Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Comanches Vs. Apaches

This is interesting regarding the war between the Comanches and Apaches when the Spanish still controlled the area of Texas, New Mexico, and part of Arizona. Rough times back in those days. No quarter asked; none given.



Enjoy.

L.W.

But injuns were only victims, in-tune with nature, and living peacefully on the land. There was no brutality among them. The Spanish were just disease-carrying invaders.

Actually, that was a good video, and that channel is very good as well.

Enjoyed that.


We had a super history teacher in my high school, Mr John Topper,
He had been a rodeo rider and loved Western history. They allowed him to
start an Early American History class, it was so popular the classes were filled
and kids couldn't get in. Even after they made it a one semester class instead of two,
despite his being a tough teacher and assigning big reports.

That guy reminds me of him.

Some how he tells history as a story, working in all the details while making
the story come alive and keeping you interested.

Nice video. Thanks

Fascinating story. The Comanche loved to find a little camp of Apaches. They would take one warrior back to their camp, and torture him to death, took several days. They would capture an Apache squaw, and she would be a work slave. Plus she would get gang banged by five or six bucks every night.

They would kidnap some 5 year old Apache kids, and bring them in to the Comanche tribe with full rights as Comanche people. They also loved to kidnap Spanish and English kids and move them in to the tribe.

Here is a painting by George Catlin of a Mexican who was kidnapped as a child, and who became a full fledged Comanche warrior. His Indian name was "Little Spaniard."



Comanche loved that 14 foot long lance.

Cool video. Thanks for posting...

It's well known that both tribes kept slaves and treated them cruelly. The black slaves owned by whites had it pretty soft in comparison.

Just read “nine years among the Indians” it’s a book about a German immigrant boy who was kidnapped and raised as an Indian. Very interesting book to say the least. He was raised as an Apache and later joined the Comanche tribe.

Herman Lehmann was his name.

They didn't call that huge area of Texas the Comancheria for nothing..

What type of wood was the lance shaft made from? Assuming straight grained and riven. Not sure what would grow that long and straight on the plains?

"... What type of wood was the lance shaft made from? Assuming straight grained and riven. Not sure what would grow that long and straight on the plains? ..."

Probably "bois d'arc" - pro. bow-dark
French for "wood of the bow".
Cut it, bark it and hang it to dry with a weight on the end.
Stuff is just like iron, well, almost.

Back in the day, if you needed to mark a fence corner or property line, you did it with bois d'arc posts.
Impervious to rot. If allowed to cure, you can't drive a staple into it.

Quite the fellow around these parts. Still talked about. His other compatriot, Adolph Korn (most bloodthirsty Comanche he ever knew! 🤣), is buried in the Gooch cemetery in Mason Tx.

AKA osage orange, or hedge apple

Good video, interesting history of details and time periods. Thanks for posting.

I will go on and recommend this book highly. It doesn’t seem to have as much of the "artistic license" that many of the other books like "The Boy Captives" contain. At least several of the accounts in the Lehmann book were contemporarily cross referenced with opposing combatants. Like Ranger James Gillett.

It’s a shame we don’t have more knowledge of their horsemanship skills to learn from.

Essentially correct tho I have learned to cringe when I read the name T R Fehrenbach in reference to anything, but especially Comanches. Gwynne’s Empire of the Summer Moon shines when it talks about what happened after hostilities closed re: the subsequent tribal political rivalries of Quanah Parker vs Isha-tai the failed Medicine Man (turns out popular sorcery and politics have much in common) but gives the usual slant prior to that.

Also on the guy’s map of Comancheria it seems a bit small with respect to the southeast edge in Texas. Maybe it’s from later on in Texas history when the Comanches were disappearing.

For a more than two-dimensional look at the Comanches and their day to day realities as perceived by themselves I recommend Pekka Hamalainen’s The Comanche Empire. Other sources neglect the amount of stock trading Comanches did to Americans and the non- sustainable impacts they themselves had on their home range.

