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"Pertinent to this thread, might be the majority of Black folks on the Frontier fringe, or at least a significant proportion, were runaway slaves attempting against all odds to make it to Mexico and freedom. Surely there must be some epic and heroic stories of flight here, 'cept few cared to record 'em."

Hey Birdie, if you haven't read it I suggest to you the chapter called The Wild Woman of the Navidad in J Frank Dobie's Tales of old-time Texas. Interesing story sort of connected to your runaways.

Interesting saga indeed, here's the ending...

http://www.texasescapes.com/MurrayMontgomeryLoneStarDiary/Wild-Woman-of-the-Navidad-2.htm

The wild woman struck fear into the hearts of the slaves back then. The referred to her as �it� or �that thing that comes.� It has been written that she could walk right past guard dogs, during the night, and they wouldn�t bark or disturb her in any way. She would go into a house and take bread and other food, always leaving half. If the creature took tools or any other item, she always returned them clean and in better shape than when she obtained them.

But just as had happened in the past, the question about the gender of the mysterious one came up again. It seems that in the severe winter of 1850, fresh tracks were found once more and this time the scent was fresh. The settlers put hounds on the trail and the wild being was forced to climb a tree. Looking down on his pursuers was a run-away African male � he was so frightened that he wouldn�t come down and the men had to climb the tree and take him by force.

J. Frank Dobie indicated in his book that the man�s tracks matched those found before � the same footprints that were thought to belong to the woman. The story goes that the �wild man� had been sold to slave traders by his parents and was shipped to this country. A passing sailor who knew the language of the man�s tribe was able to communicate with him and learned that he and another man had escaped from the ship somewhere near a large river. His companion perished at some point and he was left alone.

Folks estimated that he must have been brought across the sea between 1820 and 1830 � part of his youth was spent roaming the region around the Navidad and Sandies Creek. Slavery still existed after his capture and the wild man was sold at public auction. With the abolishment of slavery, he was set free and was said to have remained in his newfound home. The wild woman was never again heard of and the legend of her existence passed into history.

Only part I'd question is that those two African guys never had regular contact with slaves. Seems like there HAD to be things that slaves kept secret from their masters. Active assistance from slaves would also account for their putative ability to "walk past guard dogs" on the nights when objects disappeared.

I'm wondering is the passing sailor mentioned in the account spoke Twi like I did somewhat, in their day the Ashantis were about the biggest slave traders in West Africa.

Birdwatcher

I suppose you could write a book on tbe social dynamics of master and slave in the United States, and all the variants thereof....

Slaves as family members. Slaves that their masters had known forever, grown up with, blurring the distinction between slave and master. And the inevitable dalliances, perhaps not always rape, and the mixed offspring thereof, some of these after a couple of generations of this even predominantly of White blood, but still owned.

Always with the possibility of being sold off, for money or in repayment of debt. Interesting to speculate; toxic family members and bad blood are still common phenomena today, if it were legal for some family members to actually sell others for remunerative gain, how often would that happen?

Anyhoo... Blacks on the Texas Frontier? Might as well jump to 1864 and the most famous slave of them all..... N$gger Britt Johnson, AKA Britton Johnson.

As best as can be determined, technically a slave by choice, as in staying legally a slave made survival easier, even if you were funtionally close to being a free man.

This is a somewhat cheesy-looking fiction site, but it gives a concise synopsis of the man and events....

http://sweetheartsofthewest.blogspot.com/2012/09/mixing-fact-and-fiction.html

�The Searchers� is the John Ford movie starring John Wayne and based on the novel by Allen LeMay, whose story in turn was inspired by actual events detailed in Gregory Michno's "The Search for the Captives of Elm Creek." In �The Searchers,� a white man searches for his niece captured by Indians.

Western Writers of America voted �The Searchers� the No. 1 Western of all time. In Weider History Group special issue of 100 Greatest Westerns, the movie ranks No. 7. Many people believe the movie is based on the search for Cynthia Ann Parker, but it's about another captured girl, and the movie doesn�t begin to tell the exciting real story.

The actual Elm Creek Raid �searcher� on whom the movie was based is Brit Johnson, a black man who hunted for his wife and children. His quest and recovery of his family as well as other victims kidnapped in that raid is the stuff of legends. As a result, there are at least three or four versions of the story. Here is my compilation of what I consider the most likely way the story happened.

Brit was born about 1840 in Tennessee or Kentucky. He was a slave of Moses Johnson, who came to Texas as part of Stephen F. Austin�s 300. Moses Johnson had intended to free Brit, but both agreed that the hassle incurred by freedmen of color in the south and southwest was too great. Instead, Brit worked as Moses� ranch foreman and could come and go as he wished. On October 13, 1864, Brit had gone into Weatherford for winter supplies along with Allen Johnson and other ranchers and farmers.

Little Buffalo and seven hundred braves were also riding. Usually waiting for a full moon to raid, this time in broad daylight they swept down both banks of Elm Creek, killing and raping, burning houses and barns full of the summer's crops. They stole most of the horses and some of the cattle, killing or stampeding the rest. Among the first houses surrounded by the Comanche was that of Mrs. Elizabeth Fitzpatrick. She was there with her son, Joseph, 12, and her adult daughter, Susan Durgan, along with Susan's children, 3 year old Charlote "Lottie," and 18 month old Millie Jane.

Britt's wife, Mary, and their three children were also there. Susan, who had run outside with a gun, was stripped, raped, and mutilated in the yard. Britt's son was killed and the others kidnapped.

