cheifs of the apache

Mangas Coloradas For generations, the Apaches resisted white colonization of their homeland in the Southwest (presently New Mexico and Arizona) by both Spaniards and North Americans. In 1848, when gold was discovered in California, the Apache were threatened by the incursions of white fortune-seekers. In an incident at a mining camp, Mangas Coloradas, chief of the Mimbreño Chiricahua, was whipped, an act that resulted in his life-long enmity against white men. Though his nephew Cochise …

…in 1894, he at first attempted to "take the white man's road." He farmed and joined the Dutch Reformed Church, which expelled him because of his inability to resist gambling. He never saw Arizona again, but, by special permission of the War Department, he was allowed to sell photographs of himself and his handiwork at expositions. Before he died at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, Feb. 17, 1909, he dictated to S.S. Barrett his autobiography, "Geronimo: His Own Story."