Photo of Naiche and his wife from the Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society Library
One of forty-nine photographs in “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” by Dee Brown. NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, (1970).
Naiche (c. 1857-1919) was the final hereditary chief of the Chiricahua band of Apache Indians. He was the youngest son of Cochise and, upon the death of his father in 1874, Naiche’s brother Taza became the chief. However, Taza died a few years later in 1876, and the office went to Naiche.
Initially peaceful and co-operative with the whites, from 1881 onwards he was associated with Geronimo in a number of breakouts from the reservation. Naiche traveled to Mexico with Geronimo’s band to avoid forced relocation to the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona. They surrendered in 1883 but escaped the reservation in 1885, back into Mexico. Officially the leader of the last band of renegade (i.e., free) Apaches in the Southwest, Naiche and Geronimo surrendered to General Nelson Miles in 1886. [Source: Wikipedia]
Quoting Dee Brown (pp. 411-412):
“In the end it was the Big Nose Captain (Lieutenant Charles Gatewood) and two Apache scouts, Martine and Kayitah, who found Geronimo and Naiche hiding out in a canyon of the Sierra Madres. Geronimo laid his rifle down and shook hands with the Big Nose Captain, inquiring calmly about his health. He then asked about matters back in the United States. How were the Chiricahuas fairing? Gatewood told him that the Chiricahuas who surrendered had already been shipped to Florida. If Geronimo would surrender to General Miles, he also would probably be sent to Florida to join them. . .
“And so Geronimo surrendered for the last time . . . Geronimo and his surviving warriors were shipped to Fort Marion, Florida. He found most of his friends dying there in that warm and humid land so unlike the high, dry country of their birth. More than a hundred died of a disease diagnosed as consumption. The government took all their children away from them and sent them to the Indian school at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and more than fifty of their children died there.
“Not only were the ‘hostiles’ moved to Florida, but so were many of the ‘friendlies,’ including the scouts . . . Martine and Kayitah who led Lieutenant Gatewood to Geronimo’s hiding place, did not receive the ten ponies promised them for their mission; instead they were shipped to imprisonment in Florida. . . The Chiricahuas were marked for extinction; they had fought too hard to keep their freedom.”
Photo of Naiche and his wife from the Arizona Pioneers' Historical Society Library
One of forty-nine photographs in “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee” by Dee Brown. NY: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, (1970).
Naiche (c. 1857-1919) was the final hereditary chief of the Chiricahua band of Apache Indians. He was the youngest son of Cochise and, upon the death of his father in 1874, Naiche’s brother Taza became the chief. However, Taza died a few years later in 1876, and the office went to Naiche.
Initially peaceful and co-operative with the whites, from 1881 onwards he was associated with Geronimo in a number of breakouts from the reservation. Naiche traveled to Mexico with Geronimo’s band to avoid forced relocation to the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona. They surrendered in 1883 but escaped the reservation in 1885, back into Mexico. Officially the leader of the last band of renegade (i.e., free) Apaches in the Southwest, Naiche and Geronimo surrendered to General Nelson Miles in 1886. [Source: Wikipedia]
Quoting Dee Brown (pp. 411-412):
“In the end it was the Big Nose Captain (Lieutenant Charles Gatewood) and two Apache scouts, Martine and Kayitah, who found Geronimo and Naiche hiding out in a canyon of the Sierra Madres. Geronimo laid his rifle down and shook hands with the Big Nose Captain, inquiring calmly about his health. He then asked about matters back in the United States. How were the Chiricahuas fairing? Gatewood told him that the Chiricahuas who surrendered had already been shipped to Florida. If Geronimo would surrender to General Miles, he also would probably be sent to Florida to join them. . .
“And so Geronimo surrendered for the last time . . . Geronimo and his surviving warriors were shipped to Fort Marion, Florida. He found most of his friends dying there in that warm and humid land so unlike the high, dry country of their birth. More than a hundred died of a disease diagnosed as consumption. The government took all their children away from them and sent them to the Indian school at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, and more than fifty of their children died there.
“Not only were the ‘hostiles’ moved to Florida, but so were many of the ‘friendlies,’ including the scouts . . . Martine and Kayitah who led Lieutenant Gatewood to Geronimo’s hiding place, did not receive the ten ponies promised them for their mission; instead they were shipped to imprisonment in Florida. . . The Chiricahuas were marked for extinction; they had fought too hard to keep their freedom.”