Geronimo was a Red Indian Apache Chief, who succeeded in fighting off all the armies the Mexican and United States government sent against him until 1886, when he finally surrendered.
Geronimo was born in June 1829, with his name meaning One Who Yawns, in No-Doyohn Canyon, Mexico. He continued the tradition of the Apaches by resisting white colonization of their homeland in the Southwest and he took part in raids into Sonora and Chihuahua in Mexico.
However, in 1851, tragedy struck when his mother, wife-Alope and their three children were all killed in a sudden Mexican attack, whilst he was on a trading trip. And so Geronimo fought against the Mexicans thereafter.
After years of war Geronimo finally surrendered to U.S. troops in 1886. While he became a celebrity, he spent the last two decades of his life as a prisoner of war.
In the 1890s Geronimo finally died of pneumonia in his 80s. He had become a legendary, almost mythical figure.