Jason Betzinez (also spelled Bastinas) (1860-1960) was a cousin of the Apache leader Geronimo. Betzinez spent his formative years in Geronimo's company. After he was captured by the United States military, he was educated at the Carlisle Indian School in Pennsylvania. While he initially resigned himself to reservation life, in the 1880s, he joined the United States Army as a scout. He had one son by Dorothy Nahwats, but doesn't appear to have had another children. He never returned to the reservation, instead becoming a blacksmith. He married Anna Heersma, a missionary, in 1925, and became an advocate for Apache rights. He published his autobiography in 1959, and died in a car accident the following year at the age of 100. His wife had died the year before.
Batsinas was a young cousin of Geronimo. After Geronimo briefly aligned himself with the ConfederateTrans-Mississippi Department under Jeb Stuart, Batsinas impressed various Confederate troops with his inquisitive nature and poisonous plant identification skills.[1] Unfortunately for the Confederates, Batsinas soon used what he learned against Stuart and his men when tensions between the Apache and the people of Cananea fell to violence. Batsinas was able to set up a trip-wire mines that proved quite destructive, killing four Confederates and injuring dozens. While Stuart was horrified by the damage Batsinas caused, he was also impressed with Batsinas' ingenuity, comparing him favorably to U.S. inventor Tom Edison.[2]
