Geronimo (June 16, 1829 – February 17, 1909) was a prominent leader of the Bedonkohe band of the Chiricahua Apache tribe. Geronimo was not a chief, but was a superb commander of raids and warfare.  While respected for his skills, he was not terribly likable or popular, but was held in awe for his supernatural powers, which included the ability to forecast events and heal others. After the end of the Mexican War in 1848, Americans began to settle in the Apache lands of the southwest.  Geronimo joined with three other Apache bands to conduct raids and oppose Mexican and United States military campaigns in the Mexican states of Chihuahua and Sonora and the U.S. Territories of Arizona and New Mexico. The hostilities went on for thirty-six years, from 1850 – 1886, and were a natural extension of Apache-Mexican conflict, which had been going on since the 1600's.  Geronimo's mother, wife and three small children were murdered by Mexican troops in 1858, sparking a quest for vengeance. In 1886, after an intense pursuit by some five thousand soldiers, Geronimo surrendered for the last time at Skeleton Canyon just north of the Mexican border, and was taken as a prisoner of war along with 27 other Apaches.  They were exiled to Fort Pickens in Florida, moved to Alabama in 1888, and finally relocated to Fort Sill in Oklahoma in 1994, where they were given plots of land to farm and built villages.

Geronimo became a celebrity in his old age, attending the St. Louis Fair in 1904, where he roped cattle, rode a Ferris wheel and sold autographs and photos of himself as souvenirs. He rode in the inaugural parade of President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 while still a prisoner of war after 19 years.