WHITE FEMALE CAPTIVES. 397 



Indians being too much excited by her beauty to wait to 

 take her to a safe place. 



The Indians prefer, if possible, to take female 

 captives, white women especially, one moderately good 

 looking being worth as many ponies as would buy three 

 or four Indian girls. Besides this, they are exceedingly 

 valuable when the tribe gets tired of the war path and 

 intimates its desire for peace with the United States. 

 Tlrc Indians take great credit to themselves for bringing 

 in these captives, invariably demanding a large price ; 

 while the Government, as eager for peace as a schoolboy 

 after a thrashing, instead of punishing the villains for 

 their outrages, pats them on the back, and tells them that 

 they are good fellows for bringing in the prisoners, and 

 pays the price demanded. 



I was once present when three white women, one a 

 bright, sprightly, intelligent lady, were returned, after a 

 captivity of several months among the savages. They 

 had been captured on the Little Blue, and carried to the 

 tribal encampment. This lady detailed to the wife of 

 my intimate friend (from whom I received it) a story 

 of horrors, for w r hich the life blood of every Indian of 

 the tribe would be inadequate punishment. Yet although 

 the Indians who killed the men, carried off and outraged 

 the women, were known, no one was ever punished, nor 

 does it seem to have entered the mind of any person in 

 authority that punishment was merited. 



Sa-na-co, a Comanche chief, had a white wife, a Ger- 

 man woman, rather above her class in intelligence. Once 

 when Sa-na-co was on a visit to Fort Chadbourne, Texas, 

 with his family and band, an officer asked her if she did 

 not wish to return to the whites. ' No,' she replied ; ' my 

 husband, children, and near relatives were killed when 

 New Braunfels was taken by the Indians. I have no 

 friends among the whites. I have been long among the 

 Indians, and no longer suffer. Sa-na-co treats me well ; and, 

 though my life is hard, it is no worse than to work for 



