Geronimo, An American Legend and The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History
Geronimo: An American Legend and The
Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History
A Comparative Essay
By
Temple Dillard
I wrote this for my American History class. The assignment was to read the book Journey of Crazy Horse, written by written by Joseph Marshall, which is the history of Crazy Horse as passed down to him by his Lakota family, including the defeat of Custer. We also watched Geronimo starring Wes Study as the title character, Gene Hackman who's character General Crooks was involved in the the Crazy Horse conflicts, Matt Damon as the green Army officer, Jason Patrick as the seasoned officer, and Robert Duvall as the gritty Indian Fighter.
The purpose of both of these pieces was to tell a story. Though from greatly varied positions, they both tell the story of European American expansion into The American West at the expense of the Indigenous Americans who were there before. Though told from different perspectives, they carry parallels, and no wonder as they are both parts of the same story, and even share a common character. These stories are of impossible times, lived by men capable only of that which is possible.
Geronimo is told from the perspective of a young Cavalry officer. Because who better to tell the story of an old Apache fighter than a young white officer still wet behind the ears. This movie shows us sympathetic aspects of both the Chiricaua and the White Eye. Geronimo, General Crook, Gatewood, and Al Seiber are driven men. Driven by more then they are as individuals, they are motivated by those for whom they fight and those they fight against, in their disparate efforts to achieve that which they believe is right. Or perhaps their efforts are to achieve that which is least wrong. They all appear to live by a code, by more than the dollar. Having been a vehement Indian fighter his whole life Al Seiber is killed in search of justice for slaughtered Indian innocents in routing some Texans “the lowest form of White man.” Goyakla (Geronimo,) while slaughtering a mining settlement, spares the life of a man who refused to beg for his life in fear. Gatewood would meet lone warriors on their terms, though refusing to allow himself to be killed he killed the Chiricaua on their own terms. But in the end, against an inexhaustible supply of white men, Goyakla surrenders and Apache land is absorbed into The Union.
At least The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History is told from a stronger perspective. We get to see Light Hair grow from a baby to a strong and terrifying but extraordinarily humble fighting man, who led his band raiding from near Canada to near Mexico, evading the US army while carrying their women and children along the way. We get to see him as a bumbling shy young man lose his love, and again after he’s cemented his place in history we see him lose her again. We see him stand in front of rifles and cannons, defeating superior forces (one of those battles he didn’t win, he just didn’t lose) with inferior numbers and munitions. But he is still human, and succumbs to the flood of white canvas covered wagons. Having fought all those fights, galloping his horse down the muzzles of countless cavalry guns, he gets killed by a nameless faceless infantryman’s bayonet because he refused to go into a shitty jail cell when he thought he was coming in for a talk.
Geronimo shows us the human and sympathetic sides of Chirucaua and the White Man. We see them both trying to get along with each other, and we see the conflict eventually resulting in Goyakla’s surrender and subsequent squalor filled train ride to Florida. What the movie, like all movies, lacks is a reflection of how long a span of time these events took. This subject really deserves the Lonesome Dove treatment, where over the span of maybe decades we see different generations of actors portray Goyakla, Gatewood, and Seiber. Maybe Wes Studi would get a chance to reprise the role as Geronimo kneeling for that one damn photo as a grey old man.
The Journey of Crazy Horse: A Lakota History does a great job of telling the story of Light Hair. The author perceived a glut in the telling of such stories from the perspective of the advancing white frontier family, or other such invaders, and intentionally left them out. What is missing, and the author said he did this intentionally in the foreword, is anything that depicts White People as anything other than invading soldiers and settlers. Maybe there is enough material out there that shows the circumstances that would lead desperate families and frontiersman to risk their scalps and guts in hostile Indian territory.
Both of these pieces achieved their purpose; to tell a story. Marshall’s was to tell a story as historically accurate as he could from the stories passed down his family, after comparing them with the history that was recorded. Hill’s objective, tempered I’m sure by his studio, editors, executives, and budget, was to tell a compelling fiction based upon history. Both are fine pieces, and both serve as fine sparks for discourse. They both tell of impossible times, lived by men who would only achieve the possible. A young nation bursting at the seams to expand, and old nations just trying to remain. Nothing about those times was fair, or right, and sometimes those men killed in an attempt to achieve only that which was least wrong, and these pieces depicted that wonderfully.
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