Many wanted to ride after their loved ones, but chasing 700 Comanche was not the wisest option. They spent the winter rebuilding homes and sewing crops. Then, Brit Johnson went after his wife and daughters. He trailed Comanche and found a campsite. Here being a black man helped. On this trip he first traded for horses, recognizing two as those taken from near his home, one from Thomas Hamby and the favorite mare of Elizabeth Fitzpatrick. When he saw Mrs. Fitzpatrick, he pretended disinterest until he could ask the ally he'd made, Chief Milky Way, to trade for her on his behalf. He returned Mrs. Fitzpatrick to her home, with her riding her own mare.

Brit would not rest until he had recovered his wife, Mary, and their two children. In return for being rescued, Elizabeth Fitzpatrick committed part of her wealth to helping recover other kidnap victims from the Indians. She hoped to recover Lottie and Millie Jane. Financed by Elizabeth Fitzpatrick and Allen Johnson, Brit made three more trips into Indian Territory that summer as he slowly tracked down and purchased surviving captives from the Elm Creek Raid of October, 1864.

On his fourth trip, Britt again enlisted the aid of Chief Milky Way aka Chief Asa-Havie. The chief sent with Brit two trusted braves to bargain with the Kiowa, who were rumored to have some black captives. At the time Brit did not know if they were the ones he was seeking, but it turned out they were. Britt Johnson eventually recovered every other captive except Millie Durgan, who was supposedly sold and adopted into the tribe....

Britt Johnson died as heroically as he lived. On January 24, 1871, while he led a wagon train through Young County delivering supplies from Weatherford to Fort Griffin, a group of either five or twenty-five Kiowas, depending on the account, attacked the wagon train four miles to the east of Salt Creek. Johnson and the two other teamsters with him tried to defend the wagons, but there was little cover. Outnumbered, the teamsters put up a desperate fight. They killed their own horses and mules to make breastworks, bravely resisting to the end....

When others, either soldiers from Fort Griffin or another set of teamsters depending on the account, found the site of this attack, they counted 173 rifle and pistol shells around the area where Johnson made his last stand.

The Elm Creek Raid is one of those events in Texas history that puzzle me, not the event per se but how it has been interpreted in popular Texas lore.

If not actually seven hundred then "several hundred" Comanches and Kiowas descend upon this area in North Texas, maybe eighty miles west of present-day Dallas. "Several hundred" warriors would have been a huge war party in any era, rivalling the Great Linnville Raid (where casualties inflicted were similarly light). In 1864 this must have been an enormous undertaking for the surviving Comanches and Kiowas.

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/bte01

Not a tremendously long distance to travel from Indian Country, and considering the huge numbers of warriors involved, casualties were actually way light on the American side; perhaps ten settlers and soldiers surpised and killed, just a handful of captives taken, a number of settlers actually being able to drive off their attackers with determined gunfire, despite the huge disparity in numbers.

Besides not speaking well of the vaunted Comanche ability in war, one gets the imnpression that the majority on this raid can't have been all that bloody-minded. At least one White settler was run pretty much for sport, the Indians chasing him letting him live, calling out his name, apparently having seen him around the agency delivering cattle.

They did drive off quantities of horses and cattle, which was likely the real object all along, especially given the big way the Comanches were entering into the cattle business, driving herds for trade to the US military in New Mexico.

Birdwatcher

Britt Johnson had quite a life.

"I suppose you could write a book on tbe social dynamics of master and slave in the United States, and all the variants thereof....

Slaves as family members. Slaves that their masters had known forever, grown up with, blurring the distinction between slave and master. And the inevitable dalliances, perhaps not always rape, and the mixed offspring thereof, some of these after a couple of generations of this even predominantly of White blood, but still owned.

Always with the possibility of being sold off, for money or in repayment of debt. Interesting to speculate; toxic family members and bad blood are still common phenomena today, if it were legal for some family members to actually sell others for remunerative gain, how often would that happen?"

I personally knew only one woman who had been born into slavery. Aunt Tex was a "house [bleep]" and took care of the Pruitt children. She didn't know how old she was but said she was a "growed girl" when the war came. I knew her when I was just a kid and not interested in the subject you ask about. I do know how misegenation was handled around here post slavery.

Generally it went like this but understand each case was different depending on the individuals involved. In some cases paternity was never acknoledged and the white family just went on like it had never happened. Everybody knew it had though but no one ever brought it up to the family if they had chosen not to admit it. Politeness I guess.

In other cases, and I personally knew several of the offspring of white father black mother, it went like this. If the daddy claimed the child and for whatever reason did not or could not deny paternity and the child was a boy he'd take the family name of his father as his first name and his mothers family name. For example Mr. Brown (white) had a boy child by Molly Marshall (black woman). The kid was named Brown Marshall. This is a true example. I knew Brown Marshall and both his parents. Others I knew in the same way were Gould Hopkins, Floyd Brown, Ward Brown, Lawson Mills, there were others I forget now.

If the child was a girl she would take what ever first name she was given but as a family name take that of her white father. Since, around here at least, when the slaves were freed many took the name of the family that had owned them there were a lot of common last names between different colors of familys. Didn't cause a problem. Most could tell by sight which group the family belonged to.

Sometimes you couldn't if you didn't know though. There was a woman named Pearly White and she actually was. She was classed as a negro and stayed in negro society but in truth she was an octoroon. Hard to tell if you didn't know.

Got kind of complicated at times.

"Britt Johnson died as heroically as he lived. On January 24, 1871, while he led a wagon train through Young County delivering supplies from Weatherford to Fort Griffin, a group of either five or twenty-five Kiowas, depending on the account, attacked the wagon train four miles to the east of Salt Creek. Johnson and the two other teamsters with him tried to defend the wagons, but there was little cover. Outnumbered, the teamsters put up a desperate fight. They killed their own horses and mules to make breastworks, bravely resisting to the end....

When others, either soldiers from Fort Griffin or another set of teamsters depending on the account, found the site of this attack, they counted 173 rifle and pistol shells around the area where Johnson made his last stand."

