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Who Was Geronimo? · Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People

• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, welcome to episode one of season two of Dirtnap City.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's 2023.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: I'm here with Alex and we're ready to jump into it literally.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: How are you today, Alex?
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm doing great.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Can't wait to get started on season two.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, season one was amazing.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate all the people that downloaded the episodes, all the people that commented.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Don't forget you can always email us at not at dirtnap city.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: And if you think about the at as the word at, then it'll make sense.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Not at dirtnap city.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to let us know how you like the episodes.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, Alex at Dirtnap City and Kelly at Dirtnap City, if you want to say something bad about one of us, just probably want to say that to the other person, right?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: I'm getting tons of emails like that.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: Season two, we're really going to explore some interesting people.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: Alex and I did a strategy session last night, spent a couple of hours and really thought about how deep we could go with these people.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's my intention to spend more than 15 minutes per person uh doing research so that we can really go deep and also to pick people that you have heard of but are not necessarily famous.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we both realized if they're too famous, like a biopic has been made about them, they're not as uh likely to be interesting to you.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's the lane that we want to stay in is people that have uh a good uh what do you call it, Q ratings?
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_01: Is that what you determine?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: Q ratings?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh people that everybody's heard of, but they're not quite uh they haven't made the level of making a movie about.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I think um that the person I picked for this episode, and this is gonna be a uh Kelly picked it episode, is fits right into that category.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: And so why don't I start, Alex, by giving you a couple of clues?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, first of all, can I ask you this?
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: You said earlier that we're gonna jump right into it, literally.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Does that have anything to do with who you picked?
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: So see, I'm perceptive.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: I caught that.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And just so everyone knows, Alex does not know who this episode is about yet.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: Even though it was on the thumbnail, when you're listening to it, he know he knows when you're listening to it.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: But as we're recording it, he doesn't know.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: So go ahead.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to guess?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if I if I guessed Eddie Van Halen, would I be right?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's a great guess, but no.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't that be would you rather have me guess right away than give me the the clues that you've thought of?
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I just thought you would be a real badass if you guessed it right out of the gate.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And Eddie Van Halen is a very, very good uh guess with jump right into it.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: But um, yeah, I mean, literally, yeah, there there's there's a connection there for sure.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you, this person is a bit older, or was a bit older than Eddie Van Halen.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: He was born in 1829 and died in 1909.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: He was known sorta to be a villain, not sorta to be, definitely to be a villain and a savage in early life.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: People people uh thought very poorly of him, at least Americans did.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: But then later in life, he actually became kind of a celebrity and was uh got to meet some very famous people and traveled around, and people would pay just to meet him or touch him later in life.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is intriguing.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a guess.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: His name uh is a one-word name, and it's very famous.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Died in 1909?
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: Died in 1909 at the age of 79.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: He really, you know, for that time period, that's pretty old.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: So somebody that was old in the 19th century that went by one name with jump in the clue.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: Was he an American guy?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, very much so.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Man, I'm not do you have any other clues for me?
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, his name is something that is very much associated with jumping.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: Might be something you would shout as you jumped.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: Man, I'm I'm I'm really clueless.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: What do people what do what do paratroopers say when they jump out of airplanes?
