Tonkawa Scouts, C.S.A.

The Tonkawa alliance with Anglo Texans went back to Stephen F. Austin's colonists, whose arrival, the Handbook of Texas says, ushered in a period of cordial relations. The Tonkawas often aided their new allies against the Comanches and remained staunch allies of the English-speaking settlers. After the Civil War, Governor J. W. Throckmorton asked the legislature to donate a league of land and supplies to the survivors. They served as army scouts until the end of the Indian wars. In 1884 there were ninety-two Tonkawas, including a few Lipan Apaches, and by 1937 only fifty-one.

What the plaque says

By the time of the Civil War, 1861-65, Texans knew the horrors of Indian warfare. Hostile tribes made a business of stealing horses, cattle, women and children. The paths they followed in the "bright Comanche moons" were marked by fires and ruin. The Tonkawa tribe, by contrast, sought friendship with Texans. They became valued allies in the Civil War, scouting against hostile Indians and watching for signs of Federal invasion. Old Texas Indian fighters, who once had fought Tonkawas along with others, in wartime asked for Tonkawa scouts. Along the frontier defense line from Red River to the Rio Grande, commanders valued them so much they fed them at personal expense when necessary, to obtain their help. A few Tonkawa scouts were more useful than two or three companies of regular soldiers. They could stalk enemies better than bloodhounds. They paid for their Confederate loyalty. On Oct. 25, 1862, near present Anadarko, Okla., hostile Indians attacked the Tonkawa camp, killing 137 men, women and children out of 300. When later their Chief Castile requested a tribal home in Texas, they were located at Fort Griffin, where they remained until 1884, and then were removed to Oklahoma. (1964)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Belknap — steps away
  The 1851 northern anchor of the first Texas frontier forts, on the Brazos below Newcastle, a Butterfield stop and the post beside the Brazos Reservation until its people were driven out in 1859.
• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 9.3 mi
  Graham's 1936 Art Moderne post office, with a New Deal mural by Alexandre Hogue inside, now the free museum of Young County in the town where the Texas cattle raisers first organized.

More markers nearby

• Colonel William C. Young — steps away
• Camp Belknap, C.S.A. — steps away
• Major Robert S. Neighbors — steps away
• Major Robert Simpson Neighbors — 0.5 mi