Birdy....... here again two accounts are mixed together.The battle mentioned is properly called "The Warren Wagon Train Massacre" , and Britt was not involved.

Britt was killed,according to most credible sources,about 3 or 4 miles West of the wagon train, and at a different time.The location of Britt's death [ from memory] is between Flat Top Mountain and the Turtle Hole.

THAT establishes the site's longitude since they are in [roughly] a North/South line,and it seems likely it was along the wagon road the Warren train was traveling.

Some accounts claim that Britt was buried at the spot,some say he was buried in Weatherford.I've thought since you started this thread that it might be interesting to try and locate the exact spot of his death.Maybe get up a "24 hour campfire " party!

A friend of mine owns the Turtle Hole,and I can get permission to go anywhere we would need to from the landownwers involved.

As a kid,I rode horseback all over Flat Top and surrounding area.I might have rode across his grave.

Sir,

While I'll allow that the times I have been through that country was when I was hurrying to somewhere else I for one would go far out of my way to participate in such an endeavor. I can think of few finer things that going out there and carefully reading the terrain with an eye to past events.

And speaking of the High Plains, and complex relations with slaves, naturally its time to speak of another Texas legend, interestingly enough, also the inspiration for a John Wayne movie; John Simpson Chisum....

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fch33

Chisum was a major figure in the southwestern cattle industry for nearly thirty years, eighteen of which (1854�72) were in Texas. He located immense herds on the open range near running water and controlled surrounding pastures by right of occupancy.

He never claimed to be a traildriver, nor did he spend much time at the ranch or on the range. Personable and shrewd, he primarily was a cattle dealer who traveled in search of markets. His colorful and eccentric life epitomized the adventurous world of open-range cattle operations that set the tone for the industry after the Civil War.

Chisum was reared in the Cumberland Presbyterian faith, took no interest in politics, and never married�although it is widely believed that he fathered two daughters by one of his slaves, a woman named Jensie.

More here...

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-johnchisum.html
In 1854, Chisum moved to Denton County where he settled on Clear Creek, three miles above the town of Bolivar. He soon went to work for a large rancher as a cowboy and started to develop his own herd. It was during this time that Chisum purchased a mulatto slave girl named Jensie from some emigrants bound for California. The girl was just 15 years old and beautiful and Chisum began a love affair with her. The couple had two daughters.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Chisum freed all his slaves, including Jensie. He would later provide Jensie and his daughters with a home in Bonham, Texas as well as financial support for their needs.

Chisum reportedly paid $1,400 for Jensie, maybe it was love at first sight I dunno. Accounts suggest that Chisum did right by her as much as the practicalities of the era allowed, and that he was regarded fondly by her two daughters even after his death.

Chisum partnered with Charles Goodnight, and knew the principals in the Lincoln COunty War, in short, he was in the middle of it all in that era of Texas history.

In addition to Jensie, he was also particularly close to one Frank Chisum, almost certainly a former family slave, who stuck with him even through smallpox. A good account of Chisum's life and that incident here....

http://southernnewmexico.com/Articles/People/JohnChisum-CattleKingofth.html

Shortly thereafter Chisum came down with small pox. His men put him in a tent in the camp south of the Pecos, assigning men to nurse him day and night. A black cowboy, Frank Chisum, his friend, and almost considered a son, rode to Fort Stanton to bring him medical help. Frank stayed with Chisum until he was well, then came down with the disease himself but also survived.

Chisum's roots were in Tennessee and early Texas both, interesting to speculate on how it was for guys like that, raised in close proximity to slaves from earliest childhood. Likely too that for many, their earliest dalliances with women would have been with slave girls.

Though he never married, Chisum's household was reportedly a busy place, full of his extended (White) family and others. If I could get to meet famous Texas historical figures, him and Charles Goodnight both would be on my short list

Birdwatcher

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fik01

In 1855 the family moved to a home about nine miles southwest of Weatherford in Parker County, probably the most dangerous and violent part of the United States at the time.

Goes without saying I guess that, more so than most Americans, the fate of a slave depended a great deal upon where chance had landed 'em. In my twenties I had occasion to spend considerable time each summer for a few years out on the flats along the Brazos River, west of College Station. Prime cotton country in its day, and if Hell has farmland, its probably hot and flat, and they probab'ly grow cotton.

Might be all our imagination, but different places we go have different "feels" to 'em. Many folks remark upon this when visiting over-the-top places like Gettysburg, other places are more subtle. But I can state for a fact that, when laboring out there on the flats under that summertime Texas sun, the constant gut impression was slaves, like you could feel the presence of those who had been condemned to a life of hard labor out on those same flats.

Ain't much opportunity for heroism or aquired skill and competency out in a cotton field, more opportunities for the same among those slaves fortunate enough to be owned by a ranching family along the Texas Frontier.

We have already heard from Smithwick about the case of one Joe, living near present Marble Falls Texas, who if he had most of his earnings co-opted, at least had the freedom to pick his employment and enjoyed the responsibility of being, if Smithwick is to be believed, the prime wage earner for his White "family".

Exactly the same time (1850's) that Smithwick and Joe were living in the relatively safe and settled Burnet County near present Marble Falls west of Austin on the Colorado, one Dr Milton Ikard, late of Noxubee County, Mississippi and Union Parish, Louisiana, was moving his wife and four sons to Parker County TX, just west of present day Fort Worth, Parker County being "then one of the most dangerous and violent parts of the US".

Hard to imagine today staid Fort Worth being located in such a perilous region, but at the time it was all at once on the fringes of Comancheria, the Indian Territories, and on the far edge of a Frontier. Dunno which, Comanche, Eastern tribe, or White Frontier ne'r-do-well, would have been the greater threat. Depended on the given moment I'd guess.

