A surprise attack by four hostile tribes on Oct. 25, 1862, cut the number of Tonkawas in half leaving less than 150 still alive and kicking.
Half a dozen small groups of native peoples based in Central Texas banded together in the early seventeenth century. Even though this new tribe called themselves Tickanwatick, a tongue-twister meaning “the most human of men,” in time they came to be known as the Tonkawa, Waco for “they all live together.”
Maternal clans were the cornerstone of Tonkawa society. Children were born into their mothers’ clan, and men became members of their spouses’ clan. A brother married his dead brother’s widow, a common practice among Anglo-American Texans well into the twentieth century, and a man’s property was inherited not by his children but his nephews and nieces.
The Tonkawas’ original enemies were the Apaches, who had driven them deep into the heart of Texas and far from the buffalo herds upon which they were so dependent. When the Comanches and Wichitas moved south and came into conflict with the Apaches, the Tonkawas naturally sided with the newcomers.
Their first recorded contact with Europeans occurred in 1687, when they bumped into the ill-fated French expedition led by the explorer La Salle. Sixty years later, the Spaniards built three missions for the Tonkawas near the junction of the San Gabriel River and Brushy Creek in modern Milam County. The fickle hosts shut down those outposts in less than a decade in order to concentrate on the San Saba mission for the Lipan Apaches, an outpost the Tonkawas took pleasure in helping to destroy in 1758.
Twelve years later, the Spaniards tried to patch things up with the Tonkawas only to have an influential chief tell them what they could do with their peace plan. In a move that would have made the conquistadors proud, they bribed several jealous rivals to murder El Mocho, but the assassins all perished in a 1777 epidemic before carrying out their orders.
The Spaniards resorted to flattery to win over their lucky adversary, who was Apache by birth but Tonk by upbringing. In a special ceremony at Bexar in October 1779, the royal governor appointed El Mocho “capitan grande” of the Tonkawas and presented him with a medal, uniform, flag and assorted trinkets.
The clever chief played along while pursuing his own agenda. Behind their backs he agreed to an historic meeting which could have meant the end of Spanish Texas.
The Apaches were interested in trading stolen horses for the firearms the Tonkawas secretly obtained from the French in Louisiana. Four thousand Indians spent two months on the banks of the Guadalupe, but El Mocho’s stubborn insistence on running the show wrecked any chance of an Apache-Tonkawa alliance.
The Spaniards had had enough and resolved to remove the troublesome thorn from their side. El Mocho was killed in 1784 while visiting La Bahia.
Early in the nineteenth century before Anglo-Americans started arriving in significant numbers, the Tonkawas switched sides. From then on, they fought with the Apaches against the Comanches.
The Tonks got along unusually well with Stephen F. Austin and his colonists rushing to their aid whenever they were threatened by other Indians. Besides their courage and ferocity in battle, the Texans were impressed by the Tonkawas’ endurance and ability to withstand hunger “better than any human beings I have ever known,” as one put it,
Cannibalism, the same loathsome custom which resulted in the extermination of the Karankawas, was tolerated by Texans when practiced by friends. The flesh of fallen foes was not a staple in the Tonkawa diet but a source of spiritual renewal and power.
When hundreds of Comanches sacked Victoria and Linnville in the unprecedented attack of 1840, Tonkawas under Placido helped teach the raiders a lesson at the Battle of Plum Creek. The cooperative chief, who bragged he “never shed a white man’s blood,” could always be counted on to come running when Texans were in trouble.
However, the anti-Indian hysteria of the 1850’s did not distinguish between friendly and hostile tribes. The Tonkawas were forced to share the Brazos Reservation with three other tribes before being shipped off to the Indian Territory in 1859.
The withdrawal of the U.S. Army left the Tonkawas at the mercy of the Delawares, Shawnees, Wichitas and Caddos. Old scores were settled on a bloody day in October 1862, when over half of the remaining Tonks were butchered. Among the dead was 62 year old Placido, posthumously praised as “the greatest Indian ally the Texans ever had.”
The survivors came home to Texas their moving expenses paid by conscience-stricken whites. They settled near Fort Griffin and served as scouts until the post was permanently closed in 1881.
With no place else to go, the steadily shrinking tribe returned to the Indian Territory. By 1937 only 51 identifiable Tonkawas remained and within a generation there were none.
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