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Maybe the Arkansas River would make a pretty good northern boundary?

About the time Dances With Wolves was coming out I had a conversation with an Indian woman in Oklahoma City, she said the Pawnees STILL had a dark reputation among the tribes up there. As for being documented by White folks, one has to take that with a grain of salt. A LOT of events important personally to the tribe invilved never made it in much detail to our own history, especially if it didn't affect us.

Consider the catastrophic die-offs among the Comanches in the Texas era, far exceeding deaths in combat by whole orders of magnitude, yet almost entirely undocumented. We INFER these deaths by what must have happened.

Elesewhere, one likewise has to distiguish between pre- and post-epidemic populations. Prior to the massive smallpox epidemic of the 1830's the Blackfeet were the baddest thing on the block on the Northern Plains, and the Mandans and Arikaras dominated their respective regions. The Lakota Sioux filling a power vaccuum only after the near-demise of these groups.

With respect to the Pawnees, weren't it a Pawnee that misguided Coronado from New Mexico clear to Kansas in a successful bid on said Pawnee's part to get home?

If one uses where Indians raided as the definition of territory, things get even more fuzzy. That would put much of Mexico in the Kiowas' orbit (and lets not forget the allied Kiowa-Apaches either ). I have read too of Apaches from New Mexico stealing horses around Nacodoches in East Texas in the late Eighteenth Century.

A similar feat accomplished by Lipan and Mescalero Apaches out of Fort Stanton NM in the early 1880's when they raided almost to Fredericksburg in the Texas Hill Country.

I would define Comancheria as the area where Comanches were likely to set up camp on a regular basis, with the understanding that other groups might even then pass right through there, as we ourselves did when establishing the Santa Fe trade route.

Birdwatcher

The Shawnee were the earliest mass-migration across the Mississippi that we note, and that was in the 1770's, fully half the tribe leaving the Ohio Country and decamping to Missouri. I believe some Cherokees were already in Texas by 1800.

The tribal situation thoughout our history was a lot more dynamic than we commonly allow. Even though we never question that White guys up and travelled all over the place during those same years.

For example those Keechais who stole Noah Smithwick's horses outside of Bastrop were technically Pawnees.

And Lewis and Clark and their "Corps of Discovery" were guided halfway across the continent by an illiterate teenage girl carrying an infant.

...and when it came to just average Joes exploring vast distances of unknown territory without the subsequent fanfare of popular American history, we Americans ourselves were clearly skunked by the French, by as much as a 100 years in some instances.....

Birdwatcher

Pawnees around Bastrop...wow. Looking forward to the next installment.

As an aside, we go right past the area the Corps of Discovery camped on the Missouri River...Kaw Point, all the time. I need to stop and let the kids look around. It's not in a real good area though.

Cole as to where the Comanche would raid the best answer is anywhere they damn well pleased.

The Comanche broke up and made the settlement of Bucareli abandon the area and they were on the Trinity rive about fifteen miles south east of where I live. On the San Antonio road.
Also the last white man killed in Leon County by Inians was in 1871 near Normangee. They were Comanche about a dozen so it is said and caught a kid Robert Rogers hunting a milch cow.
Never were caught but the trail was lost when they crossed the Navasota river going west.

By happy chance, official business brung me through Bastrop today, and the locales of this narrative are sorta between Bastrop and San Antone. Finishing in early afternoon, I was able to cover the route in daylight, though the skies were grey with rain (a pleasant sight around these parts).

First off, for reference, here's the map again.



On the morning of the 10th, Robert Hall caught up to Matthew Caldwell in Seguin. Notwithstanding the 30 mile all-night ride just endured by all concerned, Caldwell immediately set out for the Plum Creek crossing of the Gonzales-Austin road, perhaps twenty-five miles away.

As Caldwell and Ward's companies reached the Seguin area on the morning of August 10th they encountered courier Robert Hall, another Gonzales man. He was sent to find Caldwell's men to relay the word of the attacks on Victoria and Linnville.

John Henry Brown noted that Hall arrived "on foaming steed" to announce that the Indians were retreating directly up the trail they had made on the way down.

Captain Caldwell announced that his forces must move at once to meet the Indians at Plum Creek. "After rest and breakfast and strengthened by a few recruits," wrote Brown, "we moved on and camped that night on the Old San Antonio crossing of the San Marcos."

