Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 6, Number 1, January 1996 Page: 27
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Consider the Lily: The Ungilded History of Colorado County, Texas
Tonkawa encampment about eight leagues downriver from the Atascosito Crossing on their
own initiative, arriving on March 25, 1826. Almost as soon as they entered the village, they
began shooting. Two of the Indians were killed and four were wounded. One of the settlers
got lost in the woods and also was killed, presumably by the angered Indians. Austin was
appalled by the incident. After investigation, he decided that the settlers had not sufficiently
established that the Indians had committed any crimes against them, and that the attack was
therefore completely unwarranted. He summoned the Indians to San Felipe, met with them
for four days beginning on April 29, and negotiated a new understanding with which, he
claimed, they were "fully satisfied. "38
The long-feared conflict with the Wacos and Tawacanas had come little more
than a week after the attack on the Tonkawa village. In late March, Austin had informed
Ross that a party of Tawacanas were headed for the Colorado. Ross sent out scouts, who
located, he said, sixteen Indians camped near the river in a creek bed about five leagues
south of the La Bahia Crossing. Ross and thirty-one men marched on the camp and, at
daybreak on April 4, 1826, attacked. Ross set up some of his men so that they could cover
the creek bed with their fire, and sent the rest, under the command of Rawson Alley, to
attack the Indians from the front. Alley's attack routed the Indians, and as they ran along
and across the creek, Ross and his men laid down a deadly barrage. Eight of the Indians
were killed and five wounded, apparently grievously. To justify the ambush, which Austin
may well have viewed as unnecessarily harsh, Ross harked back to the horse thieves of the
previous summer. He declared that he recognized the Indians as the culprits and that each
of them had been carrying a rope and a bridle, certain accouterments of frontier horse
thieves. 39
Austin apparently felt that the war with the Wacos and the Tawacanas, which
he had steadfastly attempted to avoid, had begun. He sent three men to go to the Indians,
ostensibly to trade with them but really to gather intelligence. They reported that the Indians
38 The Austin Papers, vol. 1, p. 1258, 1319-1321, 1341-1342. The militia officer who refused to lead
the expedition to the Indian camp is not identified in any report. He is described by Austin as "a very young man."
He was, presumably, the lieutenant of the lower Colorado River settlement's detachment of militia.
The Tonkawas were brought to San Felipe by a man named James Roe. Roe had been sent to get the
Indians by a Colorado District militia officer. After haggling over the price for doing so, Roe, on May 5, asked
that the money he was owed be paid to Joshua Parker. Austin gave Parker $25 on May 10. A few weeks later,
Austin reported that Roe had left the Colorado to take munitions to and encourage hostility in the Tonkawas.
Austin urged that he be arrested and confined in jail for a year or two. He was certainly arrested, but his fate
beyond that is unknown (see The Austin Papers, vol. 1, pp. 1322, 1352, and 1377).
39 This version of the battle is taken from a report by Ross that is reproduced in The Austin Papers,
vol. 1, pp. 1304-1305. Another version appears in Kuykendall's "Reminiscences of Early Texans" (The
Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association, vol. 7, no. 1, July 1903, pp. 48-49). That version states
that the attack occurred in the fall of 1826, and that Ross led the frontal attack and Alley directed the fusillade.
See also The Austin Papers, vol. 1, p. 1309, wherein Austin reports that thirteen Indians were killed, and p.
1315.27
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Nesbitt Memorial Library. Nesbitt Memorial Library Journal, Volume 6, Number 1, January 1996, periodical, January 1996; Columbus, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth151396/m1/27/: accessed April 27, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Nesbitt Memorial Library.