Friends and Allies: the Tonkawa Indians and the Anglo-Americans, 1823-1884" (1981)
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University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Great Plains Quarterly Great Plains Studies, Center for Summer 1981 Friends And Allies: The Tonkawa Indians And The Anglo- Americans, 1823-1884 Thomas W. Dunlay University of Nebraska Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly Part of the Other International and Area Studies Commons Dunlay, Thomas W., "Friends And Allies: The Tonkawa Indians And The Anglo-Americans, 1823-1884" (1981). Great Plains Quarterly. 1904. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/greatplainsquarterly/1904 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Great Plains Studies, Center for at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Plains Quarterly by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. FRIENDS AND ALLIES: THE TONKAWA INDIANS AND THE ANGLO ..AMERICANS, 1823 .. 1884 THOMAS W. DUNLAY Historical models of Indian-white contact on and inexorable decline, during which they were the frontier emphasize conflict and hostility, forced into increasing dependence on the yet historians are not unaware that whites and whites for survival. For the military forces of Indians interacted in many different ways in Texas and the United States, the Tonkawas' different regions and time periods. Even in assistance meant a sometimes decisive improve cases of Indian-white conflict, it was not at all ment in their ability to cope with the Coman uncommon to find Indians fighting beside the ches and other tribes of the southern plains. whites against other Indians, often greatly The reason for the Tonkawas' peculiar enhancing the capabilities of the white forces. relation to the whites lay in their status in rela Some tribes were notable for their long-stand tion to other tribes in the region. According to ing alliance with whites against other Indian eighteenth-century Spanish officials they were tribes; examples include the Catawbas of South "disliked and even abhorred" by other Indians, Carolina, the Pawnees of Nebraska, the Wyo although they were sometimes included in ming Shoshonis led by Chief Washakie, and the alliances of convenience. In the nineteenth Crows of Montana. century Captain Randolph Marcy described A particularly striking example is the Ton them as "renegades and aliens from all social kawa tribe of Texas, whose military cooperation intercourse with the other tribes." Captain with the Anglo-Americans, though intermittent, John Ford of the Texas Rangers noted that covered more than half a century. For the they were the "black beasts" of the Brazos Tonkawas it was a period of repeated disasters River Reservation in the 1850s, blamed by the other tribes located there for causing, through sorcery, various unfortunate occurrences. Even in the twentieth century older members of Dr. Thomas W. Dunlay is the editorial assistant for the Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expe various southern plains tribes described them as dition project sponsored by the Center for witches.1 Great Plains Studies. His book, Indian Scouts Why was this small, nomadic hunting tribe and Auxiliaries, has been accepted for publica in such bad repute with its neighbors? The tion by the University of Nebraska Press. obvious and often-cited reason was their known 147 TONKAWAS on the Southern Plains in the Nineteenth Century r---------; I canaai~~1 I /-"q" I Ft. Ell iott. : I I I I I I I I I I I I _...J ,,i Original Range I of Tonkawas V t N Western Extent of Indian Territory 0 mi les 1bo in Oklahoma FRIENDS AND ALLIES 149 cannibalism. There are enough accounts from especially before the Civil War, was often glad eyewitnesses to confIrm beyond reasonable to have the help of friendly Indians. Those doubt that the Tonkawas did, on occasion, Texans par excellence, the Rangers, won many have ceremonies in which they ate portions of of their victories with the help of Indian scouts their dead enemies, undoubtedly for religious and fIghting auxiliaries. The Lipan Apaches, as purposes. For this reason, members of various well as the Tonkawas, were frequent allies of tribes asserted, they killed Tonkawas when the Rangers in the days of the Republic; Cap the opportunity offered, especially if they tain Jack Hays, the first great Ranger captain, believed one of their kinsmen had recently charged a band of Comanches in company been devoured by the abhorred tribe. Every with the Lipan chief FIacco. The most artic man's hand was against them, and their hand ulate of Ranger leaders, John S. "Old Rip" was agamst. every man. 2 Ford, freely acknowledged the value of the Yet there may have been an element of Indians' services in his victory over the Coman hypocrisy and rationalization in this attitude. ches north of the Red River in 1858. If these The Comanches evidently found the Tonkawas' allies do not fIgure largely in the histories of habits tolerable when the two tribes were the Rangers, it may be because they do not fit allies