The request to return to Arizona, repeated through multiple petitions and public statements, reflected something more than nostalgia.

He understood the Apache homeland — the specific mountains, the specific rivers, the specific sacred places — as the context within which life and death had proper meaning.

He wanted to be buried there.

He was not permitted to be.

Fort Sill And The Apache Prisoners

The Apache who were held as prisoners of war at Fort Sill after their transfer from Alabama in 1894 were not just Geronimo’s band.

They were a larger group of Chiricahua Apache, including people who had not been active participants in the resistance — people who had been living peacefully on the reservation in Arizona when the government decided to remove all Chiricahua as a consequence of the actions of Geronimo’s band.