Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I, Part 1

Author: Brown, John Henry, 1820-1895
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Austin : L.E. Daniel]
Number of Pages: 922

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REYNOLDS HISTORICAL GENEALOGY COLLECTION

ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY

3 1833 02289 9204

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INDIAN WARS

AND

PIONEERS OF LEXAS. Vol. 1

BY JOHN HENRY BROWN.

L. E. DANIELL, Publisher, Austin, Texas.

840

1752957

F 877 .124

Brown, John Henry, 1820-1895.

Indian wars and pioneers of Texas. By John Henry Brown. Austin, Tex., L. E. Daniell (180-2] 762 p. plates, ports. 30 x 23jem. The part of the volume after p. 128 is devoted to biographies, chiefly of Texans still living.

1. Texas -- Blog. 2. Indians of North America-Texas. 3. Frontier and pioneer life-Texas 4. Indians of North America-Wars -- 1815- 1875. I. Title.

3-14078

Library of Congress

F385.BST

BRAIF CAR'S BUhl 1

-BECKTOLD- PRINTING AND BOOK MEG. CO. ST. LOUIS, MO. - BINDERS.

Press of .. Non Cres Printing Company, St. Louis, MO.

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DEDICATORY PREFACE.

The reader of this volume is introduced to a series of advancing scenes in a drama that had its beginning in the first feeble attempts that were made at the settlement of the country, and to a succession of actors from the solitary explorer of seventy years ago to the men of to-day.

To one of the most useful, honored and capable of the latter, our esteemed friend -

MR. GEORGE SEALY, of Galveston,

this work is respectfully dedicated,

The book leads the reader through the past to the present and here leaves him amid active and progressive men who are advancing, along with him, toward the future.

Including, as it does, lives of men now living, it constitutes a connecting link between what has gone before aud what is to come after. It is therefore fitting that it should be dedicated to a prominent man of our day in preference to one of former times. The matter presented, in the nature of things, is largely biographical.

There can be no foundation for history without biography. History is a generalization of particulars. It presents wide extended views. To use a para- dox. history gives us but a part of history. That other part which it does not give us, the part which introduces ns to the thoughts, aspirations and daily life of a people, is supplied by biography.

When a good action is performed we feel that it should be remembered forever. When a good man dies, there is nothing sadder than the reflection that he will be forgotten. No record has been preserved of the greater number of

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DEDICATORY PREFACE.

noble actions. The names of some of the men who have done most to make history have found no place upon its pages.

As Thomas-a-Kempis hath truly said : " To-day the man is here; to-morrow he hath disappeared. And when he is out of sight, quickly also is he out of mind.

" Tell me now, where are all those doctors and masters, with whom thou wast well acquainted, while they lived and flourished in learning? Now others possess their livings and perhaps do scarce ever think of them. In their lifetime they seemed something, but now they are not spoken of."

The men whose deeds are recorded in this book were or are deeply identi- fied with Texas, and the preservation in this volume in enduring form of some remembrance of them - their names, who and what they were - has been a pleasant task to one who feels a deep interest and pride in Texas- its past history, its heroes and future destiny. The book is presented to the reader with the hope that he will find both pleasure and profit in its perusal.

INTRODUCTORY

TO THE

Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas,

The first contest on the soil of Texas between Americans and Indians antedates the visit of Moses Austin to the country in 1820; but the combatants were not colonists ; they were a part of the second expedition of Capt. James Long in aid of the patriots in the Mexican revolution. His first ex- pedition, entering East Texas by land, had been defeated in detail and driven from the country by the troops of Spain, sent from San Antonio. This second expedition came by water to Bolivar Point, opposite the east end of Galveston Island, and forti- fied that place. Some of the expedition, under Don Felix Trespalacios, and among whom was the subsequently distinguished martyr of Bexar in 1835, Col. Benjamin R. Milam, sailed down the coast and landed near Tampico. Fifty-two men remained with Long, among whom were John Austin (com- mander at Velasco in 1832), John McHenry, deceased in Jackson County in 1885, and a number of educated and daring Americans from different States of the Union. In December, 1853, in De Bow's New Orleans Review, the author of this work, after repeated interviews with Capt. McHenry, long his neighbor, gave this account of that first strictly American-Indian fight in Texas, late in the autumn of 1819. Its verity has never been ques- tioned : ---

While Long was at Bolivar, a French sloop freighterl with wines and Mexican supplies, bound to Cassano, stranded on Galveston Island near the present city. The Carancahua Indians, to the number of 200 warriors, were then encamped in the immediate vicinity, and at once attacked and butchered all on board the sloop, plundered the craft, and entered upon a general jollification and war-dance. Long (discovering these facts) deter-

mined to chastise them for their baseness. Accord- ingly after nightfall, at the head of thirty men (including McHenry), he passed over in small boats to the island, and made an unexpected assault upon the guilty wretches, who were then greatly heated by the wines.

