Customer Reviews

Geronimo: My Life (Native American)

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A very interesting little book. Geronimo is given the ability to voice his version of events in his life. And as they are told in a very direct and unembellished manner, one tends to be inclined to view him as a very reliable source for those events. The person who interviewe him and is responsible for transcribing those into a book provides interesting commentary, and occasional little factual footnotes to the text, but otherwise rarely interferes with Geronimo telling his own story.

Well worth reading, it isn't very long and not too hard to follow.

It is truly a sad day in our history that we felt it necessary to capture and incarcerate ANY native American. But on the other hand, we are so fortunate that S.M.Barrett had the foresight and the opportunity to interview and permanently record Geronimo's words before they were lost forever. This is a small book and an easy read but it is packed full of Geronimo's experiences and thoughts regarding not only the white soldiers but also the Mexicans who made his life and that of his people miserable. I would recommend this book to anyone. It will hold a permanent spot in my library to be read again and passed on to my grandchild.

From the book's back cover:

Geronimo surrendered in 1886. Two decades later, while under arrest, he told his story through a native interpreter to S. M. Barrett, an Oklahoma school superintendent. Barrett explains in his introduction: "I wrote to President [Theodore] Roosevelt that here was an old Indian man who had been held prison of war for twenty years and had never been given a chance to tell his side of the story, and asked that Geronimo be given permission to tell for publication, in his own way, the story of his life.