The Captured Page 13

  It took place two days later. Tosacowadi was dressed in beads and a colorful feathered cap with a streamer that reached the ground. He was carrying a tomahawk in one hand and a pistol in the other. The women let out a great cry as they approached the arena with their fighter. Tosacowadi shoved Clinton forward and gave a war whoop.

  Then the two boys went at it. The Comanche boy knocked Clinton down and jumped on him. Clinton wrapped his arms around him and locked his teeth in the boy’s flesh. The boy began to howl, but Clinton wouldn’t turn loose. The women tried to separate them, but Tosacowadi pointed his pistol at them and made them stand back. Other onlookers yelled and laughed. In their excitement, they took out their guns and fired shots into the air. Two Comanches entered the arena and tried to pry Clinton loose from the other boy. Still he held on. They started choking him, and he was finally so strangled that he had to let go. Tosacowadi had won the horses. He took Clinton by the hand and patted him on the head to show his pleasure.

  Tosacowadi was so impressed by Clinton’s performance that he bought him from his Apache captor for four horses and some beads, powder, and lead. He took him to live with his family. Tosacowadi had a son named Monewostuki, and he made Clinton understand that he wanted them to be brothers.

  Just when the Smith boys started thinking everything might turn out all right, their hopes were shattered once more. Clinton and Jeff were separated. Clinton had found a new home with Tosacowadi and the Comanches, but Jeff’s Comanche captor decided to sell him to a Lipan Apache.19 Clinton couldn’t keep from crying when “poor little Jeff was tied up and branded like a cow.” The Apaches singed the boy’s face with a hot iron to identify him. They also stuck large mesquite thorns through his ears to make holes for brass earrings. Not long afterward, they left with him.

  One of the Apache women took charge of Jeff, and he said that she treated him “very tenderly (for an Indian).” She made him a buckskin jacket and foxskin cap with a tail hanging down the back. He also wore a breechcloth, a beaded belt, and buckskin moccasins. The woman painted his face red, with blue stripes up and down his forehead. Jeff recalled, “The Apaches gave me plenty to eat, which was more than the Comanches had done, and I began to feel proud of the trade.”

  The Apaches named Jeff Catchowitch (Horse Tail). Before long he was living the ordinary life of an Apache boy. The most difficult part of his Indianization was the language instruction: whenever he couldn’t understand what the Apaches wanted him to do, they would grab his ear, pull it hard, and then point to whatever they were talking about. The Apaches taught him how to use a bow and arrow and gave him odd jobs to do. Like Herman Lehmann, he had to carry water and wood, herd the horses, scrape animal skins, cut switches for arrows, and carry the meat after a hunt. When he wasn’t working, Jeff mingled freely with the Apache children, and they were good to him. Since he was only eight, the Apaches didn’t take him on raids but left him behind with the women and other children.

  Perhaps because he was so young, Jeff was able to adapt to Apache life rather quickly and without much resistance. “At first I felt very lonely,” he later recalled. “But after I learned to talk like them and understand everything, I was satisfied living with them.”

  Meanwhile, Clinton, who had been given the name Backecacho (End of a Rope),20 also performed menial chores for the Comanches. He helped the women cook meat for the men and dressed their wounds after battle. He also had to herd horses and carry wood and water. In time, however, it became clear to Clinton that the Comanches hadn’t purchased him just so he could be their menial. He was being trained to serve the tribe in much more important ways. Clinton recalled occasions when he and the other boys his age were taken to the open flatlands and drilled in battle maneuvers for several hours. They were taught to conceal their bodies behind their horses’ necks and shoot while the horses were running at full speed. They were also instructed in how to charge, retreat, circle the enemy, and rescue their fallen comrades. The Comanches had big plans for Back-ecacho Clinton Smith.

