Geronimo

by Robert M. Utley

  The arrival of the great chief, on whom the Apaches had so implicitly relied in their war against the whites, was an event of importance. One would have supposed that the whole Indian camp would have turned out to greet the incoming train. But not an Indian appeared, and when the veteran of a hundred fights led his little band up the hill to the northern gate of the barrack wall and reached a spot where he could survey the [Apache] camp, not a living soul was in sight. Leaving his small party seated on their baggage, the old chief advanced some paces, paused, and calmly surveyed the scene. No sound broke the stillness. This camp of 350 souls seemed instinctively to realize that they were again under the burning gaze of the great warrior and priest. What thoughts passed through the warrior’s mind as he beheld all that remained of his once powerful tribe transported from their native mountains to the pine lands of Alabama can only be imagined. While he gazed intently a woman emerged from a distant tent to advance slowly and with bowed head. Hesitantly she advanced and then hurried to the chief, threw her arms around his neck, and wept as if her heart would break. During this trying ordeal, not a muscle of the old warrior’s face relaxed, nor did he show any outward sign of recognition that his only daughter was twining her arms around him.

  She was not his daughter. All his immediate family had come with him from Fort Pickens. She may have been a relative left behind at Fort Marion and brought to Mount Vernon with the rest a year earlier. Other sources confirm this incident, but also indicate that a few people emerged from their homes to greet (or simply observe) Geronimo. That all did not welcome him enthusiastically may be attributed to their knowledge that, but for him and his final breakout from Fort Apache, none would be in this dismal pine forest as prisoners of war. He and his handful of followers bore the blame. Or the explanation may have been as simple as that they did not know he was coming on this day.1

  Even so, Geronimo was assigned a dwelling in the center of the expanding Indian community. It was a two-room log cabin with the rooms separated by a breezeway. One of his two wives, Zi-yeh, occupied one room with her daughter, Eva, and son, Fenton, while Ith-tedda and her daughter, Lena, lived in the other. Son Chappo, now twenty-two, had been sent to Carlisle Indian School, but his wife and child lived elsewhere in the village.2

  Geronimo now faced the challenge of integrating his family and followers into the Chiricahua community that had been living at Mount Vernon since May 1887. The addition of the forty-six prisoners from Fort Pickens—fifteen men, twenty-one women, six boys, and four girls—brought the total at Mount Vernon to 389.3

  The main body of Chiricahuas, the reservation Apaches and Chihuahua’s band that had surrendered unconditionally to General Crook, had lived in a camp outside Mount Vernon Barracks for a year when Geronimo arrived in May 1888. Spurred by Herbert Welsh and the Indian Rights Association, in the spring of 1887 the War Department had to remove the Chiricahuas from Fort Marion. Reputed to be the healthiest post in the army, Mount Vernon Barracks seemed ideal. General Sheridan made the decision even before he read Captain John G. Bourke’s inspection report, in which he described the sand, swamps, and pine barrens in the best light possible and concluded, “Justice, honesty, kindness, directed by firmness and good sense, will promptly effect wonders in them.”4

  “Wonders” is too strong a word, but all the Chiricahuas, including Geronimo and his followers when they arrived, did undergo changes. Doctor Walter Reed’s monthly reports described ailments, mainly a predisposition to “consumption” (tuberculosis), but not for several years did he reveal the truth about the health of these Indians.

  In the year before the arrival of Geronimo, the Chiricahuas from Fort Marion learned that the army’s view of this healthy post did not accord with their own. Chihuahua’s son remembered their reaction.

  We had thought that anything would be better than Fort Marion with its rain, mosquitos, and malaria, but we were to find out that it was good in comparison with Mt. Vernon Barracks. We didn’t know what misery was until they dumped us in those swamps. …

  The married couples were placed in tumbledown houses with dirt floors. The unmarried men were housed together. It rained nearly all the time and the roofs leaked. On top of that the mosquitoes almost ate us alive. Babies died from their bites. It was hot and steamy. We had been accustomed to the dry heat of Arizona and could take that, but that humidity! It was worse than at St. Augustine; it was terrible. Everything molded—food, clothes, moccasins, everything.