Trivial but interesting bit-picks; the Delawares and other Eastern Tribes hammered the Comanches a number of times when they arrived in the West and throughout the Comanche era, Pawnees and Tonkawas to name just two raided into Comancheria on foot so as to return with Comanche scalps and horses (and eat Comanches on the part of the Tonkawas). So even in the middle of Comancheria, Comanches had to watch their backs.

Not all Apaches fled to the mountains, the Kiowa Apaches allied early on with the Kiowas and so became potential Comanche allies and Lipan Apaches were present in the Bastrop/San Antonio area and points south until pushed out by settlement. They allied themselves with the Texian Ranging Companies (the origin of Tonto, the Lone Ranger’s sidekick) and guided Jack Hays and most especially John Moore’s slaughter of as many as 180 Comanches on the Colorado in 1840.

The Comanches got hammered by a major cholera epidemic ‘49-‘50 followed by a catastrophic drought. By the 1860’s the relative remnants still alive up on the Texas Panhandle switched over to herding cattle in a big way.

My favorite part is when he walks in on a Comanche camp one night about a year after fleeing the Apaches. By this time the Comanches were being hunted all over Comancheria and had abundant reason to hate White folks ( and vice versa). They didn’t kill him, they took him in.

George Catlin painted Little Spaniard at the Comanche village in 1834. Impressed with the Comanche warrior, he later wrote of Little Spaniard as “A gallant little fellow . . . represented to us as one of the leading warriors of the tribe; and no doubt . . . one of the most extraordinary men at present living in these regions. He is half Spanish, and being a half-breed, for whom they generally have the most contemptuous feelings, he has been all his life thrown into the front of battle and danger; at which posts he has signalized himself, and commanded the highest admiration and respect of the tribe for his daring and adventurous career.

This is the man . . . who dashed out so boldly from the war-party, and came to us with the white flag raised on the point of his lance . . . I have here represented him as he stood for me, with his shield on his arm, with his quiver slung, and his lance of fourteen feet in length in his right hand.

This extraordinary little man, whose figure was light, seemed to be all bone and muscle, and exhibited immense power, by the curve of the bones in his legs and his arms. We had many exhibitions of his extraordinary strength, as well as agility; and of his gentlemanly politeness and friendship we had as frequent evidences.” (Catlin, Letters and Notes, vol. 2, no. 42, 1841; reprint 1973)

No mention of Cynthia Parker?


Captured as a child, had kids, rescued as an adult.
Went back to the Comanche at her first chance.

Yes. He was basically nekked as a jaybird. And waltzed right in.

I don't think Comanches got much chance against Apaches.

Interesting video. Learned a few things.

Yep! I’d recommend it too. I really liked it.

Nope, there was another German guy who did that, Kaywoodie prob’ly remembers his name.

Poor Cynthia Anne was recaptured 1860, Charles Goodnight who had been schooled in woodcraft by an elderly Caddo, scouted for the Ranging Company that caught her (Baylor?). Her husband Peta Nocona was killed in that attack.

Cynthia Anne was captured along with her infant daughter Topsannah, tried several times to escape.

When the infant died of a fever it’s said Cynthia died of a broken heart.

That’s a popular version, such things ain’t always true.

You mean the mother of Chief Quanah Parker ?

And No. She NEVER returned to the Comanches.

Rudolph Fischer

The story of Temple Friend and the Legion Creek massacreis a damn good one too! In Llano county around the Oxford community.

Good video!

Bb

OK Tejas boys,
thanks for the correction.

Now I gotta try to remember the right version!

Anyone interested in this stuff, here is another book I recommend on the subject. Written by a descendant of Adolph Korn that I mentioned earlier. Author born and raised in Mason County Tx.

He goes into pretty good detail concerning the German-Comanche treaty of 1847 and other aspects of those folks. Also good info on the other captives taken from the area.

We have plenty of Osage Orange around here. But nothing that would rive out a straight section that long. Maybe they grow taller, straighter out your way. Wow...

