Geronimo (means "one who yawns"), was born in 1829 in what is today western New Mexico, but was then still Mexican territory. He was a Bedonkohe Apache (grandson of Mahko) by birth and a Net'na during his youth and early manhood. His wife, Juh, Geronimo's cousin Ishton, and Asa Daklugie were members of the Nednhi band of the Chiricahua Apache. He was reportedly given the name Geronimo by Mexican soldiers, although few agree as to why. As leader of the Apaches at Arispe in Sonora, he performed such daring feats that the Mexicans singled him out with the sobriquet Geronimo (Spanish for "Jerome"). Some attributed his numerous raiding successes to powers conferred by supernatural beings, including a reputed invulnerability to bullets. Geronimo's war career was linked with that of his brother-in-law, Juh, a Chiricahua chief. Although he was not a hereditary leader, Geronimo appeared so to outsiders because he often acted as spokesman for Juh, who had a speech impediment. Geronimo was the leader of the last American Indian fighting force formally to capitulate to the United States. Because he fought against such daunting odds and held out the longest, he became the most famous Apache of all. To the pioneers and settlers of Arizona and New Mexico, he was a bloody-handed murderer and this image endured until the second half of this century.

Photo of Geronimo

The Nez Perce are a tribe of Native Americans who inhabited the Pacific Northwest region of the United States at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The Nez Perce's name for themselves is Ni-Mii-Puu (pronounced nee-mee-poo), which means simply "the People." The Nez Perce territory covered parts of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, in an area surrounding the Snake River and the Clearwater River. The Nez Perce, as many western Native American tribes, were migratory and would travel with the seasons, according to where the most abundant food was to be found at a given time of year. This migration followed a predictable pattern from permanent winter villages through several temporary camps, nearly always returning to the same locations year after year. They were known to go as far east as the Great Plains, hunting American Bison and fishing for salmon at Celilo Falls on the Columbia River.  

Probably the best known leader of the Nez Perce was Chief Joseph, who led his people in their struggle to retain their identity in the face of U.S. encroachments on their land. Chief Joseph’s name meant, "thunder coming up over the land from the water". Referred to as the ‘Nez Perce Warrior of Peace’, he was known for his strong stance against the U. S. Government to segregate his people onto reservations. He was born near Oregon's Wallowa Valley in 1840 and died in exile on the Colville Indian Reservation in North Central Washington in 1904. 

Chief of Nez Perce, Chief Joseph

The Lakota are closely related to the western Dakota of Minnesota. After their adoption of the horse in the early 18th century, the Lakota became part of the Great Plains culture with their eventual Algonkin-speaking allies, the Tsitsistas (Cheyenne), living in the northern Great Plains. Their society centered on the buffalo hunt with the horse. There were 20,000 Lakota in the mid-18th century. The number has now increased to about 70,000, of whom about 20,500 still speak their ancestral language. After 1720, the Lakota branch of the Seven Council Fires split into two elements, the Saone who moved to the Lake Traverse area on the South Dakota-North Dakota-Minnesota border, and the Oglala-Brulé who occupied the James River Valley. By about 1750, however, the Saone had moved to the east bank of the Missouri, followed 10 years later by the Oglala and Brulé (Sicangu).

The large and powerful Arikara, Mandan, and Hidatsa villages had prevented the Lakota from crossing the Missouri for an extended period, but when smallpox and other diseases nearly destroyed these tribes, the way was open for the first Lakota to cross the Missouri into the drier, short-grass prairies of the High Plains. These Saone, well-mounted and increasingly confident, spread out quickly. In 1765, an Saone exploring and raiding party led by Chief Standing Bear discovered the Black Hills (which they called the Paha Sapa). Just a decade later, in 1775, the Oglala and Brulé also crossed the river, following the great smallpox epidemic of 1772-1780, which destroyed 3/4 of the population of the Missouri Valley populations. In 1776, they defeated the Cheyenne as the Cheyenne had earlier defeated the Kiowa, and gained control of the land which became the center of the Lakota universe.

The Melungeons were "a people who almost certainly intermarried with Powhatans, Pamunkeys, Creeks, Catawbas, Yuchis, and Cherokees" states, Dr. N. Brent Kennedy.

If you have been researching your family in the Cumberland Plateau of Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, West Virginia, and Tennessee during the early migration years, you may be able to find them through a connection to this group of people who are only now being researched with unbiased eyes --the Melungeons.

Described as as being "dark-skinned, reddish-brown complexioned people with very distinctive physiological characteristics, called ethnic markers. These ethnic markers seem to be passed on through the lines of some Melungeon descendants. The ethnic markers are a bump on the back of the head of some descendants, that is located at mid-line, just above the juncture with the neck. It is about the size and shape of half a golf ball or smaller. If you cannot find the bump, check to see if you, like some descendants, have a ridge, located at the base of the head where it joins the neck. This ridge is an enlargement of the base of the skull. To find the ridge, place your finger at the base of your neck where it joins your shoulders, and on the center line of your spine. Run your fingers straight up your neck toward your head. If you have a ridge, it will stop your fingers from going on up and across your head.

Chickasaw Fry Bread

• 2 cups sifted flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 4 tsp. baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup warm milk

Stir first three ingredigents then stir in the beaten egg. Add milk to make the dough soft. Roll it out on floured bread board, knead lightly. Roll dough out to 1/2 inch thick.  Cut into strips 2 X 3 inches and slit the center. Drop into hot cooking oil and brown on both sides. Serve hot.

Creek Fry Bread

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 tbsp. baking powder
• 1/4 tsp. salt