From the Trail of Tears to Wounded Knee and Little Bighorn, the narrative of American history is incomplete without the inclusion of the Native Americans that lived on the continent before European settlers arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries. Since the first contact between natives and settlers, tribes like the Sioux, Cherokee, and Navajo have both fascinated and perplexed outsiders with their history, language, and culture.

Among all the Native American tribes, the Spanish, Mexicans, and Americans learned the hard way that the warriors of the Apache were perhaps the fiercest in North America. Based in the Southwest, the Apache fought all three in Mexico and the American Southwest, engaging in seasonal raids for so many centuries that the Apache struck fear into the hearts of all their neighbors.

On January 14, 1871, Anson Safford, the third governor of Arizona Territory, addressed the sixth legislative assembly. It was the first of the two terms Safford would serve, and the first time in two years the legislators had assembled. The members were anxious to learn if the “Lil Governor'' would give them a standard state-of-the territory message, or something more in the nature of his leadership. Small in stature, the five foot six inch Safford had a politically balanced reputation as a no-nonsense spokesman for better education and a hard-riding volunteer in pursuit of lawlessness.

The wholesale attacks against both civilian and military targets by Cochise and his warriors were interrupting the peaceful progress toward eventual statehood. There were other hostile bands of Indians and murderous gangs of Mexican outlaws running rampant through the territory, but Cochise was noted for wholesale attacks on civilian settlements and the thinly distributed military. His acts of torture and murder were well known throughout Arizona Territory, and his ambush of wagon trains and stagecoaches and theft of horses and razing of entire villages put his name at the forefront of lawlessness.

An article in the Arizona press dated Oct. 22, 1869, summed up the majority opinion of Arizona’s citizens by describing Apache as “low set, ugly powerful beings of a dark copper color covered with tiny black hair and so unstable of character that between a couple hours they will slip away from the military camp and carry off all the horses.” At the same time, Cochise’s name became mythical in its telling. His exploits and escapes were described as everywhere when least expected, and nowhere when pursued. There are no known photos, and the scarcity of reliable quotes are excused by the erroneous belief of the day that any man close enough to talk to him never lived to tell about it.

The name “Geronimo” evokes a number of different emotions. Those who believed in 19th century America’s “Manifest Destiny” viewed Geronimo and all Native Americans as impediments to God’s will for the nation. Descendants of people killed by “hostile” Natives certainly considered warriors like Geronimo to be murderers and thieves whose cultures and societies held no redeeming values. Even today, many Americans associate the name Geronimo with a war cry, and the name Geronimo itself only came about because of a battle he fought against the Mexicans.

Over time, however, the historical perception of the relationship between America and Native tribes changed drastically. With that, Geronimo, or Goyahkla, was viewed in a far different light. Those who empathized with the fate of the Native Americans saw Geronimo as one of a number of Native American leaders who resisted the US and Mexican governments as their lands were being appropriated, often eluding large numbers of soldiers pursuing them.