Hermann's Village Is Attacked By Soldiers And The Tonkawa

War party:

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

We're in a series about the Wild West and the incredible story of an 11 year old German boy, Hermann, who was captured by an Apache war party from his family's farm in 1870 in Central Texas.

He's now 17-18 years old at this point in the story and has become a full blown warrior who hates and fears the White man. And in fact, has taken many a scalp. He's been with the Comanche for a couple of years now.

Yesterday's post

In the last post Hermann made it home after a narrow escape of outrunning a pack of bloodhounds and we talked about an attack on a group of cowboys.

Today's story

Hermann's band went on a hunt for horses down by the area close to where he was taken captive so many years before. Or at least it seemed like so many years, it felt like a lifetime ago. Down by Fredericksburg which is just West of Austin, Texas.

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But anyway, most of the band was in this raiding party and they gathered a large herd of horses from the hard-working homesteaders and ranchers in the area who were kind enough to do all the work of raising them for the Indians.

I'm being sarcastic of course! The only thing worse than being killed or captured by the Indians was having your livlihood stolen from you. And the Apache and Comanche were experts at that task!

An ambush on their village

All was going well but when they got back to their base camp they were shocked to find that the camp had been attacked by soldiers and the hated Tonkawa Indians.

In previous posts I talked about the long, bloody history of bad blood between the Comanche and the Tonkawa.

The Comanche hated the Tonkawa for being cannibals and for helping the white man and the Tonkawa hated the Comanche for driving them off their lands in West and Central Texas.

By the way, it wasn't just the Comanche, but many tribes hated the Tonkawa because of their cannibalism.

So anyway, when the attack happened the women grabbed the children and fled but five of the women were killed. Several more women and children were taken captive by the soldiers.

The other women who'd escaped were found by the warriors and they told the story of what happened. The most heart-breaking murder was of one of their great warriors who was older.

He fought to the death

His name was Batsena. He had stayed and fought while the others ran for safety. There were many empty rifle cartridges scattered around so they knew he had put up a good fight and killed or wounded some of the enemy. His body had been mutilated and scalped.

But what enraged the warriors was that his beautiful, 18 year old daughter had stayed by his side and they were horrified when they saw her mangled body. She'd been cut all to pieces, mutilated and scalped.

Her name was Nooki. This savagery was the work of the hated Tonkawa.

This is a photo of the chief in charge of the Tonkawa scouts working for the army in Texas under General MacKenzie. His name was Johnson. I wouldn't trust this guy as far as I could throw him.

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I'm not saying he was on this raid or anything, I just don't like his looks. Or the way his scouts treated others. Like butchering or eating them. Equally disgusting is that the U.S. Army was okay with it.

Their rage knew no bounds

The warriors swore revenge on the whites and the Tonkawa. They swore to avenge the death of their squaws and especially Nooki. They would kill a white woman for each year of her age, which was 18, and they would mutilate every one of them.

Some of the warriors wanted to attack the settlements immediately and start their bloody revenge but first they had to move their camp in case more soldiers came, and they had to gather their forces.

Hermann's saga continues on the next post.

Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy
Texas

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