The last campaign
The conflicts commonly grouped as the Apache Wars are generally said to have ended in 1886 with the surrender of the Chiricahua leader Geronimo and the group with him. That ending was not the end of the story: for the Chiricahua it began a captivity that lasted until 1913. This article covers the final campaign, the surrender, and the first steps of the removal.
Leading up to 1886
After the campaigns of the late 1870s, small groups of Chiricahua and Warm Springs Apache people lived at San Carlos, in conditions many found unbearable. Several groups left the reservation at different times in the early 1880s. General George Crook led an expedition into the Sierra Madre of Mexico in 1883, using Apache scouts, and many of the people he met returned to the reservation with him.
Further departures followed in 1885, led by Geronimo, Naiche and others. In March 1886, Crook met them at a place called Cañón de los Embudos, south of the border, and the leaders agreed to terms; Geronimo and Naiche then left again, apparently fearing for their safety. Crook was criticized and replaced by General Nelson Miles. What is known with fair confidence is that the nature of the terms, and what the leaders believed they had been promised, remained a matter of dispute for years.
Miles organized a pursuit that relied on large numbers of troops and on Apache scouts, including Chiricahua men. The role of scouts in the 1886 campaign was significant, and historians continue to discuss how it should be understood.
The surrender
In late summer 1886, Geronimo and a small group were persuaded to meet with Miles. The surrender is generally dated to early September 1886 and is associated with Skeleton Canyon in southeastern Arizona. The group included only a small number of fighters, along with women and children. Sources differ on the exact number and on precisely what was said, so details here are kept general.
What is clear is that the army regarded the surrender as unconditional or nearly so, while Geronimo and others later said they had expected to return to Arizona or to a reservation. They were instead taken to Fort Bowie and put on trains going east.
Removal of the Chiricahua
The decision that has drawn the most criticism came next. The army did not limit the removal to those who had fought. Chiricahua people who had remained at Fort Apache and had been living peacefully, including men who had served the army as scouts, were also rounded up and sent east. In total, hundreds of people were sent from Arizona to Florida. The imprisonment of peaceful bands is a widely criticized aspect of the policy, and the scouts’ treatment is often described as a betrayal, since the Chiricahua scouts imprisoned alongside their relatives had served the army in the same campaign.
The prisoners were divided:
- Geronimo, Naiche and the men of the surrendered group were taken to Fort Pickens, near Pensacola, Florida.
- Women, children and other Chiricahua were held at Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida, where conditions were crowded and unhealthy.
- In 1887 the prisoners were reunited and moved to Mount Vernon Barracks in Alabama, where many fell ill.
- In 1894 they were moved again, to Fort Sill in what was then Indian Territory, now Oklahoma.
Sources describe high rates of illness and death during these years, with tuberculosis frequently mentioned. Children were also sent to the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania, where some died and others returned changed.
What the end meant
For the army and for many settlers, 1886 marked the end of organized Apache resistance in the Southwest. For the Chiricahua, it meant the loss of their homeland for a generation, the separation of families, and a status as prisoners of war that lasted for 27 years. For the Western Apache and other nations, the surrender was a distant event, although some people from those groups had served as scouts or been involved in the campaigns.
The period is remembered differently by different communities. Some stress the leaders who resisted, and others emphasize the families who were imprisoned without having fought. Both perspectives are part of the record, and no single account is complete.
After 1886
The Chiricahua prisoners of war continued in captivity in Alabama and later Oklahoma, until their release in 1913. Their descendants now belong to the Fort Sill Apache Tribe and the Mescalero Apache Tribe. Questions about what the surrender terms really were, and whether the imprisonment was justified or lawful, have been debated by historians since the 1880s.
Readers who want to explore the sources can look at the Apache Wars primary sources, including army reports, newspaper accounts and Apache memoirs, bearing in mind that these viewpoints differ widely.