To make a bow you take a trunk and split staves off of it. Doesn’t have to be a large trunk. Just one that can be split. Which is much easier said than done.

Bois d’arc also makes excellent house piers. As demonstrated here at the old home place south of Bastrop Tx. at Hill’s Prairie. My great grandfather and grandmother Norment circa 1925.

Indians in western Pennsylvania and the Ohio River valley also captured and raised white children. I understand that it was their belief that a child that died could be replaced by another. Many of these kids stayed with the tribe, even when the opportunity to return to white society was given.

"Somewhere" I have a piece of osage orange that a nephew split out for me. Excellent for making bows because (around here) the wood always grows in a natural curve. Very few straight sections. Hence the surprise when somewhere up above mentioned a 14 ft lance.

I do not believe the lances were made of bois d’arc. I believe they were more commonly fabricated out of something like a sotol stalk. At least down here. And lots of river cane used in southeast.

Don’t have a clue as to what was used elsewhere. But I imaging it was something else just as light and handy.

Yep, the injuns were pretty "savage". Hence the name. Just think what happened when they got a little Irish blood mixed in. Watch the fu ck out!!!!!

I downloaded it on my Kindle yesterday and have been reading it.

Great book! IIRC one of the kids was kidnapped not too far from where we hunt.

I always figured River Cane, if the Lance’s were truly 14 foot long.

Herman Lehmann was taken over by Loyal Valley/ Cherry Springs. Adolph Korn was taken over by Castell on the Llano river. And Rudolph Fischer was taken over toward Tivy Ranch SW oF Fredericksburg. Oops! The Smith boys were taken over east of Boerne. 🤣. Somwhere around Spring Branch maybe???

The Comanche were horsemen first class, and what I've read about them indicates they were fearsome with their bows---even on horseback and on the move. They could fire an arrow at you and have two more in the air before the first one hit you. And hit you, they could!

Even more amazing with the short little stubby bows they used.
Not to mention that they were accurate even while on a fast moving mustang.

I went back and looked at the book. it was Korn I was thinking of. We have a lease pretty close to Castell.

On the bois d'arc-My Bohunk F-I-L said they make great fenceposts if you get them green.

I'm going to re-read that book as I haven't read it in years. That boy on the cover standing up looks a lot like my son did at that age and the first time I read it I had a dream about my boy being kidnapped. (he's 18 now and I can't get anyone to take him if I wanted them to )

LOL.

I have to read that...placed an order just now. That'll make a nice addition to my nephew's bookshelf down on the San Saba ranch.

That boy on the cover seated is Temple Friend from Legion Creek in Llano county.

An interesting aspect of the book is the telling of how tough life was on the German settlers. Most of them were barely getting by and living in squalor. So for those young males who got taken by the plains Indians--assuming they survived and were accepted as peers by the tribe, life because an adventure that was better than just scratching by as a white settler.

It's not that difficult to understand why a young man would want to stay once he had gone feral and left the drudgery of the "white world" behind.

Apparently, Korn never did adjust to the white world again. Herman Lehmann more or less spent his life with one foot in each world. But inside I think he always considered himself an Indian.

On the one hand, I find it difficult to comprehend---or imagine might be the better word.

On the other hand, yeah, I can definitely see that.

It's hard to imagine what it was like to be in the world in those days and how it looked through those peoples' eyes.

For Lehmann yes. He really would have rather stayed with the Indians. But it was Quanah Parker that told him he should go and see his mother, and go back to his people.

Lehmann did open a dance hall at Cherry Springs.

I always thought they use the long stem from the bloom of a type of century-type cactus that you see growing wild in the hill country and west Texas. They are straight and long we made spears of them when we were kids.

Those are what I was referring to Rog. Sotols. They ate the body of the plant too. After cutting off all the leaves. Very similar to a yucca. They are still a few that grow here in the southern part of the county. They cooked them in the big pits with hot rocks. Chewedand sucked out the flesh. Then they spit out the coarse fibers in a ball. They still find these “cuds" as they call them in cliff shelters out further west.