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, Geronimo.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I see the jump thing.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: So Geronimo.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Geronimo.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_01: That per that's perfect.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's right in the wheelhouse of what we're talking about.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: I would love to learn about Geronimo today.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: So you didn't pick Geronimo for yours.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: I did not.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, good, good.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_00: Because uh, you know, we were pretty worried that was going to happen right out of the gate.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: If you didn't hear our Dr.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Seuss episode, go back and listen to that because we both picked Dr.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Seuss at the same time and it was pretty funny.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: But yes, Geronimo, he was born uh, like I said, in 1829.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of Native American names in this that I some of them I put in and some of them I left out because I just couldn't even pronounce them and it got really complicated.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: But I tried to, I tried to be as um accurate as possible with the actual tribe names and because his name was not actually pronounced Geronimo until later.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: That was sort of a um change in the way that people said it.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: But the literal meaning of the word is one who yawns.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's an odd uh that's an odd thing to be named.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: I I I I think a lot of Native American names are are a lot more poetic than that.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well who yawns.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: One who yawns, yes.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um he was a prominent leader and a medicine man.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So one interesting thing is a lot of people think he was a chief.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: He wasn't actually a chief.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: He was a medicine man of the all right, I'm gonna try and say this correctly, of the Bedankoa, the Bedankoa band of the Apache.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: So just real quick, Apache is not really a single tribe of Native Americans.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's a collection of culturally related tribes that were in sort of the same region that simplified the way that um, you know, Americans, as in U.S.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Americans, because when you asked me if he was American, yes, he was more American than than most of the people there at the time.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but you, you know, the people from the United States uh sort of simplified a bunch of tribes by calling them Apache because they were all in one region.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: So to say that you're an Apache um isn't very specific to the actual tribe.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: So he was part of the Bedancoa and he was a medicine man.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And from most famously for 36 years, from 1850 until 1886, he joined members of three other Apache bands to carry out raids on both Mexican and U.S.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: campaigns in northern Mexico.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, there was this whole mess of things going on at the time.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: There was uh the U.S.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: military, there was the Mexican settlers and Mexican military, and then there was the Apache and the other Native Americans, and they were all kind of at war with each other, right?
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: The U.S.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: um was at war with Mexico for a long time, and then the Apache was at war with both Mexico and the U.S.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: for a long time.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: And what region do we know now?
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_01: Is this what used to be northern Mexico and is now like Arizona and Texas?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: Chihuahua, Sonora, New Mexico, and Arizona.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um so kind of northern, present-day northern Mexico, but also um also southern, southwest United States.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So kind of that whole region.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, at the time there was no real dividing line.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was all under um a lot of duress and a lot of protest about who actually claimed it.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so as the United States was expanding westward, Mexico already had settlers out there, and then the Native Americans were out there, and so everybody was just at each other's throat, um, trying to take over.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: So um Geronimo was known, was famous for leading um Apache Native Americans into these battles and fighting people, and I shouldn't say battles actually, they were more like raids.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: So they would go in and try to disrupt and remove people from this area, scare them, right?
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: Kill them or scare them away was their goal.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: What happened in 1835?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: Mexico placed a bounty on Apache scalps.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: So basically, they would pay you if you brought back an Apache scalp.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then two years later, a guy named Mangus Colaradas became the principal chief and leader and began a series of raids against the Mexicans.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: And the Apache raids on the Mexicans were so numerous and brutal that between 1820 and 1835, over 5,000 Mexicans died from Apache raids, and over a hundred settlements were destroyed.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: I can't even get my head around like this um just what was going on at that time with the the three kind of the three-way fighting and um pretty intense out there.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And this guy, uh Mangus, I don't know if it's Mangus or Mangus, but uh Coloradus, which sounds a lot like Colorado, maybe there's an association there.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: He was the chief.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: He was kind of the guy in charge of all this.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so again, Geronimo was not a chief, he was a medicine man, he was only part of one small tribe, um, the Bedonkoa, and he was uh just famous for doing these raids.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: So he would take out a band of 30 to 50 of his tribe members or maybe a group of other Apache tribe members and do these raids.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Part of the reason that Geronimo was really into this and passionate about these raids is because he felt, much like many Native Americans, that reservation life was confining and they didn't want to be stuck on these little plots of land that they hadn't asked to be stuck on because they were very nomadic people, right?
