Hill Country Indians

Inset of mural by Nola Davis, courtesy Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

History did not start with the arrival of the European Settlers because Native American peoples had lived in the Hill Country for more than 12,000 years before the first White Man came to Texas.

County	Town	Name	Description
		Overview	History did not start with the arrival of the European Settlers because Native American peoples had lived in the Hill Country for more than 12,000 years before the first White Man came to Texas.
		Battles
Bexar	San Antonio	Council House Fight	The Council House Fight occurred on March 19, 1840 in San Antonio when peace negotiations between the Comanches and the republic of Texas broke down over the issue of European captives. It was a pivotal point in the deteriorating relations with the Comanches.
Caldwell	Lockhart	Battle of Plum Creek	The Battle of Plum Creek must be seen in the context of the Council House Fight and the Great Raid of 1840 to understand its great significance. Following the Council House Fight, Buffalo Hump led a large band of Comanche warriors and raided from West Texas to the coast the Gulf of Mexico. The battle was a running gun fight between the Comanche warriors and militia and Texas Rangers that took place near Lockhart, Texas on August 12, 1840.
Kendall	Sisterdale	Battle of Walker Creek	The Battle of Walker's Creek was a turning point in the struggle between the Indians and the Texas Rangers. Before Samuel Colt invented the Patterson “five-shooter” revolver, the Rangers were at a decided disadvantage against the Indians because their weapons were single-shot. While a Ranger was reloading, a well-trained Comanche could have five or six arrows in the air toward him. The Paterson revolver was first used in the pivotal battle of Walker’s Creek on June 8, 1844. After this battle, warfare would never be the same. The Paterson changed everything and the pendulum swung in favor of the Rangers.
		Battle of Little Robe Creek	The Battle of Little Robe Creek, also called the Battle of Antelope Hills, took place on May 12, 1858. It actually was a series of three distinct encounters that took place on a single day, between the Comanches on the one side, and Texas Rangers, Militia, and allied Tonkawa Indians attacking them. It marked the first time American or Texas Ranger forces had penetrated the Comancheria as far as the Wichita Mountains, and Canadian River, and it marked a decisive defeat for the Comanches.
		Captives
		Cynthia Ann Parker	Cynthia Ann Parker, a white captive woman of the Comanches, was married to he famous Petu Nocona (he who travels alone and returns) of the Noconi band, and she was the mother of Quanah Parker, the last Chief of the Comanches. She was recaptured re-captured never embraced white society, and after the death of her daughter she starved herself to death.
		Indian Captives	From prehistoric times, the indigenous Indian populations captured other people as a means of replacing warriors lost in battle and acquiring wives and children. Occasionally those captured were held for ransom or tortured as a means of revenge. With the European exploration and settlement of North America, the pool of individuals that were available for capture by the Indians was greatly expanded.
		Chiefs
Kendall	Sisterdale	Yellow Wolf	Rather little is known about the Comanche chief named Yellow Wolf, who was killed at the battle of Walker Creek on May 31, 1844 at the confluence of Sister Creek and the Guadalupe River, near the present day town of Sisterdale. This battle was a decisive victory for the Texas Rangers, and forever changed the battle tactics of the Comanches.
		Iron Jacket	IIron Jacket, variously called Po-hebitsquash, Pro-he-bits-quash-a, and Po-bish-e-quasho, was a Comanche chieftain and medicine man to whom the Indians attributed the power to blow approaching missiles aside with his breath. He was the grandfather of Quanah Parker. He died in the Battle of Little Robe Creek on May 12, 1858.
		Peta Nocona	Peta Nocona, an important Comanche chief between the 1830s and the early 1860s in Texas, was present at the Fort Parker Massacre in which Cynthia Ann Parker, was captured. Peta Nocona married Cynthia Ann Parker and their first son was Quanah Parker. Peta Nacona's band was ambushed and massacred by Texas Rangers under Sul Ross at the Battle of Pease River.
		Quanah Parker	Quanah Parker was the last Chief of the Quahadi Comanche Indians, and his tribe roamed over the area where Pampa now stands. Although he was never captured by the Army, he decided to surrender and lead his tribe into the white man's culture because he saw that there was no alternative. His was the last tribe in the Staked Plains to come into the reservation.
		Raids
Kendall	Boerne	Indian Raids in Kendall County	Like many early settlements in the Texas Hill Country, the area around Boerne experienced its share of Indian raids. Some of these raids simply frightened the settlers and only affected their property, but others were quite deadly.
Kendall	Curry Creek	The Curry Creek Raid of 1855	Two brothers, Jesse and John Lawhon, came with Judge Jones to Curry Creek. Jesse was overseer for Judge Jones but he was killed by Indians in 1855.
Kendall	Curry Creek	The Curry Creek Raid of 1868	On October 28, 1868 a band of Indians raided the Curry Creek area. They first appeared at Mr. Ammond's on the Guadalupe River, killing some stock and carrying off others. On the following day a company of Texas Rangers, commanded by Captain John W. Sansom, hunted all day for the Indians. In the evening found where the Indian raiders had crossed Curry's Creek, and the settlers were notified to be on guard.
Kendall	Boerne	The January 1862 Comanche Raid	In January of 1862 a group of twenty-five or thirty Comanche raiders began a rampage starting seven miles northeast of Boerne on Wasp Creek, and extending all the way to the George W. Kendall ranch, horth east of Boerne. Five settlers were killed.
		The Great Raid of 1840	The Great Raid of 1840 was the largest raid ever attempted by Comanche Indians on European settlements in the United States. It was undertaken as revenge for the Council House Fight. The Comanche war chief Buffalo Hump gathered a huge war party and raided deep into the white-settled areas of Southeast Texas.
		Settlements
Bexar	San Antonio	Pavo Real Site	The Pavo Real site is a stratified multi-component archeological site located on the east bank of Leon Creek near Loop 1604 in northwest San Antonio. Excavations at this site indicate long-term Paleo-Indian (12000-7000 B.C.) and Archaic (7000 B.C.-A.D. 500) occupations.
		Tribes
		Apache Indians	Several branches of Apache tribes occupied an area extending from the Arkansas River to Northern Mexico and from Central Texas to Central Arizona. Two groups, the Lipans and the Mescaleros, lived partially or entirely within the confines of Texas.
		Comanche Indians	The Comanches were Southern Pains Indians who played a prominent role in the history of Texas throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. They were excellent horsemen and ferocious fighters, who raided European settlers and surrounding Native American villages. Their culture and ultimate survival required open access to the land and the huge herds of buffalo, which brought them in to protracted conflict with the Anglo settlers.
		Kiowa Indians	The Kiowa Indians were hunters living at the sources of the Yellowstone and Missouri rivers in present Montana. They took the first step toward becoming Plains Indians by learning to ride the horse and by hunting, on horseback. About 1790 the Kiowa Indians made a lasting peace with the Comanches and with them traded horses and captives, and undertook attacks on the frontiers of the southwest and Texas.