Scott Zesch is my wife’s cousin, he has two other books too, his dad is the great western artist , does the old cowboy carving’s , Gene Zesch, a lot of history around Mason.

Yeah!! Saw his other two books! Cool!

I used to love going there!

That, Crider's in Hunt, and the Caberet in Bandera were on my circuit of dance halls.

Vs.

I saw that Comanche helicopter at the Fort Rucker museum in September. Very cool. Another one I’d never heard about was a Blackhawk that came from the factory armed and loaded for bear.

It is a great museum!

What about London dance hall? 🤣

Went there too!

Had a gal in the nearby town who loved to dance, and she'd call me up to take her to London Hall now and then.

Ended up at the Purple Sage in Uvalde quite a bit too.

Not many places left. They have either closed down, turned into Meskin joints, or started having that queer Austin music by bands that look pretty feral.

Wind blew the roof off ff the little cafe across the road from the London dance hall last spring. Was run by some old sisters. We’d hit that place on Friday’s for the catfish lunch special. We tore down a barn on a place between London and Saline creek. Got some good stuff out of it.

This from Texas Ranger Captain John Salmon RIP Ford’s collected memoirs (RIP Ford’s Texas). Captain Ford fought Comanches more than any other White man who lived to tell the tale.

In the event of being pursued, immediately, after the preparation of depredations, the Comanches move day and night, very often not breaking a gallop, except to exchange horses and to water the caballada. Under these circumstances, they will travel at least 70 miles a day, which is a long distance with the encumbrance of loose animals….

They sit a horse admirably, and manage one with a master hand. Charge them and they will retreat from you with double your numbers, but beware when pursuing them, keep your men together, well in hand, with at least half their arms loaded, else you will find when it is too late the flying Comanches will turn on you and charge you to the very teeth.

Never ride upon a bowman’s left; if you do, ten to one that he will pop an arrow through you. When mounted, an Indian cannot use his bow against an object behind and to his right…..

The bow is placed horizontally in shooting; a number of arrows are held in the left-hand. The bow operates as a rest to the arrows. The distance – the curve the missile has to describe in reaching the object – is determined by the eye without taking aim. Arrows are sped after each other in rapid succession.

At the distance of 60 yards and over, arrows can be dodged, if but one Indian shoots at you at one time. Under 40 yards the six-shooter has little advantage over the bow. At long distances the angle of elevation is considerable. It requires a quick eye to see the arrow, and judge the whereabouts of its descent, a good dodger to move out of the way, and a good rider withal to keep in the saddle. A man is required to keep both eyes engaged in an Indian fight.

A Comanche can draw a bow when on horseback, standing or running, with remarkable strength and accuracy, they have been known to kill horses running at full speed over 100 yards away.

I remember reading that and thinking it would be my luck that I would wind up chasing the one left-handed Comanche!

BTW, does anyone know which Apaches raided in the hill country? Were they Lipans or Kiowa-Apaches?

I think most were Kiowa-Apaches 3040. But there were Mescaleros that raided this far east too.

Birdy remember Josiah Gregg when visiting a Comanche camp in the IT. He had a Paterson revolver and one of the chiefs challenged him to a match to see who could shoot the fastest, revolver or bow.

He went on to say the chief could let loose 5 arrows with accuracy, before he could empty his Paterson
( from "The Commerce Of The Prairie" by Josiah Greeg).

A whole herd of my reenacting buds were involved in a short documentary on Jack C Hays several years back. With a good representation of the Battle of Walker creek. I’ll see if I can find it.

