At which Arizona site did Geronimo make his final surrender to the U.S. Army in 1886?

Geronimo made his final surrender to the U.S. Army at Skeleton Canyon, Arizona, in 1886.

The surrender took place on September 4, 1886, when Geronimo and the Chiricahua Apache people under his leadership gave themselves up to General Nelson A. Miles. Lieutenant Charles Bare Gatewood helped negotiate the surrender after locating Geronimo in Mexico.

Skeleton Canyon lies in southeastern Arizona, near the modern communities of Portal and Paradise. The event ended the last major armed resistance by Apache groups against the United States in the Southwest. Geronimo had surrendered several times before, but he repeatedly escaped or resumed resistance when promises made to him and his people were not kept.

A common mix-up is confusing this surrender with Geronimo’s earlier surrender at Cañon de los Embudos in Mexico in 1886. The Skeleton Canyon agreement was the final one. Afterward, Geronimo and many Chiricahua Apache people were transported far from their homeland, first to Florida and later to Alabama and Oklahoma. Geronimo died at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, in 1909.