Council House Fight
| Council House Fight | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of the Indian Wars | |||||||
| |||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||
| Texan Rangers Militia | Comanche all bands | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
| Hugh McLeod, Captain Howard | Muk-wah-ruh | ||||||
| Strength | |||||||
| Approximately 100 | 33 chiefs, and 32 family members and/or retainers | ||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||
| 7 killed, 10 wounded, virtually all from friendly fire | 33 killed and 32 caught and imprisoned in what the Comanche call a massacre | ||||||
The Council House Fight was a conflict between Republic of Texas officials and a Comanche peace delegation which took place in San Antonio, Texas on March 13, 1840. The meeting was conceived as taking place under a negotiated truce with the purpose of (on the Comanche side) obtaining presenting and recognition of the boundries of the Comancheria, and on the Texas side, the release Texan and Mexican hostages who had been captured by the Comanche in recent years. The event ended in the deaths of every Comanche chief who had come to San Antonio under a flag of truce. This incident hardened Comanche hostility to Texans for years to come.
Background
By 1840, some of the Comanche had determined that white settlers could not be driven from their homes. The Comanche had successfully driven the Apache from lands previously. In the spring of 1840, thirty-three Comanche Chiefs responded to an offer to meet with the leaders of the Republic of Texas at San Antonio and talk peace. These chiefs hoped to negotiate a recognition of the Comancheria as the sovereign land of the Comanche. Other chiefs, such as Buffalo Hump, warned that the whites could not be trusted.
The treaty talks were to be held at the Council House in San Antonio. The Comanche Chiefs, who believed they were negotiating in good faith, arrived without their lance, axe, bow, or firearm, as they understood ambassadors should be unarmed. Their only weapon was a belt knife.[1] The Texans, however, had as a precaution concealed a large number of heavily armed militiamen and rangers outside the Council House with orders to fire into the structure, if the doors and windows were thrown open.[2]
Differing Cultures
A reason for part of the problem with the Council House fiasco was that the Texas Officials with the exception of Sam Houston never totally grasped the reality that the Comanche were not a unified nation in the sense that Europeans were. There were at least 12 divisions of the Comanche, with bands of them roaming about, with as many as 35 independent bands at one time or another. [1] Each operated essentially like a separate people. Lee Sultzman said it best in his history of the Comanche: [2]
- “The entire situation sounds insane unless it is remembered that Comanches were not a unified tribe, but numerous independent divisions, each with the power to make war or peace.”
This failure to be a unified tribe allowed the various independent divisions to hold captives and refuse to honor agreements to return them. For instance, chiefs Buffalo Hump and Peta Nocona never agreed in any way, shape, or form, to return any captives. Both had European blood captives in their bands at the time of the Council House Fight, and neither had any intention of giving them up, since most of them were being incorporated into the Comanche, who made little distinction between birth and adopted members of the tribe.[3] Indeed, in his history of the Comanche, Sultzman said that one reason for the explosion in the population of the Comanche as a people after their separation from the Shoshoni was their wholesale incorporation of captured women and children into the tribe.[4] .
Long before the Texans found the Comanche to be a major barrier to settlement of the Great Plains, the Spaniards had actually found them so formidable as to completely block expansion of Spanish New Mexico across the Comancheria.[3] Equal to the Texas misunderstanding of the nature of the social structure of the Comanches was the Comanche failure to understand the social structure and determination of the Texans. The Comanche had held the Spanish colonies in check by ruthless raiding, and ferocious cruelty. They grew used to the presents given them by the Spanish and French, and even the Americans in their first encounters with them. They were totally unprepared for the willingness of the Texans to mobilize their people to fight the Comanche as settlements began to steadily inroad onto the Comancheria.
Differing Expectations for the Peace Talks
The failure by each party to grasp the essential nature of the other did much to lead to the tragedy of the Council House. The Comanche peace chiefs expected the same kind of treaty which they had made with the Spanish. These treaties allowed some of the 35 or so bands of the Comanche to trade peacefully, while others continued their ruthless raiding and horse-stealing.[5] The peace chiefs expected the normal presents they were given at such events, and they expected to make speeches, and return a captive or two. While it is true they had some additional captives to return, they thought it was understood that they could no more bind chiefs such as Buffalo Hump or Peta Nocona than they could the wind. Equally, the Texans had been given specific orders not to give the normal presents, indeed, the Secretary of War for the Republic had issued specific orders that such not be given. [6]
Thus, each party approached the talks with totally different beliefs on what they could accomplish, and what they would have to do for the talks to succeed. [3]
It is notable that had the Texans ever negotiated a treaty with all the Comanche where the Comancheria had been recognized, it would have stood, and led to the return of the captives that were at the heart of the Council House disaster. Sam Houston and Buffalo Hump almost succeeded in such a treaty. In August 1843, a temporary treaty led to a ceasefire between the Comanches and the Texans, and in October the Comanches agreed to meet with Houston and to try to hammer out a treaty similar to the one just concluded at Fort Bird. In 1844, Buffalo Hump and other Comanche leaders signed a treaty at Tehuacana Creek in which they agreed to surrender white captives and cease raiding Texan settlements. In exchange, the Texans would cease military action against the tribe, establish more trading posts, and recognize the boundary between Texas and Comanchería.[7] Comanche allies, including the Wacos, Tawakonis, Kichais, and Wichitas, also agreed to join in the treaty. However, the boundary provision was deleted by the Texas Senate in the final version, which soon prompted a resumption of hostilities. [3]
Such a scenario, where differing expectations, with neither side able or willing to give up what the other wanted, led to the Council House Fight.