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: So ultimately, this was a big insult and a big change of their way of life.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of these raids were because he felt like his land that had been his, you know, his ancestors' land.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't think Native Americans really thought of it as their land, but the land that they had once roamed freely on was being taken over by the U.S.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: and Mexico.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that was the whole point, is that land doesn't belong to anybody.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so he would actually um lead what they called breakouts from the reservations in order to try and dissuade the Mexicans and the United States from settling and also just to be able to go back to their nomadic lifestyle that they had always known before that.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: The bounty on Apache scalps was put on their head in in by Mexico in 1835.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Geronimo really started his raids in 1850.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: So there had been a lot of conflict going on for a long time when he started the raids, and he really had several periods.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: He got captured several times, he escaped several times, and his most famous period of conflict was between 1876 and 1886 for about 10 years.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Again, he was often mistaken as a chief, even though he was really a shaman, and that was because he was just good at leading people.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: But he led a breakout from the reservation in 1885 and was pursued by American forces and finally surrendered to a guy named Charles Gatewood in 1886.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, Geronimo and 27 Apaches were captured and exiled to Florida.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things I found interesting is Charles Gatewood was known to the Apache as Bei Chen Densen, which means long nose.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: So again, captured for the third and final time in 1886.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: And when he surrendered, uh, interestingly too, he was in possession of several um U.S.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: made uh weapons.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: He had a Winchester model 1876 lever action rifle that was actually pretty fancy and is now actually on display in West Point, New York at the Military Academy.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: He had a cult single-action army revolver with nickel finish and ivory stocks.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: And he had a bowie knife that was uh pretty um fancy as well.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And those things, the Bowie knife and the single-action revolver, are on display at the Fort Sill Museum in Oklahoma.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_01: So was he known at this time to other than military people?
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: Was he kind of a uh did people know about him?
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yes and no.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: People in this region, I think he had a very ferocious reputation, right?
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because um his name became synonymous with these raids because he led them.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think he was famous across the eastern United States yet.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: That came later in life.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but when he surrendered, there was a lot of debate because he said that he surrendered conditionally, meaning that there were conditions that he would surrender and you know he would have to be allowed certain things.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas the general who testified uh before actually before Congress said that uh it was unconditional surrender because he was a dangerous outlaw and he didn't have any choice in the matter.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: So he and his men surrendered and were taken captive.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: They were taken to Florida eventually, but um, according to National Geographic Magazine, during the last five months of Geronimo's career, his band of 16 warriors, I guess that was how many were you know known to be traveling around and doing these raids, had slaughtered more than 500 or 600 Mexicans.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_00: And he became the most famous Native American at the time, earning him the title of worst Indian that ever lived.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I I can't get a sense of when people like you say in the eastern United States are just like just going on that weren't part of any of these skirmishes and uh settlements.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: Um were were these people legendary or was it way later that they started hearing about them?
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: So so they were legendary, like you said, among the Western uh United States settlers, people out in the plains, and the military, of course.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: But no, they bec he became more legendary across the entire United States later, and I'm gonna tell you about that in a second.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's noted that he and his group were one of the very last groups to surrender, to basically stop fighting these wars and stop doing these raids.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know, he was known as as kind of the last person or one of the last people, Native Americans, to refuse to accept the United States occupation of the United States.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: He was a holdout.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um so when he was captured, he was originally sent to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, and then from there, after six weeks, he was sent to Fort Pickens in Pensacola, Florida.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the Washington Post wrote that in that alien climate, meaning Florida, the Apache died like flies at frost time.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, very kind of ironic because it was a warmer climate than than that.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, they were basically saying that they weren't used to that.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_00: They weren't used to the humidity, they weren't used to probably the mosquitoes, they weren't used to all the things that Florida has that the West doesn't have.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: So a lot of the Apaches died in uh Florida while they were being held.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_01: Let's face it, pre-air conditioning, Florida must have been a miserable place.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I think Houston would have been a miserable place pre-air conditioning too.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think about that all the time.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just it's just un almost unlivable, right?
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Unhabitable.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you kind of wonder how people did it for so long, and you wonder if was it was it cooler back then?
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: As a matter of fact, just a little sidebar, do you feel like when we were growing up, summers weren't as brutally hot as they are now?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I grew up in Michigan, so they were never hot for me.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_01: And then when I moved um to Texas, they seemed super hot, but I think you're right.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember um just the types of heat waves that we've had in the last you know 10 years.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're on to something there.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_01: And if you talk to older people, they they tend to uh to say the same thing, much more uh temperate uh days.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like like you know, you'd have some days in the 90s, high eighties, low nineties kind of thing, and now it's you know high nineties and low hundreds pretty regularly, at least in Texas.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_01: But I still think that pre-air conditioning, the people that settled these places, and let's face it, they weren't wearing t-shirt and shorts either.
