by Scott Zesch
Tosacowadi had once announced that when he died, his sons Monewostuki and Backecacho (Clinton Smith) would inherit all of his horses. “Sometimes I thought he would never die,” Clinton joked. However, Tosacowadi did die sooner than anyone expected, from the hip wound he received in the battle.5 His grieving family wrapped his body in a red blanket. They carried him up a hillside, placing the corpse on a scaffold to protect it from wild animals. The wives and children laid Tosacowadi’s quiver and bow by his side. Then they departed. Clinton was devastated. He wrote, “With a heavy heart and bowed head I followed the wailing squaws back to camp, until my grief became too great to silently bear when I, too, joined in the wailing.”
The boy also felt vulnerable, for there was no longer anyone to protect him from those Comanches who wanted to turn him over to Bald Head. One day an Indian showed up at camp with some tinned fruit and peach brandy. He told Clinton that his father, Henry Smith, had been to Fort Sill and had sent these gifts to him. He tried to get Clinton to go there and see him. Clinton refused to accept the goods. Still mourning Tosacowadi, he said, “My father was killed. I have no father.”
Another time, two Indians lured Clinton away from camp on the pretense of helping him look for his horses. They hadn’t gone far before one of the men pulled a pistol on the boy. After disarming him, they made him travel with them toward Fort Sill. During the night, he managed to escape and go back to his family.
The third attempt was successful. Some Comanches told Clinton that they would take him to Fort Sill and pretend to exchange him for some of their prisoners being held at Fort Concho. After the Comanche women and children were released, they said, he could steal some horses from the white people and return to them. They even promised to make him a chief. Clinton couldn’t resist that offer. The boy thought it would be easy to fool the whites and soon resume his normal life on the plains. He didn’t realize that his days as a Comanche were over.
Mowway still didn’t know that his village had been destroyed. On the afternoon the battle was fought, he was attending a formal council with several other chiefs and government officials at the Everett House, a hotel on Fourth Street in St. Louis. The following day, the Indian delegation toured the city, then proceeded by train that night to Cincinnati, where they toured the Annual Industrial Exposition.
Mowway arrived in Washington, D.C., on the afternoon of October 2, 1872, with a group of “fifty-two scalpers,” as the Washington Evening Star described them.6 It was the largest and most important Indian delegation that had ever visited the city. Members of these delegations usually stayed in comfortable suites at an upscale hotel called the Washington House, conveniently situated on the northwest corner of Third Street and Pennsylvania Avenue.
Two days after their arrival, the Indians toured the capitol. Some of them went out on the dome. Looking out over the city’s white-stone buildings, straight-lined avenues, and congested walkways, a far cry from the unobstructed prairie they loved, they must have realized more than ever that they were dealing with an alien people who could never accept their way of thinking.
Many of the Indians had their photographs taken by Alexander Gardner, Matthew Brady’s associate. They were given large silver medals and were invited to see other sights of the city, including the printing plant where the government produced paper money. A Comanche chief named Quirtsquip (Chewing Elk) joked, “They could give me some if they wanted to.” The Indians didn’t enjoy Washington, however, finding it noisy and crowded. A young Yamparika Comanche chief named Howea (Gap in the Woods) is said to have tried to count all the white people he saw, astonished by their numbers.
Mowway and the Indian delegation met briefly with President Grant and four members of his cabinet in the East Room of the White House on October 11, 1872. One by one, the Indians shook hands with the president. Newspapermen described them as dressed in “full savage costume, with their faces heavily painted.” The president was not impressed by their native finery. In blunt terms, he explained that the government was trying to advance them in civilization. The white people were becoming so numerous that the Indians could no longer lead a nomadic life. They must settle in one place. The sooner they understood that, the better for them and their children. President Grant told them he had no more to say except through the secretary of the Interior. The Indians were not invited to respond. They left the White House after examining the gilded rooms.
The delegation also held a series of meetings with Francis J. Walker, the commissioner of Indian Affairs. He told them that they must establish their homes within ten miles of Fort Sill by the middle of December. Otherwise, they would be considered “hostile.” The Indians listened impassively. They still didn’t know about Mackenzie’s attack on their people, but they had seen how the army treated “hos-tiles.” One of the chiefs assured the commissioner, “We came in to do what our Great Father wants us to do.” However, the Indians had been admonished in this manner before and didn’t really take the commissioner’s speech seriously. They were probably bored. So was one journalist, whose attention was easily diverted. He reported:
While the conference was in progress one of the dusky maidens amused herself by sticking a pin in the end of a stick and occasionally “prodding” one of the warriors near her. It is said that this is a delicate way of making love in some Indian tribes, and the fact that the warrior did not appear to be annoyed by the prodding would seem to give color to the statement.7
By then a telegram describing Colonel Mackenzie’s victory over the Comanches in the Texas Panhandle had already appeared in newspapers across the country. Commissioner Walker decided to delay announcing the news to the delegation, as “it was not desired to stampede the Indians” while they still had business to conduct. It was during Walker’s final meeting with the Indians on October 24 that he told them what had happened on the North Fork of the Red River. Walker read the telegram announcing that the soldiers had killed twenty-three Comanche men and captured their women and children. The Comanches in the room were shocked and grief stricken by the news. Walker warned them, “Those who remain outside the reservation may be similarly treated.”
