Miles Negotiates Peace with Naiche and Geronimo (Sept 1886)

Miles’ troops trailed “Geronimo’s Indians” for the next four months. On September 3, 1886, having been persuaded by two Apache Scouts, Martine and Kayitah, Geronimo and the others met voluntarily with the general. Miles told them that the government would “wipe out their past deeds,” send them east with their families for two years of imprisonment, return them to Arizona, and place them on a reservation. The resisters accepted these conditions.

Federal authorities decided years later that the United States officially took possession of the Chiricahua Apache homeland when Miles convinced Geronimo and Naiche to go east. The Apaches did not foresee this dishonesty and injustice.

“The (Indian Claims) Commission has … determined that the United States acquired sovereignty over most of the aboriginal Chiricahua Apache lands by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo of February 2, 1848 … and over the remainder of said lands by the Gadsden Purchase of December 30, 1853.

“… (T)he United States extinguished the aboriginal title of the Chiricahua Apaches to their entire tract of land in Arizona and New Mexico on September 4, 1886.” (“Findings of Fact” of the Indian Claims Commission, 1974, Docket No. 182.)

Previous Page Chihuahua Sent to Fort Marion, FL (April 1886)

Next Page San Carlos Chiricahuas Sent to Fort Marion, FL (Sept 1886

The Chiricahua Apaches become Prisoners of War (1886)