Council House Fight

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Council House Fight
Part of the Indian Wars
The Plaza and the Council House in San Antonio
Date March 19, 1840 Location San Antonio, Texas Result Texas Victory
Belligerents
Texas Rangers, Militia	Comanche all bands
Commanders
Hugh McLeod, Captain Howard	Muk-wah-ruh
Strength
Approximately 100	33 chiefs and warriors, and 32 family members and/or retainers
Casualties and losses
7 killed, 10 wounded, virtually all from friendly fire	35 killed and 29 caught and imprisoned in what the Comanche call a massacre

v • d • e Texas-Indian Wars Fort Parker – Battle of Neches – Council House Fight – Great Raid of 1840 – Plum Creek – Battle of Bandera Pass – Antelope Hills – Little Robe Creek – Pease River – 1st Adobe Walls – Trial of Satanta and Big Tree – North Fork of the Red River – 2nd Adobe Walls

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 19, 1840. The meeting was conceived as taking place under a negotiated truce with the purpose of (on the Comanche side) obtaining recognition of the boundaries of the Comancheria, and on the Texas side, the release of Texan and Mexican hostages who had been captured by the Comanche in recent years. The event ended in the death of 30 Comanche leaders who had come to San Antonio under a flag of truce.[2] This incident hardened Comanche hostility to Texans for years to come.

Contents 1 Background 2 Battle 3 Captives 4 Aftermath 5 Footnotes 6 References 7 Sources 7.1 Online sources 7.2 Bibliography

[edit] Background

Texas officials, with the exception of Sam Houston, did not understand that the Comanche were not a unified nation in the sense that Europeans were.^[1] There were at least 12 divisions of the Comanche, with as many as 35 independent roaming bands.^[2] Each operated essentially like a separate people.

The absence of a unified tribe allowed the various independent divisions to hold captives and refuse to honor agreements to return them. Chiefs Buffalo Hump and Peta Nocona never agreed to return any captives, instead often incorporating them into the Comanche, who made little distinction between birth and adopted members of the tribe.^[3]

The Comanche underestimated 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 in their first encounters with them. They were unprepared for organized resistance from the Texans as settlements began to steadily encroach onto the Comancheria.^[1]

By 1840, some of the Comanche had determined that white settlers could not be driven from their homes as they had driven the Apache from lands in the past. In the spring of that year, 33 Comanche leaders 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.

On January 10, 1840, three Comanche chiefs brought a Mexican captive to San Antonio to discuss the possibility of a peace treaty.^[4] They explained that the Comanche had held a general council in late December and had chosen a chief to discuss peace terms with the Texans. The military commandant in San Antonio informed that them a treaty would only be discussed if the American captives agreed, and the chiefs promised to return with the remaining captives. They were given presents as they left.^[5] 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.^[6] 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.^[7]

Although the Texians had broken previous treaties with the Comanche^[1], they distrusted the Comanche for also breaking treaties. The Republic of Texas Secretary of War ordered three companies of soldiers to go to San Antonio and prepare to seize the Indians as hostages if they again failed to release their captives. Adj. General Hugh McLeod and Colonel William G. Cooke were chosen to be the negotiaters, and they were instructed not to present gifts to the Comanche.^[5]

[edit] Battle

The Comanche arrived in San Antonio on March 19. Expecting only discussion and bargaining at the council, the 12 chiefs brought women and children as well as warriors. They were dressed in finery with their faces painted.^[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 talks were held at the council house, a one-story stone building adjoining the jail on the corner of Main Plaza and Calabosa (Market) Street.^[5] During the council, the Comanche warriors sat on the floor, as was their custom, while the Texans sat on chairs on a platform facing them.^[10] Lockhart had informed them that she had seen 15 other prisoners at the Comanche's principal camp several days before. She maintained that the Indians had wanted to see how high a price they could get for her, and that they then planned to bring in the remaining captives one at a time.^[11]

The Texans demanded to know where the other captives were. The Penateka spokesman, Chief Muguara, responded that the other prisoners were held by differing bands of Comanche. He assured the Texans that he felt the other captives would be able to be ransomed, but it would be in exchange for a great deal of supplies, including ammunition and blankets. He then finished his speech with the comment "how do you like that answer?"^[10] The Texan militia entered the courtroom and positioned themselves at intervals on the walls.^[12] 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.^[13]

The interpreter warned the Texan officials that if he delivered that message the Comanches would be forced to fight. He was instructed to relay the warning and left the room as soon as he finished translating. The angry chiefs began shooting arrows and using their knives to fight their way out of the room. Texan soldiers opened fire, killing both Indians and whites. The Comanche women and children waiting outdoors began firing their arrows after hearing the commotion inside. At least one Texan spectator was killed. When a small number of warriors managed to leave the council house, all of the Comanche began to flee. The soldiers who followed again opened fire, killing and wounding both Comanche and Texans.^[12]

