Cochise was a Chiricahua Apache tribe chieftain who earned the nickname- ‘‘The Apache Napoleon”. He was on friendly terms with the white settlers but was falsely accused of kidnapping and as a result witnessed his relatives’ execution in 1861. Thereafter he considered it his mission to kill all white settlers in Arizona. Fighting relentlessly against both American and Mexican armies for years, he eventually engaged the U.S. Army at the battle of Apache Pass. This resulted in his defeat, but he continued attacking travelers and settlements on both sides of the U.S./Mexican border. Finally he signed a peace treaty with the U.S. in 1872 and died a few years later on a reservation.
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Crazy Horse was an Oglala Lakota chieftain renowned as a fierce warrior owing to his skirmishes with Plain Indian Tribes during the 1850s-1860s. He was involved in the planning, ambush and massacre of 80 U.S. soldiers stationed at Fort Kearney in Wyoming. Most famous of his roles was in the 1876 battle of southern Montana, where he led 1000 warriors against U.S. troops halting their advance as they attempted to march to another great battle, “the Battle of Little Big Horn. This resulted in an Indian victory where the famous Lt. Col. George Custer and some 267 soldiers were killed in action. In 1877, he was forced to surrender and 4 months later got killed in an argument with a soldier at the Red Cloud Agency in Nebraska.
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Among the fiercest Native American chiefs, Geronimo is a legend. Geronimo was mainly driven by his hunger for revenge against the murder of his wife, mother and 3 children by Mexican soldiers who raided his settlement. He was an Apache warrior renowned for his guerilla tactics and was also suspected to have supernatural powers that safeguarded him in battles. He conducted raids between 1858-1886 against Mexicans and Americans in New Mexico, Western Texas and Arizona. In 1886, Geronimo finally surrendered and came to be known by the public as the “wickedest Indian who ever lived”. He died from pneumonia in 1909. Upon his deathbed his final words to a relative were- “I should never have surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive”.
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