The cousin and lifelong associate of Geronimo, Jason Betzinez relives his years on the warpath with the Apache chief. He participates in Geronimo's eventual surrender to the U.S. Army, goes to Florida as a prisoner of war, attends the Carlisle Indian school in Pennsylvania, and in 1900 joins his people at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where they had been moved by the government six years earlier. Trained as a blacksmith, he describes daily life on the reservation until the resettlement of many Apaches in Arizona. For Betzinez, there was a happy ending. When this memoir was first published in 1959, he was nearly a century old, settled on a farm in Oklahoma with his devoted wife and esteemed by his community.
Memoir in which the author, cousin and lifelong associate of Geronimo, recalls his years on the warpath with the Apache chief, his time as a prisoner of war in Florida, his education at the Carlisle Indian School, and his return to the reservation.
During the westward settlement, for more than twenty years Apache tribes eluded both US and Mexican armies, and by 1886 an estimated 9,000 armed men were in pursuit. Roberts (Deborah: A Wilderness Narrative) presents a moving account of the end of the Indian Wars in the Southwest. He portrays the great Apache leaders—Cochise, Nana, Juh, Geronimo, the woman warrior Lozen—and U.S. generals George Crock and Nelson Miles. Drawing on contemporary American and Mexican sources, he weaves a somber story of treachery and misunderstanding. After Geronimo's surrender in 1886, the Apaches were sent to Florida, then to Alabama where many succumbed to malaria, tuberculosis and malnutrition and finally in 1894 to Oklahoma, remaining prisoners of war until 1913. The book is history at its most engrossing. —Publishers Weekly
In the tradition of Empire of the Summer Moon, a stunningly vivid historical account of the manhunt for Geronimo and the 25-year Apache struggle for their homeland. They called him Mickey Free. His kidnapping started the longest war in American history, and both sides--the Apaches and the white invaders—blamed him for it. A mixed-blood warrior who moved uneasily between the worlds of the Apaches and the American soldiers, he was never trusted by either but desperately needed by both. He was the only man Geronimo ever feared. He played a pivotal role in this long war for the desert Southwest from its beginning in 1861 until its end in 1890 with his pursuit of the renegade scout, Apache Kid. In this sprawling, monumental work, Paul Hutton unfolds over two decades of the last war for the West through the eyes of the men and women who lived it. This is Mickey Free's story, but also the story of his contemporaries: the great Apache leaders Mangas Coloradas, Cochise, and Victorio; the soldiers Kit Carson, O. O. Howard, George Crook, and Nelson Miles; the scouts and frontiersmen Al Sieber, Tom Horn, Tom Jeffords, and Texas John Slaughter; the great White Mountain scout Alchesay and the Apache female warrior Lozen; the fierce Apache warrior Geronimo; and the Apache Kid. These lives shaped the violent history of the deserts and mountains of the Southwestern borderlands--a bleak and unforgiving world where a people would make a final, bloody stand against an American war machine bent on their destruction.
In Geronimo, the famous Native American discusses the history of the Apache people - where they came from, their early life, and their tribal customs and manners. Geronimo expresses his personal views on how the white men who settled in the West negatively affected his tribe, from wrongs done to his people and removal from their homeland to Geronimo's imprisonment and forced surrender.
“In the hands of Mike Leach and Buddy Levy, the story of this brilliant Apache leader comes into sharp focus, both in their narrative of his life and in spirited commentaries on its meaning” (S.C. Gwynne, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Empire of the Summer Moon). Playing cowboys and Indians as a boy, legendary college football coach Mike Leach always chose to be the Indian—the underdog whose success turned on being a tough, resourceful, ingenious fighter. And the greatest Indian military leader of all was Geronimo, the Apache warrior whose name is so symbolic of courage that World War II paratroopers shouted it as they leaped from airplanes into battle. Told in the style of Robert Greene’s The 48 Laws of Power, Leach’s compelling and inspiring book examines Geronimo’s leadership approach and the timeless strategies, decisions, and personal qualities that made him a success. Raised in an unforgiving landscape, Geronimo and his band faced enemies better armed, better equipped, and more numerous than they were. But somehow they won victories against all odds, beguiling the United States and Mexican governments and earning the respect and awe of those generals committed to hunting him down. While some believed that Geronimo had supernatural powers, much of his genius can be ascribed to old-fashioned values such as relentless training and preparation, leveraging resources, finding ways to turn defeats into victories, and being faster and more nimble than his enemy. The tactics of Geronimo would be studied and copied by the US military for generations. Pain, pride, humility, family—many things shaped Geronimo’s life. In this “compelling book that humanizes a man many misunderstood” (New York Times bestselling author Brian Kilmeade), Mike Leach illustrates how we too can use the forces and circumstances of our own lives to build true leadership today.
