CAMANCHES. 
15 
aging the fields and haciendas under their very eyes, and carrying off into hopeless captivity 
the miserable women and children who have not succeeded in making good their escape. Under 
the uncontrollable influence of this singular and despicable apprehension, it does not seem 
strange that they should have attached so much value to our protection from these Indians, nor 
that they should have insisted with so much earnestness upon inserting such a provision into 
the treaty of G-uadalupe Hidalgo. The women who are thus carried off from their homes 
become the wives or servants of their captors; and the men, after a probation more or less 
lengthy, are adopted into the tribe, most generally in a dependent condition. 
Of the many I have seen thus held in captivity, I have never yet met one who was willing to 
return to his home or his country. In the women this feeling is not difficult to understand. 
They have all been subjected to the inhuman but invariable outrages which are perpetrated by 
Indians upon their female prisoners at the moment of capture; and they afterwards most proba¬ 
bly form attachments to the warriors who have taken them to wife, and by whom they have 
borne children, who enjoy every privilege of the most favored of the tribe. In the men the 
feeling is more difficult to comprehend. Their cowed and sullen look, and shuffling, timid 
manner, sufficiently betray the position they occupy; and their avowed reluctance to return to 
their homes is probably due to a fear of the punishment which the expression of such a wish 
would be certain to bring upon them. 
It would be tedious and out of place, in a report which has in view merely the military pre¬ 
cautions proper to be observed in reference to them, to enter into a detailed description of the 
character and manners and customs of these Indians; and my remarks concerning them will 
probably be more brief than so prolific a subject would seem to justify. The description of 
the route of this expedition has a direct bearing, however, upon this entire tribe of Indians, as 
their nomadic and restless habits induce them to roam continually through the immense region 
over which they claim control. 
The Camanches are small of stature; quick and sprightly in appearance and action; and in 
all cases, where I have seen them, they wear moustaches and heads of long hair instead of 
shaving to the scalp-lock, as is the custom with the more northern races. Although sufficiently 
courteous in their communications with the whites, they nevertheless exhibit a half-defiant, 
half-scornful air, as if their friendly expressions were more the result of convenience than of 
necessity. Over the subordinate bands of Indians who live among them they invariably main¬ 
tain an undisputed supremacy, neither consulting them nor allowing from them an expression 
of opinion upon any matter which they have under consideration. During the summer months 
nearly the whole tribe migrates to the north, to hunt buffalo and wild horses on the plains of 
the upper Arkansas, but return in the autumn with the proceeds of their hunting expeditions 
to pass the winter in the timbered country along the valleys of the upper Colorado, Brazos, and 
Red rivers. Since the establishment of military posts on the frontiers of Texas, and the conse¬ 
quent advance of settlements into their country, the Camanches have been brought into much 
more constant and familiar intercourse with the whites, and have begun to contract that passion 
for ardent spirits which has proved so fatal to their race. The stringent laws of the United 
States have prevented, as far as it has been possible, the introduction of spirituous liquors into 
the Indian countries in the territories over which the general government has control; but the 
State of Texas recognises no Indian title to lands within her borders, and no laws interdict the 
traffic of ardent spirits, which present an attraction entirely irresistible to the Indian. 
To this fatal policy, or rather want of policy, on the part of the State, many of the late In¬ 
dian difficulties in Texas undoubtedly owe their origin; and until some district of country is 
set apart for the Indian tribes, governed by the same strict laws in reference to intercourse with 
them which now prevail in the Territories of the United States, constant and harassing troubles 
with the Indians will continue to mark the history of Texas. 
Up to the period of the occupation of the country by the troops of the general government, 
the Camanches were accustomed to equip large expeditions, which, traversing the State of 