• 17:07
  unknown: Yeah.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: Heavy wool sometimes.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: See see the pilgrims episode for more reference on that.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: Much hardier people, I think, um, than the wusses that live today.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: But none of them could operate a phone.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if if we gave them a phone right now, they'd totally fail.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: So we got that going for us.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: So while while um Geronimo and and uh all the other prisoners that had been taken were in Florida, um someone decided it would be a good idea to set him up as a tourist attraction because people had started to hear about them.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: I think his capture was big news, and so they started charging people to come in and put put lay eyes on the bloodthirsty Indian in his cell.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's awful.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: So was this like um traveling uh circuses would do this?
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so this is while he was being held in Florida, was the first time they realized they could make money off of it.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: Then he was relocated back to Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and he was actually given a plot of land, and he was able to um farm that land.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: They were it was a prison camp, basically, or a reservation, but it was guarded so that they couldn't leave if they wanted to.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but during the train ride from from Florida to uh Fort Sill, Oklahoma, a lot of tourists wanted to actually meet Geronimo, and they would pay him 25 cents to take a button off of his shirt or to touch his hat.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And so he kind of realized there was an economic opportunity here for him, and other people did as well.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, he was into it?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I think it I think it transpired over time as people started giving him money, and and he realized um he he actually became for a Native American at the time, became pretty wealthy towards the end of his life because of the fact that he was a celebrity.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, I said at the beginning he started off as a savage and uh villain and then later was a celebrity.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um so they positioned himself basically, they positioned him almost like a serial killer, you know, and calling him bloodthirsty and making him seem like uh he was um just a psychopath.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_01: Why did they soften their stance on him?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't really soften their stance.
• 19:26
  SPEAKER_00: It just he became a a celebrity.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: So what happened is, like I said, in 1894, he was moved back to Fort Sill.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: In 1898, he was taken to the Trans Mississippi International Exposition in Omaha, Nebraska.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And at this time, a lot of newspaper accounts about the Apache Wars had been circulated.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: So people were familiar with him and his name, and he became a major attraction at that exposition.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so he started to gain celebrity status and started to make some money and started to be shown at fairs.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think he was had a choice.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: He was a prisoner, he was still a prisoner of war.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so he was being taken to these things, but they did actually pay him.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: It was kind of weird because, like I said, he had a plot of land that he was given.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't think he was in like a jail cell necessarily, but I think he was kept under confinement for a long time.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then he was actually taken to the Pan American Exposition in Buffalo, New York in 1901, and then even went to the St.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_00: Louis World's Fair in 1904.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: He was always under guard, you know, uh, of the Army, and he was always made to dress in the most traditional um Native American clothing they could put on him, right?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: The head headdress.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and again, I think he was always positioned as a chief.
• 20:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like people wanted to think he was the chief, not not uh not a shaman.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so this became something of a lifestyle for him, and and you know, I'm not sure if that was something that he was into or not, but he was making money.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_00: I think he was treated with more and more respect as his fame grew, and then he eventually became a part of Pawnee Bill's Wild West show.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he again, it it said in the article that he uh that Pawnee Bill brokered an agreement with the government to have Geronimo join the show under Army Guard.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: So it wasn't like they approached Geronimo about it.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: They said, Hey, this guy would be great in our show.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And this show was one of these Wild West shows where the Cowboys fight the Indians, literally, cowboys and Indians of old, right?
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: So the Indians were made out to be, and I say Indians, Native Americans, but they were called Indians at the time.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: They were made out to be savages that had to be tamed.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: They were uh there to frighten the audience.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: They were supposed to frighten the audience and make the audience think that they would scalp them if given the opportunity.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: And people would pay to come and watch these shows where it was kind of almost like uh the Lone Ranger, you know, where where the the good guys, the good white guys would ride in and tame the Native Americans.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: And uh they were always then afterward given the opportunity to go over and touch the chief.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: And again, he wasn't a chief, but he was made out to be one.
