With the disappearance of the buffalo,—or perhaps with the thinning of their numbers,—the prairie Indians may be induced to throw aside their roving habits. This would be a happy result both for them and their neighbors; though it is even doubtful whether it might follow from such a circumstance. No doubt some change would be effected in their mode of life; but unfortunately these Bedouins of the Western world can live upon the horse, even if the buffalo were entirely extirpated. Even as it is, whole tribes of them subsist almost exclusively upon horse-flesh, which they esteem and relish more than any other food. But this resource would, in time, also fail them; for they have not the economy to raise a sufficient supply for the demand that would occur were the buffaloes once out of the way: since the caballadas of wild mustangs are by no means so easy to capture as the “gangs” of unwieldy and lumbering buffaloes.
It is to be hoped, however, that before the horse-Indians have been put to this trial, the strong arm of civilization shall be extended over them, and, withholding them from those predatory incursions, which they annually make into the Mexican settlements, will induce them to dismount, and turn peaceably to the tillage of the soil,—now so successfully practised by numerous tribes of their race, who dwell in fixed and flourishing homes upon the eastern border of the prairies.
At this moment, however, the Comanches are in open hostility with the settlers of the Texan frontier. The lex talionis is in active operation while we write, and every mail brings the account of some sanguinary massacre, or some act of terrible retaliation. The deeds of blood and savage cruelty practised alike by both sides—whites as well as Indians—have had their parallel, it is true, but they are not the less revolting to read about. The colonists have suffered much from these Ishmaelites of the West,—these lordly savages, who regard industry as a dishonorable calling; and who fancy that their vast territory should remain an idle hunting-ground, or rather a fortress, to which they might betake themselves during their intervals of war and plundering. The colonists have a clear title to the land,—that title acknowledged by all right-thinking men, who believe the good of the majority must not be sacrificed to the obstinacy of the individual, or the minority,—that title which gives the right to remove the dwelling of the citizen,—his very castle,—rather than that the public way be impeded. All admit this right; and just such a title has the Texan colonist to the soil of the Comanche. There may be guilt in the mode of establishing the claim,—there may have been scenes of cruelty, and blood unnecessarily spilt,—but it is some consolation to know that there has occurred nothing yet to parallel in cold-blooded atrocity the annals of Algiers, or the similar acts committed in Southern Africa. The crime of smoke-murder is yet peculiar to Pellisier and Potgieter.
In their present outbreak, the Comanches have exhibited but a poor, short-sighted policy. They will find they have committed a grand error in mistaking the courageous colonists of Texas for the weak Mexicans,—with whom they have long been at war, and whom they have almost invariably conquered. The result is easily told: much blood may be shed on both sides, but it is sure to end as all such contests do; and the Comanche, like the Caffre, must “go to the wall.” Perhaps it is better that things should be brought to a climax,—it will certainly be better for the wretched remnant of the Spano-Americans dwelling along the Comanche frontiers,—a race who for a hundred years have not known peace.
As this long-standing hostility with the Mexican nation has been a predominant feature in the history of the Comanche Indian, it is necessary to give some account of how it is usually carried on. There was a time when the Spanish nation entertained the hope of Christianizing these rude savages,—that is, taming and training them to something of the condition to which they have brought the Aztec descendants of Montezuma,—a condition scarce differing from slavery itself. As no gold or silver mines had been discovered in Texas, it was not their intention to make mine-laborers of them; but rather peons, or field-laborers, and tenders of cattle,—precisely as they had done, and were still doing, with the tribes of California. The soldier and the sword had proved a failure,—as in many other parts of Spanish America,—in fact, everywhere, except among the degenerated remnants of monarchical misrule found in Mexico, Bogota, and Peru. In these countries was encountered the débris of a declining civilization, and not, as is generally believed, the children of a progressive development; and of course they gave way,—as the people of all corrupted monarchies must in the end.
It was different with the “Indios bravos,” or warrior tribes, still free and independent,—the so-called savages. Against these the soldier and the sword proved a complete failure; and it therefore became necessary to use the other kind of conquering power,—the monk and his cross. Among the Comanches this kind of conquest had attained a certain amount of success. Mission-houses sprung up through the whole province of Texas,—the Comanche country,—though the new neophytes were not altogether Comanches, but rather Indians of other tribes who were less warlike. Many Comanches, however, became converts; and some of the “missiones” became establishments on a grand scale,—each having, according to Spanish missionary-fashion, its “presidio,” or garrison of troops, to keep the new believers within sound of the bell, and to hunt and bring them back whenever they endeavored to escape from that Christian vassalage for which they had too rashly exchanged their pagan freedom.
All went well, so long as Spain was a power upon the earth, and the Mexican viceroyalty was rich enough to keep the presidios stocked with troopers. The monks led as jolly a life as their prototypes of “Bolton Abbey in the olden time.” The neophytes were simply their slaves, receiving, in exchange for the sweat of their brow, baptism, absolution, little pewter crucifixes, and various like valuable commodities.
But there came a time when they grew tired of the exchange, and longed for their old life of roving freedom. Their brethren had obtained the horse; and this was an additional attraction which a prairie life presented. They grew tired of the petty tricks of the Christian superstition,—to their view less rational than their own,—they grew tired of the toil of constant work, the childlike chastisements inflicted, and sick of the sound of that ever-clanging clapper,—the bell. In fine, they made one desperate effort, and freed themselves forever.
The grand establishment of San Saba, on the river of the same name, fell first. The troops were abroad on some convert-hunting expedition. The Comanches entered the fort,—their tomahawks and war-clubs hidden under their great robes of buffalo-hide: the attack commenced, and ended only with the annihilation of the settlement.
One monk alone escaped the slaughter,—a man renowned for his holy zeal. He fled towards San Antonio, pursued by a savage band. A large river coursed across the route it was necessary for him to take; but this did not intercept him: its waters opened for a moment, till the bottom was bare from bank to bank. He crossed without wetting his feet. The waves closed immediately behind him, offering an impassable barrier to his pursuers, who could only vent their fury in idle curses. But the monk could curse too. He had, perhaps, taken some lessons at the Vatican; and, turning round, he anathematized every “mother’s son” of the red-skinned savages. The wholesale excommunication produced a wonderful effect. Every one of the accursed fell back where he stood, and lay face upward upon the plain, dead as a post! The monk, after baptizing the river “Brazos de Dios” (arm of God), continued his flight, and reached San Antonio in safety,—where he duly detailed his miraculous adventure to the credulous converts of Bejar, and the other missions.