Join us at the Paramount Theater, Thursday, September 9th at 7PM for the premier showing of this video.

Meanwhile, here is a trailer of the video.

Wooten: an Abilene Life – Intro from David Gibson on Vimeo.

We will meet in the back classroom for a short meeting, then Frontier Texas! Director Jeff Salmon has arranged for complimentary passes for the commission to tour the museum winding up at the Pancho Villa photo exhibit. Refreshments will be served, but not a full meal.

Agenda for May 6 meeting:

* THC meeting in Houston – Bill Minter
* Markers/web page update – Karen Turner
* Research on Judges and Commissioners – Cherry Gleason
* Wooten marker/video plans – Jay Moore

This will be the final meeting before the summer break, and we would like to have you join us for the special meeting.

If you have any questions about this month’s meeting, contact Anita Hill at toplane@taylortel.net.

First Exploratory Oil Well In Taylor County – David Morris & Jay Moore

Research early Abilene History of Will Stith and sister Mrs. Frances Curtis.

Our Report was submitted to the State and we received a letter stating we had 2009 Certified Local Government award.

We do not meet as a group in January, except at the Archives. 2009 was a bit different in that one of our Commission Members, Jay Moore, was Guest Columnist for the Abilene Reporter News, on January 25th, 2009. The headline read:

“HISTORIC TROLLEY TRACKS TORN UP” and the story began

“Over the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday weekend, a small part of Abilene history was bulldozed up loaded on a dump truck and hauled away”. Out of this grew Jay Moore’s “HISTORY IN PLAIN SIGHT SERIES”. Three DVDs “Bankhead Highway”, “Streets of Abilene”. and “Fair Park of Abilene” were researched and created with the assistance of David Gibson, Abilene Preservation League and Dian Graves Owen Foundation. All the Historical Commission members have been involved and look forward to the two DVDs that will be made in 2010.

We had 8 group meetings and each week in the year several members were at the Archives doing research. Our thanks go to Steve Slaton for organizing our old Abilene Reporter News and other materials. We logged 1717 hours at the Archives and 1012 hours was spent on the DVDs for “History in Plain Sight” which gives us a total of 2729 for the year.

Our first meeting of the year was held at the Beehive in February and the Maxine Perini Award was presented to Andrew Penns.

Andrew Penns wears many hats and it was difficult to keep this as a surprise to him. Anita almost had to bribe him to get him to attend the meeting. Our thanks go to Steve Butman for the pictures and collage; Steve and Nita Slaton for the decorations; John Stowe for our speaker (K.O.Long); Vernon Williams for the information on our honoree. Janis Test presented a number of DVDs to the Historical Commission entitled “Talking History of Abilene” from Friends of the Library. The DVDs are taped interviews of early citizens for the city’s 85th birthday.

Hosted, planned and advertised a Seminar for Texas Historical Commission for RIP Cemetery Workshop with a grant from the Dian Graves Owen Foundation. The THC requested we limit it to 30 participants and we delivered 27 packets to interested persons. It was a very successful meeting at the Abilene Public Library.

Plans were made for the Abilene State Park’s 75th Anniversary on May 16 but due to weather conditions it was postponed until October 24th. Anita Lane, our Chairman, helped plan and hold this Celebration. She gave a history of the park area from the Indians to present day.

The Archive Committee helped Steve Butman research material for the Airport Lobby and he was able to make some very impressive pictures of Lindbergh, Earhart and Wrong Way Carrigan from our Collection.

Members of TCHC were involved with the West Texas Fair in various ways: John Stowe worked with the committee to organize all volunteers (donated _________ hours); Anita Lane was in charge of the Youth Fine Arts section ( donated 32 hours); Cherry Gleason worked to register art work ( donated 16 hours).

Anita Lane, TCHC Chair, met with the company who proposed electrical linesthat will go across south Taylor County for collecting power from the Wind Turbine. No historical sites will be affected.

