Council House Fight

The Council House Fight, often referred to as the Council House Massacre, was a fight between soldiers and officials of the Republic of Texas and a delegation of Comanche chiefs during a peace conference in San Antonio on March 19, 1840. About 35 Comanche men and women under chief, Mukwooru (aka Muguara) represented just a fraction of the Penateka band of the southern portion of the Comanche tribe. He knew he had no authority to speak for the Southern tribes as a whole and thus, any discussions of peace would be simply a farce. However, if Mukwooru could re-establish a lucrative trade with the San Antonian's perhaps a peace, by proxy, could be established. Just as the Comanche had done had been done for centuries in San Antonio, Santa Fe and along the Rio Grande River. They would rob one settlement and then sell to the other.
On March Chief Muguara brought in some trade articles and horses as well as an abused and tortured 14-year captive white girl named Matilda Lockhart that they had kidnapped and hoped that they would fetch a better price for her ransom, than what they received from nine year old, James Putnam/Putman just two weeks before. If the price was right, they may soon deliver over more captives.
The remainder of the Penateka Comanche were, at the time, at Enchanted Rock with thirteen other captives that they planned to sell one by one to fetch better prices.
The Southern Comanche had broken the 1835 as well as the 1838 treaty traveling hundreds of miles down the Colorado River and Guadalupe Rivers into the Texas settlements to steal horses and abduct children and had no intention of stopping this lucrative market economy that gave their young men a purpose. The various bands of the Southern Comanche had about thirty white captives and sixty Mexican captives, all abducted in recent raids.
The council at the courthouse in San Antonio began when the 30 Comanche men were invited into a courthouse in downtown San Antonio, on the east side of the square east of San Fernando Cathedral, facing it. The men brought their women who concealed several tomahawks under the blankets they held. The men left their rifles with their horse handlers out front and unstrung their bows and walked in as a procession and sat on the floor facing the table of Texian representative including judges and Colonels. Captive Matilda Lockhart was delivered over, and when the other captives were not, and when they asked for a better price, the Texans took the Comanche delegation as hostages for a forced prisoner exchange. Soldiers from a nearby building entered the premises, the Comanche began to stab the Texans. The council ended with 12 Comanche men shot to death inside the Council House and 23 others killed outside. Two elderly men and two dozen women were held captive in order to obtain an exchange for the remaining Texan children held by the Comanche.
On May 28, 1838, the second peace treaty with the Penateka Band of the Southern Comanche tribe was ratified between the Republic of Texas and dozens of headmen of the Penetaka band of Comanche under principal chiefs, Mukwooru, Muestyad and Muhy. Article 10 of the treaty required that the Comanche stop their hundred mile long raids down the Colorado River and put an end to their murdering defenseless settlers and stealing their horses. Any and all disputes between the parties, all were to be resolved by appointed representatives of the chiefs and the President of Texas.
On October 20, 1838, a party of surveyors under Lapham and Jones were attacked by a large war party of 100 Comanche warriors four miles north of San Antonio. General Richard G. Dunlap and Captain Cage went out to relieve the men with a handful of San Antonians and were chased back. Cage was killed and the general escaped with a lance wound and most of the remainder returned with arrow wounds. Eleven Texians were buried two days later in a mass grave. Before the year was over, the Killough, Wood, Morgan, Marlin and Tippins Families were all murdered in their homes.
In January 1839 Lipan scouts, who had many kidnapped women and children among the Comanche brought word of a Comanche encampment on the outskirts of the settlements on the San Saba River. No word of how many lodges were in the village. Miss Parker, Webster, Matilda Lockhart, Warren Lyons, Thomas Pierce and several others were still captive among them as were scores Tonkawa women and children. On February 12 a combined party of 55 Texan farmers and allied Indians under chief Flacco attacked a Comanche village. Mr. Lockhart, father of the captive Matilda joined the party in an attempt to rescue her.
In response, the Comanche murdered the widow, Mrs. Coleman and her five orphaned children near present day, Austin.
Jose Franciso Ruiz, who lived among the Comanche for eight years wrote that, "among them they had hundreds of prisoners of both sexes, estimating the total being over 900 among the nation, which did not include those who had successfully made their escape...The worst treatment were those of the young girls as he would write, “Their lot [disposition] is most pitiful.”