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: He was paid to be in these shows, but it's something that just kind of happened um over time that I think he probably wasn't that into who knows early on.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: But but you know eventually you just get comfortable with it, I think.
• 22:32
  unknown: No.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not okay with this.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is really city is not all smiles and chocolate.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: You know sometimes yeah that's true.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: It just the the idea of um making a freak show um and then but it's interesting that they paid him too prisoner they didn't have to do that.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah I'm not saying props to these guys or anything but it's kind of weird.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: But it probably was easier to keep him um for to get him to participate if they paid him right it probably you know if he if he was more of a willing participant or at least not objecting and fighting the whole thing it probably made it a little bit easier is my guess doesn't sound like he was very free though right no I don't think he was very free at all.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I wonder what he did with this money.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_01: Where would he spend it?
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well uh that's a good question.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: I I I don't know.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um that would be a good good follow-up is where did Geronimo that'd be a good uh Google search where did Geronimo spend his money he he he spent it all on uh beads and fire water okay I gotta get I gotta edit that out yeah I thought you were gonna say hookers and cocaine so uh well that was kind of that was kind of the that was kind of the thing at the time um so get this in 1905 he was so famous that he actually rode down Pennsylvania Avenue during President Theodore Roosevelt's inauguration along with uh four other Indian chiefs Native American chiefs who wore full headgear and painted faces and the idea the the PR behind it was that they were trying to show that the United States had buried the hatchet forever with the Native Americans that everybody was good you know so they were they were put on display at uh Teddy Roosevelt's inauguration in 1905 to to kind of make it seem like they had been at peace and it was such a big crowd that was another place where kind of in the East and um you know at a national level he became more of a celebrity.
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: After that after he rode in that inaugural parade he actually got to meet with President Roosevelt and once again we're on to a Roosevelt here they're reoccurring theme um background characters.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he um he actually asked if the people that were being held in in Oklahoma and Florida and other places where the uh Native Americans were being held as prisoners of war could be freed and taken back to their homeland and let them uh live there.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: And Roosevelt actually told Geronimo that he had a bad heart he killed many people he burned villages and they were not good Indians is what he told him and uh did not let him did not free those people.
• 25:29
  SPEAKER_00: Wow it was heartbreaking all of this is heartbreaking did I assume he spoke English um I don't know if he did because actually the next um thing that happened in 1905 a guy named S.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: M.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: Barrett who was the superintendent of um schools or education in Lawton Oklahoma actually asked President Roosevelt if he could write a book about Geronimo and so he uh went to Geronimo and set up interviews and it's told it it was told by Barrett and people who read the book and Geronimo himself that Geronimo came to these things with his own story refused to answer questions basically said I'll tell you what I'm gonna tell you and told it from his perspective and spoke Spanish when he was doing it.
• 26:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so this guy Barrett had to have a interpreter from Spanish to English.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't know if he spoke English or not but he apparently spoke Spanish and of course is probably his native tongue but one thing um that was said about the book by Barrett is that it was told from Geronimo's perspective.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: Barrett didn't change much.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: He kept it kind of the way Geronimo told him okay that sounds like an interesting book.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well and and what's interesting about that to me too is you know I was going to say it was you know it was told as the truth but I'm sure Geronimo's perspective was his own perspective, right?
• 26:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the the truth is always kind of in the middle of where everybody thinks it is.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh it was told from his point of view.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: The the main point was it was said to be an accurate depiction of what Geronimo told Barrett.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that was in 1905 and then in 1909 he was uh actually riding his horse home late one night in back in Oklahoma and the uh he fell off the horse and he was by himself and he laid in the cold all night and when he was found the next day he was taken to the hospital in Fort Sill and died of pneumonia on February 17th 1909 and on his deathbed he said to his nephew that he regretted his decision to surrender.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: His last words were reported to be according to his nephew I never should have surrendered.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: I should have fought until I was the last man alive.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well there's a story that six members of the Yale Secret Society called Skull and Bones.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now have you ever heard of this secret society called Skull and Bones?