Planned for meetings with:

Runnels County and trip to Content, TX

Field trip to Sweetwater

Area Historical Museum in Merkel in May

Judge Newman and Commissioners for Budget hearing in July

Markers researched and requested:

Valley Creek (restored)

Hotel Wooten

Swenson House

First Exploratory Oil Well, Taylor County

Shootout Marker – Gun Battle at Pine & First, Abilene, TX

Childers Classical Institute first site (ACU)

2010 Plans for Historical Commission:

Research list of County Judges and Commissioners for Judge Newman

Trent Marker

Assist Andrew Penns on research for markers he plans to request.

We lost two long time members in 2009 and they will be missed:

Denny McFarland

Mildred Cornelius

Submitted by Anita Lane, Chair, Taylor County Historical Commission

Compiled by Cherry Gleason, TCHC secretary

A copy of this DVD can be purchased by clicking on the link above: “History in Plain Sight DVDs” or by sending email to historyinplainsight@gmail.com.

This is part 1 of 3

In his series of historical documentaries called, “History in Plain Sight,” Jay Moore tells about the creation of the Bankhead Highway, what it meant to the people of West Texas, particularly Abilene and Baird, Texas, and what happened to the highway that once stretched across the southern part of the United States. Parts of this road can still be found and driven on in and around Abilene and other parts of Texas.

The entire story on the Bankhead Highway will begin airing on the local access channel, Channel 7, for the Abilene, Texas viewing area on July 14th at 7PM CST.

For a DVD Copy of this presentation, contact Jay Moore at jay.moore@abileneisd.org or by writing to him at the following location: 601 Amarillo Abilene, TX 79601-5811 (325) 676-3775.

For those of you law-abiding citizens that are just learning a bit more about Abilene, I apologize that I have to take this action at this time.  For you spammers, I hope you stub your big toe on the coffee table this afternoon.

Between 1500 and 1700 the name Jumanos was used to identify at least three distinct peoples of the Southwest and South Plains. They include the Tompiro-speaking Pueblo Indians in Salinas, a nomadic trading group based around the Rio Grande and Río Conchos, and the Caddoan-speaking Wichitas along the Arkansas River and Red River basins. Although they ranged over much of northern Mexico, New Mexico, and Texas, their most enduring territorial base was in central Texas between the lower Pecos River and the Colorado. The Jumanos were buffalo hunters and traders, and played an active role as middlemen between the Spanish colonies and various Indian tribes. Historical documents refer to Jumana, Humana, Sumana, Chouman, Xoman, and other variants of the name; but Jumano has been the standard form in twentieth-century scholarship. Other names mentioned in connection with the Jumanos, as closely allied or subordinate groups, include Cíbolos, Jediondos, and Caguates.

Early scholars pondered the mystery of their virtual disappearance from the historical record around 1700. Further, the scattered distribution of the Jumanos, in bands, rancherías, and villages at widely separated locations led to disagreement about their identity. This has been termed the “Jumano problem.” One solution, widely accepted since 1940, was to draw a distinction between “true” Jumanos-the nomadic bands in the South Plains-and other groups who also practiced facial painting and were therefore called Jumanos. However, this idea now appears simplistic, since many interconnections, suggestive of a shared cultural and linguistic identity, appear to link most, if not all, of the groups.

There are no substantial records of the Jumanos’ language, and their linguistic identity has been the subject of considerable debate. An early scholar believed that they were Caddoans, ancestral to the Wichitas. Others have suggested a Uto-Aztecan or Athabascan affiliation. A recent study has argued that the Jumanos spoke a Tanoan language. If they did, this would link them with the eastern Pueblos of New Mexico and would imply that their ancestral ties lay within or near the Rio Grande valley. Although few direct connections between historic and prehistoric sites have been demonstrated, clues of geographical distribution and cultural similarity suggest that the Jumanos were descendants of a prehistoric Jornada Mogollón population indigenous to this region.

Spanish explorers sometimes referred to the Jumanos as “naked” Indians because their breasts and genitalia were not covered. However, both men and women did wear garments and shoes (probably moccasins) of tanned skins. Women had brief skirts or aprons and short sleeveless tunics, and both men and women used capes or cloaks for protection against the weather. Men cut their hair short, decorated it with paint, and left one long lock to which the feathers of various birds might be tied. Women may have worn their hair long or in braids. The Jumanos were characterized as a rayado (striped) people because of a distinctive pattern of facial marking in horizontal lines or bars. The medium may have been tattooing or some combination of scarification and paint. This practice, probably an adaptation to their traditional role in intertribal trade, made them immediately recognizable.

