Amid Fire Water-Fueled Chaos The Tribe Escapes The Reservation

Apache women and children guarded by soldiers in route to the reservation. (I hope they made it there).

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Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!

We're in a series about the Wild West and the incredible 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.

He's now about 15-16 years old at this point in the story and has become a full blown warrior and is both terrified of the White man and also hates him.

In the last post his band had decided to try reservation life once again because they were worn out from all the hardships and stress of constantly being chased and hunted by the Army and the Texas Rangers.

Today's story

Ok, so Hermann's band went to stay on a reservation again since they saw few options. The problem is, bootleggers kept smuggling whiskey onto the reservation and every time they did that, fights would break out and people got killed or injured.

It was the worst rot-gut whiskey too, Hermann told his story in 1927 during Prohibition which meant that moonshiners were selling White Lightning at about 190 proof and he said what they were getting on the reservation was comparable in strength!

ANYBODY would be crazy after drinking that stuff

Well, shoot...no wonder the Indians were going crazy when they drank it. That poison would knock your hat off. The problem with drinking is that it brought out old arguments and grudges among the different bands of the tribe and they'd start arguing and fighting.

Plus add in the fact that everyone was miserable, frustrated, restless, depressed, angry, lost, and hopeless. The warriors were proud and independent and now you have them imprisoned basically.. with nothing to do.

You had these magnificent warriors who'd trained their whole lives to fight.

This is Jay Tavare, an American Indian actor, but he looks like a warrior, so you get the picture. He's probably a different type of warrior for his heritage and culture though:

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Then you add Fire Water. Gee, what could possibly go wrong?

One of the unfriendly bands came and demanded Fire Water from Hermann's group and a fight broke out in which one of Hermann's group was injured.

Well, that didn't set well with them so Hermann's bunch went over one night and helped themselves to the other band's supply of whiskey and a big fight broke out but thankfully it was broken up by soldiers.

They decided to run away again

But since they were the one's who started it, Hermann's group decided to leave the reservation again!

They figured when the punishment came down for the fighting they'd get the worst of it since they were the aggressors. But before they left they decided to go on a big drinking spree because a big shipment of Fire Water had just come in! lol.

That was crazy but I reckon they didn't want to miss out on any of the whiskey.

One last big drunken bash

Well, it was a disaster. The worst results from drinking anyone had seen. They went nuts fighting with each other. Squaws were even fighting with each other, cutting each other to pieces with knives.

One squaw got drunk and slept with another man so her husband followed the Apache tradition and cut her nose off and forced her to go live with the other man in a wigwam that was on the outer edge of the village.

After a few days, (probably to recover) Hermann's band gathered up their stuff, including grabbing the Fire Water, and lit out at night. They traveled for a day and night and then camped in a nice, wooded area.

They thought their troubles were over but they were really just beginning. Hermann's story continues on the next post.

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