GERONIMO
Photographed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, about 1905
Geronimo says he was born in Arizona in 1829.[[44]] On the death of his father, Mangus-Colorado became chief of the Bedonkoke Apaches, to which band the subject of this sketch belonged. When a half-grown boy, Geronimo assumed the care of his mother, and in 1846 he joined the council of the warriors. Soon after this he married Alope and three children were born during the next few years. In 1858, when he was twenty-nine, his band went into Mexico to trade. One afternoon while Geronimo and the other men were returning from a visit, they were met by crying women and children who told them that the Mexicans had attacked the camp—a peaceful camp—and had massacred the men and most of the women and children. Geronimo lost his aged mother, his wife and his three small children.
They decided to retreat to Arizona and as the Mexicans were searching for survivors in order to kill them, the remaining Apaches traveled all night. The mourning period, according to Indian etiquette, prevented Geronimo, who had lost more relatives than anyone else, from eating or speaking. He traveled two days and three nights without food and did not open his mouth until the third day. I quote from his book:—
“Within a few days we arrived at our own settlement. There were the decorations that Alope had made—and there were the playthings of our little ones. I burned them all, even our tipi. I also burned my mother’s lodge and destroyed all her property.
“I was never again contented in our quiet home. True, I could visit my father’s grave, but I had vowed vengeance upon the Mexican troopers who had wronged me, and whenever I came near his grave or saw anything to remind me of former happy days, my heart would ache for revenge upon Mexico.”
The Apaches collected arms and supplies. Geronimo visited other bands of his tribe, and in the summer of 1859, a year later, a large force (on foot) entered Old Mexico. They went light, and without horses, for strategic reasons. Knowing the country thoroughly—every water-hole, mountain and valley—they could trail unobserved. On horseback they must follow certain known trails, whereas on foot the band could scatter, travel singly and meet at a common rendezvous. It was well-nigh impossible to follow unmounted Apaches, as all the military reports admit. They invariably scattered and sought the most inaccessible, waterless mountain ranges.
Geronimo acted as guide, and near Arispe eight men came out from the village and were killed by the Apaches. The next day the Mexican troops attacked. Geronimo says that in one part of the field four Indians, including himself, were charged by four soldiers and in the final fight, two of the Indians were killed and the four troopers were slain, two of them by Geronimo himself.
The art of trailing was developed among the Apaches and Comanches more than among other Indians on this continent. Possibly a few Delawares might be excepted. The success of Geronimo’s operations, as well as those of his able lieutenants, Cochise, Naiche, Mangus-Colorado, was chiefly due to the fact that the trail was to them an open book. As an illustration of the skill of the desert Indians in this respect, I would cite the case of Pedro Espinosa, who, when nine years old was captured by the Comanche and for years lived with the Comanches and Apaches. Colonel Dodge says of him that he was a marvel even to the Indians themselves, and relates this incident:
“I was once sent in pursuit of a party of murdering Comanches, who had been pursued, scattered, and the trail abandoned by a company of so-called Texas rangers. On the eighth day after the scattering, Espinosa took the trail of a single shod horse. When we were fairly into the rough, rocky Guadalope Mountains, he stopped, dismounted, and picked up from the foot of a tree the four shoes of the horse ridden by the Indian. With a grim smile he handed them to me, and informed me that the Indian intended to hide his trail. For six days we journeyed over the roughest mountains, turning and twisting in apparently the most objectless way, not a man in the whole command being able to discover, sometimes for hours, a single mark by which Espinosa might direct himself. Sometimes I lost patience, and demanded that he show us what he was following. ‘Poco tiempo,’ he would blandly answer, and in a longer or shorter time, show me the clear-cut footprints of the horse in the soft bank of some mountain stream, or point with his long wiping-stick to most unmistakable ‘sign’ in the droppings of the horse. Following the devious windings of this trail for nearly a hundred and fifty miles, scarcely ever at a loss, and only once or twice dismounting, more closely to examine the ground, he finally brought me to where the Indians had reunited.”
On another occasion, the Indians had fired the prairie to hide their trail. The officer in despair went to camp. Espinosa, after working over the ground carefully on his hands and knees, blew away the light ashes until sufficient prints were found to show the direction of the trail. He was compelled to make several circuits, covering a total of six or seven miles, and after weary hours spent in this work, the troops were able to pursue and capture the Indians. Espinosa and the Apaches once found a trail after dark by feeling of the ground with their fingers. This remarkable man, at the outbreak of the Civil War, was selected to carry dispatches from Union men in San Antonio to Colonel Reeve. He was captured and shot to death. The account presented by Dodge of Espinosa is very interesting and indicates that this unknown man in Plains knowledge was far in advance of the white scouts of which we have heard so much. The Apaches recognized that their only weakness lay in their trail, and they tried by every means to conceal it.