Attacks on Wagon Trains

8,953 Views | 63 Replies | Last: 4 yr ago by WestAustinAg
Trench55
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AG
I don't know if it's true, but I've read (on-line, so it must be true) that there are no documented accounts of attacks on wagon trains by Native Americans. Can anybody confirm that?
DrEvazanPhD
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They wouldn't let my ancestors join the big circle.
ja86
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AG
Do Mormons dressed up like native Americans count?
who?mikejones
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AG
From Indian Depredations in Texas:

Quote:

It was in the same year that Satanta and Big Tree made their famous raid in Northwest Texas, upon which occasion they attacked a wagon train belonging to Henry Warren, while en route on the military road leading from Jackboro to Fort Griffin, in Shackelford county, The Indians killed seven out of the twelve teamsters, then fired the wagon train, with one of the teamsters chained to the wagon wheel, while yet alive, to be consumed amid the torturing flames.


Good non fiction book.
BQ78
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AG
Maybe you are thinking about on the Oregon Trail?

There are numerous incidents of wagons being attacked after the migration to the Oregon Territory. One that pops to mind quickly is the death of Britt Johnson and his teamsters at the hands of Kiowas on their way to Jacksboro. Britt Johnson was the black man who the John Wayne character is based on in the movie The Searchers.

Oh and to gruesome up the story. Britt put up a pretty good fight to the last, his body was surrounded by over 50 brass cartridges. The Kiowas killed his beloved dog after the fight, gutted Britt and stuffed the body of his dog into his abdominal cavity. So much for the Noble Savage!
Bighunter43
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Bighunter43
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Bighunter43
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Bighunter43 said:

Bighunter43 said:

BQ78 said:

Maybe you are thinking about on the Oregon Trail?

There are numerous incidents of wagons being attacked after the migration to the Oregon Territory. One that pops to mind quickly is the death of Britt Johnson and his teamsters at the hands of Kiowas on their way to Jacksboro. Britt Johnson was the black man who the John Wayne character is based on in the movie The Searchers.

Oh and to gruesome up the story. Britt put up a pretty good fight to the last, his body was surrounded by over 50 brass cartridges. The Kiowas killed his beloved dog after the fight, gutted Britt and stuffed the body of his dog into his abdominal cavity. So much for the Noble Savage!

BQ78.....I've talked about a new book before by Glenn Frankel "The Searchers: The Making of an American Legend" and Frankel was apparently given The Searchers author Alan LeMay's notes by the family, and discovered that LeMay based it more on Cynthia Ann Parker's Uncle...James Parker, who spent years searching for her was a devout Indian hater. ( I mean, The Searchers has a 9 year old girl being searched for by her Uncle)....LaMay moved the story to after the Civil War and of course added lots of fictional characters. The book does say LaMay researched Britt Johnson, and 64 other Indian abductions....but LaMay definetly was focused in on James Parker as Ethan Edwards....I've seen the Britt Johnson misconception for years however. Frankel's book is meticulously researched and Its a great read with lots of Quanah and Cynthia Ann information, some of it never before published as he found it in the archives at UT (tu)! Plus....for anyone who likes the Searchers, the number one ranked western of all time by some services....it's a must read! (If you can get past Monument Valley as West Texas)

As far as wagon train attacks, a few happened in the Oregon Trail (The Shoshone)...but they were rare!

https://www.santafenewmexican.com/pasatiempo/books/book_reviews/the-searchers-the-making-of-an-american-legend/article_f9afef7a-8055-11e2-aaaa-0019bb30f31a.html

BQ78
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AG
That book is on my list to buy and read, I've heard good things about it.

Definitely the book and movie are a melding of many historical events and fiction. For example the village raid with the US cavalry is based on the Battle of the Wa****a, which wasn't even against Comanche, it was Cheyenne. I think the Ethan character's adventures are very similar to Johnson but I can also see the similarity to Parker as well. Definitely a melding of both.
Bighunter43
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BQ78 said:

That book is on my list to buy and read, I've heard good things about it.

Definitely the book and movie are a melding of many historical events and fiction. For example the village raid with the US cavalry is based on the Battle of the Wa****a, which wasn't even against Comanche, it was Cheyenne. I think the Ethan character's adventures are very similar to Johnson but I can also see the similarity to Parker as well. Definitely a melding of both.
I agree that the Searchers is a compilation of various historical characters and events. I always assumed and read that Ethan was based on Britt Johnson as well until Frankel stumbles on the fact that LaMay even traveled to Elkhart Texas to interview living members of the Parker family. The parallels with Cynthia Ann and her uncle James Parker and Debbie and Ethan are pretty similar. (Apparently James had little to do with her upon her return.....ie...."She's Comanche!! She's been living with a buck!" ) Earlier, I referenced the UT library archives, however I looked back in the book and I was wrong....Frankel found new information about Cynthia Ann in the State Library archives. In all, I think the Searchers is Ford's and Wayne's best picture!!
Not trying to hijack the thread, but are you familiar with LaMay's other work...The Unforgiven (not Unforgiven with Eastwood)? I think John Huston did a decent job with the "flipside" of the Searchers...(although something apparently happened during the filming to cause him to not put as much effort in to it)....I felt like The Searchers, and The Unforgiven were way ahead of their time dealing with racism, etc. The last hour of the movie is pretty riveting...with excellent performances by Joseph Wiseman and even Audie Murphy.
Aggie1205
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AG
In the book 9 Years Among The Indians by Hermann I'm pretty sure he discussed attacks on wagons(maybe freighters?) from his time with the Apache.
BQ78
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I've seen the first Unforgiven several years ago and thought it was okay,maybe I need to give it another shot, I did go in with high expectations-- maybe too high.

