In April, 1886, General Nelson A. Miles takes the command in Arizona. He increases the number of heliostat signal stations, discharges the reservation-Apache scouts (whom he suspects of treachery), employs a few trailers from other tribes, and by a very energetic campaign which permits Geronimo no rest, in September induces his surrender upon only the conditions that his life shall be spared and that he shall be removed from Arizona.
Without delay the Geronimo and Nah-che remnant of hostiles, and all the Chiricahua and Warm Spring Apaches, four hundred in number, at the Fort Apache (White Mountain) reservation, are removed, whether friendly or not, to Florida. This is deemed the only practicable measure of freeing the Southwest from the menace of Apache outbreaks. The expenses of the Department of Arizona are lessened by $1,000,000 a year.
The climate of Florida is unfavorable to the Apaches. Geronimo complains that he and Nah-che had understood that their families were to accompany them. Many of the Apaches die from disease and homesickness.
In May, 1888, the Apaches are removed from Florida to Mt. Vernon barracks, Alabama; and in October, 1894, as prisoners of war to Fort Sill Military Reservation, Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).
The principal reservations of the Arizona Apaches are the Fort Apache and the San Carlos, each containing between two and three thousand Indians. There are still over two hundred of the Chiricahuas and Warm Springs at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Geronimo died February 17, 1909, at Fort Sill. Nah-che succeeded him as chief.
APACHE ARIZONA
and the principal places in General Crook’s time
GENERAL CROOK AND
THE FIGHTING APACHES