This history of the Lipan Apaches, from archeological evidence to the present, tells the story of some of the least known, least understood people in the Southwest. These plains buffalo hunters and traders were one of the first groups to acquire horses, and with this advantage they expanded from the Panhandle across Texas and into Coahuila, coming into conflict with the Comanches. Robinson tracks the Lipans from their earliest interactions with Spaniards and kindred Apache groups through later alliances and to their love-hate relationships with Mexicans, Texas colonists, Texas Rangers, and the US Army.
Warrior Woman is the story of Lozen, sister of the famous Apache warrior Victorio, and warrior in her own right. Hers is a story little discussed in Native American history books. Instead, much of what is known of her has been passed down through generations via stories and legends. For example, it is said that she was embued with supernatural powers, given to her by the gods. She would lift her arms to the sky and place her palms against the wind, and through the heat she felt in her open hands, she could detect the direction and distance of her enemies. Whether true or not, she did ride into battle alongside Geronimo in the Apache wars, and fought bitterly and savagely until she was captured along with her people, packed into railroad cars, and sent to imprisonment in the east, where she spent her last days. Peter Aleshire uses historical facts and oral histories to recreate her life. With immaculate detail he tells the story of her childhood, surrounded by the vastness of nature and the Chiricahua legends and religions that shaped her thoughts. He describes her coming-of-age ceremonies, and induction into her tribe as a spiritual leader. As the white men slowly took over the land of her people and forced them from one reservation to another, her role slowly evolved to match that of the staunchest warrior -- an almost unheard-of occurence among the Native Americans of the 19th century, where a woman's place was with the children in the villages. This is not only the story of Lozen, but the story of her people, from the events leading up to the Apache Wars until their inevitable and unfortunate conclusion.
Jack Olsen's Last Man Standing is the gripping story of Geronimo Pratt, war hero and community leader, who was framed by the FBI in one of the greatest travesties of justice in American history. Geronimo Pratt did not commit the murder for which he served twenty-seven nightmarish years. As a UCLA student, though, he had led the Los Angeles Chapter of the Black Panther Party, and became a target of the FBI. Here is the spellbinding saga of Pratt, his heroic lawyers, Johnnie Cochran and Stuart Hanlon, and the Reverend James McCloskey, who overcame all the odds to bring the truth to light and free Geronimo.
This “meticulous and finely researched” biography tracks the Apache raider’s life from infamous renegade to permanent prisoner of war (Publishers Weekly). Notorious for his ferocity in battle and uncanny ability to elude capture, the Apache fighter Geronimo became a legend in his own time and remains an iconic figure of the nineteenth century American West. In Geronimo, renowned historian Robert M. Utley digs beneath the myths and rumors to produce an authentic and thoroughly researched portrait of the man whose unique talents and human shortcomings swept him into the fierce storms of history. Utley draws on an array of newly available sources, including firsthand accounts and military reports, as well as his geographical expertise and deep knowledge of the conflicts between whites and Native Americans. This highly accurate and vivid narrative unfolds through the alternating perspectives of whites and Apaches, arriving at a more nuanced understanding of Geronimo’s character and motivation than ever before. What was it like to be an Apache fighter-in-training? Why was Geronimo feared by whites and Apaches alike? Why did he finally surrender after remaining free for so long? The answers to these and many other questions fill the pages of this authoritative volume.