  By the spring of 1871, when Clinton and Jeff Smith were captured, Rudolph Fischer of Fredericksburg and Temple Friend of Legion Valley were already full-fledged Comanches. Adolph Korn, Herman Lehmann, and the Smith brothers had all passed the initial trial by fire. These timid farm boys were well on their way to becoming juvenile Indian warriors. No one has ever come up with a completely satisfying explanation for how that happened. Anthropologist A. Irving Hallowell pointed out in 1963 that Indianization “has remained a neglected topic of scholarly research,”21 and this is still the case; most recent scholarship in this area has focused on the captivity narrative as a literary genre rather than the psychology of the captives’ transformation.

  One avenue for approaching this phenomenon is the “Stockholm syndrome,” a term coined in the 1970s to explain why hostages sometimes come to identify with their captors. According to this theory, the victims’ behavior is an irrational but natural way of coping with trauma and staying alive. At first the captives are relieved that their abductors, who could have killed them, have chosen to let them live. They also feel betrayed because their own people have failed to rescue them. Over time the captives adopt their captors’ values, perhaps to avoid punishment. Eventually, they start to fear the people trying to rescue them; they see their abductors’ dilemma as their own. Even after they are released, the victims may continue to sympathize with their captors for several months.22

  Although the Stockholm syndrome has been documented repeatedly among adult hostages, it doesn’t fully explain the metamorphosis these child captives went through. Some of them, especially the younger ones like Minnie Caudle and Banc Babb, do not seem to have had much fear or even awareness that the Indians might harm them, even after they saw other white people attacked. As Jeff Smith recalled, “I suppose I was too small to worry much about my situation.” Typically, the child captives did not start to act and think like their captors until they’d spent a few months with the tribe; their acceptance of the native people’s values cannot be characterized as an immediate reaction of relief over not being killed. More significant, the captives’ affection for their Native American families and their affinity for Indian culture lasted throughout their lives. The medical historian and anthropologist Erwin H. Ackerknecht observed that American Indian captives who returned to white society retained the “outward impassibility of the Indian,” often “could no longer sleep in a ‘white’ house or bed,” “showed the same physical stamina as did the Indians,” were “unanimous in their praise of the Indian character and of Indian morals,” and lived “between the two cultures in a state of great un-happiness.”23

  The extent of the captives’ assimilation differed, and not all captured children became converts to native ways. Some anthropologists have suggested that the two most critical factors in the making of a white Indian were abduction at an early age and a long residence with the tribe. The cases of Ole Nystel and Frank Buckelew, two Texas captives who never became assimilated, support this hypothesis in the converse. Nystel spent merely three months with the Comanches in 1867 when he was already fourteen; Buckelew, captured at age thirteen, lived with the Lipan Apaches for eleven months in 1866–1867. Both of these boys successfully resisted Indianization and never lost their desire to escape.

  However, the exceptions seem to swallow the rule. Rudolph Fischer and Dot Babb were both as old as Frank Buckelew when they were captured, and they became Indianized. Even younger children such as Adolph Korn, Herman Lehmann, and Clinton Smith, all abducted at age ten, were old enough to have been conscious of their cultural identities and to make choices. Furthermore, Dot Babb spent only nine months with the Comanches—two months less than Buck-elew, who rejected the Indians’ way of life. Minnie Caudle and Banc Babb spent merely six and seven months, respectively, with the Comanches, yet both acquired their captors’ ways and became lifelong defenders of their adoptive people.

  Generalizations based on objective factors such as age when captured an
d duration of captivity are not particularly helpful. The captives’ individual personalities seem to have played a more significant role in accounting for the differing degrees of assimilation. The challenges and rewards of adapting to Indian folkways held the greatest appeal for children who were somewhat assertive, liked taking risks, and did not feel bound by cultural or moral absolutes but were open to new ways of thinking.