Nomadic Jumanos used skin tepees. Stone circles near La Junta de los Ríos and elsewhere have been tentatively interpreted as evidence of this type of housing. Those living at more permanent rancherías built houses of reeds or sticks, while those in the pueblos of New Mexico had masonry houses.

The Jumanos hunted with bow and arrow. Spaniards remarked on the strength of their “Turkish” bows (reinforced with sinew). In war, they used clubs, or cudgels, of hardwood. Jumano traders supplied arrows, and perhaps bow as well, from La Junta to the Indians of central and eastern Texas.

Evidence of trade from the Tompiro region of New Mexico may be seen in the large quantities of potsherds, of local types such as Chupadero black-on-white, found over a wide region of the South Plains. Jumanos supplied corn, dried squashes, beans, and other produce from the farming villages, in exchange for pelts, meat, and other buffalo products, and foods such as piñon nuts, mesquite beans, and cactus fruits. Other trade goods included textiles, turquoise, exotic feathers, mineral pigments, shells, salt (from salines in New Mexico and near the lower Pecos), and possibly hallucinogens (including peyote, which was available at La Junta). The Jumanos obtained horses early, probably via their connections in Nueva Vizcaya, and may have been instrumental in introducing their use to the Caddo, Tonkawa, and other Texas tribes.

Documentary evidence focuses three geographical regions for the Jumanos: Nueva Vizcaya, New Mexico, and Texas. In 1535 Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca visited the “People of the Cows,” believed to have been a Jumano group, near La Junta, in Nueva Viscaya. The earliest recorded use of the name Jumano, in 1581, was Antonio de Espejo’s reference to villagers at La Junta. However, modern scholars do not agree on the nature of the Jumano presence there. Both Hernán Gallegos, in 1581, and Diego Pérez de Luxán, in 1582, indicated that the population at La Junta included two distinct groups, speaking different languages: the Abriaches (or Cabris), whose settlements extended up the Río Conchos from La Junta, and the Otomoacas (or Amotomancos), whose language was similar to that of the Caguates, their upstream neighbors. According to Pérez, the nomadic Jumanos of the lower Pecos were similar in language, clothing, and appearance to these Patarabuey villagers, with whom they had trade relations.

It appears that the situation at La Junta may have been analogous to that in New Mexico, where nomadic Jumanos from the plains periodically visited, and sometimes lived among, their village-dwelling trading partners and kin. After the return of the Espejo-Beltrán expedition, little is known of the La Junta region for roughly a century. In 1684, at the instigation of the Jumano chief Juan Sabeata, Franciscans from New Mexico founded the missions of La Navidad en las Cruces and Apostol Santiago, to accommodate the La Junta tribes and refugees from Apache depredations elsewhere. Over the next decade Sabeata evidently resided at La Junta and led annual trading expeditions to conduct “trade fairs” with Indian groups of central and eastern Texas, including the Tejas (Caddo) Indians. For at least part of this time, Juan Sabeata was a Spanish-appointed native governor, and the Jumanos and Cíbolos under his command served as scouts and mercenaries in fighting against rebellious Tobosos and Chisos.

In 1598, Juan de Oñate received oaths of loyalty from caciques of three Jumano villages of Genobey, Pataoece, and Cueloce, located in the second geographical focus, Tompiro Province, adjacent to the Salinas of New Mexico. The two smaller pueblos may soon have been evacuated and the Jumano population consolidated at the larger pueblo of Cueloce, which came to be called “the pueblo of the Humanas” or simply “Las Humanas” (now the Gran Quivira ruins). In 1601, Vicente de Zaldívar led a punitive expedition to this site to put down a rebellion, instigated by the Jumanos but also involving other pueblos of the region.

The Jumanos still had a reputation for rebelliousness in 1627, when Fray Alonso de Benavides began active missionizing of the Tompiro Province. The church of San Isidro was built at that time, and was briefly supervised by Fray Francisco Letrado. Las Humanas was then a satellite of the Abo mission until 1660, when Fray Diego Santander became resident priest and built the large church of San Buenaventura. Las Humanas was a frontier-trading center frequented by nomadic Jumanos, who in 1629 petitioned Fray Juan de Salas to visit their rancherías in the plains. When these rancherías were subsequently evacuated, the Franciscans resettled the refugees in the Salinas, near the missions of Quarai and Las Humanas.

Las Humanas became increasingly inaccessible to Jumano traders, as their Apache enemies came to dominate the plains to the east. New Mexican colonists then began to make annual trading trips to the Jumano base on the Río Nueces. Military parties also visited this site from New Mexico in 1650 and 1654. During a famine in the 1660s, more than 400 people died of starvation at Las Humanas. In the same years, Apache raiding became endemic to the region. The Tompiros were deserted by 1670, and the remaining Jumano population was reportedly removed to the newly founded mission of Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, south of El Paso. In October 1683, Juan Sabeata led a delegation of Indians to El Paso to petition Fray Nicolás López, the Franciscan padre custodio, and Don Gironza Petris de Cruzate, governor of New Mexico, to send missionary and military assistance for the Jumanos and their allies at La Junta and in Texas.

In 1540 the Coronado expedition found “Querechos” (Apaches) and “Teyas” at war in the plains east of the northern Pueblo villages, in what is now Texas. The Teyas may have been Jumanos, though some scholars insist they were Caddos. In 1598, Zaldívar learned of the ongoing Jumano-Apache war near Pecos Pueblo. Three years later Oñate’s expedition encountered a large settlement of people, called Jumanos by the accompanying New Mexican Indians, near the Arkansas River on the southern frontier of Quivira; this group is usually assumed to have been part of the Wichita tribe. In his Memoir of 1634, Benavides stated that the Apaches controlled the plains east of New Mexico for a distance of more than 100 leagues. By midcentury, refugees from the plains were sheltered in New Mexico, and others had withdrawn to the Río Nueces (the region of the upper Colorado and Concho, near the site of San Angelo). Spanish expeditions traveled there by descending the Pecos. However, this route was early abandoned by the Jumanos, probably because of the Apache occupancy of the Guadalupe Mountains.

The Río Nueces was linked to La Junta by a chain of Jumano settlements on the lower Pecos, Toyah Creek, and the Davis Mountains. In January 1684, after founding the missions at La Junta, Capt. Juan Domínguez de Mendoza and twenty New Mexican troops from El Paso joined Nicolás López. The soldiers and friars were escorted toward the Río Nueces by Juan Sabeata and a mixed party of Indians, to meet with representatives of more than thirty tribes and bands. Lists of these Indian “nations,” as given by Sabeata and by Domínguez de Mendoza, include the “kingdoms” of Quivira and the Tejas as well as the Emets, Tohojos, Acanis, Papanes, and many whose names are not now recognizable. The Indians hoped to make an alliance with Spain in order to halt further Apache advances into their territories.

However, en route to central Texas, Domínguez de Mendoza broke off relations with the Jumano governor, and the expedition became, in effect, a Spanish buffalo-hunting trip. Thereafter, most of the Indian representatives failed to appear, to the disappointment of López, who had hoped for a new mission field in Texas to replace that recently lost in New Mexico. During the last decades of the seventeenth century, Spaniards from Coahuila encountered mounted Jumanos at locations including the Guadalupe River and Anacacho Mountain, near Eagle Pass. Members of La Salle’s colony also became acquainted with the Jumanos while visiting and trading with the Hasinais. Their accounts document the role of the Jumanos of this period as middlemen in supplying Spanish goods and horses to the tribes of central, southern, and eastern Texas.