Probably a whole thread could be devoted to the likes of a Dr Ikard and what exactly possessed him to make such a move with a young family in tow. To engage in the cattle business certainly, but to put his family in such imminent peril I dunno. Perhaps that was where land was cheapest.

Dr Ikard had four sons, all of whom the link states, were to become became very prominent in the post-war West Texas cattle industry. Prototypical Old West cattlemen as popular history pictures them; fighting Indians, outlaws and nature to carve out holdings on the Far Texas Plains.

The sort of people Louis L'Amour based his works of fiction upon.

Might be that Bose Ikard was a fifth son, if not biologically so then perhaps a de-facto one. Certainly he seems to have been regarded as an intergral part of the clan...

http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fik03

IKARD, BOSE (1843�1929). Bose Ikard was born a slave in July 1843 in Noxubee County, Mississippi, and became one of the most famous black frontiersmen and traildrivers in Texas.

He lived in Union Parish, Louisiana, before his master, Dr. Milton Ikard, moved to Texas in 1852. Several months later Bose helped Ikard's wife, Isabella (Tubb), move the family's belongings and five children to their new home in Lamar County and soon afterwards to Parker County. The young slave grew to adulthood with his owner's family, learning to farm, ranch, and fight Indians as the Civil War drew near.

From there the rest is history, Bose being employed first by Oliver Loving and thus developing his famoous working relationship with the equally legendary Charles Goodnight.

When the likes of a Charles Goodnight spoke, people listened, and one should probably not take lightly Goodnight's ringing endorsement of Ikard...

"farther than any living man. He was my detective, banker, and everything else in Colorado, New Mexico, and the other wild country I was in."

Obvious parallels here in the plot and characters of "Lonesome Dove", even to the lengthy epitaph, that of the the REAL Bose Ikard was written by Charles Goodnight and inscribed upon his tombstone in 1929, perhaps a full half century after the wildest days had passed...

"Bose Ikard served with me four years on the Goodnight-Loving Trail, never shirked a duty or disobeyed an order, rode with me in many stampedes, participated in three engagements with Comanches, splendid behavior."

Perhaps I had been influenced by Deets and Morgan Freeman's character in "The Unforgiven", somehow I imagined Bose Ikard as being older than he was. Ikard was actually seven years younger than Goodnight and a full thirty-one years younger than Oliver Loving. So in 1867 when Oliver Loving was mortally wounded on the Pecos by Comanches, Bose Ikard would have been just twenty-four, and Charles Goodnight thirty-one.

Anyhow, the years that followed must have indeed been shining times, inspiring as it did a lifelong friendship and Goodnight's undying high opinion.

And Ikard's adventures were surely just beginning, at the close of those year he would marry a woman that would bear him an extraordinary total of fifteen children.

Birdwatcher

Fort Worth, also known as Panther City.

I'm in, too, if y'all will have me...

Always good to have an experienced ER Doc along on these things. You know, for blisters, bruises, all of that

And I'm guessing, if this thing comes to pass, somewhere in that whole deal time would be made for generating clouds of pungent black powder smoke

Birdwatcher

I'd guess most folks reading this far ain't interested in reading about slavery so bear with me. For my own part, posting this stuff firms up what I myself have read about this era, basically I learn as I write.

But, slavery was a major part of the Texas of this era, and it is incomplete to present the exploits of say, a truly dynamic man like John Henry Moore, author of one of the larger feats of arms ever inflicted upon any Indians (let alone Comanches), without exploring the economy wherein he made his fortune.

The short of it is that for every slave fortunate enough to have lived the relatively equal existance of a Bose Ikard, there must have been several hundred condemned to a life of unremitting and monotonous hard labor in the fields. Probably nowhere more true than in cotton country, where the role of an enslaved negro came closest to that of being mere agricultural machinery.

Fully understanding THAT shedding light on why some of them chanced such enormous odds to get free. The biggest problem for slaveowners in Texas being, as it had been for Georgia planters adjacent to Florida Seminole country, the frequency of so much of their capital investment hoofing it for freedom in Mexico. Olmstead reporting that factor alone accounting for the lesser number of slaves one encountered in bondage the closer one came to the Border.

Anyhoo, before returning to the frontier per se, an episode in Houston, late spring/early summer of 1858, as recorded by Olmstead. First the town itself, interesting in its own light...

Houston... shows many agreeable signs of the wealth accumulated, in homelike, retired residences, its large and good hotel, its well-supplied shops, and its shaded streets. The principal thoroughfare, opening from the steamboat landing, is the busiest we saw in Texas.

Near the bayou are extensive cotton-sheds and huge exposed piles of bales... There are several neat churches, a theatre (within the walls of a sawmill), and a most remarkable number of showy bar rooms and gambling saloons. A poster announced that "the cock-pit is open every night, and on Saturday nights five fights will come of for a stake of $100."

A curious feature in the town is the appearance of small cisterns of tar,in which long-handled dippers are floating, at the edge of the sidewalk, at the front of each store. This is for the use of the swarming wagoners...

The greater part of the small tradesmen and mechanics in the town are German...

There is a prominent slave-mart in town, which held a large lot of likely-looking negroes awaiting purchasers. In the windows of shops, and on the doors and columns of the hotel, were many written advertisements headed, " A likely negro girl for sale. " " Two negroes for sale. " " Twenty negro boys for sale. "...

And the incident...

Sitting, one morning of our stay, upon the gallery of our hotel, we witnessed a revolting scene. A tall, jet black negro came up, leading by a rope a downcast mulatto, whose hands were lashed by a cord to his waist, and whose face was horribly dripping with blood. The wounded man crouched and leaned for support against one of the columns of the gallery..

"What's the matter with that boy?" asked a smoking lounger.

