I figured I would beat some of you to the punch and google up some info.This is what I find:
My fifty-seven year old memories are wrong in one place.The black man's name on the monument for the "Salt Creek Massacre" must be "Nigra Dick"-not Bret.All the accounts are consistent on THAT.
There are actually FOUR different events muddled up in the account Birdwatcher posted:
There were TWO different massacres which occurred near Salt Creek in North Young County.One involved a group of cattlemen gathering cattle who were attacked by Kiowa.I believe these are the names on the small monument we found , but it is obviously at the wrong site.Salt Creek has two forks , and that in part probably led to the confusion.
It is placed at the site of a battle between Indians and a group of settlers gathering salt.This is what is known locally as the "Salt Creek Massacre".
A third event which involved the teamsters and Kiowas is properly called the "Warren Wagon Train Massacre".It seems the flat plain just west of Cox Mountain used to be called the "Salt Grass Prarie" by the Army.Some of the Army reports mix up Flint Creek with Salt Creek.Brit Johnson was NOT killed in this battle.He wasn't present.
Brit and two other negroes were killed just South of Flat Top Mountain in a separate attack.This is about five miles west on the Butterfield Road from where the Warren group was killed.
Several of the Army reports of the time claim that this Young County area was the "most dangerous place on the whole western frontier in 1871".