In an attempt to prevent further raids, the fledgling Texas government funded volunteers farmers to patrol the perimeters of the settlements. In May, 1839, Captain John Bird and 30 Texas Rangers skirmished with Comanche chief Buffalo Hump at what is now Bird's Creek in present day, Temple known as Bird's Creek Indian Fight. Many Indians were killed. In response, the large party of Comanche rode to San Antonio and challenged the citizens to come out and fight, then left with 240 horses.
In June 1839, just months before a treaty council was arranged, twelve Mexicans and herders were slain by Comanche in the neighboring ranches about San Antonio, and just a few months before, the Comanche came within the edge of town, killed two Mexicans and stole a young boy, then killed a German and a Mexican two days later. In response, Col. Henry Wax Karnes, with Col. Juan N. Sequin led an expedition against the attackers with a force of 108 volunteers and friendly Indians. Captive Matilda Lockhart who was captive among the Comanche stated the Comanche lost 23 men in that fight.
In September 1839, the Comanche encountered the Webster wagon train consisting of 16 travelers, massacred all except for Dolly Webster who was abducted. In captivity, she met with Thomas Pierce (10), a boy whose family was also massacred by the Comanche in front his eyes. Because the Comanche had lost their relationship with the Mexicans of San Antonio, the Penateka band had no means of obtaining gunpowder. They asked Mrs. Webster to show them how to make it but she was no help. The Peneteka were desperate to obtain more and thus sent, chief, Mukwooru into San Antonio with a captive in order to obtain more.
The government of Texas had no solution to the Comanche lightning, hit and run raids, and just like the Mexicans, and Spanish before them, they hoped that gifts in the form of tribute would buy them safety from kidnapping, murder and theft. Already, Texans had between 1823 and 1839, buried three hundred and fifty civilians, murdered by Indians of all tribes, Kickapoo, Keechi, Tawakani, Waco, Cherokee and Caddo most recently. Major Chouteau, Indian Agent for the Creek at Camp Holmes thought the number of white captives abducted from Texas and held captive by the various tribes north of Red River as between forty and fifty. By the time of the Council House Fight, an estimated thirty-five white children had been kidnapped by Comanche alone with at least 13 of them by the Peneteka band. Much mistrust with existed between the two nations. As one contemporary wrote of the proposed treaty:
"This was not the first time the Comanches had feigned friendship and expressed a desire to cease hostilities towards the whites in order to throw the settlers off their guard so that they might more effectually raid the country, commit murders and then suddenly return to their mountain homes, carrying into captivity women and children and driving off all the horses they could conveniently carry with them. Our people along the border settlements had suffered so much at the hands of the red devils for the last four or five years previous that the government was disposed to give the Comanches another trail and thus test their pretended desire for peace.”
Towards the end of February 1840, a party of three hundred Penateka Comanche camped very near Mission San Jose, about six miles from San Antonio. Captain Howard was in a camp nearby and sent some Mexican interpreters on horseback to demand the release of recently kidnapped Texans or, they must prepare for a fight. Mukwooru and his band had not come to fight and as a show of faith brought forth a white captive, James Putnam (9) for which they expected a ransom. Colonel Henry Wax Karnes provided remuneration, but this was apparently not enough as during the council, they complained of the price. The Comanche were told that if they brought in all the white captives that were known to have recently abducted, terms of peace could be arranged. The kidnappers agreed to meet during the next moon. James Putnam relayed to Howard that his sister, Rhoda had been killed by the Comanche during her captivity, along with her Indian master and his principal wife after his death, a ritual typical of early native Americans in order that they serve him in the afterlife.
Just two years before, in 1838, the Putnam children were picking pecans along the Guadalupe River with a neighbor, Matilda Lockhart (13) when Comanche warriors abducted them. Matilda, Rhoda Putnam (14), and her younger siblings James (7) Elizabeth (5) and Lucy (2) were tied to horses and swept away to the north.
The next full moon occurred in March and on the 19th, Chief Mukwooru, a Penetaka chief and close kin to Yellow Wolf and Buffalo Hump led 65 Comanches, including women and children, to San Antonio for peace talks.
On March 19, chief Mukwooru of the Penateka band of the Southern Comanche tribe led 65 Comanches into San Antonio and through the streets to the downtown courthouse passing the glares and sneers of scores of Mexican farmers and ranchers along the streets, the majority who had lost their children and grand children during a century of Comanche raids. As was tradition among native peace talks, Mukwooru brought with him his headmen, some of their wives and children as well as two elderly headmen. All of the men had knives and quivers filled with arrows but their bows were unstrung. In case of treachery, they had their wives hide secret tomahawks between their blankets.