  As an example of this last characteristic, the captives’ diverse views on the nature of God and religion are instructive. Frank Buckelew, who did not become Indianized, was drawn to traditional, evangelical Christianity and eventually became a Methodist preacher. He described a Lipan religious ceremony he witnessed as a “strange performance” by “uncivilized beings.” Similarly, Ole Nystel, while acknowledging that the Comanches believed in a supreme being, noted how “wrong” they were in “their mode of worship” and described their prayers as “unavailing and misdirected.” Banc Babb, on the other hand, was completely nonjudgmental when she pointed out that the Comanches “had their regular time for worshipping their heavenly Father, or as they would say our sure enough Father.” In even sharper contrast, Herman Lehmann, who subscribed to mainstream Christianity later in life, nonetheless compared the natives’ spirituality favorably to his people’s when he remarked, “I have seen just as much earnestness and less hypocrisy among the Indians in their worship as I ever have seen since I came among the whites.” He suggested that if the white man would “study our religion and our philosophy, he would find that we are not what he would call pagans, or miscreants, or savages, but we know about as much of the unknowable as he does and have seen perhaps even deeper.” Dot Babb also showed his distrust of religious orthodoxy when he said, “I believe there is a hereafter, but I don’t know what it is. I’ve heard some say they know, but I don’t believe anyone can actually know.”24

  Other subjective factors that may have influenced these children’s transformations included the extent to which an individual captive enjoyed adventure and a carefree, unstructured existence. These qualities of Plains Indian society seem to have been especially appealing to my uncle Adolph, who courted danger while he was with the Comanches and never put down roots afterward. Ironically, captivity opened up a new world of freedom for some overworked farm children, who had previously spent their days herding livestock or hauling rocks or hoeing fields. My granny Hey, Adolph Korn’s stepsister, described the children’s life in the Korn household: “From a little girl I had to work hard. Not much time left for recreation.” While the captives were with the Indians, they were allowed to ride horses, hunt, travel, loaf, and play games. No wonder one German-Texan from the Hill Country recalled that during his boyhood, “I wasn’t afraid of the Indians. I guess I figured if they captured me, I’d get to ride and shoot all I wanted to.”25

  However, the thrills, leisure, and mobility of the Plains Indians’ unfettered life cannot entirely account for the depth of the captives’ attachment to the native people. J. Norman Heard, a historian of frontier America, observed: “It would appear that Indian family life offered much to the fulfillment of the individual which was lacking in the more advanced civilization.”26 Frontier parents in central Texas, preoccupied with the necessities of life and their own daily toil, typically had little spare time to instruct their young. Although Granny Hey maintained that parents in those days shared a close bond with their children and loved them dearly, few mothers and fathers gave their sons and daughters any formal education or even taught them practical skills such as swimming, hunting, shooting, and horseback riding. My grandpa Korn was fully literate, but he never taught his children to read and write. Herman Lehmann’s mother could write German very well. However, she “was trying to make a living for her children,” says Gerda Lehmann Kothmann, Herman’s niece. “She didn’t have time to teach them.”

  The Comanches and Apaches not only received the child captives warmly and without prejudice; they also spent much time training them, making them feel significant in tribal society. Dot Babb, Herman Lehmann, and Clinton Smith took lessons from their adoptive fathers in riding, fighting, and shooting. Banc Babb’s Comanche mother taught her to swim, took her to religious ceremonies, and instructed her in tribal lore. Perhaps the captives, in turn, felt a need to prove that they were worthy of their Indian parents’ investment in them. Historian James Axtell reached that conclusion when he studied captives from colonial America: “Although fear undoubtedly accounted for some of the converts’ initial behavior, desire to win the approval of their new relatives also played a part.”27 Not long after their initiation into tribal life, Adolph Korn, Rudolph Fischer, Temple Friend, Herman Lehmann, and the Smith brothers would have many occasions to demonstrate to their new families what they were made of.

