Battle
The Comanche arrived in San Antonio on March 19. Expecting a council of peace, the 12 chiefs brought women and children as well as warriors. They were dressed in finery with their faces painted. The Comanche chiefs at the meeting had brought along one white captive, and several Mexican children who had been captured separately. The white captive was Matilda Lockhart, a 16-year-old girl who had been held prisoner for over a year and a half. According to witnesses, including Mary Maverick, who helped care for the girl, she had been beaten, raped and suffered burns to her body. Her face was severely disfigured, with her nose entirely burned away. Matilda informed the Texians that more than a dozen abducted whites were available for release and that the Comanche chiefs had decided to ransom them. The Texians believed this was against the conditions for the negotiations which they believed stated that all abducted whites had to be released before the council. The Comanche of course had a different view, since the Chiefs and Bands not in attendance were under no obligation to release anyone, as they had never agreed to anything.
The talks were held at the council house, a one-story stone building adjoining the jail on the corner of Main Plaza and Calabosa (Market) Street. During the council, the Comanche warriors sat on the floor, as was their custom, while the Texians sat on chairs on a platform facing them. Lockhart had informed them that she had seen 15 other prisoners at the Comanche's principal camp several days before. She maintained that the Indians had wanted to see how high a price they could get for her, and that they then planned to bring in the remaining captives one at a time.
The Texians demanded to know where the other captives were. The Penateka spokesman, Chief Muguara, responded that the other prisoners were held by differing bands of Comanche. He assured the Texians that he felt the other captives would be able to be ransomed, but it would be in exchange for a great deal of supplies, including ammunition and blankets. He then finished his speech with the comment "how do you like that answer?" The Texian militia entered the courtroom and positioned themselves at intervals on the walls. When the Comanches would not, or could not, promise to return all captives immediately, the Texas officials said that chiefs would be held hostage until the white captives were released.
The interpreter warned the Texian officials that if he delivered that message the Comanches would attempt to escape by fighting. He was instructed to relay the warning and left the room as soon as he finished translating. After learning that they were being held hostage the Comanches attempted to fight their way out of the room using arrows and knives. The Texian soldiers opened fire at point-blank range, killing both Indians and whites. The Comanche women and children waiting outdoors began firing their arrows after hearing the commotion inside. At least one Texian spectator was killed. When a small number of warriors managed to leave the council house, all of the Comanche began to flee. The soldiers who followed again opened fire, killing and wounding both Comanche and Texians.
Armed citizens joined the battle, but, claiming they could not always differentiate between warriors and women and children, since all of the Comanche were fighting, shot at all the Comanche. However Gary Anderson declares in his book The Conquest Of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing In The Promised Land, 1820-1875 that such "confusion" between Native American men and women was convenient to the Texians, who used it as an excuse to kill women and children. The Texians most likely were responding to seeing the horrible torture that Matilda Lockhart had endured (burns over most of her body, her nose completely burned off, she had been raped, etc)and the Comanche "children" referenced were actually fighting and killed some Texians. As combatants it was fair that the Texians fought back. The Texians were not "confused". According to the report by Col. Hugh McLeod, written March 20, 1840, of the 65 members of the Comanches' party, 35 were killed (30 adult males, 3 women, and 2 children), 29 were taken prisoner (27 women and children, and 2 old men), and 1 departed unobserved (described as a renegade Mexican). Seven Texians died, including a judge, sheriff, and an army lieutenant, with ten more wounded.
A Russian surgeon surnamed Weidman helped to treat the citizens who had been wounded in the fight. Weidman was also a naturalist and had been assigned by the czar of Russia to make scientific observations about Texas and its inhabitants. Two days after the battle, San Antonio residents discovered that Weidman had decided to take the heads and bodies of two Indians to Russia. To obtain the skeletons, he had boiled the bodies in water, and dumped the resulting liquid into the San Antonio drinking water supply.
Read more about this topic: Council House Fight
Famous quotes containing the word battle:
“That we can come here today and in the presence of thousands and tens of thousands of the survivors of the gallant army of Northern Virginia and their descendants, establish such an enduring monument by their hospitable welcome and acclaim, is conclusive proof of the uniting of the sections, and a universal confession that all that was done was well done, that the battle had to be fought, that the sections had to be tried, but that in the end, the result has inured to the common benefit of all.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“The battle which I witnessed took place in the Presidency of Polk, five years before the passage of Webster’s Fugitive-Slave Bill.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Forty years after a battle it is easy for a noncombatant to reason about how it ought to have been fought. It is another thing personally and under fire to have to direct the fighting while involved in the obscuring smoke of it.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)