GERONIMO
THE LAMAR SERIES IN WESTERN HISTORY
The Lamar Series in Western History includes scholarly books of general public interest that enhance the understanding of human affairs in the American West and contribute to a wider understanding of the West’s significance in the political, social, and cultural life of America. Comprising works of the highest quality, the series aims to increase the range and vitality of Western American history, focusing on frontier places and people, Indian and ethnic communities, the urban West and the environment, and the art and illustrated history of the American West.
Editorial Board
Howard R. Lamar, Sterling Professor of History Emeritus, Past President of Yale University
William J. Cronon, University of Wisconsin–Madison
Philip J. Deloria, University of Michigan
John Mack Faragher, Yale University
Jay Gitlin, Yale University
George A. Miles, Beinecke Library, Yale University
Martha A. Sandweiss, Princeton University
Virginia J. Scharff, University of New Mexico
Robert M. Utley, Former Chief Historian, National Park Service
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War of a Thousand Deserts: Indian Raids and the U.S.–Mexican War, by Brian DeLay Defying the Odds: The Tule River Tribe’s Struggle for Sovereignty in Three Centuries, by Gelya Frank and Carole Goldberg
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Welcome to Wonderland: Promoting Tourism in the Rocky Mountain West, by Peter Blodgett The Shapes of Power: Frontiers, Borderlands, Middle Grounds, and Empires of North America, by Pekka Hämäläinen
Bold Spirits, by Monica Rico
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GERONIMO
ROBERT M. UTLEY
Copyright © 2012 by Robert M. Utley.
All rights reserved.
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Designed by Mary Valencia.
Set in Adobe Garamond type by Westchester Book Group.
Printed in the United States of America.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Utley, Robert Marshall, 1929–
Geronimo / Robert M. Utley.
p. cm. — (Lamar series in western history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-300-12638-9 (clothbound : alk. paper)
1. Geronimo, 1829–1909. 2. Apache Indians—Kings and rulers—Biography. 3. Apache Indians—Wars, 1883–1886. 4. Apache Indians—History. I. Title.
E99.A6G3276 2012
979.004’972560092—dc23
[B]
2012019521
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48–1992 (Permanence of Paper).
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Ed Sweeney,
master of Chiricahua sources and friend and colleague. This book rests heavily on his pioneering work.
CONTENTS
Preface
Prologue
1. Apache Youth
2. Apache Manhood
3. Battle and Massacre
4. “Americans”
5. War with the Americans
6. Return of the Bluecoats
7. Cochise: War and Peace, 1863–72
8. Cochise: Peace at Last, 1872
9. The Chiricahua Reservation, 1872–76
10. Removal to the Gila River
11. Geronimo’s First Breakout, 1878
12. Back to San Carlos, 1878–79
13. Geronimo’s Second Breakout, 1881
14. Geronimo Abducts Loco, 1982
15. Mexico: Massacres and Raids, 1882–83
16. Geronimo Confronts Crook in the Sierra Madre, 1883
17. Return to San Carlos, 1883–84
18. The Last Breakout, 1885
19. Back to the Sierra Madre, 1885
20. Chased by Crook’s Scouts, 1885–86
21. Canyon de los Embudos, 1886
22. Miles in Command, 1886
23. Geronimo Meets Gatewood, 1886
24. Geronimo Surrenders, 1886
25. Prisoners of War, 1886–87
26. Geronimo at Mount Vernon Barracks, 1888–94
27. Geronimo’s Final Home, 1894–1909
28. Geronimo’s Last Years
Epilogue
Appendix
List of Abbreviations
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Illustrations follow page 156
PREFACE
GERONIMO!
A shouted or muted code word for a range of uses from World War II paratroopers to Osama bin Laden’s Pakistani compound. Why Geronimo? Why does the name stand out more prominently than other North American Indian leaders? Why has Geronimo been the Indian name that has lodged more deeply in the public mind than any other since the early 1880s? The name of this Apache leader has cast a shadow over Indian chiefs ranging from Tecumseh and Pontiac to Crazy Horse and Chief Joseph. None comes close to challenging the dominance of Geronimo. His name is the best known of all North American Indian leaders.
Yet Geronimo was not a chief. Sometimes he led parts or all of the Chiricahua Apache tribe; at other times he commanded only a personal following of about thirty in his extended family. Sometimes he executed brilliant strategy and tactics; at other times he neglected the most elementary techniques of Apache warfare. He was not, as legend asserts, the hero leading his people in a last stand to retain their homeland.
If not, who was he? What persona resides beneath the legend?
With Geronimo, to penetrate the layers of legend is to engage in the detective work of a great mystery. He was fifty-four years old before his name came to the notice of white people. Before that, only his flawed autobiography and a few other Indian sources cast light on his life. After that, many whites and Indians stated their opinions of who he was. They are so contradictory that they define Geronimo as a personality of many contradictions.