Buffalo Hump, still reeling from the Bird Fight, and Yellow Wolf, and Santa Anna, did not attend and remained at Enchanted Rock with Dolly Webster and other captives. The peace talks were doomed to fail as none of the other war chiefs were present. All of the bands, though claiming independence and autonomy were celebrating with games at a festival at Enchanted Rock as captive Dolly Webster would later recount. But perhaps this would be the beginning of another larger treaty with the entire band of Penateka which would lead to them acquiring more gunpowder and clothing.
In front of the San Antonio courthouse, the Comanche dismounted. Thirty two of the 65 held the horses for the 33 that walked inside. As shown in the adjacent sketch, it was a one-story stone building with adjoining the jail on the corner of Main Plaza and Calabosa (Market) Street. The delegates walked down the hallway and entered a large court room.
Outside, Judge Thompson approached some of the Comanche boys and spent the morning playing target practice with them, setting up silver coins on a wood fence some distance away while the children showed off their skills.
The Comanche entered the courthouse with only one captive, fourteen year old, Matilda Lockhart. Before she was let go, the Indians addressed the court that the little ransom paid for the Putnam boy two weeks before would be made up with this transaction. The captive was handed to Mary Maverick, who escorted the prisoner into another room and interviewed her. Miss Lockhart, thought a tiny girl, had been beaten, repeatedly gang raped and had suffered burns to her body. Miss Lockhart “[w]as utterly degraded, and could not hold up her head again. Her head, arms, and face were full of bruises, and sores, and her nose actually burnt off to the bone-all the fleshy end gone, and a great scab formed on the end of the bone. Both nostrils were wide open and denuded of flesh. She told a piteous tale of how dreadfully the Indians had beaten her, and how they would wake her from her sleep by sticking a chunk of fire to her flesh, especially to her nose...her body had many scars from the fire".
Gary Anderson, suggests that "Mrs. Maverick may have exaggerated Lockhart's condition because of the growing criticism of Texas" and appears to suggest that there was no abuse because Lockhart's sister did not mention it in a letter. But Matilda Lockhart had been so abused during her captivity, she suffered in limbo for another two years and died a child about two years after being ransomed. "No man who had seen Miss Lockhart, her scars, her burns, her bruises, every hair torn by the roots from her head, would hesitate to concur with this decision [to take the Comanche as captives] remarked the editor of Houston Times."
Wilbarger, who wrote his epic about Indian depredations in Texas knew some of the women who examined Lockhart. "There was not a place on her body as large as the palm of the hand which had not been burned with hot irons" He wrote. This practice was common at the time and typically done by the Indian women when their people failed to return or came back injured from a kidnapping and horse stealing raid.
During the council, the Comanche sat on the floor next to their wives who held the tomahawks between the blankets in case of treachery. They had told the horse handlers out front to look for any signs of foul play. The Texians sat on chairs on a platform facing them. Just as the Comanche had contingency plans for treachery, so too did the Texians, they secreted two companies of soldiers in an adjacent building waiting for signs of foul play. In an adjacent room, Miss Lockhart was asked by Mrs. Maverick why the others were not brought in. She replied that it was the deliberate falsehood of the Comanche and that she had seen several prisoners at the camp a few days before. She also said that the Indians intended only to bring a few in at a time in order to acquire more ransom. Dolly Webster corroborated this as being told by the squaws that their men never intended to ransom her or her children.
Texas Secretary of War, Colonel William G. Cooke asked chief Mukwooru:
“Where are the prisoners you were to bring?
Mukwooru listened to the interpreter and replied, “We have brought the only one we had, the others are with other tribes."
It was later learned that these were not brought because the others were not satisfied with the amount paid for the Putnam child and were ready to barter for more, beginning with Miss Lockhart. After an uncomfortable pause and silence in the court.
Mukwarrah followed up with, “How do you like the answer?”
No reply was given as Texan Secretary of War Col. Cooke, treaty Commissioner whispered to Colonel Fisher to send the two companies of soldiers that were hiding from a nearby building to guard the doors and prevent the chiefs from leaving. The Texians were about to force a prisoner swap.
