Apache is the collective term for several culturally related groups of Native Americans originally from the Southwest United States. The current division of Apachean groups includes the Western Apache, Chiricahua, Mescalero, Jicarilla, Lipan and Plains Apache (formerly Kiowa-Apache).

During the centuries of Apache-Mexican and Apache-United States conflict, raiding had become embedded in the Apache way of life, used not only for strategic purposes but also as an economic enterprise, and often there was overlap between raids for economic need and warfare. Raids ranged from stealing livestock and other plunder, to the capture and/or killing of victims, sometimes by torture. Mexicans and Americans responded with retaliatory attacks against the Apache which were no less violent, and were very seldom limited to identified individual adult enemies. The raiding and retaliation fed the fires of a virulent revenge warfare that reverberated back and forth between Apaches and Mexicans and later, Apaches and Americans. From 1850 to 1886 Geronimo as well as other Apache leaders conducted attacks, but Geronimo was driven by a desire to take revenge for the murder of his family and accumulated a record of brutality during this time that was unmatched by any of his contemporaries.[13] His fighting ability extending over 30 years forms a major characteristic of his persona.

Among Geronimo's own Chiricahua tribe many had mixed feelings about him. While respected as a skilled and effective leader of raids or warfare, he emerges as not very likable, and he was not widely popular among the other Apache. This was primarily because he refused to give in to American government demands leading to some Apaches fearing the American responses to Geronimo's sense of Indian nationalism. Nevertheless, Apache people stood in awe of Geronimo's "powers" which he demonstrated to them on a series of occasions. These powers indicated to other Apaches that Geronimo had super-natural gifts that he could use for good or ill. In eye-witness accounts by other Apaches, Geronimo was able to become aware of distant events as they happened, and he was able to anticipate events that were in the future. He also demonstrated powers to heal other Apaches.

Information link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geronimo

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