"I run a fork into his face." answered the negro.

"What are his hands tied for?"

"He's a runaway, sir."

"Did you catch him?"

"Yes, sir. he was hiding in the hay-loft, and when I went to throw up some hay to the horses, I pushed the fork down into the mow and it struck something hard. I didn't know what it was and I pushed hard, and gave it a turn, and then he hollered and I took it out."

"What do you bring him here for?"

"Come for the key of the jail, sir, to lock him up."

"What!" said another, "one darkey catch another darkey? Don't believe that story."

"Oh yes Mass'r, I tell for true. He was down in our hay-loft, and so you see when I stab him, I have to catch him."

"Why, he's hurt bad isn't he?"

"Yes, he says I pushed through the bones."

"Who's n&gger is he?"

"He says he belongs to Mass'r Frost, sir, on the Brazos."

The key was soon brought, and the negro lead the mulatto away to jail. He seemed sick and faint, and walked away limping and crouching, as if he had received other injuries than those on his face. The bystanders remarked that thhe negro had not probably told the whole story.

We afterwards happened to see a gentleman on horseback, and smoking, leading by a long rope through the deep mud, out into the country, the poor mulatto, still limping and crouching, his hands manacled, and his arms pinioned.


Interesting that one guy one the scene found it improbable that one slave would catch another. IIRC it was not uncommon for slaves to render aid and assistance to passing runaways.

Birdwatcher

More from Olmstead, here on the road between Uvalde (70 miles due west of San Antone) and Eagle Pass on the Rio Grande, dangerous, remote country in 1858...

The surface is rolling, like the prairie country, but the soil is generally gravelly, arid, and sterile, and everywhere covered with the same dwarf prickly shrubs.

In riding sixty miles, we encountered but two men; thhey were on the road, mounted and armed, and met us with the abrupt inquiry: "Seen any n$ggers?"

(We, unitedly) "No."

This was all our conversation. "N$gger-hunting - poor business," some one observed, as we separated, and they were directly lost in the bushes. "Poor business," I repeated, inquiringly.

"Yes; its more trouble to get the money, after you've jugged 'em, than it's worth."

And this of Piedras Negras, directly across the Rio Grande...

Runaways were constantly arriving here; two had got over, as I had previously been informed, the night before. He could not guess how many came in a year, but he could count forty, that he had known of, in the last three months. At other points, further down the river, a great many more came than here. He supposed a good many got lost and starved to death, or were killed on the way, between the settlments and the river...

and of Olmstead's own sentiments....

It is repeated as a standing joke - I suppose I have heard it fifty times in Texas taverns, and always to the great amusement of the company - that a n$gger in Mexico is just as good as a white man, and if you don't treat him civilly he will have you hauled up and fined by an alcade. The poor yellow-faced, priest-ridden heathen, actually hold, in earnest, the ideas put forth on this subject put forth in that good old joke of our fathers - the Declaration of American Independence

Of the runaways...

The impulse must be a strong one, the tyranny extremely cruel, the irksomeness of slavery extremely irritating, or the longing for liberty much greater than is usually attributed to the African race....

There is a permanent reward offered by the state for their recovery, and a considerable number of men make a business of hunting them. Most of the frontier rangers are ready at any time to make a couple of hundred dollars, by taking them up, if they come their way. If so taken, they are severely punished, thoughif they return voluntarily they are commonly pardoned.

If they escape immediate capture by dogs and men, there is then the great dry desert country to be crossed, with the dangers of falling in with savages, or of being attacked by panthers or wolves, or of being bitten or stung by the numerous reptiles that abound in it; or of drowning miserably in the last of the fords; in winter, of freezing in a norther, and, at all seasons, of famishing in the wilderness from the want of means to procure food...

I pity the man whose sympathies would not warm to a dog under these odds. How can they be held back from the slave who is driven to assert his claim to manhood?

And of the Germans in Texas (many of whom just a few years later would pay with their lives for their abolitionist sentiments at the hands of Confederate Home Guard hanging squads)...

...a runaway slave is a lawless and, usually, very mischevious and desperate man, and with a knowledge of the small chance of his eventual escape, and the dangers of all kinds which beset his flight, I have always heard the Germans, even those who most detested slavery, speak of a negro's running away with pain and regret.

The slaveholders, who have the least acquaintance with Germans, knowing thier sympathy with the slaves, are very much afraid to have them settle near their plantations.... to the credit of the Germans, I must say, I heard of only one of them ever having claimed a reward for returning a runaway...

..."That German is a Judas who would do aught to hinder a man who was fleeing towards liberty!" was the reply of my informant.

Apparently more'n a hundred runaways a year in the Eagle Pass area alone (maybe 160 if Olmstead's source is accurate), at least an equal number crossing further downriver, tho perhaps not as many as the sheer mileage of river might suggest.

Rough, hostile country. Even more so if you wandered far off the established routes, and Eagle Pass in particular was founded upon smuggling, apparently a prime destination for fleeing slaves.

No idea how many runaways died or were recaptured en route but apparently they faced long odds, so likely more didn't make it than did, and likely there were enough making the attempt that the slave catcher trade would have been a significant part of the economy of Border Texas and of the approaches thereto.

Here's a thought; even if just a couple of hundred runaways each year made the attempt, then there were considerably more runaway slaves crossing that area of the Frontier in any given year than there were Texas Rangers out patrolling those same areas.

Finally a passage from the editorial of a San Antonio newspaper on a proposal by the State to increase the reward for turning in runaways to $500 per slave, a considerable sum at the time...

If such a plan is adopted, the number of escapes will certainly decrease. The reward that is generally offered, over and above what is allowed by the law, is but a poor judgement for men to ride several days and nights in pursuit of fugitives, risking their lives, and ruining their horses

..."risking their lives, and ruining their horses".... (sorry)

Prob'ly it was even harder on the runaways.

