Geronimo in a Locomobile Model C

... The photograph was taken in 1905 at the “Oklahoma’s Gala Day” exhibition hosted by the Miller brothers’ 101 Ranch, located southwest of Ponca City, Oklahoma. To gin up interest in its exhibition, the 101 Ranch paid Geronimo to appear. The 101 Ranch staged the scene in the car for the press.

What should we make of Geronimo in the picture from 1905, dressed in a top hat and vest, sitting behind the steering wheel, with several other men dressed in Indian and mountain man clothing? A humorous curiosity, an Indian dressed up in a suit and sitting in a fancy car? Humiliation, an aging warrior and medicine man turned into a side show? Geronimo was still in captivity during these years. Was he forced by circumstances and the federal government to parade his defeat and satisfy romantic curiosity about Indians? ...

A song inspired by the photograph–Michael Murphy’s “Geronimo’s Cadillac” (1972)–provides one answer to these questions. The song is sung to Geronimo’s jailer, imploring him to free the imprisoned Apache leader. It laments how the United States stole Geronimo’s way of life, “Ripped off the feathers from his uniform” ...

His song became an “unofficial anthem” of the American Indian Movement (AIM) and a Lakota family adopted him ...

https://historicalhorizons.org/2015/12/18/what-do-we-see-in-a-picture-of-geronimo/