With a firm steady voice and eyes directed at the interpreter, Cooke repeated his instructions again and then walked out of the courtroom and down the hall to instruct Captain William D. Redd and Howard and the soldiers to guard the exit doors where the other Comanche horse-handlers were waiting. While the captain was summoning the soldiers, Colonel, McLeod in his official report to President Mirabeau Lamar remarked that, "The order was now given to march one company into the council room, and the other in the rear of the building, where the warriors were assembled. During the execution of this order, the talk was re-opened, and the terms of a treaty, directed by your Excellency to be made with them, in case the prisoners were restored, were discussed; and they were told the treaty would be made, when they brought in the prisoners. They acknowledged that they had violated all their previous treaties, and yet tauntingly demanded that new confidence should be reposed in another promise to bring in the prisoners. the troops being now posted, the chiefs and captains were told they were our prisoners.
These braves and horse handlers outside had been carefully watching as several citizens gathered around the courthouse to get a peek at the proceedings, but they became alarmed at the approach of the troops who filtered out of a nearby barn. One of the Indians opened the courthouse doors and, in the hallway, began yelling to his Comanche kin inside. “Ambush! Fight your way out!"
Several of the Indian men inside began to string their bows and the women began handing over knives. One chief, whose son remained outside, exited the courtroom and bolted past the bailiff. He pulled out his scalping knife and ran down the hall to the rear exit where Cooke had walked toward. Upon seeing the door, he made a run for it but was stopped by Captain Howard, upon which the warrior stabbed Howard. The officer was armed with a sword, but had not time to react to pull it out of its scabbard. He was repeatedly stabbed while attempting to block the blows while crying out for one of his soldiers to shoot.
One sentinel who had already been trying to get a good aim shot and killed the Indian, who fell dead at the Captain's feet. Screams and panic now filled the courtroom and the people outside as the second Indian, Ebawatschouchimachussen (7-headed wolf) a large and muscular chief, seeing his comrade die, rushed for the door wielding his tomahawk and was run through with Howard's sword. He fell across the body of the other fallen warrior. Due to loss of blood, Howard became faint and several Indians made their way outside. Gillen took place guarding the door and the others remained.
Inside the courtroom all of the Indians were fighting their way out. Lieutenant Dunnington pulled out his pistol to shoot but was shot by an arrow from a Comanche woman who was dressed similar to a warrior. Her pull was so strong, the arrow passed through his body. He stumbled backwards but managed to get a shot off before dying. The bullet killed her.
Presiding Judge Hood was in the council room when the fracas began and stumbled to his chambers but was stabbed to death. Others stabbed the Mexican translator while others rushed at Judge Hood. He didn't get far before three men were on top of him stabbing him just as the soldiers entered through the door one at a time. Captain Fisher, sword in hand began slashing and ordered, “Fire!” and twelve principal chiefs and another woman were shot and killed inside the courtroom. None of the two elderly men or 27 women were killed.
Outside, Judge Thompson and a Mr Casey of Matagorda County who had joined in the target practice with the Comanche children were shot at with arrows. The Old Judge fell over dead with an arrow to his heart while the remainder began mounting their horses for escape, including two Comanche children. Several were shot at by the troops. Mr. Casey was shot and killed by friendly fire. The ball hit him in the liver and blew a hole out the other side of him. He died almost instantly among a pile of dead bodies including another child. A crowd of Comanche burst out of the courthouse leaving all of the women and two elderly men behind. Eleven Comanche lay dead inside. Several more were shot and killed just as they exited or as they attempted to mount their horse.
In summary, the report by Col. Hugh McLeod written March 20, 1840 stated that of the 65 members of the Comanches' party, 35 were killed (30 men, 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, a sheriff, and an army lieutenant, with ten more wounded. The Comanche were buried in a mass grave.
One of the women prisoners was sent on a horse to relay the news of the Comanche prisoners. On the 19th of April, twenty-five Comanche braves returned to San Antonio bringing seven Mexican captives and begged the release of the captives, but none of the whites, all of whom were massacred by order the Buffalo Hump and the other chiefs. The emissaries begged, insisting upon the release of at least two. It was determined that five of the seven captives they had brought with them were citizens of Mexico and were so, "Indianized" after being so long captive, they would certainly return to their tribe. The two Mexican citizens of San Antonio were exchanged. These were then interviewed and asked of the disposition of the white captives in their possession. They stated there were eight or nine white children in the Comanche's camps, but they had all been, "put to death by the savages after they heard of the Council House incident."