The following day, Mowway and the Indians left Washington for Baltimore. From there they proceeded to Philadelphia and then to New York, where they had to wait a few days for their connecting train. In the interim, they roamed the streets of Manhattan, shopped for trinkets on Broadway, and studied the wildlife in Central Park. Most of the city’s sights “they viewed with positive disdain.” Everywhere they went, New Yorkers gawked at them. According to the local press, the Southern Plains delegates were “more to the prairie born than any of their race” than the people of the city had seen in some time. Therefore, they “excited rather more curiosity than cosmopolitans have recently manifested in the terrible race of tomahawkers.” Most of the Indians were “profoundly indifferent to the staring.” Some “preserved their equanimity with a horrible scowl and a malicious silence.”
The Indians stayed at the luxurious Grand Central Hotel on the southwest corner of West Third Street and Broadway. The other guests were startled when they stepped out in the hotel corridor and saw men in buckskin and feathers and women in blankets and beads. Inquisitive New Yorkers hung around the hotel, some climbing the stairs to the fourth floor to get a better look at the “mild savages.” One well-dressed man tried to steal an arrow from the quiver of Esihabit, Dot Babb’s rescuer. The thief nearly set off a row with the Indians and quickly gave it back.
On October 30, the delegation visited the Church of Our Savior on East Twenty-fifth Street, where the Episcopal Board of Missions was meeting. The Indians were decked out in feathers and paint; some carried their arrows and tomahawks into the sanctuary. The Episcopalians, excited to have such exotic potential converts in their midst, serenaded them with the missionary hymn “From Greenland’s Icy Mountains”:
From many an ancient river,
From many a palmy plain,
They call us to deliver
>
Their land from error’s chain.
Can we, whose souls are lighted
With wisdom from on high,
Can we to men benighted
The lamp of life deny?
Bishop Henry Niles Pierce of Arkansas, the overseer of the church’s mission to Indian Territory, welcomed the delegation. Through an interpreter, he told them that the Great Spirit had sent his son into the world to teach them how to be good and to take the bad thoughts out of their hearts. The Indians grunted at his remarks. When he had finished, their response wasn’t as spiritual as the Episcopalians had hoped. Esihabit and the other chiefs assured Bishop Pierce that they were ready to live like white people, if only the government would build the houses it had promised them.
That afternoon the Indians attended the circus on East Thirty-fourth Street. Unimpressed, they scowled throughout the performance. Although the Comanches loved to laugh, they found the clown’s tricks entirely unfunny. That night they saw a Broadway show at Booth’s Theatre; the press reported that they “conducted themselves in a Christian-like manner, never applauding and being very silent.” They had more important things to think about.
On the evening of November 1, the Indians began their trip back to the plains by way of Chicago and Lawrence. As the train rolled through the long nights across an America that no longer had a place for its native people, Mowway and his fellow Comanches had plenty of time to wonder which of their friends, brothers, sisters, parents, wives, and children had been killed or taken prisoner. And to worry about how the rest of the tribe would survive the winter ahead with their homes and provisions destroyed.
Chapter Nine
The Long Way Home
Standing outside John Evans’s trading post near Fort Sill on October 24, 1872, the soldiers, Indians, and travelers who did business there saw the long line of horses trudging across the veld long before they could identify who the riders were. As the horsemen drew closer, they could make out the figures of Comanche plainsmen in buckskin, some carrying bows, arrows, and shields. No one at the trading post was surprised to see them coming, even if it wasn’t ration day. Most people around Fort Sill knew what was going on. The Comanches, once haughtily independent, were now contrite, ready to do whatever it took to get their captured women and children back from Texas. All their hopes were in the hands of their agent, Lawrie Tatum—and he knew it.
Even Paruacoom and his wild Quahadas had voluntarily moved their tepees to the banks of Cache Creek, close to the Indian agency. Winter was coming on, and it would be a hard season for any Comanches still living away from the reservation. Colonel Mackenzie’s men had destroyed most of their food supply and their warm clothes. For the first time, they needed the provisions doled out by their agent. However, Paruacoom couldn’t quite bring himself to shake hands with Bald Head. Instead, the leader of the procession approaching Fort Sill that day was Terheryaquahip (Horseback), the main chief of the Nokoni Comanches. A tall, thick-bodied man in his fifties, he wore a single eagle feather on his head.
As powerful as he looked, Horseback was no longer a fighting man. He suffered from tuberculosis, and his weak lungs had kept him from traveling to Washington with Mowway and the Indian delegation the previous month. In fact, he was one of the few friendly Comanche chiefs who had remained behind in Indian Territory. The warring Comanches depended on him to plead for the prisoners’ release, and Horseback had a personal stake in his mission as well. Among the women and children incarcerated at Fort Concho were his mother-in-law, his former wife and her daughter, and another close relative and her daughter.
