Running a Google Image Search on his name turns up all sorts of contemporary photographs, which seems very unusual to me. I don't imagine the Apaches had their own cameras and development studios at the time, so what was going on?
You can't eat revolution.
He might have been defeated on the battlefield, but after his surrender to the U.S. government, Geronimo became a celebrity on a wide scale. Wild West shows were huge global attractions from the 1870s through the second decade of the 20th century. The most successful of all was Buffalo Bill's Wild West show, made possible because of Buffalo Bill (William F.) Cody's celebrity. Though he was the star of a popular dime novel in 1869, his show didn't come about until 1883.
Designed to capitalize upon the public's fascination with the "wild" West, shows like Buffalo Bill's included demonstrations of marksmanship, horsemanship, rodeo skills, and frequently also had "re-enactments" of popular events. One of the most famous was the massacre of Custer and the Seventh Cavalry, re-enacted nightly for the pleasure of the audience.
To lend credence to these reenactments ─ which were about as true to life as a performance of Julius Caesar is ─ Cody and others hired former cowboys, soldiers and American Indians from the plains. To audiences in the East and Europe, meeting these people was as much part of the attraction as the show itself [VIDEO LINK].
Buffalo Bill's show was three years old when Geronimo was captured in 1886 and sent to Fort Pickens in Florida. From there, he was transferred to Fort Sill, in Oklahoma, and settled down into a supervised captivity. Buffalo Bill's show, meanwhile, had Sitting Bull, who was paid $50 per week and permitted to sell photographs and autographs.
This became standard fare a these Wild West shows. With the U.S. Army's wars against the Indian nations having wound down, Americans were curious about the people they had defeated. The Bureau of Indian Affairs oversaw this all, requiring these shows to get permission from the federal government before taking these men (they were mostly men) off the reservations on which they lived.
It wasn't until 1879, in Standing Bear vs. Crook that the U.S. government deemed American Indians to be people worthy of due process of law and habeus corpus. Despite this, the BIA forbade Wild West shows from recruiting widely and repeatedly denied American Indians the right of free travel. As a result, there was a great deal of pent-up demand, and those few American Indians who were permitted to travel became celebrities quickly.
Geronimo, as one of the last to surrender, was in great demand, but he was considered a prisoner of war by the U.S. government for much of the period that Wild West shows were in vogue. It wasn't until the 1890s that he was permitted to leave Fort Sill. Thus, Geronimo began selling pictures and autographs, just as Sitting Bull and others had done before him.
He played at war games, sold photographs, and did other things. For Pawnee Bill's Wild West Show, he hunted buffalo from an automobile. The absurdity of that sight didn't keep 65,000 people from paying for tickets to see it. He went to the St. Louis World's Fair, and in 1905 was invited by President Theodore Roosevelt to ride in the inaugural parade. Thousands cheered him, with attendees saying he got the largest cheers for anyone but the president.
What was it like for him? As Geronimo wrote in his autobiography:
WHEN I was at first asked to attend the St. Louis World's Fair I did not wish to go. Later, when I was told that I would receive good attention and protection, and that the President of the United States said that it would be all right, I consented. I was kept by parties in charge of the Indian Department, who had obtained permission from the President. I stayed in this place for six months. I sold my photographs for twenty-five cents, and was allowed to keep ten cents of this for myself. I also wrote my name for ten, fifteen, or twenty-five cents, as the case might be, and kept all of that money. I often made as much as two dollars a day, and when I returned I had plenty of money ─ more than I had ever owned before.
Geronimo died in 1909 at Fort Sill, still in captivity.
Great thread, thank you everybody.
Just one further request: does anybody have at hand the purchasing power of 1890's dollars at hand? It is hard to grasp how much $2 really is in 2016 dollars.