They Killed Geronimo’s Family. He Spent His Life Making Them Pay

In 1851, a young Bedonkohe Apache named Goyahkla went into the Mexican town of Janos, Chihuahua, to trade. While the men were in town, about 400 Sonoran soldiers under Colonel José María Carrasco attacked the Apache camp outside it. When Goyahkla came back, his mother, his young wife Alope and their three small children had been killed. He walked home in silence, burned everything his family had owned, and vowed revenge. Within a year he helped lead Apache warriors against Sonoran troops near Arispe, and by tradition, it was there that the Mexican soldiers gave him the name the world would know: Geronimo. For the next thirty years he fought Mexico again and again. And decades later, as a prisoner of war at Fort Sill, he still said: "I have no love for the Mexicans." SOURCES Geronimo, Geronimo's Story of His Life, ed. S. M. Barrett (1906) National Park Service, Fort Bowie National Historic Site #Geronimo #Apache #ApacheWars #Chiricahua #WildWest