Horseback had brought his bargaining chips with him that day. Halfway down the line of Comanches rode the two youngest warriors. Only twelve and eight years old, they stood out from the others, even if they might pass for Comanches at first glance. As the party approached Fort Sill, the stone buildings, corrals, and sheds looked as strange and foreboding to these white boys as the tepees of the Comanche camps had once seemed. The people they saw there scared them as well. The only non-Indians they’d encountered in recent years had been soldiers, Texas Rangers, and settlers—all of whom had tried to kill them.
Horseback and the Comanches stopped their horses at Evans’s trading post, a barnlike frame building with large front windows. When the shopkeeper came out to greet them, he handed the two white boys some candy. As soon as the Comanche party left the trading post, the boys threw it away, suspicious that the white man was trying to poison them. The Comanches then headed toward Lawrie Tatum’s office in one of the Indian agency’s white-frame warehouses. Bald Head was waiting for them.
When they arrived, Horseback made the two white boys dismount beside the neat picket fence surrounding the agent’s narrow strip of yard. Then he ushered them forward so Lawrie Tatum could examine them. The Comanches assured their agent, “These are all the white children in our camps.” Bald Head wasn’t convinced. He led the two captives into his office. The boys, used to the freedom of the outdoors, didn’t feel comfortable in this room with its hard walls, glass windows, plank floors, and doors that locked. They wondered what this white man was going to do to them.
Tatum interviewed the boys privately, while Horseback and the Comanches waited outside. The older boy was tall and slender. He had a round face, long, tangled hair that was sun-bleached almost white, and large, dark eyes. He could speak some English and remembered his former name. Tatum was elated to learn that the boy was Clinton Smith, the captive from Mowway’s group whom he’d tried to locate for more than a year. Clinton told Tatum that he thought the Apaches were still holding his brother, Jeff. The Smith brothers had seen each other a few times during captivity.
The younger boy had a long, narrow face and was darker complexioned. He couldn’t speak any English. Tatum gently questioned him through his interpreter.
What was his name?
The boy identified himself as Toppish.
Toppish who?
He thought his full name might be Toppish Smith.
What did he remember about his capture?
The boy said that his father and mother were both killed at the time.
What were their names?
He didn’t know.
How long had he been with the Indians?
Three winters, he thought.
Where was he captured?
In Texas.
Which part of Texas?
He didn’t know.
That didn’t give the Indian agent much to go on. Tatum had one final question for both boys: did they know of any other white children among the Comanches?
They admitted that they did. The boys told Tatum about two others in the Quahada camps.
The agent went outside, where Horseback and the Comanches were waiting. He told them, “I am not yet ready to talk about your women and children in Texas. You must deliver to me all the white children you have. Then I will talk about your captives.” After he had spoken, Tatum turned around and went back into the building.
The Comanches were disappointed, but they said nothing. Horseback probably thought it was bad manners for Bald Head not to release at least a couple of his relatives in exchange for the two boys he’d delivered from the Quahadas. However, he was in no position to make demands. He and his fellow Comanches climbed on their horses and left the Indian agency.
Once the Comanches were gone, Lawrie Tatum stood in his office facing the two young savages, who eyed him suspiciously with the wild, nervous look of cornered animals. Tatum pitied the boys, but he also knew that this pair would like nothing better than to drive an arrow through his breast, slice off his scalp, and escape to the plains with their friends. For the time being, they would need the restraining influence of armed guards.
The quickest way to restore them to civilization, Tatum decided, would be to enroll them in the nearby mission school for Native American children until he could make arrangements for their return home. First they needed a thorough scrubbing. Tatum turned the boys over to some so
ldiers from Fort Sill, who promptly stripped the pair of their weapons and ornaments. Clinton Smith watched his whole identity being taken from him one piece at a time: a big silver ring, two brass bracelets, a pair of beaded moccasins, a six-foot bow, a decorated quiver, and about forty arrows.
After that the soldiers marched the boys to the stone guardhouse and locked them up in a cell. Before long a man appeared with some large sheep shears and snipped off their unruly locks. As warriors, their long hair was a source of pride. They watched helplessly as it fell to the floor in thick clumps. Next, the soldiers carried a tin tub into the cell and filled it with water. Puzzled, the boys stood by and watched. Comanches rarely bathed except for ritual purification. Clinton recalled, “We thought the soap was to be eaten and the water was for us to drink.” The soldiers started ripping off their breech-cloths and buckskin leggings and made signs for Clinton and Toppish to step into the tub, one at a time. Then their tormentors began scrubbing the paint and grime off their bodies, none too gently. Afterward, the boys were forced to dress in pants, shirts, suspenders, and jackets. The new clothes felt strange against their skin and restricted the movement of their arms and legs. Finally, the soldiers led Clinton and Toppish out of the guardhouse and motioned for them to climb into an army wagon, which took them to the Quaker school a few miles away. There, they began their rehabilitation.
That evening Lawrie Tatum wrote to Henry Smith in Texas, relaying two bits of thrilling news. Henry’s older son had been safely recovered from the Comanches, and his younger one was still living, probably with the Apaches. The agent encouraged Henry to come to Fort Sill and get Clinton. He wrote, “I think there will be no danger from Indians in coming here for thy son past Red River Station.”