Captured By The Indians: A True Story Of Courage And Perseverance

Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!

As many of you know, I'm a big fan of history, especially about the American Wild West and the "settling" of the frontier.

I have to put the word settling in quotes because of course it was already occupied by indigenous peoples and SETTLED well enough in their eyes.

This country had been occupied by Indians for thousands of years and suddenly the white man shows up and thinks he discovered a new land! lol.

I apologize, I'm already off track. What I was saying is that I like to tell stories about the Old West and I have a good one that I'm starting today.

The practice of kidnapping enemies

Many whites were kidnapped by the Indians in the 1800's but not many told their stories after they came back to their own race, if they chose to do so. Many chose to stay with their tribes whom they became members of.

The tribes took prisoners for different reasons, and it wasn't just whites. Sometimes it was to replenish their numbers.

Normally when that happened a young person, male or female, would be taken and held as a slave but would eventually be able to work their way into full tribe membership.

This is the type of story I have for you in this series. It's about a young boy named Herman Lehmann, his story was narrated to a friend in 1927 when Hermann was an old man and his friend wrote it down word for word.

Hermann was 11 years old when he was captured by an Apache raiding party from his family's farm near Fredericksburg, Texas in the year 1870.

The Apache generally wore large head bands and some wore hats:

source

Willie and Hermann are taken captive

One day in May Hermann and his little brother Willie, age 8, were sent out into the wheat field with their sister Caroline who was about 9 years old and little Gusta who was 2 years old. They were sent out by their mother to scare away the birds.

They got out into the wheat field and sat down to play when suddenly they were surrounded by a terrifying sight.

Hermann didn't give details about the paint but this was a fairly common design:

source

A group of Indians with painted faces! Caroline jumped up and ran for the house and the Indians fired a couple of shots and she fell to the ground motionless. They all thought she was dead, including the Indians. He found out later that she had just fainted, probably lucky for her.

They grabbed Willie before he could get away but Herman dashed away. Unfortunately the chief, Carnoviste, caught him.

Hermann put up the fight of his life

Has anyone ever caught a wild cat? If you have then you can visualize what happened next. Hermann fought like a wild animal..scratching, biting, punching, kicking, squirming, twisting. He was about to get away when another brave showed up and knocked him down.

They grabbed him while he was faced down, one holding his legs and the other holding his arms and swung him back and forth so his chest and face were hitting the rock and gravel that were in that spot and flung him into the air.

This was truly miserable

When he landed he was half conscious and his hands and feet were bond and all his clothes had been stripped off of him, and his hat of course. They threw him onto the back of a horse face down and he could see that little Willie was in the same situation.

The Indians wasted no time in getting out of there. So there they were. Hermann had been beaten, choked, slapped, and knocked unconscious.

Now he was face down, bound with leather cords, buck naked with the sun blistering his skin and the mesquite thorns and catclaws tearing at them as they rode on for hours.

We'll continue Hermann's painful but exciting story in the next post.

Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all.

PS- ya know...you might just be a redneck if:

The last photos of your momma were taken from the front and the side! lol.