The modern Farm-to-Market 20 (FM20) is the most direct route between Seguin and Bastrop nowadays, passing close by the probable Plum Creek battlefield, hence following the approximate route of both Caldwell and Burleson's forces as they hurried to the fight.

The original prairie is long gone from this ground nowadays, but a few locales give views that likely give an inkling of how it once was.

Here's two views taken along FM20 along the stretch between Seguin and the San Marcos River crossing. Caldwell's force passed this way through the oppressive heat of August 11th, 1840.





And the crossing of the San Marcos, that stream still retaining its spring-fed character at this point.



No telling where the exact crossing and campsite was of course, but somewhere around here. Despite the overnight stop, the horses were likely worn out, Caldwell probably only made twelve miles tops the next day....

"The 11th was intensely hot, and out ride was chiefly over a burnt prairie, the flying ashes being blinding to the eyes.

That would be along this stretch...



Waiting some hours at noon, watching for the approach of the enemy after night, we arrived at Good's cabin, on the Gonzales and Austin road, a little east of Plum Creek."

Now a map is in order. The only one I found was a Plum Creek watershed map. Here's the relevant section, Lockhart did not exist in 1840.



Caldwell would have crossed from the southwest, crossing the West and Clear Forks of Plum Creek before crossing PLum Creek proper.

Waiting some hours at noon, watching for the approach of the enemy after night, we arrived at Good's cabin, on the Gonzales and Austin road, a little east of Plum Creek."

The red dots are water-sampling sites. As best I can determine at this point, Isham Good's cabin was located norteast of the top red dot on Plum Creek east of modern-day Lockhart. Perhaps he drew water from that creek emanating northeast from that red dot location.

Here's the marker on MF20 for Good's cabin site, I expect on the evening of the 10th, morning of the 11th, you could have easily found the Texans if you couldn't already see 'em from this very spot...

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/frontierfolk/plum5.jpg[/img]

.and from that point looking southwest towards Plum Creek, maybe a mile away...

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/frontierfolk/plum6.jpg[/img]

Plum Creek itself might not look like much, but it winds across this former prairie for fifty-three miles, and back in the day was an important enough landmark that all concerned immediately knew the place to stop the Comanches was along this stream, more or less along this road.

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/frontierfolk/plum7.jpg[/img]

[img]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v148/Sharpshin/frontierfolk/plum8.jpg[/img]



Birdwatcher

I was just chatting with a friend of mine today about my own family who came into this area up here in the 1880's. There was a neighbor who had pioneered the area (it was one of the "Bleeding Kansas" counties during the mid 1850's as a lot of Kansas was still Indian Territory at that time). This old boy had came in via covered wagon. He told that at the time the rolling prairies around here were treeless except for a bit of brush along the cricks and Oak timber along the Osage river and that the cricks were clear and deep. Now we have a lot of trees and many of the cricks are not much and certainly aren't very clear.

Point-being, I'm guessing that Plum Creek used to be a lot bigger deal than it appears now and there probably was a lot less brush on those prairies you show.

It's been my experience that there is little difference in the terrain from here to there. Probably little difference even up in the Dakotas, but I've never been there and have even only been in Nebraska a couple of times.

BW, exceedingly interesting. I appreciate the investment! But I've PM you concerning another matter. Thanks.

By happy chance, official business brung me through Bastrop today, and the locales of this narrative are sorta between Bastrop and San Antone. Finishing in early afternoon, I was able to cover the route in daylight, though the skies were grey with rain (a pleasant sight around these parts).

First off, for reference, here's the map again."

If you should heed the comment made by a poster earlier in this thread about writing your own book,your penchant for actually visiting the places you write about will serve you well.You won't make as many stupid statements as are found in "Empire of the summer moon".

Rivers and mountains don't move much over the course of a hundred years and when an author is careless enough with the placement of them,I question the authenticity of other un-documented statements he makes.Even Gwyne's choice of source material is suspect.He titles one of his chapters,"The Salt Creek Massacre" , and in his notes he mentions that it is often called;"The Warren Wagon Train Massacre".

A minimum amount of research , or a visit to the area would instantly reveal that "Warren" is the correct reference for the event he describes.The real "Salt Creek Massacre" actually happened , but was several miles to the WNW of the Warren event.What Gwyne has done with this error in his popular book is to obliterate the real Salt Sreek event by giving it's name to the Warren event.