The Carancahuas, however, though surprised, instantly seized their weapons, and yelling furiously, met their assailants with determined courage. With such superior numbers, they were a full match for Long. The combatants soon came to a hand- to-hand fight of doubtful issue; but Long directed his men in a masterly manner and effected a retreat to his boats, leaving thirty-two Indians killed, three of his own men dead, and two badly besides several slightly wounded. George Early was severely wounded. Long's party took two Indian boys prisoners, and retained them, one of whom was aceidentally killed some time afterwards. This is doubtless the first engagement known between the war-like Carancahuas and the Americans.

THE FIRST CONTEST WITH THE COLONISTS.

The first two schooner loads of immigrants to Texas, under the auspices of Stephen F. Austin, landed on the west bank, three miles above the mouth of the Colorado, late in March, 1822, having left New Orleans on the 7th of February. The first of the two vessels to arrive was the schooner Only Son, owned by Kincheloe and Anderson, two of the immigrants, and commanded by Capt. Benjamin Ellison, who made many subsequent trips to our coast and died at his home in Groton, Connecticut, July 17, 1880. [The writer met him at his own home in 1869 and 1870, and found him to be a refined and elegant old Christian gentleman. with

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INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

kind recollections of the early pioneers on our coast, and yet retaining a warm interest in the wel- fare of Texas. ] Among those arriving on the Only Son were Abram M. Clare, from Kentucky, who, till his death about forty years later, was a worthy citizen; Maj. George Helm, of Kentucky, who died on the eve of leaving to bring out his family, one of whose sons, John L. Helin, was afterwards Governor of Kentucky, while another is the venerable Rev. Dr. Samuel Larne Helm, of the Baptist Church, still of that State ; Charles Whitson and family, James Morgan and family ; Greenup Hayes, a grandson of Daniel Boone, who did not remain in the country ; Mr. Bray, who settled at the mouth of Bray's bayou, now Harrisburg, and his son-in-law. While in Galveston Bay a number of the colonists died of yellow fever, before reaching Matagorda Bay. Among those who arrived by the other vessel were Sambel M. Williams, afterwards so long Secretary of Anstin's Colony, and Jonathan C. Peyton and wife, Angelina B .. a sister of Bailie Peyton of Tennessee, afterwards the wife of Jaeob Eberly, by which name she was widely known and esteemed throughout Texas, till her death about 1860. These personal facts are mentioned in justiee to those who were the first of our countrymen to cross the gulf and seek homes in the wilderness of Texas - the first, in that mode, to vindicate the grand conception of the already deceased Moses Austin, at the very moment that his son and suc- cessor, Stephen F. Austin, was encountering in San Antonio de Bexar the first of a long series of obstacles to the proseention of the enterprise - an enterprise in the fruition of which, as time has already shown, was directly involved the welfare of two and a half millions of people now on the soil of Texas, besides indirectly affecting other vast mul- titndes now resident in California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona. The politico- economical aspect of this question would fill a volume in following the march of our raee from Jamestown, Plymouth and Beaufort to the present time, both interesting and edifying to the highest order of political philosophers; but its discussion does not fall within the scope of this work.

These immigrants, leaving a small guard with their effects, somewhat aided by a few persons who had settled on and near the Colorado. within the present bounds of the connties of Colorado aud Fayette, moved up in that portion of the wilderness. James Cumming, Jesse Burnham, and a few others constituted the infant settlements referred to at that time.

Before leaving their supplies under guard those

savages of the coast, thie Carancahuas, * had visited the immigrants, professed friendship, and entered into a verbal treaty of good will. But, in keeping with their instincts, as soon as the families and main strength of the party bad been gone sufficiently long, they clandestinely assailed the camp - the guard escaping more or less wounded - and seized its contents. On learning this a party marched down and chastised a small encampment of the Indians, giving them a foretaste of what they real- ized, when too late, that they must cither in good faith be at peace with the Americans or suffer an- nihilation. Thirty years later their once powerful tribe -long thie seourge of wrecked vessels and their crews - was practically, if not absolutely, extinct. This was the first blood shed between the settlers and the Indians.