Birdwatcher

At this point it would be useful to explore the economics of slave-hunting.

Wiki ("Slavery in Texas") has it that 1,000 Texas slaves escaped into Mexico during in the five years running from 1850 through 1855, or about 200 each year. Not unreasonable to guesstimate five times that many total making the attempt, or 1,000 each year.

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

Sounds like a lot, but the same source puts the slave population in Texas in 1850 as 58,000 in 1850 and 182,000 in 1860. Ballparking; 1,000 runaways per year adds up to somewhere around 1% of the slave population in any given year making the attempt.

Thomas Porter in his book "The Black Seminoles" puts the value of a "prime field hand" in the 1850's at $1,200 to $1,500. Recall that cattleman John Chisum in that same era paid $1,500 for his attractive teenage houskeeper/concubine.

What the standard fees were for recovery of a runaway I dunno, but I think Olmstead somewhere mentioned $200, the state proposing $500.

Useful at this point too to try and figure just how much $200 in real terms was to a Texan in the 1850's.

Here's an interesting link from a National Bureau of Economic Research giving farm laborers' monthly pay in Texas (see page 453):

http://www.nber.org/chapters/c2486.pdf

$12 per month in 1850 to $16 in 1860. Translating to $136 to $192 per year.

Considering that a sort of minimum wage, in today's terms, based upon a $7.25/hour wage, that would translate to about $300 modern dollars a month or around $15,000 a year.

By that yardstick, the $1,200 to $1,500 value of a slave translates in modern dollars to $94,000 - $117,000. Put in THOSE terms it becomes easy to see why even longtime family slaves, practically family members, might still have to worry about being sold off at any given point in time.

A potential recovery fee of $200 back then (if indeed you could collect it) ballparks in today's dollars at around $16,000. No wonder folks were so active in the recovery of runaways. No wonder either that some folks specialized in slave catching.

Birdwatcher

Of Eagle Pass in the 1950's, from Porter's book "The Black Seminoles"....

In fact, a nest of professional slave hunters - particularly the Town, Wood, and Morris families - operated from nearby Eagle Pass. They tried to intercept runaways at the border and reclaim those who were already in Mexico. The Rio Grande did not stop tem from pursuing fugitive blacks.

"Old Man Townes" and his family... colored, but mostly white, were the worst of the lot. They were descended from David Town, a Georgian, who had moved to Nacodoches, Texas, with a black woman in 1817. He eventually emancipated her and her children, and in 1834 they were described as industrious and respectable. In 1850 his son David, now living in Eagle Pass, went into the slave-catching business.

Although the Town family was mostly white, they appeared black enough to fool unwary runaways. Constantly looking for an opportunity to steal Black... children, they once kidnapped a little girl playing on the river bank.


Birdwatcher

Well, dang, I've come across reference to Kit Carson and his men using Colt Paterson revolvers against an Indian attack on a wagon train on the Santa Fe trail in 1841, three years before Jack Hay's famous Sister's Creek fight, I'll see what I can google up.

Segueing back to the Rangers after posting at length on slavery, seems apt to refer to this, in Mike Cox's "Wearing the Cinco Peso"; this particular episode occurring in and around San Antonio in 1838, twenty years before Olmstead's (the guy quoted in previous posts) visit.

That Rangers captured runaway slaves seeking freedom in Mexico did not get remembered in most of the recollections from the 1840s. But slave owners usually paid bounties for their runaway property, San Antonio was the gateway to Mexico, and rangers excelled at tracking...

The following taken by the author (Cox) from a book by one Charles Webber, a writer who rode with the Rangers on and off from 1838 through 1842 (a concept sounding eerily reminiscent of Hunter S. Thompson's "The Hell's Angels").

Travelling from East Texas to San Antonio, Webber had thrown in with a Brazos River planter on his way to reclaim his chattel, a young black male who had been arrested "by the vigilant rangers" and "thrown into chains".

And now a description of the Rangers themselves. Considering there was already around 30,000 White folks in Texas by that time, the handful that rode with Hays on several of his missions mission were a tiny bunch indeed.

Not the only Rangers in Texas of course, but perhaps the "wildest" or "most aggressive" or whatever you want to call it.

Some time back in this thread there was a guy who had been at Plum Creek and one other affray with Comanches (I'll look him up again later). THAT guy went on to a career of ranching along the Nueces Strip, one of the most hazardous places on earth at that time.

The point being that even THAT guy, after Plum Creek, pronounced that he had been in all the fights he cared to be in and hoped it never happened again.

Hays' men OTOH, were the sort who undoubtedly went far out of their way to put themselves into deadly combat against long odds, and when not out seeking fights apparently spent an inordinate amount of time (from accounts) carousing in exceedingly rough cantinas, the kind of places where one could get gutted with a big knife in a heartbeat over a dispute at cards fer example.

Prob'ly should add here too that then, as now, San Antonio was noted for an abundance of pretty senoritas. In short; not a bad place for a young man burning the candle at both ends to hang out.

By the lights of the time, it weren't cheap to join Hay's group; a good horse, knife and good rifle being the bare-minimum prerequisites, equivalent to several month's pay for a basic laborer, the loss or ruin of some or all of this equipment being among the least of the expected hazards (John Caperton, a Ranger and a longtime associate of Hays, had it that the mortaility rate among the Rangers was about 50%).

In short, riding with Hays was both dangerous and expensive. Hays hisself came from wealthy, politically connected stock in Tenessee (he was Andrew Jackson's nephew), and ten years later in California he invested in real estate and rapidly became a very wealthy man. Hard to escape the impression that in his Texas period he was basically slumming it, sowing his wild oats as it were, in dangerous company.

