Captured By The Apache: Tough Negotiations But Peace Reigns
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.
Recap
For Hermann it's been the Wild Wild West! The kid has been through an awful lot in a short period of time but has proven himself to be a tough little warrior even though he's been forced into it. In yesterday's post his tribe was badly defeated in battle, losing their horses and almost all their women were taken.
This resulted in calling for help from all the Apache tribes who came together from all over the country to go to war with the Comanche.
However, once they were gathered together, some of the chiefs, including Victorio, argued for the Indians of all nations to band together and fight the Palefaces, who were the more serious threat against all tribes.
Today's story
Well, of course there were great discussions about it for a few days and then it was decided that all Indians should unite in one great force to exterminate the whites. The treaty was agreed to with the Comanches and it included the return of the women and children.
Not so fast
Hermann's tribe along with the many other Apache who had joined up with them moved their camp to within 3 miles of the Comanche village since war had been avoided and they were supposedly on the same side now.
The warrior with the Black Shield
One day a Camanche warrior appeared and rode around the Apache camp.
From the way Hermann described him he looked fierce, terrifying and magnificent all at the same time..galloping with his hair, feathers, and horse's main blowing in the wind as he rode, and a cloud of dust flying up from the horse's hooves. His face painted black.
To Hermann it was a fearsome sight, like Death Rides A Horse type of image. The whole camp dropped what they were doing and went to the edges to watch in silence.
His description was actually similar to this painting:
The Comanche held up a black shield and circled the camp. Hermann was told that it was a challenge to fight. If the Apache wanted to fight(even though they had just signed a peace agreement) the Apache would send out a warrior with a red shield.
But the Apache had agreed not to fight so they raised a white flag. Then the Comanche used sign language to say that if the Apache would send out 6 warriors, that they would send 6 Comanche warriors and the 12 would meet half-way between camps and fight to the death.
I don't know about those Comanche boys, they didn't sound like they wanted peace very badly did they? The Apaches got 6 of their warriors together and they were ready to fight, Hermann said they were foaming at the mouth to fight!
Tough negotiators!
Not so fast though. The Comanche sent word that if the camp would send out the men who cut holes in that warrior's arms and strung him up in that tree, then everyone could have peace. Well, Hermann's so-called dad was one of them along with a couple others.
So they did what any good negotiator would do.. they lied! They told the Comanches that the men who had done that had been killed in that battle which the Comanche had so nobly won.
Lying for a good cause
The Comanche then honored the word of the Apache, believed them, said everything was cool then, and agreed to return the women and children.
Think of the bloodshed those guys prevented by lying like a dog! lol. So the women and children were finally returned EXCEPT the Apache made it clear that old no-nose should stay with them, the Comanche, Hermann's tribe didn't want her. The Comanche agreed and they adopted her.
In case you didn't see yesterday's post, a squaw who had committed adultery had been punished by having her nose cut off. She had rescued a captured Comanche and ran off with him to their tribe so she was considered a betrayer.
Also, the Comanche kept some of the young maidens because they wanted them for wives so the maidens stayed with them. (I wonder if any of those maidens WANTED to stay?)This also helped to strengthen their treaty by intermarrying between the two nations.
In the next post I'll talk a little about the great chief Victorio and what lies ahead for the tribes.
Thanks for reading folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy
Texas
the gentleman redneck
PS- ya know...you might just be a redneck if:
Dinner may or may not have tire tracks on it!
Whatever means to achieve peace is good - lying, cheating... anything to avoid deaths and bloodshed.
Howdy sir Vincent! I tend to agree with you and especially in this situation it was clearly a no-brainer choice!
Living in peace is such a complicated thing. The photos you find to go with each day's story are wonderful. Exactly how I am imagining it must look.
Howdy Melinda! well when you make a peace deal and they immediately challenge you to go to war ...that sounds complicated to me too. lol. But we never did understand the way the tribes thought. I just thought it was interesting that they kept giving them chances to fight if they still wanted to!
Thanks so much about the photos, I spend WAY too much time looking for ones to use. There's lots of great ones but most I can't fit into the story and that gets frustrating.
How has your day been going?
I take my own photos and that's hard enough choosing. I've looked for other peoples shots for things and i thought i would go crazy with all the time it takes! Haha. :)
ha! yay! someone who knows exactly what it's like. lol. So true about that and most photographers say they spend forever playing around with their photos trying to get things perfect and with the high quality that so many have I can see why. I hardly ever take any so at least I don't have to try and get it perfect!