  But we took it without complaining. If the children could stand it, so could the older people. And Nana went about telling us to remember that we were Apaches and that we were trained to suffer.5

  As at Saint Augustine and Pensacola, the Apaches discovered themselves objects of intense curiosity. The old brick-walled arsenal, dating from 1828, had long been the scene of “outings” sponsored by school, church, social, and other groups in Mobile. “Excursionists” from Mobile found the new railroad eager to take them the thirty miles to Mount Vernon for a picnic and a glimpse of Geronimo and the Apaches. Major William Sinclair commanded, and while the army searched for a young officer to take charge of the Apaches he inherited the role. He seems to have delighted in the experience of wining and dining high officials from Mobile and welcoming any other group from there or elsewhere that wanted to look at Apaches.6

  The Apaches, especially Geronimo, quickly took advantage of their renown, demonstrating their adaptability to new circumstances. They made bows and arrows, head gear, and other crafts to sell to the tourists. George Wrattan had come with the group from Fort Pickens. Although listed as interpreter, he continued to teach not only the Geronimo group but all the Apaches the mysterious ways of the white people and serve as superintendent of Apache activities. He became indispensable both to Indians and to the military, and he took an Apache wife.

  At Fort Pickens, Wrattan had taught Geronimo how to print his name. Now he showed him how to make walking sticks. Geronimo inscribed them with his name and sold them to tourists for one dollar. He also fashioned other craftwork that readily sold. As Eugene Chihuahua observed, however, the people “soon learned that anything made by Geronimo was in demand and for a higher price than of others. So many put their products in his keeping. He did not tell anyone that he had made the articles he sold, though few of them were really his products. Thus many bows and articles purchasers thought were made by Geronimo are distributed over the country.” The man who had surrendered at Skeleton Canyon only two years earlier had begun to evolve as a capitalist entrepreneur.7

  The reservation Chiricahuas and Chihuahua and his people, confined at Fort Marion for a year, had been at Mount Vernon since March 1886. After a month of sickness due to vaccinations, they went to work. They couldn’t farm, as they hoped, but Major Sinclair prevented idleness. He employed the men six days a week repairing roads, hauling bricks and mortar, cutting and hauling poles, and beginning to erect huts in which the families could reside. Women gathered firewood and attended to camp duties. All complained of hunger and pawned most of the articles they had brought from Saint Augustine to buy food. Both Major Sinclair and Dr. Reed considered the complaints valid. Within weeks, the ration had been increased to the full army size.8

  As both men and women labored to erect log huts for their homes and perform other tasks for the military post, Dr. Reed reported monthly on their health. Besides diarrhea (which he blamed on “indiscretion” in the diet), he found “chronic lung diseases” (consumption) and “intermittent fever.” He did not name the fever malaria, but it was, if Eugene Chihuahua can be credited:

  Our people got the shaking sickness. We burned one minute and froze the next. No matter how hot and muggy it was, no pile of blankets would keep us warm. We chilled and shook—not all the time, but every afternoon or every other day. There was an army doctor who gave us medicine, nasty bitter medicine [quinine]. I don’t know whether or not it did us any good. We had our own Medicine Men, but none of them had the Power over this malaria.9

  B
y the time Geronimo and his group arrived at Mount Vernon in May 1888, Major Sinclair’s work program had produced twenty log cabins into which families had moved, and the work continued on more. A month later, once again Herbert Welsh and the Indian Rights Association took up the Chiricahua issue. Addressing Secretary of War Endicott, Welsh wrote that the Chiricahuas should be made self-supporting, and this could be done only by moving them to a reservation with arable land. Ideally, since they could not be returned to Arizona, a reservation should be given them in the Indian Territory. Furthermore, all those Chiricahuas who had been serving as army scouts, as well as all those who had not been engaged in hostilities when uprooted from their homes and sent to Fort Marion, should be compensated for the lands and property of which they had been deprived. During a recent visit to Chicago, Welsh added, he had talked with General Crook, who agreed with this plan.10