The Council House Fight
The Texan officials began the treaty talks with demands that the Comanche considered impossible, including that the Comanche return all white prisoners. This included people such as Cynthia Ann Parker, who were held by bands of the Comanche not represented at the talks. The instructions to the Texan militia were explicit: Albert Sidney Johnston, Secretary of War, wrote Lieutenant Colonel William S. Fisher, commanding the 1st Regiment of Infantry:
- "Should the Comanche come in without bringing with them the Prisoners, as it is understood they have agreed to do, you will detain them. Some of their number will be dispatched as messengers to the tribe to inform them that those detained, will be held as hostages until the Prisoners are delivered up, when the hostages will be released."[8]
The Comanche chiefs at the meeting had brought along one white captive, and several Mexican children who had been captured separately. The white captive was Matilda Lockhart, a 16-year-old girl who had been held prisoner for over a year and a half. According to witnesses, including Mary Maverick, who helped care for the girl, she had been beaten, raped and suffered burns to her body. Her face was severely disfigured, with her nose entirely burned away.[9]
The Texan leadership was enraged. The Comanche chiefs said that they had other captives available for return, which was corroborated by Matilda Lockhart. When the Comanches would not, or could not, return all captives immediately, the Texas officials said that chiefs would be held hostage until the white captives were released.[4] As the Comanche drew their knives and attempted to escape, militia in hiding threw open the doors, and began firing in at the astonished Comanches. Fighting back with only their knives, the Comanches inside were killed outright.[5] The two dozen or so family and retainers outside had bows, but were swiftly killed or made prisoner.[4]
Differing perspectives
Through the years, it has appeared from the written records left, that the Republic of Texas officials had one goal in mind at San Antonio, and that was to regain the hostages held by the various bands of the Comanche. The Texan command had received orders in advance from Albert Sidney Johnston, Secretary of War for the Republic of Texas, to seize the Comanche peace delegation if all prisoners held by the entire Comanche tribe were not brought to the Council House.[4] Due to the chaotic nature of the Comanche hierarchy, this was impossible. There were 12 formal divisions, and dozens of smaller bands, with none having any authority over the others, so the visiting Comanche delegation in fact had no ability to effect an overall captive return.[4]
The aftermath
- Main article Great Raid of 1840.
- Main article Battle of Plum Creek.
The twelve bands of Comanche had been raiding settlements of the Mexicans, Spanish, and Texas Settlers for hundreds of years. The Comanche had controlled the southern plains, most of Texas, Oklahoma, part of Kansas and New Mexico since at least 1700. They made a regular business of selling captives back. [3] The events at the Council House virtually guaranteed that those captives still held would not be returned by the Comanche.[5]
The war chief Buffalo Hump was determined to exact revenge. The result of the Council House fight was at least 25 settlers killed in the Great Raid, with others taken prisoner. Hundreds of thousands of dollars of goods were taken, and one city burned to the ground and another damaged. Without a peace treaty in 1840, the ensuing years saw countless settlers and Native Americans killed. It was another three decades before the last of the Comanche came in.[10] The results of the Council House fight were decades of bloodshed on both sides.[3]
See also
Notes
- ^ Comanche, Texas Indians.
- ^ University of Texas Handbook.
- ^ a b c d e The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement: A Century and a Half of Savage Resistance to the Advancing White Frontier. Arthur H. Clarke Co. 1933.
- ^ a b c d University of Texas. Cite error: The named reference "UTx2" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ a b The Comanches: Lords of the Southern Plains. University of Oklahoma Press. 1952.
References:
Online sources:
- Dawn Donalson, Buffalo Hump.
Bibliography
- Bial, Raymond. Lifeways: The Comanche. New York: Benchmark Books, 2000.
- Brice, Donaly E. The Great Comanche Raid: Boldest Indian Attack on the Texas Republic McGowan Book Co. 1987
- "Comanche" Skyhawks Native American Dedication (August 15, 2005)
- "Comanche" on the History Channel (August 26, 2005)
- Dunnegan, Ted. Ted's Arrowheads and Artifacts from the Comancheria (August 19, 2005)
- Fehrenbach, Theodore Reed The Comanches: The Destruction of a People. New York: Knopf, 1974, ISBN 0394488563. Later (2003) republished under the title The Comanches: The History of a People
- Foster, Morris. Being Comanche.
- Frazier, Ian. Great Plains. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1989.
- John, Elizabeth and A.H. Storms Brewed in Other Men's Worlds: The Confrontation of the Indian, Spanish, and French in the Southwest, 1540–1795. College Station, TX: Texas A&M Press, 1975.
- Jones, David E. Sanapia: Comanche Medicine Woman. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974.
- Lodge, Sally. Native American People: The Comanche. Vero Beach, Florida 32964: Rourke Publications, Inc., 1992.
- Lund, Bill. Native Peoples: The Comanche Indians. Mankato, Minnesota: Bridgestone Books, 1997.
- Mooney, Martin. The Junior Library of American Indians: The Comanche Indians. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1993.
- Native Americans: Comanche (August 13, 2005).
- Richardson, Rupert N. The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement: A Century and a Half of Savage Resistance to the Advancing White Frontier. Glendale, CA: Arthur H. Clark Company, 1933.
- Rollings, Willard. Indians of North America: The Comanche. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1989.
- Secoy, Frank. Changing Miliitary Patterns on the Great Plains. Monograph of the American Ethnoligical Society, No. 21. Locust Valley, NY: J. J. Augustin, 1953.
- Streissguth, Thomas. Indigenous Peoples of North America: The Comanche. San Diego: Lucent Books Incorporation, 2000.
- "The Texas Comanches" on Texas Indians (August 14, 2005).
- Wallace, Ernest, and E. Adamson Hoebel. The Comanches: Lords of the Southern Plains. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1952.