Turns out that he was a natural at it, and commanded the alliegance and cooperation of some exceedingly rough and capable men, men who had already prevailed in deadly combat against other such men, and including representatives of all three races; Mexican, Indian and White.

What these sort of guys would be doing today is an interesting point to ponder: Spec Ops maybe, or maybe Outlaw Bikers, or more likely some of both, I dunno. The point being they weren't ordinary men, and no implied suggestion meant at all here that being an ordinary man was a bad or cowardly thing.

Noah Smithwick fer example; who rode with different Rangers on a number of occasions, and took to the field against Comanches in company with other sorts of Indians more than once, but who didn't SEEK combat for its own sake; in his memoirs he openly admits to being unsure if he ever actually killed anybody, "not even an Indian".

Back to Webber's account...

the two men retired to an inn on the market square. Inside they found eight or ten young men clad in a combination of Mexican and "ordinary American" dress". They wore sombreros, smoked Mexican cigarittas, and had pistols and knives tucked into their waistbands....

Webber and his new comrades-in-arms talked and drank until two o'clock in the morning...someone began pounding on the door of the inn. During the night, a messenger reported, the slave had escaped, making off with clothing, a rifle, food, a good horse, and a silver mounted saddle.

When the slave owner offered $50 for the return of thhe slave, and the merchant said he would throw in another $50 for thhe horse and saddle, two of Hays's rangers eagerly took the trail....

A this point Webber has Hays and his companions idling away a late morning, at one point Hays shooting one of Webber's own pistols at a crowing rooster, taking its head off at a range of thirty paces, a difficult feat even today with one's own pistol, so I dunno how much exaggeration was involved here.

Continuing....

...one of the rangers who had ridden out that morning came galloping back to town... he rode stiffly in the saddle, blood smearing the side of his buckskin jacket. Almost incoherent at first, he finally reported that he and the other ranger, hot on the slave's trail, had ridden into an ambush.

After taking the bullet in his side, he had become separated from his partner and did not know what had happened to him. Hays ordered his men to saddle up.

Gotta get ready for work, I'll finish up this episode later.

Birdwatcher

Good Lord, nearly three weeks gone by. Well, time flies ennit?

To continue... two guys go out after a runaway, one guy comes back reeling in the saddle, seriously wounded, no sign of the other, Hays and his crew saddle up....

From "Wearing the Cinco Peso"....

Hays ordered his men to saddle up. Not far on the Laredo road, they found their missing colleague and his prisoner, a Mexican who had aided the slave's escape and then lay in waiting for the rangers he knew would follow. Asked why he had not already killed his captive, the ranger admitted that he admired the man's bravery.

Unimpressed, Hays ordered the Mexican executed on the spot. The rangers tied their prisoner to a tree and then drew numbers to see which of them would get to do the honors. The rangers composing the firing squad raised their rifles and aimed, ready for Hays' command to fire. But before the rangers pulled their triggers the Mexican yelled a warning: They aimed too low.

At that the man's captor jumped to his feet. "Jack! Hear that! Don't shoot this fellow! Spare him for my sake - could the devil himself beat that?"

Hays waved his hand, signalling the rangers to lower their rifles. The ranger who had captured the Mexican cut the thongs on his hands and legs "and he stood before us a free man."

He told the rangers that "attracted by human sympathy for the Boy," he had assisted in the successful escape of the slave. He had hung back to ambush the rangers pursuing the fleeing slave to settle the score from a previous run-in with a sworn enemy."

"Such as it was," Webber concluded, "this was my first day with the Rangers, and we were soon afterwards sound asleep on the grass."

The author Mike Cox feels the story is embellished but to me its so unusual that it has a ring of truth about it.

The Rangers, we are told, already in number a tiny minority of the available Texas male population, had been partying hard all night. Roused to action the next day, the first thing they do after concluding this episode is continue to sleep off their hangovers.

Speaks well of them that they would readily show mercy to a brave man because of his courage. Indeed, reading between the lines, the necessity to draw lots and then the low aim on the part of these expert riflemen, added to Hays' ready pardon of the man, would seem to indicate a general reluctance among them to carry out Hays' order in the first place.

Had they REALLY wanted to kill him one imagines they just could have shot him in the beginning right where he stood.

It is my impression that those men most inclined to pay tribute to unusual courage on the part of an enemy practice habitual courage themselves.

One wonders too about a possible backstory here; the account gives the impression that the Mexican was gunning for the specific ranger he shot from ambush, also Hays and his men were not so outraged by the event that they shot the Mexican out of hand.

Also implied is that the Mexican had reason to believe his enemy would be among those attempting to cash in on recovering the slave.

Perhaps the injured ranger had committed a previous act egregious to the point that Hays' men percieved some justice in the Mexican's actions.

No mention either that the party took up the trail of the runaway themselves, even though they were already saddled up and on the trail.

One of those events one wishes one knew more about.

Anyhow, prob'ly occurred somewhere close to the present route of Interstate 35 South, most likely inside Loop 410, an area I know quite well. Sure has changed since those times though.

..and I can see how riding with Jack Hays in those years could have an appeal, even given the low odds of survival

Birdwatcher

Thanks for bringing this back up Birdwatcher, and THANK YOU Doc for starting it to begin with.
I'm on chapter eleven and enjoying every minute of it.
I love the honesty and the way it ties some of the stories I've read about the same time and area together.
Mr. Gwynne definitely did his work on this one and is a damn fine author/story teller to boot.

A good read for sure.

Just to reiterate, much of the events of Jack Hay's life are poorly known. The most comprehensive source might be Jihn Caperton, ten years or so his junior, his deputy and life long friend. Caperton wrote the book "The Life and Adventures of John C. Hayes, the Texas Ranger" but thirty to forty years after the fact, in 1879, in dome novel format to boot.

