History is filled with accounts of European settlers being captured by tribes and being treated like one of their own. But the tale of a German boy who was kidnapped by a band of Apaches in Texas, takes the cake for the way it's described by Bartee Haile of
The Diboll Free Press.
Eleven year old Herman Lehmann led his brother Willie, age eight, and two younger sisters to the far corner of the German family's frontier farm. The innocent children entertained themselves oblivious to the danger silently surrounding them on moccasin-clad feet.
Good thing those Apaches weren't wearing
Nikes! That would have ruined the story. Continuing..
Herman looked up and straight into the painted faces of an Apache raiding party. Willie was instantly seized, but his big brother jumped to his feet and sprinted toward the farmhouse 300 yards away. The leader of the band quickly ran him down and, according to Herman's adult account, "slapped me, choked me, beat me and tore my clothes off."
..
Fearing pursuit by a pioneer posse, the Apaches raced at top speed through the underbrush. Securely strapped to the backs of two ponies, the naked brothers were cut to pieces by the mesquite and cactus.
Whoa there! This is a family newspaper, not a romance novel!
Somehow, Herman found some clothes and was quickly accepted by his new family, including his "squaw" mother:
Apache custom awarded custody of a child captive to his kidnapper, in Herman's case a respected warrior called Carnoviste. His childless squaw took such tender care of the unexpected blessing that "when she died a year later, I felt I had lost my best friend among the Indians."
But life among the Apaches wasn't easy. He was told that his family was killed. And then there were those pesky outsiders:
Skin color was all he had in common with the evil palefaces, whom he hated as much as any full-blooded Indian.
...
He recalled decades later, "I wanted to die a fugitive rather than be turned over to the white man."
Eventually, Herman did reunite with his family. But he didn't know who they were because he no longer understood German!
For the next 51 years until his death in 1932, Herman Lehmann was a split personality. Although most of his time was spent in the world of his birth, he regularly visited his red brethren. Who can say where he really felt more at home?
A happy ending. Who says
ICWA doesn't work?
