The Calendar History of Kiowa Indians (Illustrated Edition). James Mooney

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      Depredations in Mexico—Mexican Captives

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      Although for obvious reasons the Indians were opposed to the establishment of roads and military posts in their country, the chief difficulty in the way of a treaty was their unwillingness to cease war on Mexico. The proposition to restore their Mexican captives met a prompt and decided refusal. As the Mexican captive element forms so large a proportion of the blood of these three tribes, the remarks of agent Fitzpatrick in this connection are of interest:

      The chief difficulty which occurred in negotiating the present treaty was not, however, presented in the article embracing the foregoing points, but in that which contemplates a cessation of hostilities against the neighboring provinces of Mexico and the restoration of prisoners hereafter captured. For a long time these tribes have been in the habit of replenishing their caballadas of horses from the rich valleys and pasture lands which border upon the Rio Grande. Yearly incursions have been made by them far into the interior of Chihuahua and Durango, and they but seldom return without having acquired much plunder, as well as many captives, from the defenseless inhabitants of that country. The name of the Comanche and Apache has become a byword of terror even in the villages and beneath the city walls of those fertile provinces. The consequences of those expeditions are twofold, for while they serve to sharpen the appetite for pillage and rapine, they also tend to keep up the numbers of the tribe. The large herds driven off produce the former result, and the prisoners captured contribute to the latter. The males thus taken are most commonly adopted into the tribe, and soon become the most expert leaders of war parties and the most accomplished of marauders. The females are chosen as wives and share the duties and pleasures of the lodge. In fact, so intermingled amongst these tribes have the most of the Mexican captives become that it is somewhat difficult to distinguish them. They sit in council with them, hunt with them, go to war with them, and partake of their perils and profits, and but few have any desire to leave them. Upon this account the chiefs of the nations refused positively and distinctly to entertain any proposals or make any treaties having in view giving up those captives now dwelling amongst them. They stated very briefly that they had become a part of the tribe; that they were identified with them in all their modes of life; that they were the husbands of their daughters and the mothers of their children, and they would never consent to a separation, nor could any persuasion or inducement move them to abate this position. All that could be accomplished was to make a provision for the future (Report, 3).

      Even this much, seems to have amounted to but little, for in the next year we find the same agent-reporting that "so far as I can learn, they have faithfully complied with the treaty stipulations, save one. It is a difficult matter to make them understand that New Mexico now belongs to the United States. They deny ever having consented not to war on Mexicans. They say that they have no other place to get their horses and mules from" (Report, 4).

      Defeat of Allied Tribes by Sauk and Fox, 1854

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      In the summer of 1854 the Kiowa, Comanche, Apache, Cheyenne, and others of the plains tribes, organized a great expedition for the purpose of exterminating the immigrant tribes in eastern Kansas, whose presence was beginning to be felt in an ominous decrease of the buffalo. Although this was perhaps the largest war party ever raised by the plains Indians south of the Sioux country, being estimated to number 1,500 warriors, they were ingloriously defeated with heavy loss by a party of Sauk and Fox numbering hardly a hundred, the result being due to the fact that the latter were armed with long-range rifles, while their enemies had only bows and arrows. Almost every old man of the Kiowa now alive was in this battle, which is famous among all the tribes of the southern plains (see the calendar).

      In the same year, according to Clark, a party of 113 Pawnee was cut off and slaughtered almost to a man by an overwhelming force of Cheyenne and Kiowa (Clark, 19). There is no record of this engagement on the calendars, although several minor encounters with the Pawnee are noted about this time.

      Hostile Drift of the Kiowa

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      Fig. 44—Dohásän or Little-bluff, principal chief, 1833—1866 (after Catlin, 1834).

      In the next few years we find little of importance recorded of the Kiowa beyond concurrent statements of both military and civil officials that they were growing constantly more insolent and unmanageable. In 1856 a war party of nearly one hundred arrived at Albuquerque, New Mexico, having passed through the center of the settlements of that territory, on their way to attack the Navaho. They were turned back by the military commander, committing several depredations as they retired (Report, 5). Two years later another large war party, together with some Cheyenne, passed Fort Garland, Colorado, almost on the great divide, in pursuit of the Ute (Report, 6).

      Defiant Speech of Dohásän

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      On one occasion, during the distribution of the annuity goods on the Arkansas, when fifteen hundred lodges of Cheyenne, Arapaho, Comanche, Kiowa, and Apache were encamped along the river, the agent took the opportunity to tell the Kiowa as plainly as possible that if they did not cease their depredations the government would not only withhold their presents but would send troops to punish them. The great chief Dohásän, after listening in respectful silence to the end, sprang to his feet, and, calling the attention of the agent to the hundreds of tipis in the valley below, replied in a characteristic speech:

      The white chief is a fool. He is a coward. His heart is small—not larger than a pebble stone. His men are not strong—too few to contend against my warriors. They are women. There are three chiefs—the white chief, the Spanish chief, and myself. The Spanish chief and myself are men. We do bad toward each other sometimes, stealing horses and taking scalps, but we do not get mad and act the fool. The white chief is a child, and like a child gets mad quick. When my young men, to keep their women and children from starving, take from the white man passing through our country, killing and driving away our buffalo, a cup of sugar or coffee, the white chief is angry and threatens to send his soldiers. I have looked for them a long time, but they have not come. He is a coward. His heart is a woman's. I have spoken. Tell the great chief what I have said (Report, СКАЧАТЬ