Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Texas Rangers vs Comanches

This is a pretty good Joe Rogan episode with S.C. Gwynne, author of 'Empire of the Summer Moon.'

Full episode on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/episode/4emaXjcHyntXQ9sN2Z3Chm

Spent a lot of time there when l was a kid.

Somewheres betwixed Camp Wood, Vanderpool, South Llano and Garner Parks.

Copy. One of my favorite nooks in Texas....

How do you suppose the Tonkawas cooked up the Comanches?

Stews? Roasts?

Maybe cook them whole, like a pig picking?

FWIW, I read in a book about different atrocities committed by Indians and whites that during the French and Indian war some Indians cooked up a young British soldier for their French allies who thought they were eating beef stew until it was revealed to them by the Indians that a little joke had been played on them.

Again, we turn to Noah Smithwick. He witnessed an incident at Webber’s Prairie.

The only [ceremony] I ever witnessed was in Webber's prairie, the occasion being the killing of a Comanche, one of a party that had been on a horse stealing trip down to Bastrop. They were hotly pursued, and , reasoning2…that the biggest must naturally be the best…they mounted a warrior on Manlove's big horse, which was part of the booty, and left him behind as rear guard, while the balance hurried the stolen horses away. The Tonkawas joined the pursuit and when the pursuers came in sight of the lone rear guardsman three of the most expert Tonks were sent to dispatch him. This they soon accomplished, his steed being a slow one. After killing and scalping him they refused to continue the chase, saying they must return home to celebrate the event, which they did by a feast and a scalp dance. Having fleeced off the flesh of the dead Comanche they borrowed a big wash kettle from Puss Webber, into which they put the Comanche meat, together with a lot of corn and potatoes…When the stew was sufficiently cooked to allow its being ladled out with their hands the whole tribe gathered round, dipping it up with their hands and eating it…. Having gorged themselves on the delectable feast they lay down and slept till night, when the entertainment was concluded with the scalp dance.
Gotten up in…war paint and best breechclouts,3 the warriors gathered round in a ring, each one armed with some ear-torturing instrument, which they operated in unison with a drum made of dried deer skin stretched tightly over a hoop, at the same time keeping up a monotonous Ha, ah, ha, raising and lowering their bodies in time that would have pleased a French dancing master, every muscle seeming to twitch in harmony. Meanwhile…a squaw would present each in turn an arm or leg of the dead foe, which they would bite viciously, catching it their teeth and shaking it…. And high over all waved from the point of a lance the scalp, dressed and painted, held aloft by a patriotic squaw. The orgies were kept up till the performers were forced to desist from sheer exhaustion (Smithwick 179-181).

There is a reference in Josiah Gregg’s monumental "The Commerce Of The Prairie" dealing sith his travels on the Santa Fe Trail and Chihuahua Trail, to his demonstrating his Colt’s repeating pistol to an Comanche chief ( they were trading with his band) somewhere in the vicinity of the 100th Meridian after crossing into " Mexican” territory. This would have been on a return trip thru Oklahoma and not on the Santa Fe Trail. Gregg unholstered and showed the chief the gun then fired several shots in rapid succession. He mentioned the chief caught on to his demonstration and took his bow and shot just as many arrows in just as many seconds!

I got a book written by a Texan, for the life of me I can’t recall the title now. Damn memory…..

Anyway it was about 2 brothers who were taken captive at a young age by the Comanche. Interesting read, as it was written like he spoke.

The Boy Captives. Johnny Loco mentioned it. The Smith brothers.

Or

Nine Years Among The Indians by Herman Lehmann

Herman and his brother were kidnapped by a band of renegade Apaches just n of Fredericksburg. He brother was rescued by troopers I believe from Ft. Mc Kavett. Herman escaped to the Comanches.

I just finished this one a few weeks ago. Very good read. He references the Tonkawas roasting the leg of a comanche over a fire. So they might've had a few "recipes".

Brutal

270jrk I read NYATI recently as well. Interesting. I wish we could know more about how each tribe differed form one another. The Tonkawas helped whites kill as many Comanche as possible and seem to be perhaps the only tribe- or people- the Comanche wanted no part of.

Herman was captured by Apaches then ended up killing their medicine man and escaping. He was young and spent months isolated and more or less thriving. Was captured by Comanches but accepted after they believed he killed the Apache who they never trusted. I recall him saying the Apaches were somber people without humor but Comanches enjoyed a good laugh. Scary I suppose as the laugh might come at your expense in the form of some inflicted pain.

Haha, yeah interesting humor. Most of my reading has been on the Apaches, as I'm from southeastern Arizona. Herman's account was a good segue into the Comanche history.

Lehmann was asked onetime after he had been repatriated with his family, who was the most bloodthirsty comanche he had ever met, he was quick to answer, Adolph Korn! Another German boy who had been captured and adopted by the Comanche. When he first met Korn, who lived with another band, he said they both conversed in German because the Comanche had learned a bunch of English. And they didn’t want them to know what they were talking about. 😉

The Captured about how fast boy captives assimilated was written by Korns great niece and was a really good book

IIRC Herman Lehman never did adjust completely back to White society.

In his account, after leaving the Apaches and living up on the Panhandle he grows desperate from isolation and the lack of human contact. No Indian friends, alienated from White people.

So much so he just walks in out of the dark on a small Comanche camp one night, the Comanches initially scatter in alarm. By this late date the Comanches were fugitives in their own home range, the frontier was closing in. The big surprise being that no one killed him right off.

Recovering from their surprise, IIRC one of the Comanches spoke Apache and they piece together his story.

Here’s another surprising part in light of pop history; Comanche warmth.

Taking an interest in the desolate young man, the Comanche leader says “You’d better come with us”.

Ya know, I who have never wrote anything have castigated the popular Texas Historian Fehrenbach here, or more exactly his “Comanches, the Destruction of a People” book.

But I gotta say he related the legend of Britton Johnson, AKA “Niqqer Britt” very well.

October 1864, a few hundred Kiowa and Comanche launch a raid on the Texas Frontier settlement of Elm Creek, killing settlers and abducting several children.

https://www.frontiertimesmagazine.c...written-henry-c-williams-newcastle-texas

Tho technically a slave, it often happened that “slaves” were often blood kin or at least life-long associates of their masters. No mention of consanguinity is made in Britton’s case but he had a wife and kids and freely bore arms.

In the aftermath of the raid the survivors pool their resources, purchase a variety of goods of value to the Comanches, and Britton Johnson rides out alone into Comancheria looking to recover the children.

I think the Williams in this are Gean Williams ancestors.