It was said that he could not be hit by bullets, that Usen the Apache god had promised Geronimo a long life. A powerful medicine man, Geronimo’s songs could heal sickness, bring rain, even make the night last longer. Once, as his band of warriors fled from Mexican troops, he predicted the exact time and place those troops would appear on the trail, enabling his men to make a successful surprise attack. Another time, he told his cousin that a separate Apache camp had just been captured by U.S. soldiers—120 miles away. He was exactly right.
Geronimo’s surrender to the U.S. military in 1886 was the final act in a 400-year war between Native Americans and foreign settlers. As a result, he became a legend in his own lifetime. During World War II years after his death, U.S. paratroopers would shout "Geronimo!" after jumping out of planes. Today, his name appears in movies, television shows, and even pop songs.
Yet Geronimo was a real person, made of flesh and blood. It may be difficult to imagine now, but before he was Geronimo the legend, he was Goyahkla the boy.
Goyahkla, or The One Who Yawns, was born in the 1820s to parents from the Bedonkohe band of Chiricahua Apaches in what is now Arizona. He had only one true sister, though he considered his six cousins to be like siblings.
Like other boys of his tribe, Goyahkla trained from a young age to run fast for long distances, up and down the Mogollon Mountains of New Mexico. He ran almost every day, carrying a stone in his mouth to prove to his elders that he breathed only through his nose. He also learned to make a bow and arrows, which he used to hunt buffalo, elk, and deer.
At 17, he participated in his fourth war expedition, which earned him acceptance into his Tribe’s council of warriors. As an accepted warrior, he was also allowed to take a wife. He married Alope, his longtime love. By 1851, he and Alope had three children.
One day in the spring of 1851, as Geronimo returned to the Bedonkohe camp from the Mexican town of Kaskiyeh, he was met by a few women and children. They told him that Mexican troops had attacked while he was away. After nightfall, he returned to camp to investigate. He discovered that Alope, his three children, and his mother had all been killed.
For the Chiricahuas, raiding was a way of life. Resources were limited in their homeland, so the Chiricahuas raided for food, horses, and other supplies. War, on the other hand, was about revenge. The attack at Kaskiyeh called for retaliation—as did many future clashes that resulted in death or injury to members of the Tribe. Over the next 35 years, Geronimo participated in countless raids and wars.
Geronimo was never a chief, but people looked to him as a leader because of his power as a medicine man and his success in battle. Some people believe he received the nickname Geronimo, Jerome in Spanish, because his enemies prayed to St. Jerome for protection when they faced him in combat.
Until around the time of the attack at Kaskiyeh, Geronimo had never seen a white man. But in 1860, the discovery of gold brought white prospectors into Arizona and New Mexico. Not long after, the outbreak of the Civil War brought white soldiers. These prospectors and soldiers called themselves “Americans.” One day, the U.S. military invited Chief Cochise into a tent, pretending they wanted to talk. Instead, they accused him of leading a raid and kidnapping a young American boy.
Cochise denied it. When the soldiers tried to take him prisoner, the chief was forced to cut open the tent to escape. This attempt to capture Cochise also called for revenge, which meant Americans were now the enemies of the Chiricahuas.
Between 1872 and 1886, Geronimo surrendered to U.S. troops on four separate occasions. The first three times, he was placed on the San Carlos Reservation in Arizona but escaped.
During the two years before his fourth and final surrender, American newspapers reported regularly on the raids he made in Arizona and New Mexico. In this way, the legend of Geronimo was born. Meanwhile, the U.S. military remained unable to catch him. By 1886, 5,000 U.S. soldiers were on the hunt. By comparison, Geronimo’s band numbered 38.
Still, the war against both Mexican and U.S. troops wore on Geronimo. He grew tired of running, and in the end, he surrendered on his own. Afterward, all the Chiricahuas—including the Apache scouts who had helped capture him—were sent to Florida as prisoners of war.
Geronimo spent two years in Florida and another six in Alabama. In 1894, the U.S. government moved the Tribe to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. No longer a warrior, Geronimo returned to a life of farming. Beginning in 1898, he made appearances at several World’s Fairs, as well as at the 1905 inaugural parade of President Theodore Roosevelt. Geronimo sold signed souvenirs to tourists, which in his own words, earned him more money than he had ever had before.
As a prisoner of war, he never stopped longing for the land of his birth. After Roosevelt’s inauguration, he tearfully asked the president to allow him to return to New Mexico. Roosevelt denied his request.
Five years later, after falling from his horse at Fort Sill, Geronimo died. He had walked the earth more than 85 years, a long life—just as Usen the Apache god had promised.