Once before, in The Lance and the Shield: The Life and Times of Sitting Bull (Henry Holt, 1993), I attempted to understand a significant person from another culture. The Lakota Sioux chief Sitting Bull has also achieved legendary status, although not as prominently as Geronimo. I steeped myself in Sitting Bull’s culture and tried to interpret his life’s path within his context. Multiple reliable sources, both Indian and white, chronicle his life’s path, from birth to death. Unlike Geronimo, Sitting Bull consistently ac
ted as his culture prescribed. Culture, dedication to the welfare of the Lakota, a consistent resistance to the encroachments of the white people, and an unflinching devotion to his people narrowed the quest for the real person obscured by the legend.
For Geronimo, the task is infinitely harder. The real person beneath the legend is more of a ghost. One can master his culture, but unlike Sitting Bull he did not rigidly adhere to it. Much of his early life remains shrouded in mystery. Much of his later life must be inferred from both white and Indian sources. They tell where he was and what he did, but rarely why he did it. The context of Geronimo’s life is much wider than Sitting Bull’s.
Furthermore, Geronimo exhibits essentially two personae. When he came to white public notice, he was a Chiricahua Apache leader, often fighting the Americans, often accommodating to them. The newspapers carried frequent accounts of his activities—usually embellished or even false. To the newspapers he owes his prominence, for the stories that clogged them planted his name in the public mind. After his surrender, he evolved into a different person, but no less prominent and no less contradictory. For nearly thirty years, in these incarnations, he fascinated the public. By then, the fascination had gained such momentum that it rolled unabated into the twenty-first century and in 2011 demonstrated its continuing appeal in the Pakistani compound of the current world’s most malevolent terrorist.
Geronimo’s life’s path is far rockier than Sitting Bull’s, but it is a path worth exploring.
The path has been explored many times, in books, articles, motion pictures, and museums. The standard biography since 1976 has been Angie Debo, Geronimo: The Man, His Time, His Place (University of Oklahoma Press, 1976). Why, then, with a sound biography followed by countless unsound books and articles, explore the path again? I have undertaken this project because of much new material, published and unpublished, becoming available since 1976. Also, not to denigrate Angie Debo, my research leads me to different interpretations than hers. Thus my exploration has added another entry to the Geronimo bibliography.
I have tried to present various episodes from both the Apache and the white perspectives, instead of using what award-winning author T. J. Stiles terms the usual historian’s “omniscient overview.” Thus what the Indians perceived is set down without including vital information they did not know. This is followed by the white perspective, what they knew and reported. The change of perspective is signaled by space breaks and transitional sentences in the body of the book.
Military installations in the Southwest were named either camp or fort. This can be confusing, especially since many camps later became forts. I have avoided this confusion by naming all these places forts. Thus Camp Bowie, later Fort Bowie, is Fort Bowie from the first mention.
According to the only reliable source, compiled by Gillette Griswold at Fort Sill in 1958–61, Geronimo had eight wives over his lifetime, all but one of whom is named. I have attempted to place these eight at the appropriate places in Geronimo’s lifetime. (A ninth marriage was quickly terminated.) Unfortunately, several additional wives, not named, turn up in the sources as shot or taken captive. I cannot account for them but include them as the sources dictate.
I wish to acknowledge those whose interest and aid have contributed importantly to this book. Topping the list is Edwin R. Sweeney, whose biographies of Mangas Coloradas and Cochise and history of the Chiricahuas from Cochise to Geronimo proved indispensable. Sweeney probed Mexican sources—archives, papers, newspapers—as no one else has. Geronimo and his cohorts cannot be followed through their Mexican adventures without resort to Sweeney’s work. Moreover, Ed has become a close friend and adviser who often pointed the way for me as I struggled with questions about Apache life south of the border. He has also exploited numerous archives in the United States that I have been unable to reach and provided me with photocopies of critical sources. I am deeply grateful for Ed’s generosity and counsel.
This is the fourth book for which I have worked with cultural geographer Peter Dana of Georgetown, Texas, to create shaded relief maps to illustrate my text. This project has proved very difficult because it ventured into Mexico and involved the most tangled mountains on the continent. Thanks, Peter.
Never have I submitted a manuscript that my wife, Melody Webb, has not thoroughly vetted. Her comments are always relevant and valued, and almost all result in correction and revision. Thanks again, Melody.
Longtime friend H. David Evans of Tucson, Arizona, is intimately familiar both with the literature of Geronimo and the Chiricahuas and the geography of the land they roamed. I asked him to review and comment on all the text. Dave graciously consented, and his comments and editing have proved extremely valuable.
I owe a debt of gratitude, as usual, to my longtime agent, Carl Brandt of Brandt and Hochman in New York, and to my valued editor at Yale University Press, Christopher Rogers. In fact, I chose Yale because I wanted to work with Chris. He provided the most thorough and thoughtful evaluation of my manuscript in my experience and offered many suggestions that have led to major revisions. The book is much different and much better than the original because of Chris Rogers. Yale’s Laura Jones Dooley deserves special gratitude for the exellent copyediting.
