the american expansion into native
territory
is a topic that tends to not be
discussed in great detail
outside of general custer's defeat few
native victories are mentioned
and raids in the set of lands are
essentially unheard of
largely because you know it was rather
rare
but in today's episode we'll be looking
at the largest native raid into settled
territory
an event that is dubbed as the great
raid
of 1840
[Music]
the largest native raid into the u.s
occurred in august of 1840
between the comanche tribe and the
republic of
texas which i'll also have to do a video
on at some point
the cause of the raid dated back to an
incident
earlier in the year the comanche at the
time were not a unified
tribe as they had 12 different
chieftains
another 35 miscellaneous bands together
the comanche had been at war with the
texans for years at this point
and they had managed to capture some
individuals
camachi culture was that they normally
adopted the individuals
that they captured into their society
seeing little difference between native
born and those adopted in
on january the 10th of 1840 after
several years of war
and the major smallpox epidemic three
comanche embassies
entered san antonio and asked for peace
offering to send a large contingent of
their leaders
to secure a new piece on march the 16th
magura a powerful eastern comanche chief
led 65 of his tribe
including women and children to san
antonio for
peace talks albert sidney johnson then
the secretary of state of texas
had demanded that all captives held were
released before
any peace was to occur however as the
comanche arrived
they only had a dozen or so individuals
mostly younger children
for release since the number of captives
was in question
the meeting took place in the council
house jail
the texans demand to know where the
other cactus were
and that they were to be released the
chiefs replied that they did not have
that type of authority
as the chiefs that held these
individuals were not there
it was stated that if the captives were
not released
then all of the comanche president would
be held hostage
the translator said that if those words
were uttered
then the camacho would fight to escape
and lo and behold
that's exactly what happened the
comanche tried to fight their way
out of the building with arrows and
knives that they had
hearing the fighting the women and
children that came with the chieftains
started a fight against the militia
outside
a group of the comanche managed to
escape the building and flee
but the militia and many of the armed
citizenry
shot them or captured them to avenge the
betrayal by the texans
the comanche war chief buffalo hump
raised a huge war party of many of the
bands of the comanche
and raided deep into white-settled areas
of southeast texas
he gathered a war party of at least 400
warriors
even though it is sometimes stated as
well over a thousand
and they set off in early august of 1840
they started in the west texan planes
and they went all the way to the gulf
burning and pillaging as they went the
huge war party crossed into central
texas
and first attacked the town of victoria
on august the 6th
texan rangers had shadowed the column
but the section of the war parties split
off and attacked the town before they
could be warned
the comanche killed a dozen or so in the
town but rifle fire eventually drove
them off
the party then headed east as the towns
along the coast
wouldn't have been as prepared for the
native attack as as the more central
locations
on august the 8th the war party reached
the modern day ghost town of linville
then the second largest port in the
republic they killed three in the town
but the citizens managed to get away
safely by being on the open water with
the town's boats
the comanche pelton lewd to linville
gathering beds
cloths and a fair bit of silver in the
process
they loaded up on meals and they went on
their way a story does come from a
single citizen
a judge by the name of john hayes who
wandered ashore during the night
and roared at the knaves with a pistol a
pistol he didn't know that was empty
the knees believing that he was mad
decided to spare him
the only main battle of the raid took
place on august
12th at palm creek around 100 texans
which included rangers
militia and regular army units managed
to catch up to
and attack the native party it wasn't a
set piece battle really
as the natives decided to not really
engage and they
simply attempted to ride away however
they were loaded with mules
and made their escape much slower than
normal
and the texans were able to catch up and
engage the column
it was claimed that 87 needles fell from
this battle
even though only 12 bodies were
collected the greed of the
texan militia members did likely decide
the outcome though
as some of the mules or loaded horses
fell men would stop
chasing and grab the loot for themselves
giving the comanche enough time to
escape further harm
with them taking over 3 000 horses and
mules
and hundreds of thousands of dollars of
other plunder
this raid didn't change relations
between the comanche and the texans
however
the war between the two continued on to
some degree for a number of years
until texas was finally annexed by the
united states
and that ends the tale of the largest
native raid
into american territory i hope you
enjoyed the brief
look into a forgotten part of american
history
if there's a topic that you'd like me to
cover in the future
say so down in the comments below if you
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