Part 2: Johnson Searches For His Family In Indian Territory

Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas! I started a short story yesterday about a black slave in North Texas who was a cowboy in 1864 when his son was killed and his wife and two young daughters were kidnapped by a Kiowa War Party.

The reason I wanted to do this story is because the cowboy, Britt Johnson, is black, was a slave, was a full time cowboy running a ranch, and he demonstrated extraordinary courage and resolve in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

Hollywood messes up another story

It's amazing that Hollywood and TV has ignored the black cowboy role in founding the Old West. In fact, while I was researching this story and wondering why it hadn't been made into a movie I found out that it HAD been.

Yeah, but in true Hollywood fashion at the time, they took a great story and refashioned it in their vision. In this instance they of course had to have a white man play the main role! In this case it was John Wayne.

The movie was made in 1956 and is called The Searchers. It's one of his most well known movies and was directed by the great John Ford. But in the movie the hero was searching for his niece who had been kidnapped not by Kiowa but by Comanches.

Here's a screen shot from The Searchers:

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I have nothing against John Wayne, he was a great American but I think the real story is much more dramatic and compelling. Anyway, that's just an interesting tidbit I discovered about Johnson's story. The movie is a good one though.

Okay, now back to Britt Johnson. After his wife and daughters were taken in the fall of 1864 he stayed home during the winter, obviously preparing for his search come Springtime.

What would you do?

That is so hard to imagine, just having to wait around, isn't it? I mean, I don't know about you but I'd be like..Dying time's here! As I cleaned and loaded my guns. He's lost EVERYTHING.

But then hopefully I'd have people stop me and remind me that if I got killed I wouldn't be able to ever rescue my family!

Johnson gathered supplies and weaponry in the Spring and set out, BY HIMSELF. He had a Henry lever action rifle, 2 six shooters and other supplies, probably some valuable stuff for trading.

Here's the type Henry rifle he used, it held 16 shots so that was the best rifle money could buy at the time:

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He searched the reservations as well as settlements in the open country.

At this time most tribes were supposed to be on reservations but with the army fighting in the Civil War this left the Western Territories mostly without soldiers, so the tribes took advantage of the situation to go off the reservation, many of them continuing to fight.

It was a very perilous time to be traveling alone, especially into Indian lands alone. I'm sure he was advised against it by everyone he knew. It wasn't long before he met a Comanche on the trail and they rode together. Then it wasn't long before that Comanche met up with others and Johnson rode with them too.

Comanche war party. Thank God he was friends with them.

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He became friends with them and they let him travel around the territory undisturbed. I think they admired his courage. He would search for months and then go back home. Then he would head back out.

His trips back and forth were numerous but he finally found his family with the Kiowa. Luckily his Comanche friends helped him with the negotiations because the Kiowa were very difficult to deal with, very "wily" would be a good way to put it.

One chief of the Comanche by the name of Esihabitu became a major part of the negotiations and made the release happen. I'm sure there were a lot of goods exchanged also.

In an interesting side note, this chief became very well known around the country because he was one of the chiefs who were escorted to Washington, D.C. to see the city and meet with the president. You can imagine his shock when he saw the bustling city and infrastructure?

Because of this trip he went back home and convinced his nation to end their war with the whites, which had gone on for about 40 years.

Here's his photo:

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It took over a year and who knows how many miles ridden and ordeals suffered but Johnson finally had his wife and daughters back, thanks to his relentless drive and the help of his Comanche friends.

After a time Johnson and two of his black friends formed one of the few black companies back then, a freight hauling company. And they were good at it, they were succeeding. This in itself was amazing because at that time after the Civil War blacks were greatly discriminated against. But these guys went ahead and did their own thing.

The ambush

However...in a cruel twist of fate...one day while they were taking a wagon train load of goods across Texas they were attacked by a war party of Kiowa. It was estimated that there were 25 of them.

Johnson and his two friends were all killed. When another wagon train came upon the scene Johnson's body was found near his horse which was dead, he had used his horse as a shield to fire his rifle behind. They found an amazing 173 rifle bullet casings around Johnson, he had put up a heroic fight to the death.

I was also surprised that the war party only had 25 warriors. Johnson and his friends had to have taken their toll but the warriors were not driven off so they were fearless as well. Remarkable.

Thanks for reading folks!
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck

PS- ya know....you might just be a redneck if your gas tank sprung a leak but you done fixed it yurself:

lol! God bless you all!