Geronimo’s Story of His Life

Dictated in 1905 while its author was still a prisoner of war at Fort Sill, this is the life of the Apache leader Geronimo told in his own words, through an interpreter and taken down by S. M. Barrett. Geronimo recounts Apache origins and belief, his boyhood, the massacre of his family by Mexican soldiers that set him on the warpath, and the long resistance against both Mexico and the United States that ended with his final surrender in 1886. He speaks plainly of loss, war, captivity, and his people’s ways, refusing to soften the record. Published in 1906, it remains a rare firsthand account from the losing side of the Indian Wars, free to read as a PDF and EPUB edition.