On September 5, 1886, the entire nation rejoiced as the news
flashed from the Southwest that the Apache war leader Geron-
imo had surrendered to Brigadier General Nelson A. Miles.
With Geronimo, at the time of his surrender, were Chief Naiche
(the son of the great Cochise), sixteen other warriors, fourteen
women, and six children. It had taken a force of 5,000 regular
army troops and a series of false promises to "capture" the band.

Yet the surrender that day was not the end of the story of the
Apaches associated with Geronimo. Besides his small band,
394 of his tribesmen, including his wife and children, were
rounded up, loaded into railroad cars, and shipped to Florida.
For more than 20 years Geronimo's people were kept in captivity
at Fort Pickins, Florida; Mount Vernon Barracks, Alabama; and finally
Fort Sill, Oklahoma. They never gave up hope of returning to their
mountain home in Arizona and New Mexico, even as their numbers
were reduced by starvation and disease and their children were taken
from them to be sent to the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania.