Chapter 75 - The Hunt of the Wild Horse by Mayne Reid
The “Indios Bravos”
You may be asking, what the trapper meant by a war-trail? It has been a phrase of frequent occurrence with us. It is a phrase of the frontier. Even at the eleventh hour, let me offer its explanation.
For half a century—ay, for three centuries and more—even since the conquest itself—the northern frontier of Mexico has been in, what is termed in old-fashioned phraseology, a “disturbed state.” Though the semi-civilised Aztecs, and the kindred races of town-dwelling Indians, easily yielded to the sword of the Spanish conquerors, far different has been the history of the wild tribes—the free hunters of the plains. Upon those mighty steppes that occupy the whole central area of the North American continent, dwell tribes of Indians—nations they might be called—who neither know, nor ever have known, other rule than that of their own chieftains. Even when Spain was at her strongest, she failed to subjugate the “Indios bravos” of her frontiers, who to the present hour have preserved their wild freedom. I speak not of the great nations of the northern prairies—Sioux and Cheyenne—Blackfeet and Crow—Pawnee and Arapahoe. With these the Spanish race scarcely ever came in contact. I refer more particularly to the tribes whose range impinges upon the frontiers of Mexico—Comanche, Lipan, Utah, Apaché, and Navajo.
It is not in the annals of Spain to prove that any one of these tribes ever yielded to her conquering sword; and equally a failure has been the attempt to wheedle them into a fanatical civilisation by the much-boasted conquest of the mission. Free, then, the prairie Indians are from white man’s rule, and free have they been, as though the keels of Columbus had never ploughed the Carib Sea.
But although they have preserved their independence for three centuries, for three centuries have they never known peace. Between the red Indian and the white Iberian, along the frontier of Northern Mexico, a war-border has existed since the days of Cortez to the present hour—constantly shifting north or south, but ever extended from east to west, from ocean to ocean, through wide degrees of longitude. North of this border ranges the “Indio bravo;” south of it dwells his degenerate and conquered kinsman, the “Indio manso”—not in the “tents,” but in the towns of his Spanish conqueror—the former, free as the prairie wind; the latter, yoked to a condition of “peon” vassalage, with chains as strong as those of slavery itself. The neutral belt of hostile ground lies between—on the one side half defended by a line of garrisoned forts (presidios); on the other, sheltered from attack by the wild and waterless desert.
I have stated that this war-border has been constantly shifting either northward or southward. Such was its history up to the beginning of the present cycle. Since then, a remarkable change has been going forward in the relative position of Indian and Iberian; and the line of hostile ground has been moving only in one direction—continually towards the south! To speak in less metaphorical phrase, the red man has been encroaching upon the territory of the white man—the so-called savage has been gaining ground upon the domain of civilisation. Not slowly or gradually either, but by gigantic strides—by the conquest of whole provinces as large as England ten times told!
I shall make the announcement of a fact, or rather a hypothesis—scarcely well known, though strange enough. It may interest, if not surprise, the ethnologist. I assert, then, that had the four tribes of North Mexican Indians—Comanche, Lipano, Apaché, and Navajo—been left to themselves, in less than another century they would have driven the degenerate descendants of the conquerors of Cortez from the soil of Anahuac! I make this assertion with a full belief and clear conviction of its truthfulness. The hypothesis rests upon a basis of realities. It would require but very simple logic to prove it; but a few facts may yield illustration.
With the fall of Spanish rule in Mexico, ended the predominance of the Spaniard over the Indian. By revolution, the presidios became shorn of their strength, and no longer offered a barrier even to the weakest incursion. In fact, a neutral line no more exists; whole provinces—Sonora, Chihuahua, Tamaulipas, Cinaloa, and Leon—are no better than neutral ground, or, to speak more definitely, form an extended territory conquered and desolated by the Indians. Even beyond these, into the “provincias internas,” have the bold copper-coloured freebooters of late carried their forays—even to the very gates of Durango. Two hundred Comanche warriors, or as many Apachés, fear not to ride hundreds of miles into the heart of civilised Mexico—hesitate not to attack a city or a settlement—scruple not to drag from hearth and home lovely maids and tender children—only these—and carry them slave and captive to their wild fastnesses in the desert! And this is no occasional foray, no long gathering outburst of revenge or retaliation; but an annual expedition, forming part of the regular routine of the year, and occurring at the season when the buffalo have migrated to the north—occurring in that month in the calendar of these aboriginal brigands jocosely styled the “Mexican moon!”
Upon whose head falls the blow thus periodically repeated? Upon the poor and unprotected? No doubt you will fancy so.
A single fact may serve to undeceive you. Only a few years ago, Trias, a man of “first family” in Mexico and governor of the large state of Chihuahua, lost one of his sons by an Indian foray. The boy was taken prisoner by the Comanches; and it was only after years of negotiation and payment of a large sum, that the father recovered his child. Thus the governor of a province, with means and military at his command, was not powerful enough to cause the surrender of his captive son: he was forced to buy him!
It is computed that at this moment there are three thousand white captives in the hands of the North Mexican Indians—nearly all of them of Spanish descent. They are mostly females, and live as the slave-wives of their captors—if such connexion may be dignified by the name. There are white men, too, among the Indians—prisoners taken in their youth; and strange as it may appear, few of them—either of the men or women—evince any desire to return to their former life or homes. Some, when ransomed, have refused the boon. Not uncommon along the frontier has been witnessed that heart-rending scene—a father who had recovered his child from the savages, and yet unable to reclaim its affection, or even to arouse it to a recognition of its parentage. In a few years—sometimes only months—the captives forget their early ties, and become wedded to their new life—become Indianised!
But a short time before, an instance had come under our own observation. The wounded brave taken in the skirmish at the mound was a full-blooded Mexican—had been carried off by the Comanches, some years before, from the settlements on the Lower Rio Grande. In consideration of this, we gave him his liberty—under the impression that he would gladly avail himself of the opportunity to return to his kindred.
He proved wanting in gratitude as in natural affection. The same night on which he was set free, he took the route back to the prairies, mounted upon one of the best horses of our troop, which he had stolen from its unfortunate owner!
Such are the “Cosas de Mexico”—a few of the traits of frontier-life on the Rio Bravo del Norte.
But what of the war-trail? That is not yet explained.
Know, then, that from the country of the Indians to that of the Mexicans extend many great paths, running for hundreds of miles from point to point. They follow the courses of streams, or cross vast desert plains, where water is found only at long intervals of distance. They are marked by the tracks of mules, horses, and captives. Here and there, they are whitened by bones—the bones of men, of women, of animals, that have perished by the way. Strange paths are these! What are they, and who have made them? Who travel by these roads that lead through the wild and homeless desert?
Indians: they are the paths of the Comanche and Caygua—the roads made by their warriors during the “Mexican moon.”
It was upon one of these that the trapper was gazing when he gave out the emphatic utterance—
“War-trail, by the Eturnal!”