Much of what has seemed mysterious or problematical in reference to the Jumanos becomes less so when they are seen in the larger context of intergroup relations in the greater Southwest. On the western edge of the plains, bands of Jumano hunter-gatherers had long-established dealings with related farming villages in the Rio Grande valley, maintained through reciprocal exchange of food and other products. These relations were initially disrupted when the eastern Apaches, relative newcomers to the Southwest, began to extend their range into the South Plains. There, they competed with the Jumanos for hunting territories and for control of trade with the village tribes. But the trade in New Mexico was only a segment of an extended network, in which the Jumanos were also trading partners and allies of the distant Caddos and Wichitas, as well as numerous small groups of central and southern Texas. Their war with the Apaches was, in part, a defense of territory but was also a struggle to control trade routes and to preserve the integrity of this regional system.

The Apache invasion of the South Plains was already under way in the sixteenth century, when Spanish entradas into the region began. Over the course of the following century, Apache dominance increased and the Jumanos were forced to retreat. Colonists in New Mexico and Nueva Vizcaya traded with the Jumanos, who became middlemen in supplying Spanish goods to the eastern tribes, while providing buffalo pelts and furs in exchange. The presence of Spanish forces in New Mexico may have served to stabilize relations between the Pueblos and Apaches to a degree. However, repeated Jumano efforts to secure Spanish aid in defense of their territories in the plains were ineffective.

By the end of the seventeenth century, when Apache dominance extended into the lower Rio Grande valley and reached eastward to the upper Brazos and Colorado Rivers, the Jumanos had lost their entire territorial base, their trade routes were broken, and they ceased to exist as an identifiably distinct people. In the west, many Jumanos-like members of other defeated groups-were eventually incorporated into Apache bands. In central Texas, Jumanos were found among the detribalized Indians of the Ranchería Grande, and others may have taken refuge among their eastern allies. Finally, it is possible that a segment of the Jumanos-perhaps the horse-herding people of the Río Nueces-survived to become the nucleus of the Kiowa Indians, who appeared in the central plains toward the end of the eighteenth century.

 Bibliography

Herbert E. Bolton, “The Jumano Indians in Texas, 1650-1771,” Quarterly of the Texas State Historical Association 15 (July 1911).

Charles W. Hackett, ed., Pichardo’s Treatise on the Limits of Louisiana and Texas (4 vols., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1931-46).

Nancy Parrott Hickerson, The Jumanos: Hunters and Traders of the South Plains (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1994).

J. Charles Kelley, “Juan Sabeata and Diffusion in Aboriginal Texas,” American Anthropologist 57 (October 1955).

F. V. Scholes and H. P. Mera, “Some Aspects of the Jumano Problem,” Contributions to American Anthropology and History 6 (1940).

Born a slave in Tennessee around 1840, Britton “Britt” Johnson would become a famous West Texas character for his exploits of bravery. He came to Texas in the 1850s with his master Moses Johnson, who had bought land in the Peters’ Colony. As a reward for Britt’s loyalty and hard work, Moses Johnson appointed him foreman of the ranch, with unlimited freedom to perform his duties. He also permitted Britt to raise his own horses and cattle.

Britt’s future would change drastically on October 13, 1864. On that day, several hundred Kiowa and Comanche warriors raided into western Young County, the site of the Johnson Ranch. Known as the Elm Creek Raid, this action saw the Indians attack several houses, including the household of Elizabeth Ann FitzPatrick, where they killed and scalped Mrs. FitzPatrick’s daughter, Millie Durkin, and killed Britt Johnson’s son. The Indians then took captive Mrs. FitzPatrick, her son and two granddaughters, and Johnson’s wife (Mary) and their two daughters.

Britt Johnson’s attempts to find his family became the source of legend. For several months after the Elm Creek Raid, he traveled to numerous reservations in Oklahoma, and to forts throughout the Texas frontier desperate to find his family. Popular tradition claims that Johnson lived with the Comanches in the Spring of 1865, and was able to ransom his family through this connection. The rescue of the Johnsons, however, actually came as part of on-going peace negotiations and the efforts of friendly Comanches. In June 1865, Comanche Chief Asa-Havey paid a ransom for the captives, rescued them, and took them to the Indian agent, who turned them over to Britt Johnson.

