Geronimo’s name appeared in newspapers across the country with a frequency that would have astonished anyone who knew him only as a specific man in a specific community dealing with specific problems.

The press coverage was not accurate in the ways that concerned Geronimo’s community.

Newspapers reported Apache raids as attacks by savage warriors without context, without the history of treaty violations and colonial displacement that produced the conflict, without the perspective of the Apache people.

The imagery was of an alien threat, not of people defending their homeland.

But the same press that covered him as a threat also created his celebrity.

When Geronimo was in captivity at Fort Sill and began making public appearances, the newspapers covered those appearances with the enthusiasm that celebrity generates.