Geronimo

Geronimo was a Chiricahua Apache leader who fought the United States and Mexico for decades. He surrendered on 4 September 1886 at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, officially to General Nelson Miles, after Lieutenant Charles Gatewood, whom he trusted, persuaded him. He was held as a prisoner of war, first at Fort Sam Houston in Texas, then at Fort Pickens in Florida, from 1888 at Mount Vernon Barracks in Alabama, and from 1894 at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He was never tried. The quick transfer kept the civil authorities of Arizona from arresting him. In 1905 he rode in Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade and, a few days later, asked the president to free the Chiricahuas from prisoner status. Roosevelt refused.

Geronimo died of pneumonia on 17 February 1909 at Fort Sill, still a prisoner of the United States, after being thrown from his horse. His name lives on in popular culture, not always with respect. In 2011 the US military used Geronimo as the code name for the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, and some Native Americans were outraged. His great-grandson Harlyn Geronimo called it either an insult or a mistake. A 2009 lawsuit by claimed descendants over the story that Skull and Bones members stole his skull was dismissed in 2010, and a Fort Sill spokesman says there is no evidence the bones are anywhere but the grave.