  The letter sparked a conversation between Welsh and President Cleveland, who said that the Apaches could not be located west of the Mississippi River. Welsh then inspected a plot of farmland in Virginia near Hampton Industrial Institute, which he thought suitable. If Congress would not purchase it, friends of the Indian would call on their philanthropists for the money. The Boston Indian Citizenship Committee stood ready to help in purchasing a new location.11

  Welsh’s proposal set off a prolonged debate within the Cleveland administration, in which Welsh participated. This ended when Cleveland decreed that the Chiricahuas would remain at Mount Vernon. Another debate began when Benjamin Harrison moved into the executive mansion in the spring of 1889. Unlike Cleveland’s war secretary, who could muster little interest in the plight of the Apaches, Harrison’s appointee, Redfield Proctor, played an active and influential role. So did the army’s new commanding general, Major General John M. Schofield. Captain Bourke and Herbert Welsh and his assistant inspected one proposed reservation after another, in Virginia, North Carolina, and even Florida. Neither within nor outside the army could agreement be reached. The argument condemned the Chiricahuas to Mount Vernon for an indefinite period.12

  Ever since Fort Marion, the white man’s school had troubled the Chiricahuas. When Captain Pratt removed almost a hundred youths from Fort Marion to his Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, the people mourned the loss of their children. Similar fears plagued them at Mount Vernon when, late in 1888, they watched the army build a schoolhouse. Two dedicated young ladies (paid by the Boston philanthropists) opened the school in February 1889. As Eugene Chihuahua remembered:

  Teachers came and started a school. We were afraid that they wanted to take the children away from their parents as had been done in Florida. Some of the men believed they were there to help us, but Nana never did. Still, he advised us to be courteous and not to show our distrust. We also thought that Geronimo would oppose the school, but he was wise enough to know that we needed to know that we needed the white man’s weapons in skulduggery just as we did for fighting. He acted as disciplinarian for the boys and was very strict, just as he had been back home.13

  When General O. O. Howard (now commanding the Division of the Atlantic) visited Mount Vernon in April 1889, he assured the Indians that the school was not a ploy to remove the children to Carlisle, from which many returned to die of consumption. Geronimo, seeking to regain some of his former prestige, took an active role in encouraging the children and disciplining them—harshly. He also counseled them on the benefits of learning the white man’s way, which seems to have been sincere. He wrote a letter to his son Chappo at Carlisle extolling education and consenting that Chappo’s brother Fenton join him. Geronimo’s role even earned favorable mention in a report of the post commander. Chihuahua showed his confidence by serving as the school janitor. By the end of 1889, the school had filled with children and some adults.14

  Many of the changes that took place at Mount Vernon—school, white man’s medicine, living in cabins, men working at unaccustomed tasks, entertaining and exploiting white excursionists, and more—seem inconsistent with the old ways and beliefs. Did Usen and all associated with the deity fade as change took place, or did the old beliefs survive, or were the new ways regarded as consistent with the old?

  The declining health of the Indians remained a central concern even as the controversy raged over where to move the Apaches. Captain Pratt made matters worse when he complained in May 1889 of the health of his Apache students. Of more than a hundred brought to Carlisle from Florida and Mount Vernon, twenty-seven had died, two more would die in a few days, and others would soon take their places on the deathbed. In all cases, he noted, consumption was the culprit. Carlisle ought not to have these deaths on its record, and although he phrased it more delicately, he wanted to send all the afflicted back to Mount Vernon to die. In stages, he got his wish. Medical experts debated the cause. Some said Apache predisposition; others said change of lifestyle; still others pointed to climate.15

