The Salt Creek Massacre | TSLAC

On May 17, 1871, Native American fighter General William T. Sherman narrowly escaped an ambush by Comanches. From the article:

"The Salt Creek Massacre

After the defeat of the Confederacy, federal troops slowly began to reoccupy their old forts on the Texas frontier. The Army also established three new forts, Richardson, Concho, and Griffin. However, there was still no fort on the Red River, leaving the frontier vulnerable to attacks from Indians across the border at Fort Sill in Indian Territory (Oklahoma).

In addition to the Army presence, federal officials also resumed negotiations with the Southern Plains tribes. In October 1867, they held a summit with Kiowa and Comanche leaders in Barber County, Kansas, resulting in the Medicine Lodge Treaty. For a number of reasons, the treaty was a failure. As usual, many Indian bands did not recognize it as valid. Similarly, the federal government was lax about enforcing the treaty once it was signed, allowing white outlaws to prey upon reservation Indians.

The late 1860s was a time of intense frustration and hopelessness for both white Texans and Indians. For both groups, the frontier remained unsafe and unpredictable. The federal garrisons that were supposed to protect white settlers were undermanned. Texas wanted to provide rangers to supplement frontier defense but was ruined financially by the defeat in the war. There was simply no money to wage war, and Texans faced a situation that appeared virtually unchanged from two decades before.

Despite appearances, however, things were changing, and for the Indians the end was near. William T. Sherman, commander of the U.S. Army, and Philip H. Sheridan, commander of U.S. troops in Texas, were hardened veterans of some of the worst fighting of the Civil War. Sherman and Sheridan had learned not only to wage war on the battlefield but to break the enemy's will to resist. To this end, they began a policy of encouraging the slaughter of the southern buffalo herd.

A fateful raid marked the turning point. In May, 1871, a party of more than one hundred Kiowas, Comanches, and others left Fort Sill and crossed into Texas. Led by Satank, Satanta, and Big Tree, they took up positions on the Salt Creek Prairie. A group of heavily armed white soldiers was allowed to pass unmolested; unknown to the Indians, the military escort was for General Sherman, who was conducting an inspection tour of Texas. The next group of whites to pass was a wagon train belonging to a freighting company. The Indians swept down upon the wagons and attacked. They killed the wagon master and seven teamsters and looted the wagons, then returned immediately to the reservation.

When General Sherman heard the news from a teamster who escaped the slaughter, he ordered ruthless reprisals. He also reversed an earlier order that prohibited soldiers from pursuing Indians on to the reservations. Sherman traveled to Fort Sill, where he personally arrested Satank, Satanta, and Big Tree and ordered them transported back to Texas to be tried for murder. Satank was killed during an escape attempt, but Satanta and Big Tree were put on trial. By early July both had been sentenced to hang.

In the weeks that followed, hundreds of Indians left the reservation and joined their relatives on the Staked Plains. To avert all-out carnage, Governor Edmund J. Davis commuted the sentences to life in prison. The Indians were eventually paroled, but it would be Satanta's fate to commit suicide in 1878 while serving another prison term at Huntsville prison. The character of Blue Duck in Larry McMurtry's classic novel Lonesome Dove was partially based on his life. Big Tree was more fortunate. When the Indian Wars came to a close, he counseled his people to accept peace. Big Tree converted to the Baptist faith and lived to age eighty.

The Salt Creek Massacre, also known as the Warren Wagon Train Raid, would have far-reaching consequences for Texas Indians. Because of the raid, General Sherman developed a policy of all-out offensive against the Plains Indians. The next few years would be bloody indeed."