Feature & Exhibit Detail
| Self Bow and Quiver with Arrows, attributed to Geronimo |
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| Indian Wars, 2nd Floor | ||||||||||
| Native American, 19th century. Photograph by John Fitzgerald. Courtesy of the Frazier International History Museum. Promised gift of Mr. Owsley Brown Frazier. |
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Geronimo, whose name means “one who yawns,” was an Apache medicine man and warrior. He fought the U.S. Army and settlers, was captured and escaped, but finally accepted the inevitable and surrendered in 1886. He was kept at two sites before being sent to the reservation at Paid $25 a month by the government for services as a “scout,” Geronimo enjoyed a rather comfortable existence at Fort Sill and supplemented his income by charging for his photograph, and by gambling, at which he appears to have been quite skilled. He also sold items said to have been used in his campaigns. According to a tradition dating from the beginning of the twentieth century, the bow, quiver and arrows shown here were handed over at the time of Geronimo’s surrender. They are authentic, rare Native American weapons of the type that could have been used by him and his warriors in the 1860s. However, there have been other sets also claimed as his, and staged photos show him with props of such native weapons. Near the end of his life Geronimo appeared in “Buffalo Bill” Cody’s Wild West Show, and was a celebrity at Theodore Roosevelt’s inaugural and the |
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