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Geronimo

leader of the Bedonkohe Apache (1829-1909)

Goyathlay (Mescalero-Chiricahua: Goyaałé [One Who Yawns]; 16 June 1829 – 17 February 1909) was a Chiricahua Apache leader; usually known as Geronimo.

Once I moved about like the wind. Now I surrender to you and that is all.

Quotes

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I cannot think we are useless or Usen would not have created us. He created all tribes of men and certainly had a righteous purpose in creating each.
  • I will protect my people if I live. For myself I do not fear for I have the word of Usen. Who is the White Nantan to think he can pit his power against that of Usen?
    • On being informed that there were authorizations to kill him while he was a prisoner in San Antonio, prior to news of further instructions to transport him to Florida, as quoted in Geronimo and the End of the Apache Wars (1990), by Charles Leland Sonnichsen, p. 102; "Usen" is the Apache word for God, and "Nantan" their word for a leader, spokesman, or "chief".

Geronimo's Story of His Life (1907)

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Geronimo's Story of His Life (1907) as told to S. M. Barrett in 1905 and 1906; republished as Geronimo: His own story, newly revised and edited (1996)
  • In the beginning the world was covered with darkness. There was no sun, no day. The perpetual night had no moon or stars.
    There were, however, all manner of beasts and birds. Among the beasts were many hideous, nameless monsters, as well as dragons, lions, tigers, wolves, foxes, beavers, rabbits, squirrels, rats, mice, and all manner of creeping things such as lizards and serpents. Mankind could not prosper under such conditions, for the beasts and serpents destroyed all human offspring.
    All creatures had the power of speech and were gifted with reason.
  • I cannot think we are useless or Usen would not have created us. He created all tribes of men and certainly had a righteous purpose in creating each.
  • I was no chief and never had been, but because I had been more deeply wronged than others, this honor was conferred upon me, and I resolved to prove worthy of the trust.
  • I am thankful that the President of the United States has given me permission to tell my story. I hope that he and those in authority under him will read my story and judge whether my people have been rightly treated.

About

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  • Within days of the assassination of Osama bin Laden, on May 2, 2011, it was revealed that the Navy SEAL team executing the mission had used the code name Geronimo for its target.' A May 4 report in the New York Daily News commented, "Along with the unseen pictures of Osama Bin Laden's corpse and questions about what Pakistan knew, intelligence officials' reasons for dubbing the Al Qaeda boss 'Geronimo' remain one of the biggest mysteries of the Black Ops mission." The choice of that code name was not a mystery to the military, which also uses the term "Indian Country" to designate enemy territory and identifies its killing machines and operations with such names as UH-1B/C Iroquois, OH-58D Kiowa, OV-1 Mohawk, OH-6 Cayuse, AH-64 Apache, S-58/H-34 Choctaw, UH-60 Black Hawk, Thunderbird, and Rolling Thunder. The last of these is the military name given to the relentless carpet-bombing of Vietnam peasants in the mid-1960s. There are many other current and recent examples of the persistence of the colonialist and imperialist sensibilities at the core of a military grounded in wars against the Indigenous nations and communities of North America.
  • They held us in San Antonio … We had tents and blankets but no arms. We had food. But every minute we expected to be taken out and shot. Nobody said it aloud. Geronimo had been promised that he would not die by bullets (by Usen, the Apache God), but the rest had not.
    • Jasper Kanseah, a fellow captive, as quoted in Geronimo and the End of the Apache Wars (1990), by Charles Leland Sonnichsen, p. 101.

See also

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