Kidnapped by the Comanche: What its like to be captured by North America's most brutal Indian tribe

welcome to jason dead guys i'm miles fisher and today i want to talk about a man who was captured by the most brutal native american group on the american frontier the comanche nelson lee is going to be captured in 1855 and that is our focus but he does survive to escape in 1858 and will later write a book titled three years among the comanches where he does tell the whole story back in the 1850s native americans were still raiding border settlements especially those in the great plains region from modern day kansas south to western texas and new mexico in 1855 when our story begins lee is in his late 40s throughout his life he's an adventurous man he's even going to join the navy when he's pretty young but that's not going to help him at all during this story as it takes place on land later though he will join the texas rangers and even fight into the mexican war until it ends in 1847 after the war lee is going to retire to some degree but he is going to stay in texas in order to catch wild horses and trade cattle and do things like that around a town called corpus christi in the south new there is where lee is going to be captured by the comanche the comanche were a nomadic horse people they lived in the southeast and along the great plains their history prior to horses was rather unimpressive they were often pushed around by the other stronger native groups in tradition they had very little in the way of culture and myths aside from a reverence for the great spirit they had hardly religion and no shaman or holy men as nomads they didn't make permanent housing and had very little need for fine art what made the comanche special was the horse horses were introduced to the americas as part of the spanish invasions in mexico in the 1500s by the 1600s horses had made their way to modern-day texas and were adopted first by native groups like the apache the apache were a powerhouse in the region but as a semi-agricultural group never truly adopt a horse like comanche horses offered nomads like the comanche's advantages most notably war over massive distances being able to cover hundreds of miles in a matter of days by the 1800s they were the most dominant native american power in the southwest and have the edge of a group in power that remembers what it's like to be kicked around they would often steal horses and raid travelers even in the dead of night lee and his friend william akins want to drive a herd of mules from east texas from where they live near corpus christi to a town in california that lee calls matamoros and i've looked at a lot of old maps and i can't find it there is a spot in baja california where they might be going but it doesn't really matter because when they travel west from corpus christi they're not going to make it past el paso the trip is going to go right through comanche country but akins is convinced that they can do so safely and make a bunch of profit they will not and aikens probably has no real good reason to believe that being is how maps from the time literally label this area as the range of the comanches regardless they hire a bunch of men and they load up on horses they drive their mules west toward matamoros wherever that is with their mules and they want to pick up more along the way the men are pretty well supplied lee even stops off and picks up this fancy new pocket watch that can be set in order to actually go off like an alarm he does this because he wants the caravan to be regimented every day he's going to set that thing for 3 30 a.m he's going to wake up and he's going to get everything moving on time the group starts their drive in early march in 1855. they're moving west slowly along the rio grande there's grass there and apparently that's important to mules in just into april they stop a little bit southwest of el paso where they want to rest the mules for a few weeks in order to stay safe each night the camp uses sentinels to keep a lookout for danger on april 2nd lee gets off patrol around 1am he sets his alarm and he goes to sleep screams echo through the camp it's pitch black in dim campfire light lee can make up dark figures moving throughout the camp they are painted comanche it's a raid and the sentinels have offered no warning lee grabs his gun but his lasted as soon as he rises he's tackled the ground and held there by a team of comanche his legs and hands are tied the scene is chaos shouting and whooping as the comanches go tent to tent with tomahawks four settlers survived the raid nelson lee and william akins who we know but two other hired hands thomas martin and jon stewart the survivors were stripped of their clothes and dressed in comanche guard buckskin leggings and a hunting shirt it's almost 3 30 a.m now as the rating party is rummaging through these things they discover his pocket watch as they're inspecting it it goes off they've never seen anything like it they gave it back to lee so he can make the watch do it again lee writes quote the idea at once flashed upon my mind that i might make it serve a useful purpose they untied my hands and i accepted the watch with an air of reverence and adoration i wound it up solemnly and so regulated it then a few minutes it went off again again the dusky crowd was struck with wonder and astonishment end quote lee believed at this point that the comanche felt that there was something supernatural about the watch that the comanche felt it was connected with the great spirit the comanche plundered the resources from the camp and loaded what they could on the mules daylight begins to break by the time they are done and for the first time lee can see what comanche have done to the rest of his party he writes quote the scene was cold and heart-rending they had cut and hacked the poor cold bodies in the most brutal manner some had their arms and hands chopped off