RELEASE OF THE CAPTURED APACHE INDIANS
After almost 30 years, the U.S. releases the captured Apache Indians

RELEASE OF THE CAPTURED APACHE INDIANS

After nearly 30 years, and the death of Chief Geronimo, the captured Apache Indians were released. Tribe Long Held Prisoner of War After Conflict With Mexicans and Americans - Never Mixed With Whites. Oklahoma City, Okla. - Maj. H. L. Scott, representing the war department, and Lieut. Ernest Stocker, Anadarko agent, representing the department of the interior, were appointed to select the new homes for the 269 Apache prisoners of war held by the United States government at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The last session of congress granted liberty to these Indians, after holding them prisoners of war for twenty-six years, and the committee of two will select for them an open reservation somewhere in the west, but the probabilities are that their new home will not be within the boundaries of either New Mexico or Arizona. A reservation in either of those states might incite in the savage Apache Indians a memory of their forefathers' conquests and defeats, within those boundaries, and render their reimprisonment necessary. The Apache tribe is one of the few tribes that never assimilated the white man's way of living, and since the year of 1858 have not been on friendly terms with any member of the white race. In that year one division of the six branches into which the tribe is divided, went from the eastern line of Arizona, where they were ranging, into Old Mexico on a trading expedition. When near the outpost of the Kas-ki-yeh they camped, and, leaving their women and children, proceeded toward Casa Grande. Citizens from that town met them and entered into a treaty of peace with them, though the Mexican government had placed a price upon their heads, paying $100 for a warrior, $50 for a squaw and $25 for a dead Indian child. While in Casa Grande, trading, Mexican soldiers took advantage of their absence from camp and set up on the defenseless women and children, killing al within camp. When the warriors returned in the evening the Mexican soldiers opened fire upon them and the Apaches, being armed with bows and arrows, were exterminated, excepting Geronimo, who at that time was a young brave, and one other Apache. In this massacre Geronimo lost his wife and child, and, according to his own statement made after he became a prisoner of war of the United States, he swore eternal hostility to all Mexicans. Geronimo returned to Arizona and sought aid from the other five Apache tribes, in seeking revenge on the Mexicans. The citizens of Casa Grande sent him a disclaimer of all knowledge of the massacre of his people after they had entered into the trading treaty with his band in Old Mexico, but Geronimo could never understand how it was the citizens had no control over these acts of the soldiers, and from that year until 1886 made annual raids upon the settlements within 300 miles of the northern boundary of Mexico. The Apaches, while on their excursions to Mexico, ran off some cattle that were in charge of white cowboys, and shortly thereafter United States troops made their appearances, and the Apaches always professed to believe they came in response to the Mexican government's appeal for aid in exterminating the Apaches. Geronimo died about eighteen months ago, and most of the old race of warriors had preceded him to the grave, and now the general government believes the younger generation can be once more trusted to run at large on an open reservation. The failure of the Apache Indians to assimilate the ways of civilization which finally resulted in their becoming prisoners of war, was no doubt due in a large measure to the ascendancy Geronimo had over the members of his tribe, whom he kept constantly avenging the wrongs he and his relatives suffered at the hands of the Mexicans and Americans. Negotiations with Apache Chief Geronimo The First Deeds of Apache Chief Geronimo Apache Indian Attacks on Civilians The Capture of the Apache Chief Geronimo Adopted from The Sheboygan Press, Monday, December 2, 1912