After trading for the two Mexican captives, these braves then swung by the Mission at San Jose and stole twenty mules and murdered an elderly Mexican man.
The Comanche captives were confined at the Alamo, were well treated. When the Texians learned of the melancholy news that all of the white child hostages were all murdered that they had no use for the captives and the Texians let them go. They were innocent of any wrongdoing and just another mouth to feed. By June, most were allowed to walk away. At least two women, a girl and a boy were held in San Antonio until about the first of February 1844 when the Comanche finally came in for more peace talks and more prisoner swaps.
Before returning of the final prisoners, they met with President Houston who penned a letter to the head chief, Pahyayuco. Pahyayuco, however was on a long hunt and the civil chief, Mopechucope (Old Owl) wrote back to Houston via an interpreter
"We thank you for the way you have treated this old woman that has been to see you. Her story of you and your people and the way she was treated makes my heart glad to think that you would notice her. And at the same time makes me mad at myself and people to think such an old woman should go so far to make peace for her tribe when there is plenty of young [Comanche] men doing nothing. Her talk is all good and I know every word of it is true. I think you for the little girl you sent home [with] the old woman. She got home safe to her people to the arms of her mother. Her father is dead."
Regarding of the upcoming treaty council, "I dont' want you to send any more of your [Comanche] prisoners home until there is an exchange of all white prisoners and they are all given up. There is three [white captives] among us somewhere but none present. There was five, but two are dead.
Mopechucope now tangentially addresses the cause of the Council House Fight, "My people are blind and foolish and are not willing to give up their prisoners without pay. But I will fix all that to your satisfaction. Those that have relatives in Texas shall buy the white prisoners and then make the exchange which they won't grumble [at the price] at for that is their custom.
Before the Comanche women and elderly men were let go, on March 26, captive, Mrs. John Webster, came into town with her three-year-old. She had been a Comanche captive for 19 months and had just escaped with her infant before the slayings, leaving her 12-year-old son with the Indians. Two days after her arrival, a band of Indians returned to San Antonio. Leaving the bulk of the warriors outside the city, Chief Isanaica (Howling Wolf) and one other man rode into San Antonio and yelled insults. The citizens told him to go find the soldiers if he wanted a fight, but the garrison commander, Captain Redd, declared that he had to observe the 12-day truce. Redd invited the Indians to come back in three days, but, fearing a trap, Isanaica and his men left the area. Another officer accused Redd of cowardice for refusing to fight, and they both died following a duel over the insult.
Of the 16 hostages the Texians were determined to recover, 13 were tortured to death as soon as the news of the Council House Fight reached the outraged Comanches. The captives, including Matilda Lockhart's six-year-old sister, suffered slow roasting among other tortures. Only three captives who had been adopted into the tribe, and by Comanche custom were truly part of the tribe, were spared. This was part of the Comanche answer to the breaking of a truce.
On April 3, when the truce deadline had ended, another band of Comanches appeared again to bargain for a captive exchange. They had only three captives with them, including Webster's son Booker, a five-year-old girl, and a Mexican boy. Booker told them that the other captives had been tortured and killed when the Comanche woman had returned to camp with news of the Council House Fight. These three captives were returned after their adoptive families agreed to give them up.
The Comanche captives were moved from the city jail to the San Jose Mission, then to Camp Cooke at the head of the San Antonio River. Several were taken into people's homes to live and work, but ran away as soon as they could. Eventually, all of the Texians' Comanche captives escaped.
The Comanche were enraged by the actions of the Texians. In his book Los Comanches, historian Stanley Noyes notes, "[a] violation of a council represented an almost unthinkable degree of perfidy. The council was sacred not only to the [Comanche] People, but [also] to all Native Americans". In response, the captives the Texians sought were killed, and Buffalo Hump launched the Great Raid of 1840, leading hundreds of Comanche warriors on raids against many Texian villages. The Texians, for their part, were shocked and disgusted by the actions of the Comanches in torturing to death the innocent captives. At least 25 settlers were killed in the Great Raid, with others taken prisoner, including a Mrs. Crosby, a granddaughter of Daniel Boone, who was later murdered by her captors. Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of goods were taken; one city was burned to the ground and another damaged. The Texian militia responded, leading to the Battle of Plum Creek in August 1840.
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