By the time Johnson returned with his family, the Civil War was over and he was a free man. He had become famous for getting his family back from the Comanches, and he used his status to buy a wagon team and gain freight contracts after the war. He moved his family to Parker County, where he set up his freight business. Johnson became quite successful, heading up wagon teams to haul freight between Weatherford and Fort Griffin.

Britt Johnson died as heroically as he lived. On January 24, 1871, while he led a wagon train through Young County, a group of twenty-five Kiowas attacked the wagon train four miles to the east of Salt Creek. Johnson and the two other black teamsters with him tried to defend the wagons, but there was little cover. When his two companions fell dead, Johnson desperately held back the attack for several more minutes, using his dead horse for cover. He died defending this position.

When other teamsters found the site of this attack, they counted 173 rifle and pistol shells around the area where Johnson made his stand. The teamsters buried the mutilated bodies of Johnson and his men in a common grave next to the wagon road.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Robert G. Carter. On the Border with Mackenzie, or Winning West Texas from the Comanches. Washington: Eynon Printing, 1935.

Carrie J. Crouch. Young County: History and Biography. Dallas: Dealey and Love, 1937; rev. ed., A History of Young County, Texas. Austin: Texas State Historical Association, 1956.

J. Evetts Haley. Fort Concho and the Texas Frontier. San Angelo Standard-Times, 1952.

Kenneth F. Neighbours. “Elm Creek Raid in Young County, 1864.” West Texas Historical Association Year Book 40 (1964).

Rupert N. Richardson. The Frontier of Northwest Texas, 1846 to 1876. Glendale, California: Clark, 1963.

J. W. Wilbarger. Indian Depredations in Texas. Austin: Hutchings, 1889; rpt., Austin: State House, 1985.

One of the more celebrated images in the popular imagination about life on the frontier is that of the saloon table poker game. Professional gamblers did roam the region looking for “ a game,” and making their fortunes off of the unfortunate cowboy or buffalo hunter who came into their sites.

Gambling was indeed a prominent feature of life in West Texas. Before the creation of towns and saloons, gambling had already made its way to the region. When the early line of West Texas forts came in the 1850s, soldiers spent much of their “down” time gambling with each other. When cattlemen started to dot the plains, betting on horse races, or playing cards was a favorite past time for their cowboys.

After the Civil War, professional gamblers started to make their way into the region. They tended to travel a circuit, going from frontier town to frontier town, staying as long as they found lucrative action. Some of the more famous gamblers to have spent time in the region were “Doc” Holliday and Charlotte Thompkins, also known as “Lottie Deno—the Poker Queen.” These gamblers and hundreds of others could be found on any given day in the back of any saloon in the region.

Professional gamblers preyed on cowboys and buffalo hunters. Gamblers could take advantage of these men because of the circumstances of their particular professions. Both cowboys and buffalo hunters spent long weeks out on the plains with no entertainment or amusements outside of their work. And both groups got paid in lump sums at the end of their job. Gamblers flocked to these men like bees to the nectar. Because officials did not closely regulate gambling, marked cards, loaded dice, and other methods of cheating prevailed. In describing the methods of the professional gamblers, one contemporary observer claimed, “The ordinary fellow did not have a ghost of a show.” He elaborated: “I saw a buffalo hunter come to town one day and market his season’s kill for $1,500.00.” After a single night in the town with the gamblers, the next morning, this hunter “had to borrow money for his breakfast. The gamblers had gotten it all.”

The 1870s represented the heyday of gambling in West Texas. After the railroad made its way into the region, towns became more settled and communities tightened up their control over such activities. By the turn of the century, many town had laws against gambling, and the professional gambler ceased to exist in anything other than the popular imagination.

Bibliography:

Cashion, Ty. A Texas Frontier: The Clear Fork Country and Fort Griffin, 1849-1887. Norman and London: University of Oklahoma Press, 1996.

Holden, Frances Mayhugh. Lambshead Before Interwoven: A Texas Range Chronicle, 1848-1878. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1982.

Rister, Carl Coke. Fort Griffin on the Texas Frontier. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1956.

Rose, Cynthia. Lottie Deno: Gambling Queen of Hearts. Santa Fe, New Mexico: Clear Light, 1994.