The “Centennial History of Wise County 1853-1953” by Mary Cates Moore, published by The Story Book Press in Dallas, Texas, commemorates the hundred-year history of Wise County, Texas. This volume serves as a detailed record of the county’s development from its early settlement through various significant historical events, up to the mid-20th century.
In a historic meeting on December 10, 1850, near the headwaters of Wallace Creek, Special Agent John H. Rollins forged a pivotal peace treaty with the chiefs of numerous Texas Indian tribes. This landmark agreement, aimed at establishing peace and defining relations between the U.S. government and these tribes, covers a wide array of commitments from acknowledging U.S. jurisdiction to regulating trade, ensuring mutual peace, and setting forth guidelines for the return of prisoners and stolen property. With the original treaty held in Washington and a copy in the Texas State Library, this document remains a crucial piece of history in understanding the complex relationships and negotiations between Native American tribes and the expanding United States.
The year following his failure to secure the contract, Houston spent writing letters defending his acts and denouncing the officials who had been discharged. In addition to the Indian officials, he poured his wrath and denunciation on Colonel Hugh Love, a trader on the Verdigris whom Houston accused of being in league with the Indian Agent to rob the Creeks; Love replied to Houston with some spirited charges against the latter. Stung by the contents of an article appearing in a Nashville paper, in a burst of passion Houston gave to the press of Nashville a most intemperate letter, July 13, 1831, beginning:
One of the most important Indian conferences ever held in the Southwest, occurred at Fort Gibson in 1834 for it paved the way for agreements and treaties essential to the occupation of a vast country by one hundred thousand members of the Five Civilized Tribes emigrating from east of the Mississippi; to the security of settlers and travelers in a new country; to development of our Southwest to the limits of the United States and beyond and contributed to the subsequent acquisition of the country to the coast, made known to us by the pioneers to Santa Fe and California traveling through the region occupied by the “wild” Indians who, at Fort Gibson, gave assurances of their friendship. It is true, these assurances were not always regarded, and many outrages were afterwards committed on the whites and by the whites, but the Fort Gibson conference was the beginning and basis upon which ultimately these things were accomplished.
When the treaty council with the Osage at Fort Gibson broke up in disagreement on April 2, 1833, three hundred Osage warriors under the leadership of Clermont departed for the west to attack the Kiowa. It was Clermont’s boast that he never made war on the whites and never made peace with his Indian enemies. At the Salt Plains where the Indians obtained their salt, within what is now Woodward County, Oklahoma, they fell upon the trail of a large party of Kiowa warriors going northeast toward the Osage towns above Clermont’s. The Osage immediately adapted their course to that pursued by their enemies following it back to what they knew would be the defenseless village of women, children, and old men left behind by the warriors. The objects of their cruel vengeance were camped at the mouth of Rainy-Mountain Creek, a southern tributary of the Washita, within the present limits of the reservation at Fort Sill.
Trailing through broad and verdant valleys, they went, their progress often arrested by hundreds of acres of plum trees bending to the ground with tempting fruit; crossing oak ridges where the ground was covered with loaded grapevines, through suffocating creek-bottom thickets, undergrowth of vines and briars, laboring up rocky hillsides and laboring down again, the horses picking their way through impeding rocks and boulders, until on the twenty-ninth of the month, two hundred miles from Fort Gibson, General Leavenworth and his staff reached Captain Dean’s camp, a mile or two from the Washita, where there were quartered two companies of … Read more
What was known as the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was entered into in Mississippi with the Choctaw Indians September 27, 1830; pursuant to the terms of the treaty, in 1832 the movement of the Choctaw to their new home between the Canadian and Red rivers was under way but they were in danger from incursions of the Comanche and Pani Picts or Wichita, and the Kiowa tribe, who came east as far as the Washita and Blue rivers; these Indians had also evinced a hostile attitude toward white citizens and had attacked and plundered Santa Fe traders, trappers, and … Read more
The faces of the Choctaw and Chickasaw men of sixty years ago were as smooth as a woman’s, in fact they had no beard. Sometimes there might be seen a few tine hairs (if hairs they might be called) here and there upon the face, but they were few and far between, and extracted with a pair of small tweezers whenever discovered. Oft have I seen a Choctaw warrior standing before a mirror seeking with untiring perseverance and unwearied eyes, as he turned his face at different angles to the glass, if by chance a hair could be found lurking … Read more
Their laws (for they had laws,) though exceptional in some respects to the White Race, nevertheless, were good, and quite consistent with the nations of a primitive age. But like all others of their race, their severest law was that of blood revenge. Whosoever sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed was a statute rigidly enforced among all North American Indians. It was acknowledged among all, not only to be the right, but also the imperative duty of the nearest relative on the male side of the slain, to kill the slayer wherever and whenever a favorable … Read more
