Robert M. Utley - Geronimo

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 Wests 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 WisconsinMadison
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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ROBERT M. UTLEY

Copyright 2012 by Robert M. Utley.
All rights reserved.
This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press), without written permission from the publishers.

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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, 18291909. 2. Apache IndiansKings and rulersBiography. 3. Apache IndiansWars, 18831886. 4. Apache IndiansHistory. I. Title.
E99.A6G3276 2012
979.004972560092dc23
[B]
2012019521
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.481992 (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.

A shouted or muted code word for a range of uses from World War II paratroopers to Osama bin Ladens 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 Bulls culture and tried to interpret his lifes path within his context. Multiple reliable sources, both Indian and white, chronicle his lifes path, from birth to death. Unlike Geronimo, Sitting Bull consistently acted 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 Geronimos life is much wider than Sitting Bulls.

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 activitiesusually 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 worlds most malevolent terrorist.