Captured By The Apache: A Treaty Is Made And The Army Stays At The Village

Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas! We're in a series about the Wild West and the 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.

This is not a pro-Indian nor a pro-white man story. Both sides committed atrocities. The Apache were being decimated by the loss of their main food, shelter and clothing source, the buffalo, and they were being hunted by the army so they were on a war footing and fighting for their very existence. To them it was kill or be killed.

They hated the white man for all the destruction and death he had brought to them. But this story is being told from a white boy's perspective while living with the Apache. This ain't no Little House On The Prairie tale, this is a chunk of gritty, hard reality from those turbulent, often violent times.

In the last post Hermann had been raiding his old neighborhood with his tribe and part of his group had killed whites but he still hasn't had to do that directly.

However, the last fight they had before returning home was with some cowboys and two of them were killed. Hermann didn't say if he had a part in that or not.

Today's story

At any rate, the next raiding party went out and Hermann stayed in camp. When the chief, his so-called adopted father, returned he had two white scalps hanging from his belt and said that two families had been killed. They also captured and brought a young white boy with them.

Just like the other white boy from the last post Hermann didn't say how the boy was treated. Changes were happening though. The tribe made a treaty with the United States government and soldiers would show up and stay at their camp for days at a time.

I'd never heard of the Army doing that. I'd always read that the soldiers would show up and force a move to a reservation, not come and stay at the village. That sounds very risky.

It's always scary when the Feds show up

Nevertheless they were there and whenever they showed up Hermann was kept hidden in the forest with another white boy, I assume it was the one captured by that last raiding party.

Staying hidden was fine with Hermann because by this time he was afraid of the white man. That's how brain-washed he'd become! But the other boy kept coming back into camp to try and contact the Army.

Actually, I don't know why they didn't let the kid contact the Army if he wanted to. I suppose they thought the army would punish them for stealing white kids and it would change their treaty.

But anyway, the Indians kept catching him and finally one of the leaders, Snapping Turtle, took the kid out into the forest, tied him to a tree and left him there with no food and water and he died. Poor kid.

The Army relaxes their watch

After three months of staying or visiting the village consistently the Army figured things were pretty calm, nothing was happening, and the Indians weren't causing any trouble so they stopped coming around as much.

That's when Hermann's band decided to get out of there, they hadn't agreed to any treaty anyway. So they were out enjoying the freedom of the Plains once again...hunting and killing deer, wild sheep and occasional bear down in New Mexico territory.

An area in the New Mexico mountains which the Apache stayed:

source

It's remarkable that in just 6 months or so Hermann had been transformed into an Apache warrior and the transition was so complete that he was now afraid of white men!

In the next post Hermann barely escapes execution and a plague is stopped by natural medicine.

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