The Wild Frontier (52 page)

Soldier George Aikins was scalped by Kickapoos, then stabbed in every sensitive part of his body

Soldiers were severely beaten, fainted, and were scalped and tortured

Settlers scalped, perhaps by Wabash Indians

After St. Clair’s defeat, captives were roasted, soldiers’ intestines pulled out; they were flayed alive, their limbs hacked and pulled off, brains of children were dashed out, women run through with stakes, and some women’s breasts hacked away before they were cut in 2

The Herbeson boys, 5 and 3, were scalped

The Shawano captured Anantooeah, who tried to use strategy to escape. He sat on burning torches there to torture him. A Shawano warrior said he would not have died except that he was spoiled by fire, and tomahawked him

Warrior captured by Catawba escaped and was pursued by Seneca; he killed them, chopped them to pieces, scalped them, went to the place he had buried other Seneca earlier, dug them up, scalped them too, and burned their bodies

Chickasaw warrior went into enemy Muskohge country, killed a young man and 2 women, then scalped them

Delaware medicine man Tenskwatawa had a witch hunt where an accused witch was roasted 4 days, then confessed, and 3 more burned

Jordan and his children were put in holes dug in the ground up to their necks; dried branches were placed around them and burned

The body of Captain Wells was beheaded by Indians and stuck on a pole, while other Indians took out his heart and divided it among chiefs

The garrison at Fort Dearborn surrendered, and troops, settlers, wives, and children evacuated and Potawatomis killed many by torture

Moore family captured; infant and retarded son killed; mother and daughter roasted by Cherokee

Tecumseh’s Indians scalped prisoners at Fort Meigs

Creeks attacked Fort Mims and massacred settlers

American army failed in its attack on Frenchtown on the Raisin River in Michigan, and soldiers massacred by Indians

At the Battle of Fort Meigs, Indians massacred prisoners

Creek and Seminole mothers killed their small children before going into battle

Every year the Pawnee kidnapped a young girl, and then cut out her heart

Black Hawk murdered and mutilated after the Black Hawk War

Militia turned 11 Indian bodies over to enemy Indians, who hacked them to bits

Black Hawk Sac and Fox warriors retreated to west bank of Mississippi; Sioux there scalped them

During the Second Seminole War, Generals Thompson and Rogers were shot 15 times; both were scalped, and their skulls beaten in

Comanche tortured prisoners

Cayuse Indians killed Whitmans and other settlers

Maidu Indians in California attacked miners who had raped their women

Indians killed harsh ranchers

California Indians attacked men who burned their ferry-boat, mangled their bodies, and burned them

Yavapais (or perhaps Apache) killed Oatman family and tattooed daughter Olive Oatman

Indians in California murdered settlers near Rattlesnake Creek

Ferrymen killed by California Indians at Colorado River

Settler murdered by Indians near Merced River

California Indians massacred settlers at Four Creeks and tore out their entrails

Cahuilla chief in California killed servant, then white invalids

California Indians killed sheepherders near Gila

California storekeeper Savage found his men murdered

California Indians killed on Merced River

Legislators in California advised governor about murders by Indians in their counties

Miner murdered by Indians in California

California chief learned an Indian had stolen, started to take him in, Indian tried to escape, and chief ordered him killed

Mule train attacked by Indians in California and Dick Owen killed

Sioux hacked soldiers to death at Grattan’s Massacre

Sioux killed settlers to avenge Grattan’s Massacre

Sioux caught trapper Levasseuer in the Black Hills and cut off his hands and cut out his tongue

Oregon Indians raided settlement

Comanche chopped off arms and hands, cut out some tongues, and scalped all

Comanche scalped, cut, and finally crashed hatchets into skulls of captives, and dogs lapped up the blood

Comanche hanged a soldier by his heels, cut off his ears

Indians killed settlers in Oregon

Cheyenne war party killed after misunderstanding about mail wagon

Indians and Utah citizens attacked troops, murdering many

California Indians killed their medicine men because they were not effective

A captured woman was brought on horseback into the Indian camp. When an Indian attempted to lift her from the horse, she shot him; the Indians cut her body in gashes, filled them with powder, then set fire to her