Armed citizens joined the battle, but could not always differentiate between warriors and women and children since all of the Comanche were fighting.^[14] However Gary Anderson declares in his book The Conquest Of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing In The Promised Land, 1820-1875 that such "confusion" between Native American men and women was convenient to the Texans, who used it as an excuse to kill women and children.^[15] According to the report by Col. Hugh McLeod, written March 20, 1840, of the 65 members of the Comanches' party, 35 were killed (30 adult males, 3 women, and 2 children), 29 were taken prisoner (27 women and children, and 2 old men), and 1 departed unobserved (described as a renegade Mexican).^[16] Seven Texans died, including a judge, sheriff, and an army lieutenant, with ten more wounded.^[14]

A Russian surgeon surnamed Weidman helped to treat the citizens who had been wounded in the fight. Weidman was also a naturalist and had been assigned by the czar of Russia to make scientific observations about Texas and its inhabitants. Two days after the battle, San Antonio residents discovered that Weidman had decided to take the heads and bodies of two Indians to Russia. To obtain the skeletons, he had boiled the bodies in water, and dumped the resulting liquid into the San Antonio drinking water supply.^[17]

[edit] Captives

The day after the fight, a single Comanche woman was released to return to her camp and report that the Comanche prisoners would be released if the Comanche released the 15 Americans and several Mexicans who were known to be captives. They were given 12 days to return the captives. On March 26, a white woman, Mrs. John Webster, came into town with her three-year-old. She had been a Comanche captive for 19 months and had just escaped, leaving her 12-year-old son with the Indians.^[18] Two days later, a band of Indians returned to San Antonio.^[19] Leaving the bulk of the warriors outside the city, Chief Isanaica (Howling Wolf) and one other man rode into San Antonio and yelled insults. The citizens told him to go find the soldiers if he wanted a fight, but the garrison commander, Captain Redd declared that he had to observe the 12-day truce. Redd invited the Indians to come back in three days, but, fearing a trap, Isanaica and his men left the area.^[14] Another officer accused Redd of cowardice for refusing to fight, and they both died following a duel over the insult.^[20]

On April 3, when the truce deadline had ended, another band of Comanches appeared again to bargain for a captive exchange. They had only three captives with them, including Webster's son Booker, a five-year-old girl, and a Mexican boy. Booker told them that the other captives had been tortured and killed when the Comanche woman had returned to camp with news of the Council House Fight.^[19] These three captives had been spared only because they had been adopted into the tribe. They were returned after their adoptive families agreed to give them up.^[20]

The Comanche captives were moved from the city jail to the San Jose Mission, then to Camp Cooke at the head of the San Antonio River. Several were taken into people's homes to live and work, but ran away as soon as they could.^[21] Eventually, all of the Texans' Comanche captives escaped.^[19]

[edit] Aftermath

Main article Great Raid of 1840.

Main article Battle of Plum Creek.

It is important to note that of the 16 hostages the Texans were determined to recover, 13 were tortured to death as soon as the news of the Council House Fight reached the outraged Comanches. The captives, including Matilda Lockhart's 6 year old sister, were roasted alive over open fires, while being slowly tortured. Only the 3 captives who had been adopted into the tribe, and by Comanche custom were no longer white, were spared. This was part of the Comanche answer to the breaking of a truce.[3]

The Comanche were shocked and disgusted by the actions of the Texans. In his book Los Comanches, historian Stanley Noyes notes that a " violation of a council represented an almost unthinkable degree of perfidy. The council was sacred not only to the [Comanche] People but to all Native Americans".^[20] In response to the unforgivable insult, after the captives the Texans sought were killed, Buffalo Hump launched the Great Raid of 1840, leading hundreds of Comanche warriors on raids against many Texan villages. At least 25 settlers were 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.^[22] The Texan militia responsed, leading to the Battle of Plum Creek, but were unable to stop the raids.

[edit] Footnotes

[edit] References

• Brice, Donaly E. (1987), The Great Comanche Raid: Boldest Indian Attack of the Texas Republic, Austin, Texas: Eakin Press, ISBN 0890155941 
• Marks, Paula Mitchell (1989), Turn Your Eyes Toward Texas: Pioneers Sam and Mary Maverick, Centennial Series of the Association of Former Students, Texas A&M University, Number 30, College Station, Texas: Texas A&M University Press, ISBN 0890963800 
• Noyes, Stanley (1993), Los Comanches: The Horse People, 1751 – 1845, Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, ISBN 0826315488 

[edit] Sources

[edit] Online sources

• First person descriptions of the Council House Fight of 1840.
• Facsimile of Col. Hugh McLeod's report.

[edit] Bibliography

• Bial, Raymond. Lifeways: The Comanche. New York: Benchmark Books, 2000.
• "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.