The Largest Native American Raid: Great Comanche raid of 1840
381In this video, we will be talking about the largest Native raid into settled territory. Sometimes called the Comanche raid of 1840, or simply, the raid of 1840. It saw nearly one thousand Comanche raid all across the Texas Republic, and escaping with minimal losses. It's a tale that should be remembered.
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The largest native raid into the US occurred in August of 1840. Between the Comache tribe and the Republic of Texas, which I will 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 Comache at the time were not a unified tribe, with 12 different chieftains and another 35 misc. bands. The Comache had been at war with the Texans for years at this point, and they had managed to capture some individuals. Comache culture was that they normally adopted the individuals captured into their society, seeing little difference between native born, and those adopted in. On January 10, 1840, after several years of war and a major smallpox epidemic, three Comanche emissaries entered San Antonio and asked for peace, offering to send a large contingent of their leaders to secure a new peace. On March the 16th, Muguara, a powerful eastern Comanche chief, led 65 Comanches, including women and children, to San Antonio for peace talks.
Albert Sidney Johnson, then the secretary of state of Texas, had demanded that all captive held were released for any peace 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 demanded to know where the other captives were and that they be released. The chiefs replied that they do not have that sort of authority, as the chiefs that held these individuals were not their. It was stated that if the captives were not released, then all of the Comanche present would be held hostage. The translator said that if those words are uttered, then the Comanche would fight to escape, and 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 woman and children that came with the chieftains started to fight against the Militia outside. A group of Comanche managed to escape the building and flee, but the militia and many armed citizens shot them or captured them.
Later accounts, state that the reason for the slaughter was because of the treatment the Comanche showed towards the captives they brought. One such individual, a young 16 year old Matilda Lockhart, was supposedly heavily beaten, rapped, and burned by the natives. Going so far that her nose had been burned off and other severe disfigurations. However, this is only mentioned in later accounts, accounts from the time, including witnesses at the time, made no mention of this at all.