Arizona weekly enterprise., 1889-07-27
GerOnimO's Removal.

The announcement recently made that the authorities at Washington contemplate removing Geronimo and the other Apache prisoners from Mount Vernon, Alabama, where they are now congregated under military surveillance, to a section of the Chero- kee Indian reservation in North Caro- lima must be particularly gratifying to General Miles, who so strenuously ad- vocated the adoption of such meas ure nearly three years ago. It may be remembered that at the time of the surrender of Geronimo and his band of ugly hostiles as prisoners of war, at Skeleton canyon, Arizona, in Septem- Der, 1886, General Miles urgently re- commended the removal of these h. dians, together with all their relatives and confederates of the Warm Spring and Chiricahua tribes, to point at least one thousand miles beyond the limits of Arizona, preferably to either Kansas or Indian Territory, and had the plan he suggested at that time been carried out these Indians would now be self-sustaining and in every way better off than they ever were, or are ever likely to be again.
 Opposition being made to his origi- nal proposition, he suggested that the Indians be placed near the North Carolina Indians, of whom he had ample opportunity of knowing during the time immediately following the war, when he was in command of the North Carolina military district. The matter was discussed pro and con by the Interior and War departments, but the opposition to General Miles' suggested policy was so great that the proposition was fiatly rejected, and Geronimo and his tribe were relegated to imprisonment in the narrow con fines of the sickly region of Florida, and subsequently, removed to Alabama.
 AS might have been expected, the philanthropists of the Indian Ri ights Association exerted themselves to ameliorate the sufferings of these In dians, all of whom, good and bad, were being punished alike, and doomed apparently to slow but sure death from sickness. Recently efforts were made to bring them back to Arizona, but against that proposition General Miles filed very earnest protest. He had doubtless foreseen that very thing when he urged the location of these | Indians on some suitable and health | ful Eastern reserve, and those people who at first could not or would not appreciate the humane yet adequate policy suggested by him must now at | least recognize the wisdom of it, which seems to be meriting the approval ol | the new Administration at Washing | ton. That plan was not only humane but 1t was in the interest of the peo pie of the Southwestern Territories who had the right to expect protec ton from the fierce and merciless horde of savages who for nearly three hundred years had been the bane o
 Spanish and American pioneers and settlers. It was the vigorous cam paign of General Miles in 1886 thaj ended the Apache Indian war in Ari zona, and 1t was his bold and success
 ful plan of corraling and moving the whole tribe of Warm Springs ant Chiricahuas, numbering over foul hundred souls, out of Arizona; tha
 has resulted in permanent peace ant security in the Southwest. With { full knowledge of the Indian charac
 ter, he has never yet failed to con
 quer the worst of them in war, anc yet in his campaigning against In .s s.ians for twenty years past he ha
 tsl..l, l,szsa iasei gorousazp poyer witl justice f6 t6d va1aq IL is grefi I lying therefore. to find taas 7.
 I'liizuHs ana fecommenaE tions of such . nIsr are needed an indorsed, and we congratulate Arizon;
 and the Indians as well upon tn,
 prospect of the permanent location 0
 that crafty old savage warrior and hi
 tribe at place where they may a
 least live until they die naturally
 without the power of wrong doing O
 injury to defenseless settlers.-S. F l Chronicle.