The Carancahuas were both treacherous and troublesome, often stealing from the settlers and often firing upon them from ambush. The earlier colonists living in proximity to the coast were greatly annoyed by them. But there is no reliable account of many of their earlier depredations. About 1851 a small volume was published, purport- ing to consist of letters by an early settler in the section mentioned to a friend in Kentucky, giving current accounts of events from 1822 to about 1845, when in fact they were written by another, and a stranger in the country, from the verbal recitals from memory of the assumed author. The gross inaccuracies in regard to events occurring mueh later, especially in 1832 and 1840, neecssarily weaken confidence in his statements in regard to earlier ocenrrences. We must, therefore, be con- tent with more or less imperfect summaries of the conflicts with the Carancahuas for the first few years of the colony.

Among the first of which any account has been preserved was an attack from ambush by these savages npon three young men in a canoe in the Colorado river. in the spring of 1823. The locality is now in Colorado County. Loy and Alley ( the lat- ter one of several brothers ) were killed. Clark, their companion. escaped to the opposite bank, severely but not mortally wounded. On the same day another young man named Robert Brotherton was fired upon and wounded by them, but escaped on horseback to convey the news to the settlers above, these two attacks being near the mouth of Skull creek.

* I follow the correct Spanish spelling of the names of the Texas Indian tribes, giving also the correct pro- nunciation Thus, Caran-ca-hna, pronounced Kar-an- ka-wah. There has been no uniformity in the orthography of these names among American writers. All, however, will agree that there should be.

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

This was Robert Brotherton from St. Louis County, Missouri, of which his two brothers, James and Marshall, were successively sheriff, from 1834 to 1842. Robert died unmarried at Columbus, Texas, about 1857, leaving his estate to his nephew, Joseph W. MeClurg, who, after a short residence in Texas, returned to Missouri, to become later a congressman and Governor of the State.

A party of the settlers, numbering fourteen or fifteen, by a cantious night march arrived at the Indian camp in time to attack it at dawn on the following morning. Completely surprised. the Indians fled into the brush, leaving several dead. This was on Skull creek, a few miles from Columbus.

The depredations of the Carancahuas continued with such frequency that Austin determined to chastise and if possible force them into pacific behavior. [Having left San Antonio very uncx- pectediy for the city of Mexico in March, 1822, to secure a ratification of his colonization scheme by the newly formed government of Iturbide, the original concession of 1821 to Moses Austin having been made by the expiring authorities under Spain, Austin was now, in the summer of 1824, at his new home on the Brazos, clothed temporarily with authority to administer the civil and judicial affairs of the colony, and to command the militia with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. ] Capt. Randall Jones, in command of twenty-three men, in the month of September, moved down the Brazos in canoes. On the lower river he was visited by some of the Indians who, on secing his strength, manifested friendship. But learning that about thirty warriors of the tribe were encamped on a tributary of the Bernard, about seven miles distant, and also that about a dozen others had gone to Bailey's, further up the river, to buy ammunition, Capt. Jones sent two messengers up the river for help. These two found a small number already collected to watch the party at Bailey's. Becoming assured of their hostile intent, the settlers attacked them, killed several and the others fled.

Without waiting for reinforcements. Capt. Jones determined to attack the party on the creek. Crossing to its west side he moved down in the night abreast the Indian camp, which was on the 'margin of a marshy expansion of the ereck, covered with high grass, reeds, ete. At daylight the whites fired. charging into the camp. In a moment the Indians were secreted in the rank vegetation, hurl- ing arrows with dangerous precision into their exposed assailants. In another moment one or two of the whites fell dead, and several were wounded.

To maintain their position was suicidal ; to charge. upon the hidden foe was madness; to retire as best they could was the dictate of common sense. This they did, pursued up the creck to where they recrossed it. They had three men killed, bearing the names of Spencer, Singer, and Bailey, and several wounded. It was claimed that fifteen Indians were killed, but of this there was no assurance when we remember the arms then in usc. Be that as it may, it was a clear repulse of the whites, whose leader, Capt. Jones, was an expe- rienced soldier of approved courage. Such a result was lamentable at that period in the colony's infancy. It was this affair which caused the name of "Jones" to be bestowed on that creek.

Soon after this the Carancahuas, a little above the mouth of the Colorado, captured an American named White and two Mexicans, in a canoe, who had gone from the San Antonio to buy corn. They let White go under a promise that he would bring down corn from the settlement and divide it with them - the canoe and Mexicans remaining as hos- tages. When White reported the affair to the people above, Capt. Jesse Burnham, with about thirty men, hastened to the spot agreed upon, and . very soon ambushed a canoe containing seven or eight Indians, nearly all of whom were slain at the first fire, and it was not certain that a single one escaped.