His other errors-such as placing the Wichita River in Oklahoma - are just bothersome but won't likely perpetuate the error by future writers.[No,it wasn't a typo where he meant "Washita",in his narrative he runs the Wichita Northeastward into Indian Territory]

When he lets his imagination fill in the gaps between two sources,he displays his geographical ignorance in quite a few places.Here are just a few corrections:

The Red River didn't "carve out Palo Duro Canyon" like the Colorado carved out the Grand Canyon.The Red [arguably] originates in the Palo Duro.

You can't reach Ft Belknap by "traveling 8 miles on South after crossing the Red".

I gotta go pick up "Punkin",she's too sick to go to daycare.

Watercourses do change considerably, but little rivers like the Witch don't jump bigger ones. Those are some pretty glaring errors.

A few years back, some guys from Independence, Missouri, who were friends of my Great Uncle, located and dug up a Steamboat that sunk on the Missouri River in 1856. It was eighty feet deep in the ground under a Kansas cornfield!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arabia_Steamboat

http://1856.com/

The story is almost completely unconnected, but still very interesting.

This morning Plum Creek crested at 18 feet @ Lockhart. 12 feet is flood stage......

Wow. I wish you had some pics. We could use some rain.

The geographic features around the area of the two separate"massacres" I mentioned are:

Cox Mountain
Flatop Mountain
Turtle Hole
Salt Sreek
Flint Creek

The author of "Summer Moon"-according to info in the book itself- came to Texas 15 years ago.His "research"-again,according to him - was done at college campuses at Austin,Lubbock, and [maybe] Alpine.If he had spent even half a day in Young County,he would have been much better prepared.

Since the book was about Quanah Parker,I thought it odd that he didn't mention a funny exchange between the chief and the General:

General: "Chief,you have to pick out only one wife , and tell the others they must live apart from you".

Quanah: "YOU pick one.YOU tell the rest!"

Have they lifted the burn ban yet?

No school today in Lockhart! When i got up this morning the water was about 8 inches deep in the yard. And the county road was underwater. Lots of water thru our bottom land. Wonder how Jeff is down at La Grange???

On the subject of Comancheria, in the 18th century in the Bastrop Area, one Spanish military journada (can't remember but i think it was the 1757 journada) did deviate from the established trail to the east of the Camino Real, to the area of probably present day Burleson Springs. Not all the way to present Bastrop. The tribes they encountered were of the Saha dialects. The established road way skirted an immense grass prairie, just east of the IH 35 corridor, before it veered back to the east and on toward the Presidio Los Adaes.

Reason for this was to avoid the almost inpenetrateble "Monte Grande" . The large post oak and blackjack forest that bisects the state from deep south Texas almost to the Red River.

The regular Colorado river crossing in this vicinity was at the Arroyo Garapatas juncture. (Present Onion Creek). This is just about smack daube at the present intersection of SH 130 Toll road and SH 71. Here in 1716 on his way back to Natchitoches La., Louis Jurcherau de St. Denis, leading a party of Spanish trade delegation (without the consent of the Spanish Crown, he had married into the Ramon family to cement a deal); The party was attacked by a band of "Lipanos" who had covered themselves with green buffalo robes in the hopes that they would turn fusil balls......

Good stuff, guys. Keep it coming!

You mean the Cross Timbers? It runs clear up here. I used to live in it, now I live close to the eastern edge of it. The Cross Timbers is some beautiful country.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross_Timbers

At this crossing of the Camino, St. Denis separated from the party while on a "hunting" expedition. The rest of the party continued toward the northeast. It was several weeks before St. Denis caught up with is part. His excuse was he had become lost (right!). It is speculated that upon viewing the highlands west of present Austin, he may have gone for a look see.

It was thought that the Spanish had silver mines to the west. But the Los Almagres weren't discoverd til much later...... The French were always in search of these alleged mines. And they had no clue to the vast area they were trying to explore. Even La Salle hinted to these mines.....

Pretty much the same thing! But here they are thick as all dickens.

That is pretty common. If you read the histories, it is apparent that there were large praries everywhere 200 years ago. In my area, which is nothing but trees unless it is pasture, there are plenty of accounts of praries so big that one couldn't see trees anywhere from the middle of them. My dad is in his 70s and even when he was young, they still referred to a couple places around as Big Prairie or Little Prairie. Now, I doubt anyone would even recognize the names, much less know where they were.

We have more trees now in the U.S. than we probably ever did. Heck, even in the east there are way more trees. Look at the old photographs in the settled areas the trees were gone in a hurry, cut down for building materials and/or firewood.