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: I have yeah many presidents and uh yeah famous bigwigs uh or see or and and super super secret they never really talk about the initiation right right so so Prescott Bush uh the the father of uh George Bush senior was a member of the Skull and Bones uh along with five other people who all happened to have served as uh volunteers at Fort Sill during World War I so they um were there and then in 1986 a former San Carlos Apache chairman named Ned Anderson got an anonymous letter with a photograph and a copy of a letter claiming that Skull and Bones had stolen Geronimo's skull in 1918.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_01: Now that you say that I remember this I remember them talking about how Skull and Bones had Geronimo's head well it would have just been his skull by that point, right?
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: But um had had taken it.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: So a group um or an attorney for the Skull and Bones group said that uh that was a hoax it wasn't true and several other people agreed with it.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: But what's interesting is they weren't able to um well in 2009 a lawsuit was filed um on the descendants of Geronimo against Skull and Bones to return his to return Geronimo's bones to the its proper burial place.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: But a military spokesman said that uh there's no evidence to indicate the bones were anywhere but in the grave site.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: However, interestingly they've never been able to check because in 1928 the army covered the grave with concrete and a stone monument making it very difficult to get in and see the remains it's not like they can just dig it up they would have to jackhammer a foundation and stuff.
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: So unknown whether Skull and Bones has the uh remains of Geronimo or if it's still lying where it should be but that's up for debate.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's right there in the name Kelly Skull and Bones.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: That's true.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: So you were asking about why or um you might wonder why the um paratroopers and people jumping off of things yell Geronimo.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Well there was a 1939 film called Geronimo and that was the inspiration the U.S.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_00: Army paratroopers began the tradition of shouting Geronimo as they jumped out to show that they weren't fearful and that caught on kind of nationally as anybody jumping out of anything would yell Geronimo and so much so that there's actually a a paratrooper unit in the army in Fort Polk Louisiana that uses Geronimo as their nickname.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of their squad name but yeah that came from the military paratroopers jumping out of planes to show bravery did you see the story the uh in Wikipedia they have uh a more detailed version of that story you just told it's actually pretty funny can I can I tell you please please so it says according to paratrooper Gerald Devlin it's attributed to Private Aubrey Everhart.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: So he and some buddies were watching that movie Geronimo and um went and had some beers and they were making fun of this guy and they said on the way back to the barracks um they said you'd probably be too scared to remember the name of this movie when you're gonna have to jump tomorrow.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_01: I think it was their first jump and he said all right damn it I tell you jokers what I'm gonna do to prove to you that I'm not scared out of my wits when I jump I'm gonna yell Geronimo loud as hell when I go out that door tomorrow Eberhard kept his promise and the cry was gradually adopted by the other members of his platoon.