Col. Austin, near this time. raised about a hundred volunteers and marched from the Brazos southwesterly in search of the Carancahuas. Some accounts say that he went to meet them, at their request, to make a treaty. Others assert that he started forth to chastise them, and that after crossing the Guadalupe at Victoria he mnet inessen- gers from the Indians, sent through the priests of Goliad, proposing to meet and enter into a treaty with him. This is undoubtedly the true version. Austin started prepared and determined to punish the Indians for their repeated outrages, or force them to leave the limits of his colony. Had he only gone in response to their invitation, he would not have taken with him over a dozen men. He met them on the Menahuilla ereck, a few miles cast of La Bahia, and, being much persuaded thereto by the clergy and Alealde of that town, made a treaty with them, in which they pledged themselves never again to come east of the San Antonio river. More than one writer has been led to assert that the Carancahuas kept that pledge. which is notoriously untrue, as they committed occasional depredations cast of that river at inter- vals for twenty-one years, and at other intervals lived at penec with settlements, hunting and some-

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

times picking cotton for the people. In 1842 they were living on the margins of Matagorda Bay. often seen by the author of this work, while during the : ucceeding December, with the Somerveil expedition, he saw perhaps a dozen of the tribe on the banks of the Rio Grande. The last Ameri- can blood shed by them was that of Capt. Joba F. Kempen, in Victoria County, whom they mur- dered in November, 1845. [Vide Victor M. Rose's History of Victoria County, page 21.]

Austin's movement was a wise one. It con- vinced those unfaithful creatures that the Ameri- cans had become strong enough to hold the country and punish their overt acts. They had formerly been partially under the influence of the mission- aries, and still had their children baptized by the priests who stood somewhat as sponsors for them in the treaty, probably a stroke of policy mutually understood by them and Col. Austin, as sure to have no evil effect, and with the hope that it might exert a salutary influence, as it doubtless did. We must not forget that those were the days of infancy and small things in Texas.

, As to the number of Indians in Texas in its first American settlement, we have no reliable statistics. The following semi-official statement, published in the Nashville (Tenn. ) Banner of August 1, 1836, is deemed authentic as far as it goes : but it does not include those tribes or portions of tribes - as for instance the Comanches - pertaining to Texas, or south of the Arkansas river and west of the 100th degree of longitude west of Greenwich : -

MR. EDITOR - As the public mind has been and still is somewhat excited with regard to the situa- tion of our western frontier, and the State being now under a requisition of Gen. Gaines for a regiment of mounted gun men to maintain its defense, I have thought it would not be uninter- esting to the public to know the names and numbers of Indian tribes on that frontier. The statement is taken from an estimate accompanying a map of survey showing the geographical and relative posi- tions of the different tribes, which was prepared at the topographical bureau during the present year, which I have not yet seen published.

The names and numbers of the Indians who have emigrated to the west of the Mississippi : ---

Choctaws 15,003

Apalachicolas 265

Cherokces 5,000

Creeks 2,459

Senecas and Shawnees. 211

Senccas ( from Sandusky) 231

Potowatomies 141

Peorias and Kaskaskias 132

Pienkeshaws 162

Wees. 222

Ottoways 200

Kickapoos 470

Shawnees 1,250

Delawares 826

The names and numbers of the Indian tribes resident west of the Mississippi : -

Iowas 1,200

Sacs. of the Missouri. 500

Omahas 1,400

Ottoes and Missourians 1,600

Pawnees 10,000

Comanches

7,000

Mandons

15,000

Mineterees 15,000

800

Crees. 3.000

Crosventres 3,000

Crows 45,000

Sioux 27,500

Quapaws 450

Caddos

800

Poncas

800

Osages

5,120

Konsas

1,471

Sacs

4,800

Arickaras

8,000

Chazenes.

2,000

Blackfeet

30,000

Foxes 1,600

Areelpas and Keawas.

1,400

There is re: remaining east of the river in the Southern States a considerable number: the five principal sites are the Seminoles, Creeks, Chero- kees, Choctaws and Chickasaws.

Seminoles. ver remaining east. 2,420

Choctaws, Te: remaining east. 3,500

Chickasaws. re: remaining east. 5,420

Cherokees. re: remaining east. 10,000

Crecks, yet === sining east .. 22,668

Those store i ss western tribes extend along the whole westers frontier. And taking as truc the opinions of the department, that the average number of &= Indian family is four, it may be scen what number of warriors. by possibility, might be brought into Le tield. and what number on the other hand ='zes be required to keep them in check.