others were disemboweled and still others had their tongues drawn out and sharp sticks thrust through them all the dead were scout and the scouts still fresh were dangling from the savage's belts end quote as lee and the other captured are lit out of the camp the comanche point out that bodies the sentinels who might as well have not been on duty at all for settlers there's something about the comanche that's rightly horrifying the trip that follows is a good example to terrorize the captured men the cherokee routinely fainted them with the tomahawks still bloody from the night before they'll grab at their hair knife in hand and make a motion as if they're going to scalp them but then they don't to travel the comanche will cover the men's face with deer skins they'll poke a small hole near the mouth so they can breathe a little bit they'll mount them on a mule their hands tied behind them and their legs straddling the mule but their ankles also tied if you fell off you roll with your ankles now on the horse's back and your body dangling by its feet lee had no control of his mule blindfolded they sometimes hit low branches and fell off the mule would stop and the comanche would run over and put him right side up again the comanche seemingly found this very amusing lee writes quote my somersaults afforded the indian's most excellent sport and every performance was treated with tremendous applause indeed i could sometimes tell from the laughter that would begin to arise that danger was near end quote at night the band would stop moving the captured are fed but in a very comanche way hunks of horse flesh are taken directly from a boiling pot and hurled at them with sticks causing burns the comanche seemed to enjoy the squirming this causes in the captives for sleeping the comanche set up an arrangement you might expect lee writes quote first we were made to lie down on our backs with arms and feet extended four stakes were then firmly driven through the sword to which our hands and feet were fastened as wide apart as possible then two stakes were driven close on either side of the neck and a strong strip of buffalo hide tied from one end to the other so that it would be passed under the chin across the throat thus we lay upon our back unable to move head hand or foot end quote the captives not surprisingly didn't sleep that much and these conditions lasted for four more days they would sleep in the bizarre straitjacket be blindfolded and tied to a mule and then be forced to play a game of dodge the boiling horse meat on the fourth day of travel they arrive at a massive comanche village lee claims they were hundreds of tents as many as 500 comanche but that's probably an exaggeration the group is forced to walk past the chief his name is big wolf which is actually a pretty cool name especially in comparison to some of the other comanche names from the stories lee is personally taken to go see big wolf he's heard about the watch and he wants to see it in action lee is asked to make the watch ring but he refuses saying that to do now would be dangerous which is a risky and disappointing thing to say to a bunch of people with tomahawks but lee plays it off pretty well he points to the heavens and says to do so now would wreck the world the chief is disappointed and i would probably guess a little bit skeptical but he doesn't push it lee is then taken about a quarter of a mile outside the village where many comanche warriors are assembled he finds his fellow captives aikens martin and stewart are already there all three are naked and tied at high posts in the ground their hands are drawn up in the air with rope martin and stewart are side by side facing them about 10 feet away is hakens tying the same manner to the other posts lee is stripped and forced to join akins tied in the front of martin stewart then the ceremony began big wolf is stationed to watch as a line of warriors in a choreographed line to walk in a tomahawk or knife in one hand and a flinch spearhead in the other as the procession circled martin stewart two comanche broke from the line and with the knives scout them the area taken is small compared by the lead to a silver dollar they are alive but bleeding profusely the troop passed by atkinson lee but left them unharmed the comanche led out war group and in the line passed by martin and stewart again this time brandishing their knives and tomahawks and one by one raking their flint spearheads across their victims bodies leaving them a mess of long wounds and blood they pass aikens and lee again but again leave them unharmed the cycle continued lee writes quote how many times they circled around halting the sound the war group and going through the same demonic exercise i cannot tell they persisted in a hellish work until every inch of the bodies of the unhappy men was hacked and covered with clotted blood end quote lee expressed that he would give anything during those hours of his life to have been able to choose his own form of death rather than face the torment of the comanche sc gwynne an empire of the summer moon rights of the comanche quote not only did they inflict horrific suffering but by all evidence they enjoyed it making people scream in pain was fun for them it was an important part of their adult culture and one they accepted without challenge end quote there was an intermission to the ceremony the comanche sat on the ground smoked tobacco and laughed at the prisoners pointing out the damage done and mocking martin for praying stuart remained silent when the ceremony resumed the comanche the war dance two of them moving around the circle lee looking on says of the comanche quote finally they reached the victims danced before them for some time then drew their hatchet suddenly and sent the bright blades crashing through their skulls their bodies were taken down and rudely thrown aside upon the ground end quote leonkins still naked and bound