10 Legendary Manhunts

They fought the law and for the most part the law won.

Db Cooper
wikipedia

Today we discuss the hunt for the most dangerous game of all... MAN!

Quick correction, these aren't incidences of people being hunted for sport (you get put on a special list for compiling examples of that). We're looking at cases when people drew so much hate and controversy the only logical act was to turn the world inside out in hopes of finding them.

The heinousness of a crime is usually accompanied by a search of equal or greater intensity. In most of these cases you can side with the law - it's pretty easy to do so when the criminal on the run is a murderer. But sometimes it's not as black-and-white.

Occasionally government or police force will hunt for someone we actively cheer for, whether through some misguided thought of individualism or, say, when the hunters happen to be Nazis. In that last case always root for the person who isn't a Nazi.

These are the times in history that a manhunt captured the public imagination, caused a huge sense of 'us versus them', or even just caused us to wonder how they got away with it for so long.

The outcome is often tragic. Everyone deserves their day in court, but sometimes it's not the destination but the journey that is truly important.

10. Geronimo

Db Cooper
By Frank A. Rinehart (1861–1928) (credited) (LJWorld.com - Photogalleries) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Geronimo began his long career as a guerrilla, military leader and general pain in the bums of two countries in 1851, after his wife and three children were killed by Mexican soldiers.

With a force of around 200 men he waged a small-scale war on Mexican troops and settlers, who had annexed Apache land.

When the US won the Mexican-American War they took control of New Mexico and Arizona, forcing the indigenous Apaches out.

Geronimo led attacks on white settlers between 1857 and 1886. In 1877 he was captured by authorities and sent to the San Carlos reservation, which he escaped in 1881 and continued his campaign. At one point 5,000 troops (representing about a quarter of the US army at the time) were hunting Geronimo.

Geronimo eventually surrendered in 1886 and spent the rest of his life as a prisoner of war.

His last words in 1909 were 'I should never have surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive.'

 
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Wesley Cunningham-Burns hasn't written a bio just yet, but if they had... it would appear here.