Taboo Truths About the Comanche

Frotpagemagazine ^ | October 11, 2017 | Danusha V. Goska

[Midnitethecat]

I guess Ethan Edwards was right.

[razorback-bert]

The Boy Captives: (Clinton And Jeff Smith)

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1224046.The_Boy_Captives

From the Texas State Historical Association website.

SMITH, CLINTON LAFAYETTE AND JEFFERSON DAVIS. Clint and Jeff Smith were captured on February 26, 1871, by Lipans and Comanches while herding sheep near the Smith home on Cibolo Creek between San Antonio and Boerne. They were the sons of Henry Smith, a Texas lawman and rancher from Pennsylvania, and Frances Short, a native of Alabama and a member of the controversial Short clan of Fayette County, Texas. When an initial rescue effort led by the brothers’ two sisters Amanda (Lane) and Caroline (Coker) failed, Capt. Henry Smith and Capt. John W. Sansom, a cousin, assembled a large body of Texas Rangersqv and local militia, who, along with a posse led by Capt. Charles Schreiner, pursued the Indians from near Kendalia to Fort Concho in West Texas. The rescue attempt was futile, however, and for the next five years, until Clint and Jeff were returned to their families, Henry Smith offered a reward of $1,000 for each of the boys. The panoramic tale of their captivity, laced with predictable adventures, a few inconsistencies, and the names of many prominent chiefs, including Geronimo, was compiled by J. Marvin Hunter. The brothers were interviewed in their sixties after they, along with Herman Lehmann, had long enjoyed their fame as “frontier” celebrities and performers of the Old West. The book was reprinted in 1965 and again, in 1986, by Milton O. Smith and other descendants of Clint Smith. Beyond the tale of their captivity and reacculturation, both brothers led interesting lives as trail drivers, cowboys, and ranchers. Clint, who was born on August 3, 1860, married Dixie Alamo Dyche and fathered four sons and four daughters. A member of the Old Time Trail Drivers’ Association, he died on September 10, 1932, and was buried in the Rocksprings, Texas, cemetery. Jeff, handy with the fiddle and also an Old Time Trail Driver, was born on March 31, 1862, and married Julia Harriet Reed from Bandera County. They had five sons and one daughter. He died on April 21, 1940, and was buried in the Coker Methodist Cemetery in northwest San Antonio. A state historical marker was placed on Jeff’s grave in 1994.

[TADSLOS]

True dat.

[Alas Babylon!]

One of the main reasons that Anglo-Saxon Americans came to Texas in the first place was due to the Comanche.

The Spanish government at the time (not yet Mexico--before independence) could not keep settlements in the Texas area because the Comanche were so brutal they kept wiping out people.

They invited Tennesseans, in the spirit of Andrew Jackson, the great Indian fighter, to come to Texas and be given vast tracks of land if they would fight and eliminate the Comanche. They were told they could bring their slaves, create plantations, be protestant, and all the other essences of American frontier life.

It was only AFTER these men, Steven Austin, Sam Houston and such, had taken the Spanish up on these offers and made their home--and waging war on the Comanche--that the Mexican government decided they were going to force these people to accede to the Mexican dictator, Santa Ana.

They stood up to the Comanche. No way would they bow to the one-legged Mexican tyrant! The rest, as they say, is history!

[TADSLOS]

Comanche Moon

Texans know.

[exDemMom]

Not to everyone, truth is only taboo to progressives. I think it's an allergy.

Progressives see the flaws in our system, and imagine that we could have a perfect utopia if only we could get rid of our system. In order to make a belief in utopia more plausible, they point at examples of people who were almost perfect before the Europeans came along and ruined everything. They count on the fact that very few people know anything about Amerinds.

[Migraine]

Modern scholarship on Native Americans is a joke

Got that right; and one of the biggest jokes (in addition to some mentioned in this present article) is what they are now saying was the total population of the Americas, pre-Columbus.

I was a student of Anthropology in the 1960s (undergrad major and grad school special field). It was standard then to put the total population of the Americas at no greater than 10 million. The theory was that low life expectancy and warfare over livable land limited the habitability to that 10m figure. Add to that the propensity toward no-change or slow-change, the valuing of sameness over the generations of prehistory, all mitigated against innovations which might have afforded higher populations.