General Information

History did not start with the arrival of the European Settlers because Native American peoples had lived in the Hill Country for more than 12,000 years before the first White Man came to Texas. The last half of the nineteenth century is a highly romanticized period of American history, but too little attention is given to the violent conflict that erupted as white settlement moved westward across the state and encroached on the domains of the Kiowas, Comanches, Apaches, and other Plains Indians.

On both sides of this epic conflict there were great commanders, such as Robert E. Lee of the U. S. Army and the great Comanche chief, Quanah Parker. The bravery and endurance of these men must be understood in the larger context of a half-century of conflict and warfare between two cultures that ultimately could not co-exist. The final outcome of this conflict was never seriously in doubt and the European culture displaced the Native American culture, which caused the character of the Texas Hill Country to change forever.

· Indian Battles - The Indians in the Texas Hill Country were involved in a number of significant battles with the Texas Rangers and the U.S. Cavalry. Many of these battles were pivotal in the ongoing struggle between the Native American and European cultures.

· Indian Captives - The Plains Indians, including the Kiowas, Comanches, Apaches, and other tribes, routinely made captives of other Indians and also of Anglo, German, and Spanish settlers. These captives were quickly integrated into the tribes of their captors, and many resisted efforts to return them to “civilized” society.

· Indian Chiefs - The Plains Indians, had a number of outstanding chiefs that led their warriors on raids through the Texas Hill Country, and fought valiantly, if unsuccessfully, against the U. S. Cavalry and Texas Rangers in the last half of the nineteenth century.

· Indian Raids - The Plains Indians, though initially somewhat accepting of the European and Spanish settlers, inevitably came into conflict with the strangers in their hunting grounds and turned to warfare against them.

· Indian Settlements - Since the Indians in the Texas Hill Country were generally nomadic hunter gathers, their settlements tended to be transitory rather than permanent. However some sites were used repeatedly over many thousands of years.

· Indian Tribes - At the time of the arrival of European settlers, there were many Indian tribes in the Texas Hill Country. The balance of power among the tribes was in constant flux, with the Comanches having become dominant by the late 1500s.

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REFERENCES

· Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "Indians," http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/II/bzi4.html (accessed August 25, 2007).

· David La Vere, The Texas Indians. (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2004).

Compiled from various sources by

Joe Cooper

Voices of the Texas Hills

Kendall County, Texas

Created: August 25, 2007

Updated: August 28, 2010