Geronimo Timeline

After surrendering, Geronimo and other Chiricahua prisoners of war were held at Fort Pickens in Florida until 1888, when they were relocated to Mount Vernon Barracks in Alabama.

Image source: Fort Pickens

In 1886, General Nelson Miles selected Captain Henry Lawton to command B Troop, 4th Cavalry, at Fort Huachuca, along with First Lieutenant Charles B. Gatewood, to continue the pursuit of Geronimo.

Image source: Henry Ware Lawton

The governor of Sonora claimed in 1886 that in the last five months of Geronimo's wild career, his band of 16 warriors slaughtered some 500 to 600 Mexicans. At the end of his military career, he led a small band of 38 men, women and children.

Captain Emmet Crawford launched a second expedition into Mexico, and on January 9, 1886, located Geronimo and his band during an intense American pursuit in northern Mexico.

During three days of negotiations in March 1886, photographer C. S. Fly took pictures of Geronimo and his followers, including Jimmy McKinn, a white boy who had been abducted from his New Mexico ranch in September 1885.

General George Crook exchanged heated telegrams with General Philip Sheridan defending his men's actions, until April 1, 1886, when he sent a telegram asking Sheridan to relieve him of command, which Sheridan agreed to do.

Image source: George Crook

When Geronimo surrendered, he had in his possession a Winchester Model 1876 lever-action rifle with a silver-washed barrel and receiver, bearing Serial Number 109450.

Geronimo officially surrendered to General Miles on September 4, 1886, at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, ending his long career of resistance against both Mexican and U.S. forces.

After one quarter of the population died of tuberculosis, the Chiricahuas, including Geronimo, were relocated to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 1894, where they built villages scattered around the post based on kindred groups.

Image source: Fort Sill

In 1898, Geronimo was part of a Chiricahua delegation from Fort Sill to the Trans-Mississippi International Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska, where he was put on public display.

Image source: Trans-Mississippi Exposition

The Pan-American Exposition at Buffalo, New York, in 1901 was one of the two largest expositions where Geronimo appeared as a public attraction in his later years.

Image source: Pan-American Exposition

Geronimo joined the Dutch Reformed Church in 1903, beginning a complicated relationship with Christianity in the final years of his life.

The St. Louis World's Fair in 1904 was another major exposition where Geronimo was exhibited, continuing his role as a public figure in his later years as a prisoner of war.

Image source: Louisiana Purchase Exposition

In 1905, Geronimo agreed to tell his story to S. M. Barrett, producing his autobiography, in which he also shared his views on the afterlife, noting that his tribe's teachings about the future state were not specific.

Image source: Geronimo

In President Theodore Roosevelt's 1905 Inaugural Parade, Geronimo rode horseback down Pennsylvania Avenue with five Indian chiefs who wore full headgear and painted faces.

Four years after joining the Dutch Reformed Church, Geronimo was expelled in 1907 for gambling, reflecting his ambivalent religious feelings toward the end of his life.

At a summer camp meeting in 1908, Geronimo told Christian missionaries he wanted to start over, while at the same time telling his tribesmen that he held to the old Apache religion, showing his ambivalence to the end of his life.