Apache Cochise tied Mexicans to wagon wheels and set fire to them

Cochise’s hostages were perforated with lance holes to the extent that one could be identified only by his dental work

Indians in California robbed a house and killed the cook

A joint Apache-Comanche expedition in Texas resulted in a family being tortured and killed

The Santee Sioux Massacre in Minnesota resulted in torture, rape, and murders

Yahi Indians of California murdered children; one had a slit throat and was scalped

After an Indian raid in Colorado, a mother and her 2 children were discovered. The mother was stabbed, scalped, and perhaps raped, and the children had their throats cut and their heads nearly severed

Lieutenant Springer found a scalped soldier

Captain Palmer found children whose heads had been beaten to jelly and a servant girl who had been staked out, her body full of arrows and horribly mangled

Sergeant Wyllyams was killed by Indians, scalped, and mutilated

Sioux attacked a flatboat on the Yellowstone River, killed some and threw them in the river, and tortured women and children the next day

Cheyenne raided a station, staked a prisoner out on the ground, cut out his tongue, and built a fire on his stomach

After the Battle of Platte Bridge in Wyoming, soldiers were found mangled, one with a wagon tire across his bowels that had been heated red hot; Lieutenant Collins had his hands and feet cut off, his heart taken out, was scalped, and had 100 arrows in him

The Boxx (or Box) family was attacked by Kiowa in Texas, the father and youngest child killed, the mother and 2 teenage daughters raped, and a 7-year-old compelled to walk barefoot on live coals

Texas governor reported that during these years, Indians killed settlers

Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho killed and badly mutilated at Fetterman’s Massacre in Wyoming, where eyes were torn out, noses, ears, and chins chopped off, hands, arms, feet, and genitals cut off, punctures all over bodies, even soles of feet and palms of hands; one body with 105 arrows in it

Artist out of Fort Phil Kearny was separated from his party and was found with a cross cut in his chest and his head completely skinned

Indians raided a tent home in Kansas, and 30 raped the wife

Sioux completely skinned soldier Pate Smith

Cheyenne and Arapaho war parties in Kansas killed settlers

Cheyenne killed settlers

Settlers killed by Plains Indians

Cheyenne camp killed a woman and a child prisoner when army attacked at Battle of the Washita River

Cheyenne mutilated soldiers at same battle, some with cut throats, some beheaded

When the army seemed about to rescue captive Blynn and her 2-year-old son from Kiowa leader Satanta,
Satanta tomahawked the mother, dashed the child’s head against a tree, killing him, and threw his body on his dying mother

Cheyenne killed a pregnant prisoner when attacked

In Texas, a wagonmaster and others were killed; one was tied to a wagon wheel and burned

Modoc Indians raided a ranch

Comanche and Cheyenne tortured and killed settlers; 4 bringing supplies to Indians scalped and one burned

The German family was captured by the Cheyenne; 5 were killed; Catherine was compelled to be the tribe prostitute and was frequently raped

Army buried its dead after a fight; Sioux dug up bodies and scalped at least one

Found in a Cheyenne village were human forefingers, 12 severed right hands of babies and children, and 2 scalps

Crows mutilated the body of a wounded Sioux so that he was no longer recognized as human

Before the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Reno’s men were defeated, and Indian women and children mutilated bodies of soldiers, including cutting off fingers to get rings

At the Battle of the Little Bighorn, the bodies of the Custer soldiers killed were mutilated in many ways: scalping, slashing and hacking of bodies, hands and feet cut off, stabbings, pieces of skin cut out, noses and other members cut off, an iron pin thrust through the testicles, penises cut off, disembowelment, heads cut off, eyes torn out, heads burned beyond recognition’ bodies propped into sitting positions and used for target practice, buttocks shot full of arrows, and stakes driven through chests. Although Custer was not scalped, an arrow had been rammed up his penis. Rain-in-the-Face claimed he killed Custer, then cut out his heart and bit off a piece of it

Bannocks dug up bodies of Nez Perce and mutilated them

Nez Perce Indian Swan Necklace and his men killed settlers

Umatilla Indians killed and scalped Paiute chief Egan

Apache reported to literally tear bodies of women prisoners apart and to hang prisoners head down over a small fire while they roasted to death

Ute killed Indian agent Meeker and others