, they never got there. About twenty young Nez Percé warriors, enraged at
the loss of their homeland, staged a raid on nearby settlements and killed several whites.
Immediately, the army began to pursue Joseph's band and the others who had not moved
onto the reservation. Although he had opposed war, Joseph cast his lot with the war
leaders.
What followed was one of the most brilliant military retreats in American history. Even the
unsympathetic General William Tecumseh Sherman could not help but be impressed
with the 1,400 mile march, stating that "the Indians throughout displayed a courage and
skill that elicited universal praise... [they] fought with almost scientific skill, using advance
and rear guards, skirmish lines, and field fortifications." In over three months, the band of
about 700, fewer than 200 of whom were warriors, fought 2,000 U.S. soldiers and Indian
auxiliaries in four major battles and numerous skirmishes.
By the time he formally surrendered on October 5, 1877, Joseph was widely referred to in
the American press as "the Red Napoleon." It is unlikely, however, that he played as
critical a role in the Nez Percé's military feat as his legend suggests. He was never
considered a war chief by his people, and even within the Wallowa band, it was Joseph's
younger brother, Olikut, who led the warriors. Nevertheless, Joseph's widely reprinted
surrender speech has immortalized him as a military leader in American popular culture:
I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is
dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say, "Yes" or "No." He who led
the young men [Olikut] is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are
freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no
blankets, no food. No one knows where they are -- perhaps freezing to death. I want to
have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find
them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From
where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.
Joseph's fame did him little good. Although he had surrendered with the understanding
that he would be allowed to return home, Joseph and his people were instead taken first
to eastern Kansas and then to a reservation in Indian Territory (present-day Oklahoma)
where many of them died of epidemic diseases. Although he was allowed to visit
Washington, D.C., in 1879 to plead his case to U.S. President Rutherford B. Hayes, it was
not until 1885 that Joseph and the other refugees were returned to the Pacific Northwest.
Even then, half, including Joseph, were taken to a non-Nez Percé reservation in northern
Washington, separated from the rest of their people in Idaho and their homeland in the
Wallowa Valley.
In his last years, Joseph spoke eloquently against the injustice of United States policy
toward his people and held out the hope that America's promise of freedom and equality
might one day be fulfilled for Native Americans as well. An indomitable voice of
conscience for the West, he died in 1904, still in exile from his homeland, according to his
doctor "of a broken heart."
Geronimo
June 16, 1829 - February 17, 1909
Geronimo lived most of his life in the Chiricahua tribe
of the Apache nation. He attempted to defend his
people against the encroachment of the United
States on their tribal lands for over 25 years.
Geronimo's father, Tablishim, and mother, Juana,
educated him according to Apache traditions. He
married a woman from the Chiricauhua band of
Apache; they had three children. On March 5, 1851,
a company of 400 soldiers from Sonora (Mexico) led
by Colonel Jose Maria Carrasco attacked
Geronimo's camp outside Janos while the men were
in town trading. Among those dead were Geronimo's
wife, Alope, his children, and mother. His chief,
Mangas Coloradas, sent him to Cochise's band for
help in revenge against the Mexicans. It was the
Mexicans who named him Geronimo. This
appellation stemmed from a battle in which he
repeatedly attacked Mexican soldiers with a knife,
ignoring a deadly hail of bullets. In reference to the
Mexicans' plea to Saint Jerome, the name stuck.
While Geronimo said he was never a chief, he was a
military leader. As a Chiricahua Apache, this meant
he was also a spiritual leader. He consistently urged raids and war upon many Mexican
and later U.S. groups.
Though outnumbered, Geronimo fought against both Mexican and United States troops
and became famous for his daring exploits and numerous escapes from capture from
1858 to 1886. His band was one of the last major forces of independent Indian warriors
who refused to acknowledge the United States Government in the American West. For
example, in 1875 all Apaches west of the Rio Grande were ordered to the San Carlos
Reservation. Geronimo escaped from the reservation three times and although he
surrendered, he always managed to avoid capture. In 1876, the U.S. Army tried to move
the Chiricahuas onto a reservation, but Geronimo fled to Mexico eluding the troops for
over a decade. Sensationalized press reports exaggerated Geronimo's activities, making
him the most feared and infamous Apache. The last few months of the campaign required
over 5,000 soldiers (one-quarter of the entire Army at the time), and 500 scouts, and
perhaps up to 3,000 Mexican soldiers to track down Geronimo and his band.
Yet, Geronimo continued his fight to move freely about his ancestral lands, leaving
reservations as quickly as he entered them. In May 1882, Apache scouts working for the
U.S. army surprised Geronimo in his mountain sanctuary, and he agreed to return with his
people to the reservation. After a year of farming, the sudden arrest and imprisonment of
the Apache warrior Ka-ya-ten-nae, together with rumors of impending trials and hangings,
prompted Geronimo to flee on May 17, 1885, with 35 warriors and 109 women, children
and youths. In January 1886, Apache scouts penetrated Juh's seemingly impregnable
hideout. This action induced Geronimo to surrender (Mar. 25, 1886) to Gen. George
CROOK. Geronimo later fled again.
On September 4, 1886, when Geronimo surrendered to United States Army General
Nelson A. Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona. Geronimo and other warriors were sent as
prisoners to Fort Pickens, Florida, and his family was sent to Fort Marion. They were
reunited in May 1887, when they were transferred to Mount Vernon Barracks in Alabama
for five years. In 1894, they were moved to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. In his old age, Geronimo
became a celebrity. He appeared at fairs, including the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, and
sold souvenirs and photographs of himself. However, he was not allowed to return to the
land of his birth. He rode in President Theodore Roosevelt's 1905 inaugural parade. He
died of pneumonia at Fort Sill in 1909 and was buried at the Apache Indian Prisoner of
War Cemetery there.