FORT SILL APACHE TRIBE
1895 Maps of Indian Nations

The Fort Sill Apache are composed of members of the warm Springs Band of Apache and the Chiricahua Apache.� This small group of Indians is often referred to as Chief Geronimo�s Band of Apache.� According to older members of this group, Victorio, chief of the Apache, took a group of 40 warriors on the warpath to protest the tribe�s being moved from their New Mexico reservation to one �location at San Carlos, Arizona.� Upon Victorio�s death at the hands of a band of Mexicans in Chichuahua, State of Mexico, Geronimo assumed command of the group.� He carried warfare� until August� 1886, when Gen. Nelson A. Miles forced him to surrender.� Geronimo and all, is band were taken as prisoners of war to Fort Marion, Florida, near St. Augustine.� Because of many deaths and much sickness in the tribe, the Government removed them to Mount Vernon Barraks, Alabama, where they were kept prisoners for 7 years.� On October 4, 1894, Geronimo and the remnants of his band, now about 296 in all, were brought from Alabama to Fort Sill, Oklahoma.� They remained at the Fort sill Military Reservation as nominal prisoners of war until 1913, when the Government arranged to allot an 80=acre tract of land to each member who desired to remain in Oklahoma.� Those who wished to move to the Mescalero Reservation in New Mexico could so , and only 87 stayed in Oklahoma and were given allotments of land in or near what is now the town of Apache.