By publishing the foregoing statement, you will oblige your ? == ble servant,

THOMAS J. PORTER.

Assinaboins

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CHIEF AT HOME.

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INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

At that time there were in East Texas the Chero- kees and their twelve associate bands of United States Indians, embracing portions of the Dela- wares, Shawnees, Kickapoos, Alabamas, Coosh- attes, Caddos, Pawnees, and others.

There were also remnants of ancient Texas Indians - some almost extinct - such as the Achaes, Jaranenies. Anaquas, Bedwias - still formidable bodies of Carancahuas, Taxahuas, Lipans, Tahnacarnoes, Wacos, Wichitas, Keechies, Ionies, Towdashes, and others, besides the still principal tribes of the Comanches, Kiowas and

to their west the Apaches, Navajoes, and others more strictly pertaining to New Mexico, but often depredating in Texas, as did the Mescalaros and other tribes from beyond the Rio Grande hailing from Coahuila and Chihuahna. .

Our work is hereafter confined to events after the American settlements began. It covers the period from 1822 to 1874, fifty-two years, and much is untold, but the early struggles in every part of this State are given as illustrations of what the pioneers of Texas suffered.

Mrs. Jane Long at Bolivar Point - 1820.

Bolivar Point lies, green and inviting, a high point of land in sight of Galveston. It seems to say to pleasure-seekers, " Come and visit me. I have shady groves, fresh breezes, and in the season fine melons and fruits to offer, but there are events of historic and romantic interest connected with me, which add tenfold to my attractiveness." Yes, truly, seventy-six years ago Bolivar was the scene of events now known to comparatively few, except per- haps members of old Texas families, who have heard them related by the remarkable woman who there displayed a heroic devotion and courage rarely equaled in modern times.

First we see her, in the year 1815, at Natchez, Miss., with sun-bonnet hiding her clustering curls, and school satchel on arm, as she wends her way to the academy. The same day she meets, for the first time, Dr. Long, who has just distinguished himself in the battle of New Orleans, where he won from Gen. Jackson the sobriquet of "The Young Lion." The stream which separates simple acquaintance from passionate love was soon crossed, and the boy surgeon of twenty and Jane Wilkinson, the school girl of fifteen, became husband and wife. A few years of quiet domestic life, and the adven - turous spirit and manly ambition of the soldier assumed full sway over a mind which could not be content with the peaceful pursuits of the farmer, nor yet with the humdrum traffic of the merchant, which Long successively engaged in after his marriage.

Mexico was struggling to be free from Spain, and in 1819 Gen. Long became the leader of a gal- lant band of men raised in Natchez for the purpose of wresting that portion of Mexico called Texas

from the Spanish yoke. Through the many excit- ing scenes incident to a soldier's life in this almost unknown country, Mrs. Long followed her husband, content if she could but be near him. In 1820 she found a resting place in a rude fort at Bolivar Point, fortified and provisioned by Gen. Long before his departure for La Bahia, or Goliad. Here the adoring wife long awaited a return, of whose impossibility her boundless faith would not allow her to conceive. As time wore on, and no news of the General's fate arrived, Bolivar was deserted by the two men who constituted the guard. Although several vessels touched at the point for the purpose of conveying Mrs. Long to New Orleans, she, with her little daughter and negro servant girl, Kian, determined, at all hazards, to await her husband's return.

When we look upon the Galveston Island of to- day, with its city rising from the sea, its market gardens and dairy farms, its beach gay with costly equipages, and surf noisy with the shouts of bathers, It is difficult to recognize in it the Galveston Island of seventy-six years ago. At that time, deserted even by the pirate Lafitte, the red house and the three trees the only objects that rose above the water's edge, the cry of seagulls and pelicans. mingled with the dolefui sighing of breaking waves, the only sounds to reach the ear of the brave woman who kept her louely watch at Bolivar, as we view the incoming ships, laden with freight from every quarter of the globe, and the sailing yachts bearing pleasure parties perhaps to the very spot whence Mrs. Long often strained her eyes to desery a dis- tant sail which might bring good tidings, it is

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Indian wars and pioneers of Texas, Vol. I, Part 1

Author: Brown, John Henry, 1820-1895 Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Austin : L.E. Daniel] Number of Pages: 922

Author: Brown, John Henry, 1820-1895
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Austin : L.E. Daniel]
Number of Pages: 922