BILL. 30] 



TONKAWA 



781 



them that they were despised by other 

 tribes as vagabonds, ill-natured, and dis- 

 posed to thievery, a character frequently 

 given them in later times. They lived in 

 scattered villages of skin tijiis, which they 

 moved according to the caprice of the 

 chiefs or the demands of the chase. In 

 the 18th century they were fine horsemen 

 and had good animals. Their offensive 

 weapons then were firearms, bows and 

 arrows, and the spear; their defensive 

 arms were the leather jacket {cuera), 

 shield, and cap or helmet, on which they 

 often wore horns and gaudy plumage. 



Once, when in their midst, Mezieres 

 wrote a statement of their dependence on 

 the buffalo that deserves to be recorded. 

 "Besides their meat," he said, "it fur- 

 nishes them liberally what they desire 

 for cotiveniences. The brains are used 

 to soften skins, the horns for spoons and 

 drinking cups, tlie shoulder-blades to dig 

 up {carar) and clear off the ground, the 

 tendons for thread and bowstrings, the 

 hoof to glue the arrow-feathering. From 

 the tail-hair they make ropes and girths; 

 from the wool, belts and various orna- 

 ments. The hide furnishes saddle and 

 bridle, tether ropes, sliields, tents, shirts, 

 footwear, and blankets to protect them 

 from the cold. ' ' They were great deer as 

 well as buffalo hunters, and when their 

 buffalo range was partly cut off by the Co- 

 manche, their dependence on this animal 

 increased. A trader informed Sibley in 

 1805 that he had obtained from the Ton- 

 kawa as many as 5,000 deerskins in one 

 year, besides tallow, robes, and tongues. 

 Their market for hides in earlier times 

 had usually been the Tawakoni villages 

 ( Mezieres, op. cit. ; Sibley, Hist. Sketches, 

 1806). 



Spanish Relations after 1770. — For about 

 15 years after the failure of the San 

 Xavier missions, the Tonkawa were re- 

 garded by the Spaniards as open enemies; 

 but in 1770 an equal period of nominal 

 peace began, during which the Spanish 

 policy toward the tribe was marked by 

 three main features: ( 1 ) to win their 

 good-will l)y friendly visits and by send- 

 ing them authorized traders with sup- 

 plies; (2) to force them to keep peace 

 with the Tawakoni, Yscani, and Kichai, 

 who were relied on to restrain the Ton- 

 kawa by good example or coercion; (3) 

 to induce them, by persuasion and by 

 threats of withdrawing the traders, to 

 abandon their vagabond life and settle in 

 a fixed village. The principal agents in 

 this work were De Mezieres, Gil Ybarbo, 

 Nicolas de la ]\Iathe, and Andres de 

 Courbiere — all but one Frenchmen from 

 Natchitoches, it will be noted. Their 

 efforts at coercion through trade were 

 evidently made nugatory by clandestine 

 French traffic that could not be stopped. 



Failure to successfully effect these poli- 

 cies was charged to the bad influence of 

 the noted Tonkawa chief of the day, Tos- 

 que, or El Mocho. He was an Apache 

 by birth, who had been captured and 

 adopted by the Tonkawa. During one 

 of his exploits against the Osage he had 

 lost his right ear, w"hence his nickname, 

 £1 Moclio, " the maimed " or "cropped." 

 By his prowess in war and his eloquence 

 in council he raised himself to a position 

 of influence. Chance, in the form of an 

 epidemic, occurring in 1777-78, removed 

 his rivals and left him head chief. His 

 baneful influence before this had won 

 him the enmity of the Spaniards, and 

 Mezieres, under official orders, had bribed 

 his rivals to assassinate iiim, but he was 

 saved by the epidemic mentioned. Now 

 resort was had to flattery and gifts. In 

 1779 Mezieres held a long and loving con- 

 ference with El IMocho at the lower Tawa- 

 koni village, and the result was that they 

 went together to Bexar to see the gov- 

 ernor. There, on Oct. 8, 1779, in the 

 presence of more than 400 Tonkawa peo- 

 ple. Governor Cabello with great cere- 

 mony appointed El Mocho "capitan 

 grande" of his tribe, decorating him 

 with a medal of honor, and presenting 

 him a commission, a uniform, a baston, 

 and a flag bearing the cross of Burgundy. 

 In return, of course, El Mocho made grave 

 promises to obey and to form the desired 

 pueblo (Cabello, Informe, 1784,^161, MS.). 



The promise to settle down, however, 

 remained unfulfilled, while El Mocho's 

 insincerity was still further proved by 

 events of 1782. In that year the Lipan, 

 Mascaleros, and .Apache, as the records 

 give the names, desirous of better means 

 of acquiring arms, made overtures of 

 peace to the Tonkawa, who easily ob- 

 tained weapons from the French. El 

 Mocho consented to a meeting. The 

 place appointed was the bank of Guada- 

 lupe r. ; the time, the moons of November 

 and December. Cabello, unable to prevent 

 the gathering, sent a spy in Indian dis- 

 guise — probably the great Indian linguist 

 and interpreter, Andres de Courbiere — 

 who reported the proceedings in detail. 

 According to him, more than 4,000 In- 

 dians attended, and the barter of firearms 

 for stolen horses was lively. But the 

 alliance was defeated by El Al echo's am- 

 bitions. He tried to induce the Apache 

 tribes to make him their head chief, in 

 return for which he would rid the country 

 of Spaniards. This self-seeking aroused 

 the jealousy of the Apache chiefs, quar- 

 rels ensued, and on Christmas day the 

 meeting broke up Avithout the alliance 

 being effected (Cabello, op. cit., 1| 63). 



This event, combined with personal 

 jealousies within the Tonkawa tribe, was 

 the undoing of El Mocho, for return was 



