Monday TV: Geronimo Is Biggest Star on PBS's Worthy Series About Indian Resistance

How's THIS for an image change - going from "The most feared and wicked Indian" to leading Pres. Theodore Roosevelt's 1905 Inaugural Parade a few years later.

Still, legendary Apache resister Geronimo was never completely tamed by the white man, we learn this Monday on PBS. ("Geronimo" airs at 9 p.m. on many PBS stations; check your local listings).

In February, 1909, as he lay on his deathbed, the legendary Apache fighter summoned his nephew and whispered, "I never should have surrendered." God knows he spent most of his life NOT surrendering, to both Mexican and American soldiers. The Mexicans murdered his wife, mother, and children, touching off Geronimo's rage and his distrust of non-Indians.

"We Shall Remain," five chronologically ordered documentaries in PBS's acclaimed "American Experience" series, deals with the history on American Indian resistance over three centuries. It's produced in association with the Native American Public Telecommunications organization. Not surprisingly, it shows in detail how the Indians were betrayed and nearly exterminated. The term "ethnic cleansing," accurately used here, is heard more than once.

What's especially notable about this series is its depth and texture: We find out in painful (but worthwhile) detail how we screwed the native peoples, and the series, which I've seen, is full of surprises, albeit dismaying ones. This is the stuff that was somehow overlooked at school, but the series does not adopt a bitter tone, to its credit.

Last week's episode, on the Cherokees, was especially dismaying. I studied the Cherokees briefly in my Oklahoma History class at Midwest City, Okla., High. But we were never told how the Southeastern-based tribe had tried to assimilate by accepting Christianity, inventing its own written language, and adopting European-style governments and legal systems. A lot of good it did the tribe - in the end, the Cherokees still got pushed off their ancestral lands and banished to Oklahoma and Arkansas. The Trail of Tears

Monday, "Geronimo" tells the full story of the stubborn warrior/medicine man whose Apache band was relocated to an Arizona reservation in 1872. He refused to stay on the reservation (thus today's saying), and became the focus of terrified and angry white settlers, who regarded the resistant Apache as an archfiend and perpetrator of unspeakable "savage cruelties." Today, we might call this "karma."

To supporters, Geronimo remained the embodiment of proud resistance, the upholder of the old Chiricahua ways. To other Apaches, especially those who had come to see the white man's path as the only viable road, Geronimo was a stubborn troublemaker with an unquenchable thirst for vengeance, whose actions needlessly brought the enemy's wrath down on his own people.

Monday's doc says that at one point in the 1880's, 5,000 U.S. troops - a quarter of our entire army - plus 3,000 Mexicans, and 1000 bounty hunters were chasing Geronimo and his band. For anyone keeping score at home, that's 9,000 versus 39.

At a time when surrender to the reservation and acceptance of the white man's civilization seemed to be Indians' only realistic options, Geronimo and his tiny band of Chiricahuas fought on. The final holdouts, they became in 1889 the last Native American fighting force to formally capitulate to the U.S. government.

But public opinion is fickle, and almost overnight, Monday's illuminating doc says, Geronimo, who'd been shipped to a Florida prison, became a beloved, nostalgic figure - a symbol of the now-tamed Wild West. The Chiricahuas, however, were never allowed by Arizona to return to their native lands.

This is a fascinating doc, filled with eye-popping shots of the American Southwest and northern Mexico, where Geronimo spent most of his life on the run. ( "No one is ever your friend except your legs," Geronimo once said as a young man.)

This hard-to-resist series on Indian resistance describes itself thusly: "It is a story of America - one richer and more surprising than we've been told. It is too remarkable and too surprising and remarkable to ever forget."

"We Shall Remain" concludes Monday, May 11, with "Wounded Knee." You get the feeling this landmark series will be shown in schools for years to come.

Comments

[MizJ]

I watched the series and admit that there was so much I did not know. Thanks PBS for bringing this sordid piece of history to our attention. We are so busy patting ourselves on the back that we forget what we did to Native Americans in our quest to "civilize" the nation. Had we been more charitable we could have lived side by side with these people without the bloodshed that ensued and been the better for it.

[greendream]

I'm an enrolled Cherokee and was dismayed that the story of the Eastern Cherokees was left out of the story last week. A few words that not all Cherokees went west and no mention of how insurgent Cherokees went and hid in the mountains rather than leave their ancient homeland. After a period of time these refugees and other Cherokees left behind in the east after the Trail of Tears banded together and with the help of sympathetic white land owners formed their own 'reservation and became known as the "Eastern Band' I would never minimize the importance of the story of the Trail of Tears (as I had relatives forced to relocate) but I am tired of the story of the Eastern Cherokees getting the shaft. They have a story that is just as moving.

[Tulsaslim]

I can hope it will be shown in schools for years to come but the reality is that most school boards won't approve anything that shows the white race in a negative context.

Yes, I am a white man.

[NativeCanadian]

Looking forward to watching this. But has anything really changed from the days of Geronimo's fight? The Canadian Government, especially under Harper's Conservatives, are still trying to assimilate us.
I hope all Anishaabe watch this and are inspired to continue the fight to uphold our treaties and the rights they ensure!

[bookluver]

I can't wait to watch it- sounds very interesting. I have been doing a lot of reading on the history of Native American history. My favorite book that I have read so far on the subject is "Cannibalism, Headhunting and Human Sacrifice in North America: A History Forgotten, written by George Feldman. I found the book to be extremely well researched . . . an easy read for anyone curious about the real American history. It will be interesting to see the documentary.

http://www.historynerds.com/

[oldschoololdsoul]

Some historians claim that the US ethnic cleansing of some 15 million natives of the northern continent was the largest holocaust in human history. And yet all this piece can offer is that Geronimo had refused to be "tamed" by the white man. Just exactly who needs to be tamed here?

[HeevenSteven]

I read "Black Elk Speaks" in college. What an education that was.

[horhay]

I believe it was actually 1886 when Geronimo surrendered(for the second time). Federal officials sent him and nearly 500 Apaches to Fort Pickens military prison in Pensacola, Florida. The next year(1887), the Apaches were sent to Mount Vernon Barracks, Alabama. By this time close to a third of them had died of tuberculosis and other diseases. Geronimo and the remaining Apaches were finally moved to the Kiowa-Comanche Reservation in Indian Territory(Oklahoma) confined to Fort Sill. Their status as Prisoners of War continued until 1913(sound familiar?). Geronimo died in 1909 at Fort Sill where there is a grave site for Goyathlay(­Geronimo), although there is still much controversy as to whereabouts of his actual remains.

[nancytheragingliberal]

It makes me ill when I think of our sordid history. I love all native Americans and wish we showed them peace and acceptance.

[superlive]

The Natives didn't need peace and acceptance. They needed water, land, game, and anti-biotics.

[oldbutkickin]

My Cherokee grandmother talked of Geronimo to my father. He told wonderful stories of his mother/grandmother. She lived in TX and moved to OKLA after marrying my grandfather . My grandfather worked for the government with the Cherokee nation.
Tears of sadness