Old West Lifestyle & Stories

One Who Yawns aka Geronimo

One Who Yawns - GeronimoOne Who Yawns was born in 1823. He was known as an easygoing person. But, as a young man, while the men were away, Mexicans attacked his village and killed the women and children, among who were his mother, wife and three children. This instilled in him a hatred for Mexicans that lasted throughout his life. A year after the attack on his village, One Who Yawns and some other braves retaliated, killing several Mexicans. In this battle he won his more popular Spanish name… Geronimo.
 
Although he was a great leader, Geronimo was never a chief, and always deferred to his people’s true chiefs. For decades he succeeded in keeping settlers off Apache lands using little more than a handful of braves. Although Geronimo never used a firearm himself, he made sure his braves had the best available. And they used field glasses for distance reconnaissance. He was a brilliant strategist who for years was able to evade the best the army could send. 
 
By 1886 Geronimo was in his 60’s, and the number of whites in the area kept growing. So, on September 4 at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, Geronimo surrendered to General Nelson A. Miles becoming the last American Indian warrior to formally surrender to the Army. 
 
A number of times over the years Geronimo agreed to live on a reservation, and later, with justification, left it. So this time his people were shipped to Florida. After several years in Florida the army moved him to Oklahoma where he became a popular celebrity. He even rode in President Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural parade in 1905. Geronimo died at the age of 86, a romantic symbol of the Wild West.

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