Essays
Moseying: History of the Southern Llano Estacado
129 years ago a conversation near Tahoka led to the death of four men
July 19, 2006
In 1877 Jose Piedad Tafoya had been guiding buffalo hunters searching for Comanche Indians that had been destroying their camps and had killed a hunter or two. The buffalo hunters joined up with Captain Nicholas Nolan’s base camp at the “turnaround tree,” a huge old pecan tree on Bull Creek seven miles east of Muchaque Peak. After a camp on Tobacco Creek (south of the modern town of O’Donnell) they rode towards the Double Lakes (seven miles west of the present day Tahoka). On the way they stopped at another playa (the playa south of Tahoka bisected by the highway) that had been filled recently by an isolated thunderstorm. By mid-afternoon all the troopers had joined horses, buffaloes, antelopes and wolves in the water – drinking and bathing and seeking coolness in temperatures over 100 degrees. At 4 p.m. on July 21st, 1877 Quanah Parker rode into the camp.
“Capitan – I do not believe it – look who is coming. It is Quanah – what is he doing off the reservation? He will want my hide – he blames me for Mackenzie finding the camp in Palo Duro in 1874. I came to him and Mow-way in 1872 and told them that the days of the Comanches on the plains were numbered. Our peoples have traded and even intermarried for over a hundred years, ever since Cuerno Verde was killed in the 1770s and the new leader of the Comanches, Ecueracapa, sent his sons to be educated at Sante Fe.” Tafoya waved for Parker to come to where he and Nolan were seated.
“At times, over a thousand of us Ciboleros and Comancheros were on the Llano Estacado. I had 250 wagons on the Llano during the Civil War, when the Union army commander at Fort Bascom asked us to trade for Confederate Texas cattle. We sold over 300,000 cattle before 1875. We also shipped wagonloads of buffalo hides and meat as far south as Mexico City in some years, and to Chihuahua every year, as well as supplying many people of Nuevo Mexico. Quanah understands Spanish and I speak pretty good Comanche.” Quanah Parker sat down with Nolan and Tafoya, but Tafoya did not translate his conversation with Quanah verbatim.
“Hola, Quanah! Como esta? We are look for Red Young Man and his holdouts. You probably have some paper from the commander at Fort Sill, don’t you, giving you permission to come find him and convince him to give up.” Quanah nodded. “Yeah, I thought so. I have been telling Nolan that Red Young Man is in the Blue Sandhills where the water seeps from the sand. He does not trust me, though, because of my years as a Comanchero. He thinks I will lead him into an ambush.” Tafoya smiled at Nolan when he said his name and handed Nolan the papers that Quanah gave him. “I know you don’t want to go with us, but I bet he will try to put you under arrest, or something equally as stupid. If he lets you go, I will tell him that you are headed to Mustang Springs far to our south.” Quanah agreed to Tafoya’s suggestion.
Tafoya continued, “The Anglos are taking over, my old friend. I told you that 5 years ago and you listened to Isatai instead. You have been living in Oklahoma for 2 years now, and you have seen that there are just too many Anglos. And you know that you will have to fight hard for your people, to make sure they have some dignity. I hear you have been talking to ranchers from the Red River Valley about leasing the reservation lands for their cows. That is good, my friend. You are looking after your people, like I had to. By the look on your face, though, you can not forgive me for doing what I had to do. I understand – we are both men, and we are both warriors. Nobody likes the person that tells them they have to change to survive. Maybe when we are old men, we can talk, when you are without your hate.” Tafoya talked with Nolan for a few minutes, giving a shortened version of what was said.
Tafoya then turned back to Parker. “I talked with Nolan – he does not want you with us. I told him you are headed to Mustang Springs. I know you will swing west when you are out of sight, and you will beat us to the Blue Sandhills. When you get there, talk to Red Young Man – tell him to keep his warriors out of sight, and to not harass us. If I can convince him to go into the dunes, see if you can get him to meet with us. His people will have to go to Fort Concho first, and then to Oklahoma. It will take a while for the white people to fill out all of their reports and requisitions and pay for the transportation of your people. I can understand, though, if you decide to keep out of our way, and just take them back to Oklahoma...”
“Capitan, Quanah is going on to Mustang Springs. He does not know where Red Young Man is. I think he is going to find out that the southern Llano is too dry this year for there to be any game to be present. I think I am right about Red Young Man being in the Blue Sandhills. That area stays greener during a drought, and what buffalo are left will be drifting that way. The hunters have been chasing them west… and we saw a thunderstorm that way just yesterday. Red Young Man knows the conditions over all of the Llano – for he has been sending out small parties to raid the hunters.”
Nolan ordered the troopers and buffalo hunters to head for Cedar Lake instead of the Blue Sandhills. While there, Quanah rode into Nolan’s camp again while Tafoya was out scouting Seminole Draw and finding a faint trail headed back to Double Lakes. Quanah headed towards Seminole Draw before Tafoya returned. Nolan ordered the troopers and hunters back to Double Lakes after Tafoya returned. Some of the buffalo hunters refused to stay with soldiers and headed off of the Llano Estacado. The next day George Cornett (one of the buffalo hunters who had been out scouting) rode into camp with the report of a large band of Comanches riding northwest from Laguna Rica (northeast of Brownfield). Nolan and the remaining men headed west, where within the week four of the soldiers would die from thirst because Nolan did not trust Tafoya.
The next time you are headed to Lubbock, pull off the road at the playa south of Tahoka, and try to imagine the above conversation, and remember how the inability to trust led to the death of four men.