against the Apaches in the 1700s. The in well with the myth of the heroic frontiers Comanches and other tribes of Texas were ac man.4 cuse4 of similar practices, though the evidence The situation was by no means unprece is not clear. It seems fairly certain that the dented. From colonial days frontier Indian Karankawas of the Gulf Coast, believed to be fIghters had found it necessary both to adopt linguistically related to the Tonkawas, also ate Indian fighting methods and to secure the aid human flesh. Perhaps the Tonkawas were of other Indians, trained from childhood in particularly blatant and enthusiastic in their skills that few whites, starting later in life, anthropophagy, and perhaps they clung to could fully learn. There were always some it in a period when other tribes were giving it whites on the frontier who recognized Indians up. Some historians suggest that the special as individual people. The good Indian was not hatred for the Tonkawas arose from their necessarily a dead one; he might also be an assistance to the whites, rather than vice versa, Indian on the side of the whites. The attitude yet the attitude apparently existed in the was not so much, perhaps, one of Hawkeye eighteenth century when the Tonkawas were Chingachgook comradeship as one of pragmatic by no means on friendly terms with the Spanish. cooperation for mutual advantage. Yet the In any case, once they were established as unrelenting "Indian-hater," who made no pariahs and scapegoats, the common attitude distinction between tribes, was generally less apparently supplied its own confIrmation: knowledgeable and less successful, even in persecution no doubt prompted responses that combat, than the man who could come to some in turn seemed sufficient justifIcation for sort of agreement with some Indians. further persecution.3 Clearly the Tonkawas were cooperating with The white response to the Tonkawas is the whites fairly frequently by the 1830s. equally interesting because of its contrast with They were scouts for the Texas army in the war present-day preconceived images of frontiers with the Cherokees in 1839, and they played men and their relations with Indians. The leg a distinguished part in the victory over a endary Westerner supposedly believed that the massive Comanche raiding party at plum Creek only good Indian was a dead one, and the in 1840. They entered the latter engagement storybook Texan, in particular, never bothered on foot, running beside the Texan horsemen, to count the number of Indians he had killed. and emerged mounted on Comanche horses. Examination of the facts, however, suggests They sometimes served as scouts against Mexi greater complexity. The Texas frontiersman, can forces in the same period, and Texans may 150 GREAT PLAINS QUARTERLY, SUMMER 1981 have encouraged them to attack Mexicans on hundred thirty-seven Tonkawas reportedly their own. A traveler in the Republic in 1842 died, including Chief Placido, who had fre reported that the Tonkawas "are of much quently led his warriors against other tribes for service as spies, and always give the alarm when the whites. The massacre may have been either the Camanches [sic 1 come in.,,5 in revenge for the alleged eating of a Caddo Yet this cooperation and battlefield com boy or the result of the Tonkawas' Confed radeship was always interwoven with mutual erate sympathies. In any case, it is likely that suspicion and fear and with conte~pt on the the participants paid off a number of old part of many whites. In the 1820s Stephen scores.8 Austin forced Chief Carita to flog five of his After this disaster the remaining Tonkawas tribesmen for stealing. There were always seem to have split temporarily. A portion re episodes where whites, justly or not, accused mained in Indian Territory and scouted for Tonkawas of. stealing food or livestock, or Confederate Chickasaw Indian cavalry. The worse. Rip Ford reported an episode of 1849 in remainder returned to Texas, asked to be which two Tonkawas were accused of eating a allowed to live there, and offered their services white man. They admitted the act but excused to the state against the Comanches. Some state themselves on the ground that he was not really and Confederate authorities found the idea a white man, but a German-an indication that attractive, among them John R. Baylor, who a the Indians had picked up their white neigh few years earlier had been the leader of the bors' prejudices to the extent of trying to play movement to remove the reservation Indians. on' them. When all reservation Indians were He now assured the Tonkawas that he wanted driven from Texas in 1859, the Tonkawas to avenge the death of his old friend, Chief had to go, although many Rangers and experi Placido.9 enced frontiersmen doubted the justice or the Texas was in need of the Tonkawas' services, wisdom of the move, or the accusations of for the Confederacy never was able to provide crime that prompted it.6 adequate frontier defense, and the state suf By the late 1350s the Tonkawas were coop fered from the general decline of the currency.