Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1881-11-10
AN INDIAN CAPTIVE.
The Romantic History of Man Who
is Now Cashier of Bank at Corpus

The Romantic History of Man Who
is Now Cashier of Bank at Corpus
Christi.
Gen. John r. Baylor furnishes the
San Antonio Express with the follow
ing incident, connected with his late
visit to Corpus Christi, where he met a
Spaniard by the name of Tito Rivera,
whom he rescued from the Comanches
a quarter of century ago:
an 1856 was United States Indian
agent at the Comanche reservation, on
the Clear fork Of the Brazos, then
ThrockmOrton county. One day 1
found a note on my table from boy,
who asked that he be taken from the
Indians. Soon afterward the boy
walked into my Office with bunch of
turkey feathers fastened on the top of
his head, and his face painted, and
dressed in the Indian costume, and said
he was the boy who had left the note
on my table. l asked him where he
came from, and he said his father was
a Spaniald and lived in the mining
town of Taplo, in the state of Durango,
Mexico. He spoke Spanish, and also
Comanche. / didn't believe that he
had written the note, and, to try him,
asked him to sit down at my desk
and show me how he could write. He
wrote a beautiful hand for a boy.
Questioning him as to how he came to
fall into the hands of the Indians, he
said that his father owned a pack-train,
and one day he went out with the
mules, and the men in charge of the
mules, and camped. The Indians
came on them and took him into cap
tivity. After hearing his story, sent
for the Indian who claimed to own
the boy, and when he came 1 told him
l must have Tito. He replied that 1
could not, and 1 told him / would or
we would fight. He said that fight it
would be, then. The boy could not go.
L went to see Gen. Robert E. Lee, the
hero of the confederate war, who was
then lieutenant colonel of % United
States cavalry at Camp Cooper. and
who had been stationed there to pro
tect the COmanche camp. While
there Chief Catemase, of the Conan
CHEESE, who bad heard of the object
Va NAolt, W bCC I1lC dllu Sdlu
that he wanted no trouble between my
self and the Indians. and that if /
would give up 800 worth of goods
could get the boy. gave him an or
der on the sutler and he was given the
goods, and the boy was turned over to
me. | sent the little fellow to my
house, and he lived with my children
for about two years, being treated as
one of the family. Afterward / met
Maj. Neighbors, who then lived near
San Antonio, on the Salado. Mai.
Neighbors said he wanted him, and if
would give him to him he would send
him back to his mother. turned him
over to the major, put he didn't send
him back to his mother, and the con-
federate war came on and he went into
the confederate army. The boy was
twelve years old when 1 took him, and
the Indians had captured him when 9.
having had him three years. He spoke
the Comanche language perfectly, and
used him as interpreter. Major
NeighbOrs left the boy on his ranch on
the SaladO, near the San Antonio, and
the boy entered the confederate army
when about 16. Upon returning from
the war he stopped with Capt Albert
Wallace, on the Cibole, fifteen miles
north of San Antonio, and from there
went to Galveston, and thence to Cor
pus Christi. While with Capt. Wal
lace he earned his living as a cowboy.
1 went to Corpus Christi to see the
boy, Tito Rivera, now cashier of the
bank Of Davis & Dodridge, in Corpus
Christi, and one of the most respect
able gentlemen of Corpus. he married
Miss Mollie Wood ward, and now has
one boy and two little girls, and the
best of my visit was that the little
children came about me, threw their
arms around my neck, and called me
grandpa. Rivera is a man now about
Sc years of age, and is a magnificent
looking man."