The best Ford/Wayne Western it's either The Searchers or The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, love both of them.
Rabid Cougar
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BQ78 said:

Maybe you are thinking about on the Oregon Trail?

There are numerous incidents of wagons being attacked after the migration to the Oregon Territory. One that pops to mind quickly is the death of Britt Johnson and his teamsters at the hands of Kiowas on their way to Jacksboro. Britt Johnson was the black man who the John Wayne character is based on in the movie The Searchers.

Oh and to gruesome up the story. Britt put up a pretty good fight to the last, his body was surrounded by over 50 brass cartridges. The Kiowas killed his beloved dog after the fight, gutted Britt and stuffed the body of his dog into his abdominal cavity. So much for the Noble Savage!
KIowa, Kichi and Comanche were not pretenders by any means..
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BQ78
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Emmanuel Leutze and Karl Wimar disagree and if you can't believe the man who painted the historically accurate Washington Crossing the Delaware, I don't know who you can believe
Bighunter43
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Bighunter43
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Bighunter43 said:

Come on guys..........haven't yall seen How the West Was Won!!


aggieland09
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maybe the we're not survivors when they did attack them. Comanches and other Indians used the metal band that held casks together to make arrowheads and knives. I doubt the would let slow moving easy targets full of resources peacefully pass them by...
CanyonAg77
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Attacks on wagon trains would bring unwanted attention from Cavalry. They probably wanted to avoid that. Probably better return in attacking supply trains rather than immigrant trains.
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CanyonAg77
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My image of things like the Santa Fe Trail was a single road with wagons in trail. Seeing it in real life, it was several roughly parallel trails. Part of that I'm sure is one trail getting rutted, and them beginning a new path. But if I'm with a group of wagons, I'd rather be next to the others, rather than eating dust in line.
expresswrittenconsent
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Flatter than a tabletop
Makes you wonder why they stopped here
Wagon must have lost a wheel or they lacked ambition one
BQ78
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AG
Levelland.
terata
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tamc1956ag
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S
I am out of my lane on this one, but I enjoy the topic. Somewhere I read about a group of soldiers who were attacked by Indians and the men were lying in wagons for defense. As I remember, the Indians did NOT defeat the soldiers...anyone heard of this?
CanyonAg77
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tamc1956ag said:

I am out of my lane on this one, but I enjoy the topic. Somewhere I read about a group of soldiers who were attacked by Indians and the men were lying in wagons for defense. As I remember, the Indians did NOT defeat the soldiers...anyone heard of this?
Lyman's Wagon Train, Red River Wars, Texas Panhandle, 1874. Perhaps first US Army use of "mechanized" warfare.
CanyonAg77
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https://texasbeyondhistory.net/redriver/battles.html

This account does not mention it, but I have read another account that talks about putting soldiers in the wagons and shooting on the run. Will try to figure out if this is the right battle or I am confusing it with another.
marcel ledbetter
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There are numerous accounts of wagon trains being attacked along the Oregon Trail up here in the Oregon/Idaho country. Some of the attacks were occasionally led by renegade whites, or were entirely white outlaws attacking the wagon trains. There were a few notorious outlaw gangs that would attack trains on occasion, kill the men, rape and torture the women, etc.

I recently read of one well known attack up here where the Shoshones attacked one train and captured at least one woman and her young children. As they gang raped her, the squaws grabbed her kids by the hair and dragged them onto a fire and burned them to death in front of her. There are monuments to the attack in Idaho, but I can't remember exactly where.

There was a wagon train that got lost out here in southern Oregon after they left the Oregon trail after Stephen Meek convinced them they would avoid warlike Indians and make it to The Dalles faster. That train consisted of over 200 wagons. That's an interesting read. Just read up on the lost Meek wagon train and the Meek cut-off.
marcel ledbetter
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That sound right. The Meek wagon train turned into a fiasco once they left the Oregon trail. I can't imagine getting wagons over the mountainous terrain they went through just to wind up on the desert without much food or water. The women were using alkali from the dry lakes as leavening for their bread! Our local library is loaded with older, obscure books and journals relating to the Oregon trail and life on the Oregon/Idaho frontier.

Here's a link to to other attacks by Indians on wagon trains.

http://www.3rd1000.com/history3/events/idaho_indian_encounters.htm
terata
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Good call, the Mountain Meadows massacre.
BQ78
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The really famous one would be the Wagon Box Fight near Fort Phil Kearney when the Sioux attacked tree cutters from the fort.
RGV AG
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Thanks for posting that, it was interesting!
tamc1956ag
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S
That's it!! Thank you...I thought that was a neat story
BQ78
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Was at the site last summer, within a few miles of each other you have the Wagon Box Fight site, the fort and the Fetterman Massacre site. The state of Wyoming does a pretty good job of interpreting all three places.
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