Forty Years Among the Indians: A true yet thrilling narrative of the author's experiences among the nativesJones, Daniel W. (Daniel Webster)
History
Forty Years Among the Indians: A true yet thrilling narrative of the author's experiences among the natives
Jones, Daniel W. (Daniel Webster)
Frontier and pioneer life -- West (U.S.); Indians of North America; Latter Day Saint pioneers -- Biography
After a while the daughter of the chief was missing. When the Indians
made inquiries for her, they were told that she had been taken to
heaven in a miraculous manner and was made a saint. The chief did not
believe the story and suspected treachery. There was an old woman who
had had charge of the Indian girl. The Apaches seized and tortured her
until she confessed the truth. The priest had lived with the daughter
as a wife. And when her condition became such as to betray him he had
her killed and buried. The Indians found her body and confirmed this
treachery. They then raised and killed all connected with the mission
and destroyed everything possible. They swore vengeance on the priests
and their followers and vowed that no Catholic should ever inhabit this
valley.
I have seen the ruins they made within the last few years, and heard
this story from the Mexicans living within a day's travel from this
valley. They all dread the Apaches to this day. No Mexican has ever
dared to make a home there. From that time until the present the
Apaches have been at war with the Mexicans.
When white men first went to the region where the Apaches roam, the
Indians looked upon them as a different class of people and did not
make war upon the few white traders they met on the road to the city of
Chihuahua, but they would go in and trade with merchant trains owned by
Americans, and in no way molest them.
This peaceful state of affairs was broken up in the year 1843. At that
time the State of Chihuahua was having a hard time with the Apaches,
and the government offered a large reward for their scalps, ranging
from $100 to $150 per head.
This offer got to the ears of Colonel Kerker, of Texas. He raised a
company of Texans and went to the city of Chihuahua, and contracted
with the Governor for Apache scalps.
The Colt revolver had recently been brought into use. This company of
rangers carried these weapons concealed under their coats and went to
Galliana, a town on the Rio Santa Maria, in the north-western part of
Chihuahua, near the mountains where the Indians dwelt.
This Kerker arranged to have the Apaches come to a feast prepared
for them, agreeing to meet them unarmed, as friends. The Indians,
believing these white men real friends, came in without suspicion, and,
while partaking of the hospitality, the rangers commenced with their
revolvers and killed over a hundred of them. The Indians could make no
resistance, but were literally slaughtered. Kerker got his money, but
lost the respect of all decent men.
A few years after this I was in the Apache country. They were killing
both whites and Mexicans at every opportunity. Thirty-five years after
I was again in that country and it was still the same.
For many years when a white man was killed by an Apache, the whites
would remark, "There is another of Kerker's victims."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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