Wild Justice: The People of Geronimo Vs. the United States

by Lieder, Michael; Page, Jake

• ISBN13: 9780806131337
• ISBN10: 0806131330
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-03-01
• Publisher: Univ of Oklahoma Pr

Summary

In 1886, after a year of fierce fighting against encroaching settlers and the U.S. Army throughout the Southwest, Geronimo and the Chiricahua Apaches surrendered. For the next twenty-three years they were held as prisoners of war in Florida, Alabama, and Oklahoma. Consequently in 1947, after Harry S. Truman had established the Indian Claims Commission to redress the grievances of American Indians, the Chiricahua Apaches pressed for restitution. When the government misdated the taking of Apache lands and left an opening for legal wrangling, the tribal lawyers pounced, resulting in a $22 million settlement, forty times what the tribe had asked for. It proved a bittersweet victory, however, when divided among several thousand Apaches. Furthermore, such redress compensated only for the loss of land ownership -- a concept foreign to the Indians. The Claims Commission failed to address the destruction of religion, tribal sovereignty, and whole cultures, issues that plague U.S.-Indian affairs to this day.