Submission of the Apache - The Capture of the Apache Chief Geronimo
Reactions to Chief Geronimo's capture

Submission of the Apache - The Capture of the Apache Chief Geronimo

The following article is about the capture of Geronimo, the vicious Apache Chief, who was a public enemy by 1885. (Mitchell Daily Republican, Friday, February 12, 1886) A bad indian When Hon. Carl Schurz was secretary of the interior, in one of his reports he characterizes the Apaches as "bad Indians." That was several years ago. They have not improved in behavior since. For a year and a half Chief Geronimo and his band of Apaches have been terrorizing the southwest. The exact number of braves he had with him cannot, of course, be exactly known, but it was between twenty and thirty. Over a tract of country as largo as a good-sized state these redskins have been roaming, stealing cattle, horses and food, and murdering and destroying. They knew the country like a fox. They were brave, cunning, remorseless and untiring. After committing a robbery or a murder they fled like the wind, and took refuge in some of the mountain fastnesses they knew so well. If pursued too hotly, a few hours' fast and furious riding took them over the border into old Mexico, where they were safe from the United States soldiery, at least for the time. They were well wined and well mounted. For months, years even, they have been a red vengeance on our border. It was the task of the lamented Capt. Emmet Crawford to pursue and capture these fiends. Month after mouth he followed them through waterless deserts, through sand and cactus spines into rocky into rocky canyons and over lava beds, till last he ran them down in Mexico. Latterly the Mexican and United States governments have been co-operating to rid both countries of these pests, Two forces, one of Mexican the other United States soldiers, hemmed Geronimo in between them Jan. 10. Geronimo and all his force were captured, but the brave and tireless Capt. Crawford was killed. He had with him as guides a company of friendly Apache Indian scouts. The force of these was larger than Geronimo's own. They were the motliest crew that ever started out soldiering. They were taken over the Southern Pacific railway to a point as near the scone of hostilities as possible. They were locked in a car to themselves with a United States lieutenant. "I suppose you know," said the train conductor to a newspaper correspondent, "that to give them red devils a drink of whisky all around would be to turn into hostiles in hour." The motley warriors had been given high hats, out of which they had, without exception, torn the crown, so that their hair stood raggedly out at the top. Some of them wore six shirts apiece, and one, the envied of all gloried in drapery made of a red cotton tablecloth. Geronimo, too, is accustomed to adorn his ugly person in this style. He wears a hat draped with a lady's sash of bright color. Now that he has been caught, it will be a question what to do with him. He and his band belong to what is called the Chiricakua branch of the Apache tribe. The White Mountain Apaches are friendly. The Apaches used to be the white man's friend and ally, When the truth of history shall be known it will be found that there arc two sides to thy outbreak of 1885. It was not for nothing that Geronimo and his band of scalping savages took the warpath. It was take vengeance for wrongs, and deep wrongs their tribe had suffered at the hands of the conquering white. Breaches of faith go down no better with a savage mind than with a civilized one. Since Geronimo has been captured let us hope that even the Apaches may be civilized. The Sioux were as bad as they less than twenty-five years ago, and the Sioux are now among the best of good Indians. And another, less constructive and positive approach to the capture of Apache chief Geronimo, from the Indiana Progress, Thursday, February 11, 1886 The Apache Chief Geronimo and the surviving members of his band, who recently killed by torture and inhuman butchery 170 persons, many of whom were women, are now in custody. The people of Arizona and New Mexico are very indignant, and will oppose the usual course of the military authorities in allowing them to return to their reservations unpunished. Petitions will be sent to Washington, asking that Geronimo and his followers be tried for murder under the laws of the territories where his crimes were committed. Here is another article that appeared on Friday, April 23, 1858 in the The Athens Messenger under the title "The Dona Ann Affair." Dr. M. Steck, United States agent for the Apache Indians, arrived in Santa Fe on Thursday evening last, looking well and hearty. We learn from Dr. S. that the Indians of his agency are peaceably disposed, and that no outrages have been committed by them since the Gila war. He officially reports the revolting massacre of eight Apaches in Dona Ann county, on the 7th of February, which we have heretofore noticed in the Gazette. In addition to the brutal mutilation of the bodies of the women who were murdered, by cutting off their breasts, tearing out their tongues, and slicing up their hearts, another case occurred of equal brutality. An old Indian woman, at least 60 years of age, was shot through the body, stabbed in the back five different times, and then suspended by one foot from the pummel of the saddle by a rope, and dragged at the full speed of the horse down a hill for 400 yards. - She was then loosened and left on the ground for dead. After the Mexicans had left, the other Indian women gathered around her, and ascertaining who were present, and that her tormentors had gone, she arose and walked off with her companions! While this wholescale butcher is the most brutal that has ever been perpetrated upon the Apaches by the people of the Mesilla, it is but one of the many outrages committed. On various occasions heretofore, they have murdered Indians of this tribe without provocation; and not one of the murderers have ever been brought to justice. Curiously enough, it is hard to find news reports from 1858 about the massacre committed against the tribe of Geronimo. Newspapers emphasized the killing of whites much more at that time. Among the many hate-monging reports of whiet families murdered by Apaches, only a few dared to give account of the reasons behind the brutality of the "redskins". Negotiations with Apache Chief Geronimo The First Deeds of Apache Chief Geronimo Apache Indian Attacks on Civilians Release of the Captured Apache Indians