Look at the PC field of Anthro now. It is agenda-driven, as shown in this article, and they want to say there was a population 10x as high as we assumed 50 years ago. I think the motive is to insist that, without hated industrialization, the earth could still provide for fairly large populations if "only we would be kinder to her". I get nauseous just writing that last fatuous sentence.

My $.02

[canalabamian]

I remember reading a info blurb at The Alamo which pointed out that Texicans did not initially pursue independence from Mexico, but that Santa Anna follow the Mexican Constitution, which had been set aside as he because more dictatorial.

[Weaponier]

My family farm is less than 10 miles from Fort Parker. Growing up I remember stories of my great great grandfather and family having many conflicts with the Comanche.

One of them was of the family seeking shelter at the fort and having to fight a running battle with them trying to get to there.

[IronJack]

The Left loves its myths ...

[Tucker39]

Aren’t they the ones with chief who, as the travelled around the mountains and prairies was constantly yelling, “Where the Hekawi?”

[Popman]

Bmk

[Pete Dovgan]

It’s not simple. Certain tribes were raiders, warlike, and savage. Others like the Hopi, were not. Like any other race, or culture, the American Indians represented a spectrum. Historically, they good ones were treated badly, and the bad ones probably weren’t treated badly enough. They are people, just like any other, with all the failings and success of all humans. People can disagree, and personal experiences likely have much to do with the impressions today. Sadly, ‘savages’ often gained territory and influence, while ‘peaceful’ Indians suffered. Perhaps the greatest thing to learn from the past is how lucky we are to have a Constitutional Republic, and how much it’s worth fighting for.

[SJackson]

I remember reading a info blurb at The Alamo which pointed out that Texicans did not initially pursue independence from Mexico, but that Santa Anna follow the Mexican Constitution, which had been set aside as he because more dictatorial.

Interesting. Doubt that was the major reason, but I have heard the Siete Leyes, a "reform" passed in 1835 was a factor, but things were under way by then. Slavery. Trade, the border with the US was closed. The refusal of the Mexican government, aka Santa Anna, to protect Texans from the Noble Savages of the region. But Texans didn't attack Mexico, it was the other way around.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Most of this American Indian revisionist history began in the late 1960s and increased after the 1973 takeover at Wounded Knee.

Two of the worst movies, fun to watch but totally inaccurate, were LITTLE BIG MAN and the horrid SOLDIER BLUE.

After 1973, the American Indian could do no wrong. Movies about modern Indians showed them to have a sixth sense about nearly everything, and showed the evil White Man to be stupid. Older movies were recut to make the Indians look better. I remember seeing THE WAR WAGON on TV out of Tulsa Oklahoma. When Howard Keel says “Dumb Indians!” the sound goes off.
Anyone remember the Mazola Margarine commercials from that time?
In the early 1980s OETA, out of OKC, put on a series called IMAGES OF INDIANS, about how Hollywood has portrayed the Indians. at one point in the program they talk about Indians torturing, and one young man breaks in and says..”That’s not so! Indians NEVER did anything like that!” But the did!
About that time, National Geographic published a dig in which they found the bones of a white woman who had been scalped in the late 1500s. Letters to the editor claimed it to be false, but NG then mentioned how proof of scalping had been found in the past. NG had earlier published engravings by Theodor de Bry showing Indians dancing over the scalps and cut off limbs of their enemies.

Anyone who doubts should look at Massacre at Crow Creek, long before the evil White Man came.
http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0200/frameset_reset.html?http://www.nebraskastudies.org/0200/stories/0201_0122.html

Da*n! Now you got me started!

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Santa Anna follow the Mexican Constitution, which had been set aside as he because more dictatorial.***

Mexicans forget that when Santa Anna seized power many of the states of Mexico ceded from their union of states. He press ganged many Mayan Indians into his army and overthrew each state, then he came to the last holdout, TEXAS.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***Others like the Hopi, were not.***

They joined the 1680 Pueblo Revolt.

[MrEdd]

There also exist nineteenth century photographs of atrocities.

But the fantasy that stone age and bronze age cultures could be pacifist utopias has been an easy sell to the snowflakes.

[Skooz]

bfl

[truth_seeker]

Read books by Terry C. Johnston.