So, about that Patreon Poll...

 “We had one war with Mexico to take Arizona, and we should have another to make her take it back.”

– Quote attributed to General Sherman, page VII, Introduction, The Conquest of Apacheria by Dan L. Thrapp

It's September 4th, 1886. Skeleton Canyon in Arizona.

A man named Goyahkla (One-Who-Yawns) had led his band of 34 Apache to escape the reservation upon which they had been languishing. Under his leadership, they have always remained one step ahead of the US Army. All the same: they have ran their horses to death, they are out of water, and they are surrounded.

Bearing down upon the canyon are 5,000 U.S. and 3,000 Mexican troops.

"For more than five months [Goyahkla's] band ran the soldiers ragged. The combined military might of two great nations succeeded in capturing not a single Chiricahua [Apache], not even a child."

- page 1, Once They Moved Like the Wind by David Roberts

These are the last natives of the United States not on a Reservation. These are the final moments of the Apache wars.

The Apache scouts working under the Army, who both knew Goyahkla personally, came to him under a white flag to make peace. He insults their manhood and calls them traitors. They ask that he surrender, for the women and children's sake. He does so after much hesitation. On his deathbed decades later (I am working to confirm this) he said to his nephew:

"I should have never surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive..."

He was born at the headwaters of the Gila river in June 1829 and would not see a white man until he, himself, was already a man. He would be made a menace to the Mexican government after they scalped his mother, wife, and three young children. During one of his many battles against Mexican soldiers, some at the ends of their lives would cry out to their Saint of Mercy. This name which escaped Mexican lips in their final moments would become the name by which Goyahkla was known as he became a legend to Apache and White Man alike:

Geronimo.

There are moments in the histories I read which leap off the page. Panfilo de Narvaez adrift on a raft, watching the world he was destined to conquer slip over the horizon. The Conquistadors descending down into the Valley of Mexico, in awe of the world they would soon plunder. Julius Caesar being presented the severed-head of Pompey, with tears coming to his eyes as his sickening ambition became a revolting reality.

These are the moments where history ceases to be a series of frustratingly-inconsistent documents nor a problem to solve, and instead becomes an enrapturing and dramatic reality. A moment in time preserved for us, so that we may see the shoulders which bear the burden of our reality.

Geronimo was born at the headwaters of the Gila river and didn't see a white man until he was an adult. He died on a reservation in Oklahoma 6 years after the Wright brother's plane had taken flight. He had killed more Mexicans than he could count. He had ridden in a Cadillac. He had fought at Apache Pass. He was trapped in history. History was trapped in him.

James Baldwin's incredible writings will feature prominently in the video. There is no aspect to Geronimo's life which is not deeply-divisive. No single moment of his existence which is not controversial and open to argument. All the same, when I visited Geronimo's grave, it was not these contradictory accounts which haunted me. Rather, it was the words of James Baldwin yet again, sourced from his seminal work, "Go Tell it on the Mountain":

“It was a sound of rage and weeping which filled the grave,

rage and weeping from time set free,

but bound now in eternity…”

- Go tell it on the mountain, page 203

I'm still deciding on the title. Bear in mind, the title next to the thumbnail is almost never the "true" title. The one exception to this is "The Mad God of the Yucatan". I'm considering both "The World after the Warpath" or "The Last Warpath of the Apache". The title next to the thumbnail will most likely be, "The Last Indian to Surrender". That's not the "true" title because I feel it doesn't capture the story well enough. I don't want to reduce Geronimo to his context.

I am sorry I'm not following the results of the poll. I should not have started one, and I encourage you to unsubscribe if you feel cheated. None of the options I gave to you are beyond possibility, and unless something happens to me, they will one day be covered.

I do hope that my brief retelling of Geronimo's story may help you to see why I'm following this creative impulse. I promise that I'm hard at work and that I'm making this decision because I think it'll result in the best final product for you, the viewer. I feel unspeakably privileged to do whatever-this-is-that-I-do, and you make that possible. You can expect to see the final result of these efforts before the end of the year, but I will concede it's possible that you won't see it until the first quarter of next year. I do have to review Stalker 2 first. These longer history projects take awhile, so I've been working on it off-and-on for some time.

"...Geronimo stands astride the desert Southwest, haunting our collective nightmare of Manifest Destiny. As most of the living Apache see him today, so this narrative attempts to paint him: as one of the heroes of American history"

• Page 15, Once They Moved Like the Wind by David Roberts

Thanks for your support and patience,

DJ PC