The Chiricahuas

Their five year bloody resistance was the last American Indian war fought on U.S. soil. The Chiricahua were the last remaining Indian group still free from the whites in that they hadn't surrendered to the reservations. I thought it was really horrible how the American government treated these people, holding them as prisoners of war for 27 years. The remaining four hundred left of the Chiricahua were deported to Florida on a train. There they suffered greatly from the vastly different climate-humidity, different insects,etc. It was interesting to me how within the Chiricahua way of life there was a complete reliance upon raiding other people instead of providing for oneself in more traditional and self-sufficient ways. It seems to me that this dependence upon taking from others and what they have created and provided for themselves, makes it seem to me a sure-fire way of always accumulating enemies. They were always stealing from one town and then trading with another. I guess you can rationalize that they were a hunting and take-what-we-need type of people. Looking at all the pictures of their people, it's hard to believe that they deserved the level and degree of brutality that they received at the hands of the whites.

American-Indian relationship

The United States government had initially treated the Indian tribes and independent sovereign nations, but as they wanted to expand westward they decided to change the relationship to fit their own selfish desires of conquest and expansion. The United States now decided to consider Indians as "wards of the state" instead of "sovereign nations". President Grant sent General George Crook to Arizona. Crook's strategy was to contain the Indians in reservations and assimilate them into American culture gradually; those that did not want to live in the reservations and chose to rebel against the United States military were to be hunted down ruthlessly. Crook also played the Apaches against each other. If you became a "scout" for the American army, then you got your gun and horse back, your family could be fed with the U.S. currency they received as well. Indian scouts were often forced to hunt down their own people who refused to concede to the white demands. I know that Geronimo was captured by some of these Indian scouts, one of whom was Cochise's son. The Indian's had to wonder what had their way of life and communal trust when they are hunting each other down at the command of white folk.

Cochise

Cochise is another leader of the resistance against American encroachment during the nineteenth century. His means "firewood" and he was born 1815. He helped lead the Chiricahuas and other Apache tribes in an uprising against American military forces. The Chokonen and Nednhi Chiricahua became more and more dependent on food issued by the Mexican government to placate them from raiding. As a part of their attempt to control the Chiricahua, Mexican and American forces along with Native American mercenaries, began to kill Apache civilians (killing Cochise's father). Mexican forces finally captured Cochise once in 1848 in Sonora, but they exchanged him for nearly a dozen Mexican prisoners. Cochise is one of the most respected and venerated Native American figures. When Cochise died, the United State's government used the Apache lack of unifying leadership to remove the Chiricahua's one-hundred and fifty miles north to an uninhabitable and mosquito ridden San Carlos, where it is said that even the dogs don't like it there. It goes to show just how important leadership was to the tribes despite the tendency of the tribes to remain in small bands and remain relatively independent from each other.

American Experience: Geronimo( continued)

One of the most spiritually significant moments in Geronimo's life happened immediately after his family was murdered, and he headed deep into Chiricahua Country. Geronimo said he had buried his head in his hands and was crying when he heard a voice call out nowhere "No gun will ever kill you. I will take the bullets from the guns of the Mexicans, and I will guide your arrows". It was at this specific moment where Geronimo is said to be given his "Power". The concept of 'power' is fundamental to Apache belief. Power is everywhere and is contained in different forms Upon hearing this, Geronimo headed back to his people and gathered with tribal leaders to ask permission to avenge the Mexican soldiers who took the lives of his closest loved ones. Geronimo took two hundred men and laid waste to so many Mexican soldiers that Mexicans feared the name of Geronimo from that time onward. Though Geronimo was a great warrior, he was never destined to be a chief. In the eyes of the Apache, he was too impulsive, fretful, vengeful. The careful decision making that the Apaches relied upon their elders for did not fit well with Geronimo's temperament and personality. Geronimo's rash decision making sometimes had disastrous effects for other Apache who did not wish to rebel like he did against the Americans.

American Series: Episode 4

I've finally been able to watch this series. I didn't realize till just the other day that the segments were online as well on "pbs.org". Anyway, I saw the segment on Geronimo and it was pretty compelling, very harrowing experience with roller-coaster like chases from Calvary after several captures and escapes. You can really see how he became a legenday American mythical figure- one of the really true iconic stories of America's past. Geronimo strove continually for Indian independence from the whites, never want to accept defeat. He eventually was chased so relentlessly that he eventually did surrender; but on his deathbed he said that he wished he never had surrendered; I thought that showed how much spirit and fight he possessed as a warrior. I thought the piece really helped the viewer get a sense of what the Apache, more specifically the Chiricahuas, were like as a people and how their livelihood was under attack from the ever-encroaching white European settlers and the U.S. military and government. After the Mexican-American War in 1848, the United States continually pushed into Apache soil and into the North American Southwest. The Apache had to fend off conflicts from both the Mexicans and the white Americans from the east. There were the 49er's and miners who travelled through their land to get to California during the Gold Rush, who were comprised mostly of lawless twenty-somethings who did some extremely horrible things towards the Indians- selling Indian girls into slavery, poisoning their food, tearing fetuses out of pregnant women. They eventually pushed Geronimo's father-in-law, Cochise, too far when they sent a boiled skull of a venerated Indian chief as a trophy back home east. Soon, all the Apaches to agreed they would no longer be friends with the white man anymore. I found the events that transpired in Geronimo's life captivating and fascinating- his finding the love of his life (Alope) and having three children, only to have them unexpectedly killed by a raid of Mexican soldiers. Geronimo was a man who underwent great pain and tragedy.