Geronimo EKIA! Who was Geronimo?

New Delhi: After al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden was killed in a US raid in his compound in Abbottabad in Pakistan, the military sent a message back to the White House: "Geronimo EKIA" - enemy killed in action.

However, Native Indians of the United States have taken offence to the US military codenaming Laden 'Geronimo' after an Apache icon who for years fought the Mexican and US armies until his surrender in 1886.

Who was Geronimo?

Geronimo was a Bedonkohe Apache leader of the Chiricahua Apache, who led his people's defense of their homeland against the military might of the United States.

For generations the Apaches had resisted white colonization of their homeland in the Southwest by both Spaniards and North Americans. Geronimo, whose Indian name was Goyathlay (One Who Yawns) continued the tradition of his ancestors from the day he was admitted to the warriors' council in 1846, participating in raids into Sonora and Chihuahua in Mexico.

He was further embittered by the death of his mother, wife, and children at the hands of Mexicans in 1858. He then rose to the leadership of a band of warriors by exhibiting extraordinary courage, determination, and skill in successive raids of vengeance upon Mexicans.

In 1874 some 4,000 Apaches were forcibly moved by US authorities to a reservation at San Carlos, a barren wasteland in east-central Arizona. Deprived of traditional tribal rights, short on rations, and homesick, they turned to Geronimo and others who led them in the depredations that plunged the region into turmoil and bloodshed.

In the early 1870s Lieutenant Colonel George F Crook, commander of the Department of Arizona, had succeeded in establishing relative peace in the territory. The management of his successors, however, was disastrous, and spurred by Geronimo, hundreds of Apaches left the reservation to resume their war against the whites.

In 1882 Crook was recalled to Arizona to conduct a campaign against the Indians. Geronimo surrendered in January 1884, only to take flight from the San Carlos reservation in May 1885, accompanied by 35 men, 8 boys, and 101 women.

Crook threw his best men into the campaign, and 10 months later, on March 27, 1886, Geronimo surrendered at Canon de Los Embudos in Sonora.

Near the border, however, fearing that they would be murdered once they crossed into US territory, Geronimo and a small band bolted. As a result, Brigadier General Nelson A Miles replaced Crook as commander on April 2.

During this final campaign no fewer than 5,000 white soldiers and 500 Indian auxiliaries were employed at various times in the apprehension of Geronimo's small band. Five months and 1,645 miles later, Geronimo was tracked to his camp in the Sonora mountains. At a conference at Skeleton Canyon in Arizona, Miles induced Geronimo to surrender once again, promising him that, after an indefinite exile in Florida, he and his followers would be permitted to return to Arizona. The promise was not kept.

He never saw Arizona again, but, by special permission of the War Department, he was allowed to sell photographs of himself and his handiwork at expositions. Before he died, he dictated to SS Barrett his autobiography, Geronimo: His Own Story.

Reaction to 'Geronimo' codename

Loretta Tuell, staff director and chief counsel for the Senate Indian Affairs Committee, said Tuesday that "These inappropriate uses of Native American icons and cultures are prevalent throughout our society, and the impacts to Native and non-Native children are devastating."

Tuell ismember of the Nez Perce Red Indian tribe who grew on the tribe's reservation in Idaho. Weekly Indian Country Today also criticised "a disrespectful use of a name revered by many Native Americans."

"Apparently, having an African-American president in the White House is not enough to overturn the more than 200-year American tradition of treating and thinking of Indians as enemies of the United States," columnist Steven Newcomb wrote. (Source: Encyclopedia Britannica)