Mar 5, 2018 - Geronimo a Real Life Superhero

UNLIKE the Marvel Superheroes – amazing as they are in a fantastical sense – our Superhero was a REAL man, and one of the greatest warriors who ever lived…he could not fly….but he could see into the future in his dreams and could never be ambushed, and he was the bravest and most fearless man alive.

Geronimo’s mother, wife and children were murdered by Mexican Soldiers when he was a young man.

In 1851, while Geronimo and several other warriors were in the town of Janos on a trading mission, Colonel Jose Maria Carrasco and a detachment of around 400 Mexican soldiers ransacked his Bedonkohe encampment and slaughtered many of its inhabitants. When Geronimo returned later that night, he found that his mother, his wife and his three young children had all been murdered. “I had lost all,” he said in his autobiography. Following the massacre, Geronimo swore vengeance against Mexico and led a series of bloody raids on its soldiers and settlements. “I have killed many Mexicans,” he later wrote. “I do not know how many…some of them were not worth counting.”

Geronimo’s followers credited him with supernatural powers.

While he often exerted considerable influence over the Apaches, Geronimo was never a tribal chief. Among the Chiricahua, he was better known for his skills as a shaman, or medicine man. Those who followed Geronimo credited him with a variety of supernatural powers including the ability to heal the sick, slow time, avoid bullets, bring on rainstorms and even witness future events before they actually happened or see them while they were occurring far away impossible to see or hear from his location. In one incident described by Apache Jason Betzinez, a few warriors were sitting around a campfire during a raiding expedition when Geronimo suddenly had a premonition that U.S. troops had attacked their base camp dozens of miles away. After arriving at the site several days later, they found that Geronimo’s vision had been correct—the Americans had already captured the encampment. “I cannot explain it to this day,” Betzinez later wrote, “but I was there and I saw it.”

Nearly a quarter of the entire U.S. Army (5,000 troops) and 3,000 Mexican soldiers – took part in the final hunt for Geronimo – yet they could not capture him.

On May 17, 1885, Geronimo took flight from their reservation for the final time. The famed warrior was then in his 60s, but he remained as determined as ever, often pushing his group to cover as much as 70 miles per day to avoid the American cavalry and scouts on their trail. Over the next several months, 40 of his last warriors were being pursued by 5,000 U.S. soldiers—nearly a quarter of the entire standing army of the USA —as well as some 3,000 Mexican Soldiers. Geronimo was able elude both forces for over five months, but by August, he and his followers had grown weary of life on the run. On September 4, 1886, he finally gave himself up to General Nelson Miles at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona. In laying down his arms, he became the last Indian leader to formally surrender (he was never captured) to the United States military.

He did not have a bullet proof costume..he had bullet-proof skin…he was shot at point blank range by Mexicans and Americans soldiers over 50 times and still he continued advancing to his enemies who had shot him – fighting and killing them as they cried out to God in vain for help.

Geronimo explained that after Mexican soldiers had attacked his village when he was a young man, and had slaughtered his mother, young wife and his children…he went into the mountains to mourn…and it was there that a spirit told him “I will take the bullets from the guns of your enemies – and no bullet will ever kill you”…so Geronimo spent the rest of his life waging war on the enemies of his people – no matter who they were, and no-matter how great the odds were against him as he was always greatly outnumbered by his enemies – both those whom he attacked, and those who came to attack him….when Geronimo could not convince other men to accompany him to attack the Mexicans or Americans (because they thought victory was impossible)…he went ALONE …starving as he walked for miles for days and weeks if necessary, ..and killed them himself.

FROM THE JOURNAL OF WHITE AMERICAN ELDRIDGE AVER BURBANK WHO EXAMINED GERONIMO AT FORT SILL OKLAHOMA IN 1897

Burbank spent a great deal of time with Geronimo, eventually completing seven portraits of him. In the body of the text, as told by Mr Royce he said this:

“One day Geronimo came into my quarters at Fort Sill in a most peculiar mood. He told me no-one could kill him, or me either – if he willed it so. Then he bare himself to his waist. I was dumbfounded to see the number of bullet hole scars on his body. I knew he had been in many battles and had been shot dozens of times, but I never heard of anyone living with at least 50 bullet wounds on his body. Geronimo had that many scars. Some of these bullet wounds were large enough to rest a pebble in as Geronimo picked up pebbles and putting them in each wound he would make a noise like a gunshot – then take the pebble out and throw it to the ground…and shout “Bullets cannot kill me!”

By Damon Corrie

Follow Damon Corrie at http://damongerardcorrie.blogspot.com