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Love Lessons from the Old West: Wisdom from Wild Women
Geronimo was a prominent leader of the Apache Indians. His battles against Mexico and Arizona for their expansion into Apache Tribal lands is well-known. What is not well-known is the deep love he had for his first wife, Alope. They had planned to spend a lifetime together but a senseless murder deprived Geronimo of his spouse. Her memory was all he had to keep him going. He would have other wives, but no one like Alope.
Geronimo was seventeen when he married Alope. He and his bride made their home near his mother Juanita’s wickiup near Clifton in southern Arizona. According to Geronimo, Alope was “slender and fair, loyal and dutiful.” The two had been lovers for a long time, and he considered marrying her to be the “greatest joy offered to him.” The pair wed in 1846 and resided in a wickiup made of buffalo hides. The interior of their home was filled with bear and lion robes, spears, bows, and arrows. Alope decorated their dwelling with beadwork and elaborate drawings made on buckskin. Her artistry extended onto the canvas walls of the wickiup as well.
Geronimo boasted in his autobiography entitled Geronimo, His Own Story, that Alope was a good wife. They followed the traditions of their forefathers and were very happy. During the first few years of their married life, Alope bore Geronimo three sons. “Children that played, loitered, and worked as I had done,” Geronimo later recalled of his family.
In 1858, Geronimo took his wife and sons and traveled from his camp with other Apache tribesmen and their families to Chihuahua to trade items for supplies that were needed. The journey from Janos into the Mexican state was something the Apache Indians did once a year. The tribe set up camp outside the town of Janos, and the men made the trip to the northern Mexico location to do business with general stores willing to trade with them. It was during one of the visits to Janos that the Apache encampment was attacked by Mexican troops who considered the Indians to be intruders in their territory. Many of the Apache women, children, and elderly were slaughtered and scalped. In addition to the murders of the defenseless Indians, Mexican soldiers seized all the supplies and weapons from the wickiups.5
To learn more about Geronimo and Alope read
Love Lessons from the Old West: Wisdom from Wild Women