Most of these Comanche County Oklahoma cemeteries are complete indices at the time of transcription, however, in some cases we provide the listing when it is only a partial listing. Hosted at Comanche County OKGenWeb Archives Highland Cemetery Photos Letitia Cemetery Meers Cemetery Sterling Cemetery Hosted at Oklahoma Genealogical Society Elgin Cemetery Geronimo Cemetery Letitia Cemetery Meers Cemetery Paradise Valley Baptist Cemetery Hosted at Comanche County OKGenWeb Allendale Cemetery Bailtso Apache Cemetery Beef Creek Apache Cemetery – Geronimo’s grave is located here Cache Cemetery Cache KCA Cemetery Chattanooga Cemetery Chief Chihuahua Apache Cemetery – Fort Sill Crouch Cemetery Crow Family … Read more
Closely following the outbreak of the Cherokees and half -breed renegades at Whitemore‘s, Barren Fork, came on attack by a similar party of Indians, half breeds, and Mexicans combined, on a train of supplies, en route to Fort Stockton, at Howard’s Well, near old Fort Lancaster. The facts of this one of the most inhuman massacres in history were reported to the “War Department, by Col. Merritt, through General Angua, under date of April 29th, 1872. We give the report as written: On the 20th inst, I arrived with the cavalry of my command at Howard’s Well, a few hours too … Read more
One of the best known, and since the death of the renowned Kit Carson, probably the most reliable guide on the Western frontier, is William Cody, otherwise known as “Buffalo Bill.” His exploits have been the theme of a dozen novelists, and in the year just past (1870-72) his movements have been as accurately and frequently chronicled by the daily press throughout the country as they would have been had he been an official magnate of the highest degree. There is something especially attractive in the romance attending the career of one of these noted hunters, which never palls upon … Read more
In New Mexico, which became a part of the United States territory at the same time as California, the Indians are numerous and far more formidable than those farther west. The Apache Indians and Navajo Indians are the most powerful tribes west of the Mississippi. Being strong, active, and skillful, war is their delight, and they were the terror of the New Mexicans before the territory was occupied by the United States troops. The Pueblo Indians are among the best and most peaceable citizens of New Mexico. They, early after the Spanish conquest, embraced the forms of religion and the manners and customs of their then more civilized masters. The Pimos and Maricopos are peaceable tribes who cultivate the ground and endeavor to become good citizens. They are much exposed to the irresistible attacks of the Apache Indians and Navajo Indians, and, very often, the fruits of their honest toil become the plunder of those fierce wanderers.
The large spring referred to by Dr. James, Sage, Fremont, Ruxton, and the other writers whom I have quoted, is the one now enclosed and used by the bottling works at Manitou. Ruxton says the two springs were intimately connected with the separation of the Comanche and the Snake, or Ute tribes, and he gives the following legend concerning the beginning of the trouble: Many hundreds of winters ago, when the cottonwoods on the Big River were no higher than an arrow, and the red men, who hunted the buffalo on the plains, all spoke the same language, and the … Read more
It would be interesting to know who were the occupants of the Pike’s Peak region during prehistoric times. Were its inhabitants always nomadic Indians? We know that semi-civilized peoples inhabited southwestern Colorado and New Mexico in prehistoric times, who undoubtedly had lived there ages before they were driven into cliff dwellings and communal houses by savage invaders. Did their frontier settlements of that period ever extend into the Pike’s Peak region? The facts concerning these matters, we may never know. As it is, the earliest definite information we have concerning the occupants of this region dates from the Spanish exploring … Read more
Amusements and gambling are represented in collections by many curious devices. Adults rarely played for amusement, leaving such pastime to children; they themselves played for stakes. Most American games are more widely distributed than many other cultural traits; but a few seem almost entirely peculiar to the Plains. A game in which a forked anchor-like stick is thrown at a rolling ring was known to the Dakota, Omaha, and Pawnee. So far, it has not been reported from other tribes. Hoop Game Another game of limited distribution is the large hoop with a double pole, the two players endeavoring to … Read more
Some notice of the original inhabitants of Idaho is due the reader of this book, even though that notice must necessarily be short and its data largely traditional. With-out a written language of any kind, unless it was the use of the rudest and most barbarous symbols, they have passed away and left no recorded history; without architecture, except that which exhausts its genius in the construction of a skin wigwam or a bark lodge, they have died and left no monuments. Traditions concerning them are too confused, contradictory and uncertain to satisfy any who desire reliable history. Any real … Read more
Oklahoma Land Patents – Comanche Tribe
Treaty with the Comanches and other tribes. Articles of a treaty made and concluded at Council Springs in the county of Robinson, Texas, near the Brazos River, this 15th day of May, A. D. 1846, between P. M. Butler and M. G. Lewis, commissioners on the part of the United States, of the one part, and the undersigned chiefs, counselors, and warriors of the Comanche, I-on-i, Ana-da-ca, Cadoe, Lepan, Long-wha, Keechy, Tah-wa-carro, Wichita, and Wacoe tribes of Indians, and their associate bands, in behalf of their said tribes, on the other part. Article I. The undersigned chiefs, warriors, and counselors, … Read more
Note by the Department of State. The words of this treaty which are put in brackets with an asterisk are written in the original with black pencil, the rest of the original treaty being written with black ink. Articles of a treaty and agreement made and entered into at the Council Camp, on Medicine Lodge Creek, seventy miles south of Fort Larned, in the State of Kansas, on the twenty-first day of October, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-seven, by and between the United States of America, represented by its commissioners duly appointed thereto, to wit, Nathaniel G. Taylor, William … Read more