  Part Two

  In the Wilds

  Chapter Six

  As Mean an Indian

  as There Was

  At daybreak the buffalo hunters were startled by the sounds of war whoops and horses’ hooves pounding the prairie. They hadn’t even rubbed the sleep out of their eyes when they saw the horsemen charging. Too late the hunters realized their mistake. The campfire that had kept them warm and content the night before had also given away their location. Unable to get to their horses before the onslaught began, they threw off their blankets and reached for their guns. The hunters crouched and fired desperately; but they were greatly outnumbered by the two dozen Comanches. By the time the sun had cleared the horizon and the gunfire had ended, only one hunter was still alive. He threw down his rifle and raised his hands. Then he watched the Comanches plunder his camp, stripping the bloody corpses of his companions, their eyes frozen in disbelief that death could have taken them so unexpectedly.

  The Comanches grabbed the lone survivor and shoved him toward one of their horses. The buffalo hunter didn’t resist. His captors made signs for him to get on the horse. He did as he was told. It wasn’t necessarily a good thing that the Comanches were sparing his life; he knew they might be planning to subject him to vengeful torture at their camp.

  He would be sharing the horse with one of the youngest warriors, a slender, diffident boy about eleven or twelve years old. It took the buffalo hunter a moment to comprehend that the painted savage in buckskin and beaded moccasins was a white boy. His long, matted hair was crawling with lice and bleached ash blond from riding in the sun. His skin, which must have once been quite fair, was now bronzed and rough like rawhide leggings. The Comanches called him Backeca-cho, but he had once answered to the name Clinton Smith. The boy spoke the Comanches’ language fluently, and he didn’t seem to realize that he wasn’t one of them. The hunter knew better than to try to talk to him in English or win his sympathy. White boys who’d spent much time with the natives had a reputation for being crueler to their fellow Anglos than the Indians were.

  After they left the camp, the Comanches and their prisoner rode swiftly across the plains, never stopping to rest. When they reached their village, the women and children ran up, pulled the buffalo hunter off Clinton’s horse, and bound his legs. Then the Comanches put on a show to terrify him. Some of them rushed toward him brandishing spears and axes, threatening to split open his head, then diverting the blows at the last instant. He mustered his courage and stood firm, even managing to smirk at their theatrics.

  Finally, they used sign language to let him know that they were going to execute him. They produced three pistols and loaded them with cartridges. The prisoner didn’t know that his captors had removed the lead from the shells. Next, the Comanches chose three adolescent boys and handed the pistols to them. The boys pointed the weapons at the man’s head. He didn’t flinch. Then they fired the blanks at close range. The powder blackened his face. He calmly wiped it off without a word.

  The Comanches’ leader let out an impassioned yell of admiration and ran up to the hunter. He slapped the white man on the back, loudly praising his courage. Others undid his bonds. After passing the test, he was welcomed into their camp. L
ater, the Comanches let the man escape with one of their horses and didn’t try to recapture him.

  The three boys chosen to fire the pistols at the buffalo hunter’s head were all captives themselves. One was Clinton Smith. Another was a Mexican captive, whose name is unknown. The third was Ca-choco, my uncle Adolph Korn.

  The buffalo-hunter incident was the second recorded sighting of Adolph Korn after his capture in January 1870. He’d been seen in captivity once before, in the late summer or fall of 1870,1 and his behavior at that time had been markedly different. A group of Apaches had stopped beside a watering hole to relax for a few days. Among them was the white captive from Loyal Valley, Herman Lehmann. Before long a party of Quahada Comanches happened along and joined them. The two tribes were on good terms at the time, and for the next three days, the Apaches and Comanches conducted horse races, placing bets and enjoying the friendly competition.

  Meanwhile, Herman was surprised to see his “old friend Adolph Korn” among the Quahadas. The two boys had grown up only ten miles from each other. They had a good deal in common besides their Mason County roots. They were both eleven by then, only a month apart in age, and they were able to speak with each other in German. Eventually, their captors, who were unable to understand what they were saying, grew suspicious and separated them. Another German Indian, Rudolph Fischer of Fredericksburg, was reportedly present at this gathering.2 By then Rudolph, who was eighteen, had spent five years with the Comanches and was a full-fledged warrior. Despite his ethnicity and his Hill Country origins, he no longer had much in common with the two adolescent white boys.