  Doctor Walter Reed believed climate the principal reason. In November 1889 he penned a scathing report on the health of the Apaches, focusing on the high mortality rate. Only a change of location would halt the ravages of consumption, he declared. The Indians had all grown increasingly depressed not only by disease but by the conviction that the government did not intend to move them to a healthier clime as promised by General Howard and other high-ranking visitors. Nowhere near the Atlantic or Gulf Coasts qualified, asserted Reed. The heat, rain, and humidity contrasted too sharply with the dry mountain climate of Arizona. Contradicting the monthly military reports on the condition of the Indians, he added that the Apaches were not content. “They do not desire nor have they ever desired to remain here during the past twelve months.” Any contrary reports reaching General Howard “have no foundation in fact.”16

  Reacting to the health crisis, Howard sent his son and aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Guy Howard, to prepare an investigation of conditions at Mount Vernon, which would be used as the basis for a recommendation to Congress. Howard, Schofield, and Proctor endorsed it, and following a visit in December, so did General Crook. In January 1890 President Harrison sent it to Congress with the recommendation that the Chiricahuas be authorized to move to Fort Sill, Indian Territory, and funds be appropriated for the purpose. Thanks to the opposition of delegates from Arizona and New Mexico, the legislation died.17

  The Chiricahuas knew nothing of the effort to get Congress to let them move west and its failure in the summer of 1890. They did finally receive a direct overseer, the officer the army had sought for three years: First Lieutenant William W. Wotherspoon, Twelfth Infantry—a talented young officer destined to rise to army chief of staff. He and his family arrived in June 1890. Immediately he confirmed what Dr. Reed had reported. “They are in a most depressed condition. Hope seems to have been crushed out by the long delays in the many promises made for their improvement.” Aware that the prospects of a move appeared dim, he believed that incentive to work would improve the Indians’ condition, and he urged Secretary Proctor to set aside a special fund from which to pay the men for their labor in building log cabins, working on other camp details, and performing tasks in the fort. The post commander heartily agreed, noting that “the former policy … has been to herd them as cheaply as possible under the belief that they would soon be sent away and be a good riddance to the post.” Within less than a month, Secretary Proctor had acted.18

  The Apaches continued to work as hard as ever, but now the reward was not hope but money. As they gained skills in carpentry, industrial pursuits, and farming their small patches, they won permission to work for civilians and contractors outside the reservation. They performed well and welcomed the money. Much to Wotherspoon’s distress, they spent much of it in saloons sprouting outside the military reservation. The lieutenant teamed up with the US district attorney in Mobile and successfully prosecuted enough whiskey-sellers to lessen the problem but not to eradicate drunkenness altogether.19

  Throughout the two years since his arrival, Geronimo had gradually made progress in re
storing his old prestige. He performed well as school disciplinarian, and he introduced football and baseball, which he enjoyed watching if not playing. Gradually he won the confidence of Lieutenant Wotherspoon. In October 1891, in addressing the Lake Mohonk Conference of Friends of the Indian, the lieutenant told of a decision that he reached with difficulty. “Geronimo, that great terror, is now acting as Justice of the Peace in the village.” Wotherspoon had debated this question in his mind for a long time, for now Geronimo would have to act against his people rather than for them. After much thought, Wotherspoon gambled—and succeeded. He found Geronimo’s decisions “eminently wise, acute, and to the point. He has an excellent influence over the other Indians, and more than fulfills Wotherspoon’s expectations.”20

  Early in 1891, the army began to consider enlisting Indians as soldiers in the regular army. They had performed well as scouts for the army, and they would be kept busy while receiving the same pay and allowances of regular soldiers. Both General Schofield and Secretary Proctor thought it a good idea, and President Harrison approved. A General Order of March 9, 1891, launched the experiment. Each of the twenty-six regiments of cavalry and infantry serving in the West would gain one company composed of Indians. The one exception was Company I, Twelfth Infantry, at Mount Vernon Barracks. Lieutenant Wotherspoon took command and set about recruiting and training prisoners of war.21

  Prisoners of war in army uniform, drawing army pay and allowance, created a glaring inconsistency that the army chose to overlook until it faced a dilemma. As the enlistments began to run out, an honorable discharge meant exactly that. It freed them to go where and do what they wanted. The top command admitted as much, but as nearly all rejoined their people, the issue of prisoner of war remained ambiguous.