Others whose help has been beneficial include Towana Spivey, director of the Fort Sill Museum; Senior Historian Richard Sommers at the US Army Military History Institute at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania; Gatewood biographer Louis Kraft; Henrietta Stockel; Katherine Reeve of the Arizona Historical Society; and, for crucial help with illustrations, Roy Marcot, Jay Van Orden, and Mark Sublette. Historian T. J. Stiles offered valuable advice in presenting the text. To all: thank you.
PROLOGUE
NOT UNTIL THE AGE of fifty-three did Geronimo come to the attention of the American people. For thirty years he had raided and made war on Mexicans, whom he detested, and occasionally raided in the American Southwest. Apache raids typically ranged from simply stealing stock and other plunder to killing and mutilating or capturing victims. Geronimo practiced all forms of raiding and accumulated a record of brutality that matched that of any of his comrades.
In 1876 Geronimo grew careless and boldly demanded government rations from the agent at the Ojo Caliente agency in New Mexico. He used this place as a base for raids into Arizona while insisting on rations for the time he had been absent. A government agent from Arizona’s White Mountain Reservation caught up with him, tricked him into opening himself to seizure by Apache police, took him, shackled in irons, to the White Mountain Reservation, and threw him in the jailhouse, still shackled. Here he endured a humiliating four-month ordeal until released. Here he began his checkered career as a reservation Apache.
A muscular, squat, fierce-looking man, Geronimo had mastered the skills of an Apache fighting man. He possessed the strength and endurance to travel long distances rapidly, even without food or water. He came to know every feature of the Apache landscape—mountains, canyons, deserts, water holes, natural food sources, and above all the virtually inaccessible canyons and heights of Mexico’s Sierra Madre. He could “read” signs on the landscape from a broken twig to an upturned stone, and he could travel without leaving his own trail. Bow and arrow, knife, lance, rifle, and pistol were his weapons, and he used them to great effect.
Geronimo was not a chief. Only about thirty Apaches counted him their leader, but a superb leader he was in raid and war. Therefore, he frequently led larger numbers than his own following. On the reservation, he aroused contradictory opinions. “Thoroughly vicious, intractable, and treacherous,” pronounced one army officer. “Schemer and liar,” declared another. But still another found him “friendly and good natured.” His own Chiricahua tribe had mixed feelings, but they stood in awe of one attribute that either intimidated or impressed them: the Apache cultural concept of “Power.” Geronimo possessed, or was thought to possess, this surreal potency that could be applied for harm or help. His Power included high achievement as a shaman, or medicine man, with heal
ing qualities. Even so, some who knew him well agreed with the harsher army officers. “I have known Geronimo all my life up to his death and have never known anything good about him,” said one Apache.
The government reservation provided a comfortable environment for Geronimo only in one sense: government rations, and those were often inadequate or not forthcoming at all. His true home lay in both southern New Mexico and Arizona, but more often he stayed in the peaks, gorges, canyons, and ridges of the Sierra Madre of Mexico. There he could hide from Mexican or American soldiers and launch raids against ranchers, villagers, and travelers in both Chihuahua and Sonora. Three times after 1876 Geronimo broke free of the reservation, eluded the soldiers who took his trail, and returned to the Sierra Madre.
Illustrating Geronimo’s qualities of leadership in war was an ambush he and his fellow leader Juh arranged in Chihuahua. Juan Mata Ortíz had led a massacre of Apaches who had come to negotiate. In Apache culture, such an act demanded revenge. Mata Ortíz kept a ranch near Galeana. Geronimo and Juh led about 130 fighting men from their Sierra Madre sanctuary down to Galeana and struck Mata Ortíz’s ranch. On November 14, 1882, Ortiz collected a force of twenty-two citizens and led them to retaliate. The Chiricahuas had prepared an ambush in Chocolate Pass. Mata Ortiz avoided the trap and had his men dig in on a high hill. Geronimo and Juh gathered their men and attacked up the slope against a heavy fire and overwhelmed the enemy in hand-to-hand fighting. Mata Ortíz and all but one of his men perished. As the lone survivor galloped away on a horse, Geronimo shouted to let him go. He would bring more Mexicans to be slaughtered.
Geronimo demonstrated his raiding technique on April 27, 1886. It occurred during his last raid into Arizona. He led a small party of raiders down the Santa Cruz River and, ten miles north of the border, rode into Hell’s Gate Canyon. Here they discovered a ranch house. Approaching, one man climbed a rail fence around a corral and sat. Dogs began barking. A young girl came out to investigate, then ran back inside. A woman rushed out, a baby in her arms. The Apache shot her, picked up her baby, and dashed the baby’s head against an adobe wall. Fifteen raiders entered the house and ransacked it. They discovered a young girl, whom Geronimo saved and took captive. From a ridge the Apaches spotted two men working with cattle. They had heard the shots and mounted. Bullets killed one and downed the other’s horse, throwing him to the ground and knocking him senseless. Apaches roused him with rifle butts, stripped off his boots and clothing, and took him before Geronimo. For an unknown reason, Geronimo told the man he was free to go and then led the raiders away. The man, Artisan Peck, walked back to his house and saw what had been done to his wife and child and his home. He had seen his wife’s niece, a captive, mounted behind Geronimo’s son Chappo.
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