I have a routine with preparing to take photos and editing so that makes it easy. I got the sense of that interestingly enough from a former Air Force pilot who told me about the check list that all pilots and flight crews from the ground up do before any plane leaves the ground. When i take care of all the routine set up stuff i can take the photos and just have fun with it and not be somewhere great and find out i forgot a memory card or forgot to charge the battery! :) Whether they look good or anyone likes them is a whole other ballgame. I'm glad i don't have to scour the internet for photos. That's a lot of work haha!
Howdy today sir rossfletcher! oh that's a great idea to have a check list, very efficient! And it's saved you some grief I imagine!
I just made a post about my day! It's snowing like crazy out there at the minute! I think it is going to be a good evening to snuggle in and watch a movie!
Pictures take the most time for me, too. I spend far to much time with them..... Partly because I love looking through them and reminiscing.
Snowing? No way! well I guess that makes interesting post material at this time of year!
wow. ok well I'll be over there directly.
yes pictures are wonderful but soak up everyone's time playing around with them. lol.
Lying for a good, for a peace. But in the end who we are to judge
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Howdy zirochka! well in this case it was definitely the thing to do so I agree with them,
I would have lied too in order to save lives!
And the moral of the story is; if at first, you don't succeed, lie! It's always worked well for me anyway;)
haha! Howdy deirdyweirdy! Hey sometimes it's the only thing to do! Look at the trouble they avoided in just this instance. I should have a moral of the story each post!
I think i need to take a class in diplomacy. It should be a major in Universities. How to get everyone the most of what they want in the most comfortable way without getting everyone killed!
P.S.What happens if the guy they hurt see's the Apache chief and the rest of them aren't dead? Oh oh!
I got this thought about the Indians fighting each other. It was familiar. They had a great amount history, respect, and understanding of it and also glory in it. There wasn't the same thing in some regards with attacking the paleface
Howdy sir rossfletcher! haha! yes diplomacy can save alot of lives if you know how to do it right!
That's a great question about the guy seeing the chief and others who strung him up. I bet the chief and them avoided that guy somehow. Great point!
It would be interesting to talk to an American Indian historian and ask him what the differences were in fighting the palefaces compared to the other tribes. That would be extremely interesting. In fact I need to find an American Indian historian anyway.
I just read about a pole that they took among Native Americans and they prefer to be called American Indians instead of Native Americans, at least most of them prefer it.
It just dawned on me that they would know the Apache lied if they wanted to. No nose could have verified it easily. They might have just gone along with it as a good idea. Something along the lines of we did offer to fight them for honor. We set our terms and they don't want to fight us. We are more powerful and could kill them if we want to but we have a bigger common enemy... so we're going to let it slide because were bigger, tougher AND smart :)
Oops. I didn't take into account the other Apache tribes. Still it does seem that overall they kept it small between the 2 groups not wanting to blow it up to the entire larger tribes/nations.
hey that's very true sir rossfletcher! How could I have forgotten about no-nose? unless she was always kept in the Comanche camp and never saw any Apache. But I can see them looking at it the way you described it. Are you part Indian? lol.
Tense time in the village. Thank goodness for age-old lying :)
Certainly must have been hard to accept their tribe's murders as husbands for those ladies. The women seem to get stuck in that sutuation in a lot of cultures.
Howdy ginnyannette! yay for lying! lol. It sure saved a bunch of trouble in that case.
Oh you mean the maidens that they Comanche kept for wives? Yes and the Apache women were
supposed to be good wives to the men who killed their people? yeah that would be hard to take.
I don't think the women had much in the way of rights in those tribes. Like you said, they were stuck.
Thank god for modern times.
👍👍💖🙏
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Morning janton, lying works haha. Anyway that poor squaw without a nose was not a happy lady and who wouldn't be after that terrible atrocity. Heaven help the palefaces if the Indians had listened to Victorio, the history books would be very differently written.
Howdy angiemitchell! Oh I know, I feel sorry for that lady who got her nose cut off, that would be terrible. But, she did find a home with the other tribe so it worked out well.
Victorio had a great idea and all the tribes in the country should have done that.
Yep, so easy to look back at history and be the strategists, lol.
Haha! very true. What do they say? Hindsight is 20/20!
if only we could have hindsight to guide us! haha.
Hermann must be happy to have peace..if only for a short time. Strange to unite and then want to fight. ..but they have their customs and raised to be warriors.
Howdy tonight redheadpei! yes they did things differently that we can't understand that's for sure! This is a great reminder to head over to your blog, thanks!
It seems warring is in their blood.
Thanks for always commenting on my posts, Cowboy! Appreciated. Your are a good friend. 💕
Howdy again redheadpei! yes those two tribes in particular were warrior tribes. You are very welcome, I miss a few now and then but I try to catch all of them, I'm spending more time working outside so I'm missing people's posts and falling behind!
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