believed they were next to suffer but nothing happened the ceremony was over and they were left unharmed they were unbound dressed and taken back to camp lee was haunted by the memory of that night and from that point forward he's going to relentlessly hate the comanche you kidnap him blindfold him and tie into a horse but torturing his friends in front of him that crosses the line in an attempt to avoid torture himself lee even tries to effectively commit suicide one day he attacks the comanche but they respond by just kind of wrestling him and laughing at him both lee and atkins are going to be brought back to the camp but they're going to be separated for weeks eventually the two do meet up again and they're going to be allowed to converse for a short period of time aikens was being sent to another camp and this is basically their opportunity to say goodbye but aikens does provide lee with some parting advice he told lee that if he cooperated he might live he said that the watch was going to be the key to his escape they would keep him alive because it had an effect on the chiefs and the warriors aikens told lee quote they believed it to be a living spirit in a silver body end quote after an hour or so eagan is going to be taken by the comanche and lee is never going to see or hear from him again he is actually pursuing dead as this story takes place in the 1850s nelson lee will continue to live with the comanche for three years after his initial capturing the years blend together to a certain degree he's going to be bought and sold several times living with three different comanche tribes and his watch is going to be held in reverence by each tribe and everywhere he goes but he does never stop plotting his escape lee also followed aiken's advice he made himself useful to comanche he became sort of a servant for big wolf and the other masters who bought him he did whatever they needed him to do after a while he gained their trust they began to leave him unbound and at one point even allowed him to walk around camp with a knife big wolf's tribe actually nicknamed him chamacacho which apparently means the good white man i would be offended but i have read a lot of history there were hiccups from here he did have one particularly cruel master spotted leopard with a knife he severed the muscle below his knee following a failed escape attempt but other sections of his life went pretty well he will marry a comely squad named sleek otter after rejecting others for being quote hideous or fat and flabby which is rude because he is commonly saved by the squash in the story from the warriors who are beating him eventually lee will be able to make his escape while alone on journey with his third chief roland thunder which is ironically to meet other tribes about dangerous whites intruding on comanche territory lee sees an opportunity quote snatching the hatchet in that instant from its place i leapt towards the chief and buried the dull edge of a broad hand's breath in his brain end quote a broad hands breath into his brain that'll work lee continues quote a moment suffice to draw the rifle from beneath him and jerk the long knife from his girdle then mounting his horse i dashed wildly away over an unknown path toward the land of freedom end quote he traveled southwest looking to find the mexican state of chihuahuas he constantly had a double back due to geographic obstacles like cliffs and mountains or signs of indians in the area he would use the sun to travel in the day and the north star to help him navigate at night but after weeks in the wilderness they began to struggle with his health he writes quote i was sick in body as well as soul my limbs had become swollen and the wounds and bruises that covered me were inflamed and painful day by day i grew weaker as i advanced often i prayed god that when i fell asleep i might never wake up again end quote after about a month lee's horse becomes too weak and he's forced to abandon him when he's unable to move on lee writes quote now for the first time my heart died within me for all i could discover civilization was as far off as when i started the journey i began to doubt myself to fear that i become crazed end quote but he soldiered on alone in the wilderness forced to avoid comanche encountering rattlesnakes and predators who were always near after he had had a successful hunt even fire was dangerous because at night it could be seen over long distances he was brushing cliffs for cover in order to make it less visible on day 56 of his escape while resting in a prairie lee hears a rifle shot nearby he grabs his rifle and prepares to defend himself but he's relieved to see that it's not comanche but a group of sombrero wearing mexicans his phrasing they were deer hunting the group was heading home to san fernandez near the rear ground seeing that lee was in need of help weak and malnourished they take him in he hasn't shaved or cut his hair in three years they give him a horse to ride water and food they don't even boil it and throw it at him a week later the group made it to san fernandes lee stayed there for six weeks healing under the care of a doctor he soon catches a boat and makes his way to new york his three years with comanche is over lee writes quote i was home at last and my adventures with the indians were at an end forever although i would never forget the awful scenes of agony and torture i witnessed among them end quote now in 1858 lee is back on the east coast and he begins writing his book and away from the untamed west he never has to worry about serious violence breaking out ever again [Music] last night

Channel: Dates and Dead Guys

Views: 854,490

Keywords: Capture, Comanche, Cowboy, Cowboys, Great Plains, History, Indian, Indians, Kidnapping, Native American, Texas, Torture, horse, murder, tomahawk

Id: BjC-sBgcHes

Length: 17min 46sec (1066 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 13 2022