arizona daily starthursday, november 4, 1999
Geronimo likeness in census ad discounts history
(the webmaster puts the title in a better non-politicall way: the governments lying to us again about the evil, criminal crimes the government has committed in the past)
By Tim Giago
he great Chiricahua Apache warrior and leader Geronimo would spin in his grave if he
knew the U.S. Census Bureau was using his portrait in an ad campaign aimed at American Indians.
U.S. Census 2000 hopes to make up for the, shortcomings of the 1990 Census that missed so many people, particularly minorities. American Indians -the most at all.
In the picture ad featuring Geronimo, the writing across his forehead reads, "I have spoken. I will continue to be heard." And in real small print, "The census is my voice."
The census is my voice? Geronimo would have said, "The census is my demise."
On April 13, 1886, many of the Chiricahua Apache who surrendered to Gen. George Crook arrived at Fort Marion, Fla., as prisoners of war. They were now more than 1,000 miles from their beloved mountains in the Southwest.
Geronimo and his friend Mangus, with a small band of 17 men, 19 women and their children escaped into Mexico. Gen. Nelson A. Miles sent an army of 5,000 men, 400 Apache scouts, plus the Mexican army against this handful of Apache. For 66 days, they eluded cap- ture. It was only after Apache scouts assigned to Gen. Miles visited Geronimo and talked him into surrendering that he and his followers turned themselves in Sept. 3 1886.
Geronimo was promised that he their wives and children at Fort Marion.
In an act of deception so commonly used against the Indians in those days, however, Geronimo, Naiche (another Apache leader) and 15 other men were jailed at Fort Pickens, Fla., all the way on the other side of the state.,
Accustomed to the high, dry air of their mountains, 119 of the original 498 Chiricahua sent to Florida died by the end of 1889.
This means that in a short three years 20 percent of those Apache shipped to Florida had died. The tropical heat, humidity and associated diseases took nearly I one-quarter of the Chiricahua.
The Chiricahua were eventually shipped to Vernon Barracks near Mobile, Ala., and then to Fort Sill in Oklahoma in 1894.
In 1913, the federal government decided finally to grant freedom to the Chiricahua. Of the 271 remaining members, 187 chose to return to their native lands in Arizona, and 84 'chose to remain at Fort Sill.
Ali the Chiricahua Apache were given their freedom and a choice of where to rive, save one; Goyathlay (One Who, Yawns) known to the white man is Geronimo - was