Tonkawa massacre
1862 CE
The Tonkawa massacre (October 23–24, 1862) occurs after an attack at the Confederate held Wichita Agency, located at Fort Cobb (south of present-day Fort Cobb, Oklahoma) near Anadarko in Oklahoma, when a force of pro-Union tribes attacka the agency, home to three hundred members of the Tonkawa, a tribe sympathetic to the Confederacy.
During the attack on the Confederate held agency, the Confederate Indian agent Matthew Leeper and several other whites are killed.
In response to this attack, the Tonkawa flee southward toward Confederate held Fort Arbuckle, before they can reach the safety of the fort they are caught on October 24.
In the resulting massacre, the estimates of Tonkawa dead areone hundred and thirty-seven men, women and children among them Chief Ha-shu-ka-na ("Can't Kill Him").
It was claimed that the Tonkawa were roasted alive and eaten by the Comanche.
There are varying accounts of the tribes involved in the massacre with the Osage, Shawnee, Caddo, Comanche, Kiowa, Wichita and Seminole being named in some accounts.
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When the American Civil War started, the troops at the fort received orders to march to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, leaving the Indians at the Wichita Agency unprotected.
In response to years of animosity (in part regarding rumors that the Tonkawas engaged in cannibalism), a number of pro-Union tribes, including the Delawares, Wichitas, and Penateka Comanches, attack the Tonkawas as they try to escape.
The fight, known as the Tonkawa Massacre, kills nearly half of the remaining Tonkawas, leaving them with little more than one hundred people.
The reasons for the attack are varied with some suggesting that the Tonkawa had killed and eaten two Shawnees, and that they were responsible for the death and dismemberment of a young Caddo boy, as the Tonkawa were rumored to be cannibalistic.
Other accounts name the main reason as their being allied to the southern cause. The relations between the Tonkawa and neighboring tribes had been antagonistic for years for a variety of reasons, including the Tonkawa acting as scouts for the Texas Rangers, and fighting alongside them in actions against hostile tribes including the Comanche.
The massacre has completely demoralized and fractured the remnants of the tribe, who remain without a leader and live in squalor by Fort Belknap.
The tribe eventually is returned to ...