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: There you go some little scared guy uh that was on a dare maybe they double dog dared him I don't know yeah yeah well it it's interesting because you know that took over not only from the military but then it became a pretty common thing for kids right jumping off of uh playground or yeah anything I mean you did did you yell or you knew of that right you knew it was a thing when you were a kid geronimo I probably knew that before I ever knew who he was it it also kind of works because it's a long name and it has that O at the end that you can carry out so it's Geronimo you know you can you can really go with that like yeah I don't know that something shorter would have worked it makes more sense than Marco Polo game.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_01: Right right right in a future episode.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_00: So with all of that said uh you know Geronimo still has repercussions today and an influence today obviously people jumping off of things people still I think mistake him for uh an Apache chief which he was not but um the in 2011 when the US military actually uh had the raid that killed Osama bin Laden the codename for that raid was Geronimo and there was a lot of uh outrage among Native Americans that uh it shouldn't be called that for a variety of reasons and so they actually renamed it Operation Neptune's spear but it was originally called Operation Geronimo and then over the years there's been uh films Stagecoach in 1939 was a film uh that featured Geronimo it wasn't about Geronimo but Geronimo's uh band was one of the raiders on the Stagecoach that they had to defend off so Geronimo was sort of a side character then there was a film also in 1939 called Geronimo um and then there was another film in 1962 called Geronimo and then there was a film in 1993 called Geronimo an American legend and in this case he was uh played by a Native American actor named Wes Studi and then in uh also in 1993 uh it's always weird when two films about the same thing come out together you know like uh Bug's life and ants came out at the same time you know what I mean um Geronimo uh there was a biopic about Geronimo and that one also had a Native American actor named Joseph Running Fox and that was in 1993.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: I have not seen any of these films but I actually intend to watch probably the biopic.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: I would be curious to see uh what that's all about he had to be one of the most photographed people around because the film was just starting there's so many pictures of him so interestingly there's really not but there are there are probably about um I I I did read this and I'm trying to remember exactly what it said but it's like there was a photographer that was allowed to take photos of him and even before he was captured like while he was still a uh out in the band and then also after he was captured yes he was photographed a lot more at that point but there were like 12 famous photos of him before he was captured that actually uh I think are shown a lot there's one of him with the bow and arrow and then there's several of him with the more um you know US based weapons the Winchester and all that things that I mentioned earlier.
• 35:28
  SPEAKER_00: I guess you know when you're riding down Pennsylvania Avenue as part of the presidential inauguration parade, you're gonna get your photo taken a lot, right?
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: Even though it was 1905 um a lot of that stuff uh I think photos were reserved for wealthy people and famous people and he's always an uh a very old man when you see these photos too which means that probably most of the ones that you're seeing are the ones taken after he became famous.
• 35:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah he's also just sitting in a chair.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_00: Also think about it probably photography became more common later in his life right so it'd be like you and I, when was the first digital photo of either of us taken?
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: You know we were probably in our 20s or 30s before the first digital you know all that all before that it was film.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so um you know it's interesting when that transition happened we probably didn't think much about it.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh like here's this gimmicky little thing.
• 36:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's a digital camera what's that all about um but when's the last time you had a film picture taken of yourself?
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's probably been a while.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah probably funny how technology changes but yeah that is what I have to say about Geronimo um definitely be interested to hear what other people think and again you can email us at not at dirtnap city and uh tell us what you think about Geronimo if you have any other notes about the show.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Alex, any final thoughts on Geronimo and his uh exploits throughout the years?
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think you summed up at the beginning when you said that he was initially thought of as a bad person and then over time I think our stance on Geronimo has um become more respectful and softened and it's put into proper context of what he was really about and trying to do and uh I think his legacy has probably changed a lot over the years.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I think he's generally a pretty respected person these days.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah I you know if if if you try to think about it from the perspective of a person living in the United States in that time period the you know mid to late 1800s um you're just trying to live your life and you hear these stories about these bands of Indians that are coming and killing people and you see you know you might even witness it.
• 37:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so he was terrifying to those people and that's understandable and from their perspective they don't see what they're doing wrong.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: But in hindsight like you said we get him more because we can empathize we're not threatened by him today right there's nobody there's no no bands of Indians coming to kill us and so for us it's easier to look back and say okay we kind of understand where he was coming from his land was being invaded taken over you know and he was just fighting for his land just like probably a lot like what Ukraine's doing right now.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know they're fighting for their land and and uh so that might be a bad analogy but I agree with you.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think he's become more respected as we've been able to put ourselves in his shoes a little bit more.
• 38:31
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah interesting yeah well he definitely fits the criteria of interesting people happen to be dead I wanted to uh start the year off by jumping into 2023 and yelling Geronimo as we go.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well Alex thank you so much uh everyone if you are a fan of the show uh know that we're back we're gonna be doing weekly episodes um most weeks in 2023 for season two we got a big one next week with Alex I have no idea who it is but um you'll want to tune in I'll want to tune in to learn it and uh we'll look forward to seeing you throughout the year of 2023 on DirtNet City thanks for joining us