Video

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VppeJGXI8pU&pp=ygUXamFjayBjIGhheXMgZG9jdW1lbnRhcnk%3D

Sorry for some reason I haven’t been able to embed videos from YouTube on this forum anymore

Bob, I'm not sure which group was raiding central Texas in those days but I believe that there was no group known as "Mescalero" until after Geronimo's surrender and the Apaches were bottled up in Oklahoma. A certain group of them were extremely unhappy with their situation in Oklahoma and they petitioned the gubmint for years to go back to their traditional lands, then were eventually granted the reservation in New Mexico we now know by the name. Not all were in favor of the move to that parcel, but the ones who did migrate back to NM then became known as the Mescaleros. The Mescaleros then allowed another group whose origins I cannot recall to join the Mescalero band. I could have some of that sequence wrong, but that's how I recall the history.

I wish I could recall more detail, but I am doing well to remember that much.

Experiment...

I played with that link, and it worked. Hhmmm...


I changed

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VppeJGXI8pU&pp=ygUXamFjayBjIGhheXMgZG9jdW1lbnRhcnk%3D

to

https://youtube.com/VppeJGXI8pU

I don’t really know either. I know there were a groupother that the Lipan and kiowa-apache that got the smith boys and allegedly one of them ended up in Geronimo’s band. They and maybe the White Mtn??? Were the ones I speculated. Birdy should chime in as I know he’s spent time with Mescaleros.

I seem to remember a skirmish in southern NM (?) between an apache band and the US Army with a unit of Mexican cav coming up from the south. One of the Apaches in the middle of the fight got up and started yelling at the Americans that they should both join together and fight the Mexicans as they were a common enemy. Birdy? Remember that one???

Thanks

Lucky guess!

I believe The name Mescalero was more of a way to describe a band/regional group. Mescalero were part of the central apaches. And you’re correct, a group of Chiricahuas settled on the reservation as well.

I read Indeh, by Eve Ball only last summer. That is the one source of what I have read on the subject of the Apache. That is only one book among a multitude, but I think what makes it interesting is how it was written.

The author was a school teacher who moved into the Ruidoso area to teach on the reservation early in the 20th century. The Apache were a very closed society and basically would not converse with Whites and distanced themselves pretty effectively. Somehow, over time, Ms. Ball made friends with some who were old enough to remember the days before they were rounded up and sent to Oklahoma. Some knew Geronimo and other important leaders before him even.

What she did was gain their confidence sufficiently that they told their stories, one on one, in bits and pieces. She spoke with several of them over a period of years and recorded what they said. The story is pieced together, bits and pieces told entirely from the Apache perspective. It was all very interesting, and I'd read it again.

In another year I could probably read it and it would be like the first time, unfortunately. I am sure I would enjoy it, though.

It was a mixed band of Lipans and comanches that got the smith brothers. I suspect the apaches that got Hermann Lehmann were also Lipans. Same with Adolph Korn. Just mentions Apaches got him. And they eventually met up at a Comanche camp.

Mason Texas Author Fred Gipson now comes to mind. Where he got his inspiration for Savage Sam!

I enjoy her books. I’ve read Indeh, another book of hers that is a great read is Ma’am Jones of the Pecos. ABout one of the first white families to settle the region. It talks about them rescuing a white captive boy from the Mescaleros, as well as doctoring the young Chief Magoosh. It also gives a slightly different perspective from the other side of the coin as far as the Lincoln county war.

Getting off the subject I found it interesting that it talks about the white tail deer on Mescalero. It’s kind of a mystery how there is an island population of texas white tails, which are definitely not Coues deer, in the Sacramento Mountains. And another side note is it does mention Elk which I assume are Merriams elk but doesn’t mention vast herds. And interestingly doesn’t give much talk to them, as it sounds like they preferred deer meat to elk.

This has been another great thread! Thanks Leanwolf for starting it.

👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Love these threads.

Thanks Kaywoodie LW, and Birdwatcher !

I believe reading that the famed last (known) Indian raid in Texas (Frio River Canton 1882) was a small group of Lipan Apaches. Not much of a war party, sounds in print like an extended family group was burglarizing the McLauren house when surprised in the act, killed just the two people that we know of.

