The Rage of Geronimo

His life was changed in a day.

He grew up working and playing with his family in the mountains and valleys of what is now Arizona. His mother Juana placed him in a swing that rocked gently in the breeze as she worked. He played games of hide-and-seek with the other children. He worked cultivating and planting corn, beans, melons, and pumpkins with his family. He enjoyed hunting and evening get-togethers when the tribe played a campfire game where competing teams would take turns hiding a bone in a moccasin. He married his beloved delicate childhood sweetheart Alope and had three children.

He built a tepee for his dear family next to his widowed mother’s tepee so that he could care for her as well. His wife Alope drew beautiful pictures on the walls of their home. The tepee was made of buffalo hides and was very comfortable with many bear robes and lion hides. Alope drew pictures on buckskin which decorated the interior of the tepee. She made decorations of beads for the home as well.

In the summer of 1858, being at peace with the towns in Mexico and with all the neighboring Indian tribes, Geronimo’s entire tribe went from Arizona to Mexico to trade. They traveled into Sonora. They made camp for a few days in a rural area near a Mexican town. The men went to town to trade during the day and the women and children were left at the campsite with a small number of Indian guards. The tribe’s arms, supplies, food, and horses were left at the campsite as well. One day, when the men returned from their trading session with the people in town, they were met by a few women and children who told them that soldiers had killed the Indian guards, stolen all the tribe’s horses, taken all the arms, destroyed all the supplies, and killed many of the women and children.

The tribe quickly dispersed and went into hiding in the surrounding countryside to guard against additional slaughter. Before splitting up, they agreed to meet later at a thicket by the river under cover of darkness to assess the situation and to verify who had been killed.

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