What I've Learned

My grandfather saw Geronimo.

"Dad looked in a cell window at him," my aunt said. "Geronimo looked back. Neither man said anything."

At age 57, the Apache chief had surrendered, hoping to convince the U.S. government to let him and his people return in peace to their Arizona homeland. He later saw his surrender as a mistake and regretted it. Though he participated in Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade in Washington and met with the president to plead his cause, Geronimo was never allowed to return to Arizona.

During the years he was in captivity, the warrior chief dictated his autobiography. He died of pneumonia in 1909 at Fort Sill, Oklahoma at the age of 79.

Geronimo's real name was Goyahkla. Mexicans began calling him Geronimo during the Apache wars. Today, no one knows what that name means.

The meaning of Goyahkla, however, is known. It translates as One Who Yawns. Not an awe-inspiring name for a person who became one of the greatest military leaders in history.

When Goyahkla was young, his father died of an illness and the boy assumed responsibility for his mother, Juana.

At 17, he became a warrior in the the Bedonkohe tribe of the Chiricahua Apaches and married his sweetheart, Alope.

Goyahkla and Alope had been lovers for some time, but couldn't marry until he became an adult, that is to say, a warrior. The wedding price demanded by Alope's father was substantial – not a pony or two, but a herd of ponies. Goyahkla paid it gladly.

"Not far from my mother's tepee, I had made for us a new home," he said. "The tepee was made of buffalo hides and in it were many bear robes, lion hides, and other trophies of the chase, as well as my spears, bows, and arrows.

"Alope had made many little decorations of beads and drawn work on buckskin, which she placed in our tepee. She also drew many pictures on the walls of our home. She was a good wife, but she was never strong. We followed the traditions of our fathers and were happy. Three children came to us – children that played, loitered, and worked as I had done."

A few years later, the Bedonkohe left their home in Arizona and traveled into Old Mexico to do some trading. A camp was set up outside a town, and for several days the warriors ventured into town to trade, leaving guards to watch over the women and children.

"Late one afternoon when returning from town, we were met by a few women and children who told us that Mexican troops from some other town had attacked our camp, killed all the warriors of the guard, captured all our ponies, secured our arms, destroyed our supplies, and killed many of our women and children."

"I found that my aged mother, my young wife, and my three small children were among the slain. There were no lights in camp, so without being noticed I silently turned away and stood by the river. How long I stood there I do not know, but when I saw the warriors arranging for a council I took my place."

And thus began a long, brutal war between the Apache and the Mexican army. The war came to include anyone who ventured into Apache territory – Arizona, New Mexico, and western Texas – including American settlers and the U.S. army.

For years, Goyahkla and a small band of Apache warriors consistently out-fought two armies and exhibited such merciless cruelty in their attacks, it terrified two nations, causing one of them to give him a new name.

My grandfather looked in a prison window and stared at Geronimo. The chief stared back. I have often wondered what each man was thinking at that moment.