Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1909-02-20
A Good Indian at Last.


reward. whatever that may be.
Rumors of his death have periodically
found their way into print for many
years, but as he has been buried this
time there is reason to believe that the
famous old warrior has at last joined
the ranks of truly good Indians. To
be sure, he did no worse things than
many other red men, or white men for
that matter, have done, but he was
long prominent in the public eye and
his long and picturesque career in
frontier warfare has made him one Of
the best known Indian chiefs of modern
times.
His own Indian name has been long
forgotten, the name he went by being
Spanish, since the Apaches as well as
the Comanches were affected by Next
can and thus, indirectly, by Spanish in
fuences. Geronimo was the incarnate
genius of Indian warfare and as the
leader of the Apaches who never kept
treaty faith with the whites, but fought
their last combats, as their earlier
ones, without compromise, he gave the
ablcst Indian fighters for half a CEN
fury a foeman worthy of their best
strategy and endeavor.
AS far back as there are any records
. I,,. bnC lad -
Mexico and the United States, murder
ing, robbing and destroying imparti
ally. They were the most savage and
cruel of all the Indian tribes. Seventy
years ago or more, Geronimo became
one Of their chiefs. Gen Miles in a
report to the war department called
him the vlest and crueest of all the
Indian race. He was lieutenant of
the famous hereditary chief of the
Apaches, Cochise, a man of military
genius in his line,-Who died in 1875,
and was succeeded by his son.
NatcheZ-as ugly a customer as
Cochise himself, but practically ruled
by Geronimo Gen. Crook followed his
band for 10 years, and kept him from
much mischief, but in 1875 Crook was
mistakenly sent to take care of the
Utes, and for seven years the
Chiricahuas devastated the houses Of
settlers in Arizona and New Mexico.
in f'rnnl< cnnt hack
to capture Geronimo, and persuaded
him to go back to the reservation. He
stayed there q year or two, when he
broke out and was again corraled by
Gen. Crook when all the tribe sur
rendered and before the morning
after escaped and resumed their war,
or rather plumber, path. This failure
to hold his Apaches lost Gen. Crook the
command, and Gen. Miles succeeded to
the work, with the determination that
orders from Washington should not
interfere with his own purposes. The
final pursuit was made by Capt. H. w.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS to become noted
as Gen. I.awton and to die in the
Philippine war.
This time Geronimo and his band
were not restored to a reservation, but
were imprisoned-he and the warriors
in Fort PickcnS and the women and
children to Fort Marion, Fla. In 1883
all the tribe was consigned 10 Mount
Vernon barracks. in Alabama, as
prisoners of the government. They
have never done thing for their living
since, but it was q more economical
disposition, as well as d pleaSanter
one. than any other. Old Geronimo for
years has enjoyed in a certain way his
cmincncc as the greatest rascal I'M
hung. He tried more than once to
escape and get back to Arizona, but
never had the opportunity. He was
Sc wears old In late years he had been
kept at Fort Sill. and three years aG"
he profcsscd to be a Christian convert
but nobody believed him.