Books out of print though and I cannot find it, I am guessing this is where the tale of Jack Hays running on foot for two days with a bunch of Delawares in pursuit of Comanches comes from.

What we do know is that Jack Came from priviledged circles in Tennessee, spent much time at his Uncle Andy Jackson's estate "The Hermitage", and was known to Sam Houston when he first arrived in the state in 1837, age nineteen.

No surprise that, probably from Caperton's book, Jack is described as something as an adventurous sort back East, having had altercations with the local Creek Indians back East.

Likely spending some time in their company too as it becomes apparent that, in his first couple of years in Texas, Hays readily associated with and learned from Indian Scouts, both Delaware and Lipan.

Upon his arrival, Hays visited Sam Houston, who promptly assigned him to Erastus "Deaf" Smith's company of rangers. Not a careless or unthinking appointment to be sure, for Deaf Smith (pronounced "Deef" at the time) became a pivotal figure in the War for Independence the year before.

But that's gist for the next post.

Birdwatcher

Deaf Smith is just flat interesting, and I should looked him up long before now.

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

Born on the Hudson River below Albany in 1787, Smith's family moved to Natchez around the year 1800. Not stone-deaf by all accounts, just partially so. I suspect severe ear/nose/throat infections as I myself lost a measurable amount of hearing that way in Africa.

Ain't found out yet what Smith did in his early years, or if he was in the War of 1812 or the Creek War. The story of his life in Texas begins rather abruptly when he was thirty-five.

By that time we can assume Smith was in the livestock droving business and that he had regular dealings with Tejanos and Mexicans. Certainly he seemed to fit in easily with both societies.

Dunno if he had been married before but in 1822 he married a Tejano woman ten years his junior, the daughter of a probable business associate, one Mexican horse trader Salvadore Ruiz de Castaneda. Carrying on a longstanding Bexareno practice, from his home near our San Jose Mission, Ruiz de Castaneda drove herds of horses to trade in Louisiana.

What was unusual in Smith's marriage was that Guadalupe Ruiz was a twenty-five year-old widow with three daughters from a previous marriage to another Tejano. I have no idea if Smith had been married before.

In retrospect, sounds like a love match. Guadalupe bore Smith three more children early on in their fifteen year marriage, the two remaining together until Smith's death in '37. Likewise relations between Smith and his three step-daughters also seem to have been cordial, Smith being on especially good terms with one Hendrick Arnold, his son-in-law through one of his step-daughters.

Interesting thing is Hendrick Arnold was the son of a White man who had married a probably mixed-blood slave woman and then gone to Texas, probably where the living was easier in those early days, much like Noah Smithwick's own partner Webber. See...
http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/far15

One gets the impression of a sprawling, congenial hacienda close by the San Jose Mission, populated by working Vaqueros in company with this first wave of Texians (perhaps not an uncommon scenario, Jim Bowie likewise intergrated himself into the local population during this time period).

If the racially integrated aspect sounds improbable, I would point out that such was a feature with several famous cattle outfits in Texas history, where considerations of ability tended to trump distinctions based upon ethnicity.

Whatever their activities, by 1835 Smith and Arnold were accomplished and toughened outdoorsmen with a geographical knowledge of the country. No accident really that the two men were out buffalo hunting together north and west of town when the shooting war broke out between the Texians and the forces of Santa Anna.

Said buffalo hunting episode highlighting what was a regular practice among San Antonio Tejanos as well as drawing attention to the fact that anyone going out into buffalo country in that time and place likely had their act together as competent fighting men.

Birdwatcher

The rest of Deaf Smith's story can be read here....

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

Even as many Texas settlers formed an army and marched on San Antonio de Bexar, Smith originally intended to remain neutral.

He changed his mind after the Texian Army, led by Stephen F. Austin, initiated a siege of Bexar. As the siege began, Smith and his son-in-law Hendrick Arnold were absent from town, on a hunting trip. The Mexican army increased security in the town, and refused to allow Smith and Arnold to return to their homes within the city.

An indignant Smith immediately joined the Texian Army. He wrote to Austin: "I told you yesterday that I would not take sides in this war but, Sir, I now tender you my services as the Mexicans acted rascally with me".

His intelligence gathering was important at the Battle of Concepcion. In October 1835, he discovered the mule train that brought on the Grass Fight and in December 1835 he guided troops into San Antonio in the Siege and Battle of Bexar where he was wounded atop the Veramendi House at the same time that Ben Milam was killed...

At the Alamo, he served as a courier to William Barrett Travis and carried Travis's letter from the Alamo on February 15, 1836. He met General Sam Houston at Gonzalez after the signing of the Texan Declaration of Independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas.

Dispatched back to Bexar, Houston relied on Smith to determine the fate of the Alamo garrison. He met and escorted Mrs. Almeron Dickinson and party to report to General Houston in Gonzales regarding the fate of the Alamo defenders.

In Gonzales, Smith was assigned to Captain Karnes' Cavalry Company of the 1st Regiment of Volunteers and placed in command of new recruits. Smith operated continuously on the way to, at, and after the Battle of San Jacinto with small groups of volunteers from the cavalry unit and sometimes other units, successfully generating intelligence and special missions almost continuously.

At Harrisburg, he captured a Mexican courier with dispatches revealing the strength and position of Antonio L�pez de Santa Anna's army. On 21 April prior to the Battle of San Jacinto, he and his men destroyed Vince's Bridge, the means of any retreat or reinforcements of both armies. He joined his unit to participate in the main battle.

He was the courier that took the captured Antonio L�pez de Santa Anna's orders to General Filisola's army to retreat from Texas. He captured General Cos, who had escaped from the main battle.

From there he raises a ranging company, including the newly arrived Jack Hays, gist for another post...