SHAME AND ENDURANCE: The Untold Story of the Chiricahua Apache Prisoners of War, H. Henrietta Stockel, University of Arizona Press, Tuscon, 2004, 200 pages, $35.00.

In a remarkably well-written epilogue to the exploits of the Apache war chief Geronimo and his tribal followers, H. Henrietta Stockel brings the decline and fall of the tribe to life in a vein seldom explored in historical annals.

The Chiricahua, one of seven tribes of the Apache Nation, were considered at the time to be the most violent and dangerous of all Native Americans on the frontier and were pursued relentlessly in the mountainous regions of New Mexico and Arizona.

After surrendering to the Army in 1866, the Apache warriors and their families were relocated from their tribal homelands to St. Petersburg, Florida. In 1887, they were sent to southeast Alabama. There, within 8 years, nearly half of them perished from diseases to which they had no immunity.

Many of the children were taken from their families to be educated at the Indian school at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, despite repeated assurances from the government that this would not occur. …