Actually a must-read on Texas history is The Black Seminoles by Thomas Porter

https://www.amazon.com/Black-Seminoles-History-Freedom-Seeking-People/dp/081304488X

As much a story of Wildcat’s band of Seminoles as it is John Horse’s Black Seminoles, starts in Florida ends in Texas. Under their Quaker Officer, the generally overlooked today but justly famous in his day John Latham Bullis, the Black Seminole Scouts were brought in from Ft Clark and tracked those Lipans clear to the Burro Mts in Mexico south of El Paso where they attacked the camp.

A similar epic feat was when Bullis and his scouts were called out in response to a Lipan raid around Mason TX (1881 ?), an astonishingly late date for that area. What followed was an epic tracking duel 600 miles back to New Mexico, Bullis and his scouts being denied jurisdiction by an Indian agent there despite the fact that they were only half a day behind.

In popular history we tend to box in our Indians as THIS tribe living in THAT place much more so than they apparently did themselves. Lipans were identified as the actors in both these events but a Lipan guy whose kids I taught had close ties with the Mescalero, where many Lipan ended up (AND he married a Puerto Rican girl, so there’s that ).

My own take on both these events is that the Lipans had lived in Texas well within living memory, maybe they were revisiting old haunts.

Then in Texas you get reports of raids and battles involving alliances of quite different tribal groups, like the reported Waco and Comanche group that sacked Fort Parker and abducted Cynthia Ann.

HOLY SANITIZED VERSION OF HISTORY BATMAN!!!

…but a neat video nontheless, with some familiar faces 🙂

January of 1980 I left New York headed “out West”, I would have gone to Oregon but on account of it was January I picked out Las Cruces NM on the map. For the next seven months I lived off day labor, most of the time living out of my car while applying to the Peace Corps. BEAUTIFUL place, friendly people, the Land of Enchantment indeed.

One morning, while drinking too much coffee in a cafe in ‘Cruces, I saw in the morning paper that there was a four-day July 4th ceremony at a place called Mescalero. Since I only had to pay rent one month out of that seven, I had cash on hand and drove on over.

Beautiful setting at 7,000 feet, one of the few Indian ceremonials outsiders could be present, they paid well in cash for people to direct traffic during the day ( the ceremony starts at dusk) AND they have a tradition of feeding visitors for free, and I didn’t get beaten up

I didn’t make it back for five years, after Africa and a couple of years into Grad school. But between ‘85 and 2011 I made it back most years, either alone on a motorcycle or with whatever woman I was with at the time and later with wife and son. Not just for the ceremony but because of good friends near Ruidoso and to camp in the Sacramento Mts. All of that just 10-12 hours from Texas.

So I’m familiar with Mescalero, don’t claim to be an authority. Standing out there directing traffic in the sun all day friendly locals would invariably feed me and we’d get to talking. I’d be recognized by some from previous years.

1987 when it was just me on a motorcycle I got to sit around in the shade passing around a milk jug of home brew tiswin with a couple of elderly Chiricahuas who still remembered exile in Oklahoma.

I remember that year in part because I said my goodbyes and then return a short while later with a case of cold beer as a parting gift. Told them it musta fallen out of Tribal Chairman Wendell Chino’s Beechcraft that had been circling the fairgrounds

The following day on my way home I got sick as a dog from food poisoning after eating breakfast at a McDonalds in Snyder TX, laid up for two days in a roadside motel. I figured it was karma for bringing alcohol onto a Rez.

All of this a long way of saying Google has it that the Mescalero Reservation was establish in 1872, they just lucked out getting such a beautiful place and we’re somehow able to hang onto it.

To the best of my understanding there’s a large Chiricahua contingent at Mescalero. IIRC those Chiricahuas in Oklahoma were given a choice (1913?) of moving to Mescalero or remaining in Oklahoma. The band split. I forget the year but it was within childhood memory of elderly folk in 1987.

Naiche, son of Cochise and longtime associate of Geronimo, later an accomplished artist and Elder in the Methodist Church, is buried on Mescalero. It’s not supposed to be hard to find but, without an invite I haven’t presumed to look.