The destruction of the Apache nation

The struggle of the Apaches against two armies
The life of Goyahkla (Geronimo) elapsed suffering the struggles, defeats and tragedies of the Apache nation. When he was 19 years old, Mexican troops killed his mother, his wife and three children. The Apache chief would comment later: "My life lost all purpose".
Under the leadership of Cochise first and of Victorio and Nana later, the Apaches resisted the American and Mexican invasions. The aggression continued and despite the fervent struggle they were gradually displaced from their territories to more arid and less productive areas.
When Victorio and Nana were defeated and killed, the leadership was assumed by Goyahkla and Juh. At that time, and to avoid further sacrifices to their people, they entered into negotiations with the US government.
The representatives of the US government offered them an extension of land in exchange for laying down their arms. The place, called San Carlos, was arid and totally inadequate.
Daklugie, son of Juh described it in an illustrative way.
"The Creator did not make San Carlos. It's a place older than Him. He just left it as a sample of how things were done before He appeared. Take stones and ashes and thorns, and throw some scorpions and rattlesnakes, put all that on top of red-hot stones, add the US army chasing the Apaches and then you'll have San Carlos. "
The Apaches rejected the offer and continued the fight. They retreated to the mountain ranges to continue the resistance.
Six years after the fall of Victorio, in 1886, Juh died and Geronimo was left as the only chief accompanied by a handful of men, women and children in the rugged mountains. At that time in his life, Gerónimo was 56 years old.
The last Apache stronghold faced two powerful armies on both sides of the border. They were only seventeen warriors with their families. They were surrounded by five thousand soldiers and thousands of civilian militiamen from the side of the United States and three thousand Mexican soldiers in the sector of Mexico.
Despite the unequal situation the Apaches continued the fight. Daklugie said it this way:
 "At that time Geronimo also had Lozen, known as the Warrior Woman, Geronimo was weakened, also by the presence of women and children who should be defended and fed. Nobody ever captured Geronimo. I know it. I was with him. Anyway, who can capture the wind? "
Some time later the American army kidnapped and moved the women and children leaving the men alone in the fight.
A few months later, exhausted and discouraged by the absence of their families, Geronimo and the Apache warriors accompanying him surrendered to General Nelson Miles of the US Army with the promise that the Apache chief would be freed in two years and would allow to live in peace in his reserve.
Again the promises were broken. Gerónimo was kept in prison for twenty-three years. He died in 1909 still captive. The rest of the Apaches, a few hundred were sent to Oklahoma and New Mexico.

From: "Chronicles of the Human Peripecia", Danilo Antón, Piriguazú Ediciones.