Foreword
Some of this story is taken from the annals of history in the late 1880's and reflects the documented relationship between the supposedly civilized white people and the supposedly savage Native American tribe of the Comanche. It is important to remember that as has been paraphrased by many over the centuries, history is always written by the victorious and not by the defeated.
The culture of the Comanche was significantly different from the culture of white people in some ways, but very similar in others. The Comanche culture was based on a way of life most white people of the time could not comprehend and so they ignored it in the writing of history. In actuality, it was a way of life the Comanche developed over centuries of living in harmony with their environment. It is true that part of that culture involved warring with first other Native American tribes and then with the white settlers who encroached on traditional Comanche hunting grounds. The same can be said for all civilizations, white or other, from antiquity to the present day.
The remainder of the story is what I imagine to be the actual truth about the Comanche in the times before they were relocated to the reservation and afterward. After all is said and done, humans all share the same hopes, dreams, and motivations regardless of their ancestry or location. It is their environment that constructs their culture and not some imagined superiority of certain groups over others.
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On the 18th of May, 1875, Melody Arens climbed down from the wagon that had brought her to Fort Sill, Oklahoma Territory from the railroad depot in Caddo. After retrieving her bag from the wagon, she walked to the building where the office of the Indian Agent was located.
Melody's purpose for coming to Fort Sill was not a personal preference nor was it something she believed would further her career. It was an assignment to observe the surrender of the last group of Comanche Indians to the US Cavalry and then interview some of them. In her heart she knew she'd been sent by the St. Louis Post Dispatch only to write a story for the newspaper that would attract the women readers of such stories.
Sending her there also gave her editor a little respite from Melody's constant asking when she would get an important reporting assignment. He wasn't about to give her an assignment he'd always given a man. He might have to put up with female reporters, but he didn't have to give them important assignments.
Melody was what was known as a "Sob Sister" by the male reporters of the various newspapers. Several female reporters worked for newspapers, but the articles they wrote concentrated on things that were enjoyed by women. Chief among those things was the emotional toll of some tragedy on the people involved and the sympathy those same people deserved. It was thought by the male reporters that those articles often reduced the female reader to tears, hence the name "Sob Sister". Melody's last assignment was covering the funerals of several people who had perished when the boiler of a steamboat blew up while leaving the docks at St. Louis.
Melody had interviewed the few survivors as well as the relations of those who had perished, and then wrote a column about the plight of the widows and orphans of the men killed. Her editor said it was a good article, but Melody already knew that. She was surprised when he said he was going to put it on the front page, at the bottom, of course. She also didn't know how much of an impact that column would have on the newspaper, the community, and most importantly, on her life.
The effect on the newspaper was immediate. The first edition for that day sold out within two hours and the paper printed a second edition that hit the streets right after noon. It also sold out by five that evening.
The newspaper responded by donating the profits of the first edition to the churches in St. Louis and was to be used to pay the funeral costs for the deceased. Those churches found that once that article appeared in the next day's edition as well, people from St. Louis were asking if they could donate money toward the cost of the funerals or to a fund to help the widows and orphans.
The newspaper owner was so happy he told her editor to give her a more important assignment. Her editor told her to get herself to Fort Sill to witness the surrender of the last group of Comanche Indians at Fort Sill.
"We'll run your story as a series over a week on the second page. You know what to write. Just stay away from writing about the Indian men. Everybody already knows they're savage killers at heart. Concentrate on the women and children. Write how their lives used to be and how they're now going to change. Our women readers will be waiting at the paper drop to buy the next day's edition."
To Melody, this assignment was the same as all the others she'd gotten except this one would be harder to write. The reason was that since the end of the Civil War, most of the stories considered newsworthy by the Chief Editor had to do with the violent resistance of the many Indian tribes against moving to the reservations in Indian Territory and the bloody fighting that took place between those tribes and the US Cavalry.
The attacks by the Indians on settlements that left many white people dead with desecrated bodies had taken the front page many times. So had the several battles between the Indians and the US Cavalry, and the Indians had always been portrayed as bloodthirsty madmen who killed for the sake of killing and then mutilated the bodies of their victims. Convincing a reader that the women of those Indian tribes felt the same feelings about losing their husbands and children and their tribal lands as white women did would take some skillful writing.
Melody's plan was to witness the formal surrender and then talk to the Comanches about the past and about what they thought of their future. She wasn't sure if the Comanche men would talk with her because she knew from reading the newspapers that most Indian men considered women to be useful only for the drudgery of the household and for bearing children. Some Comanche men were known to have married up to six wives in order to have an easier way of life and to sire more sons.
Melody thought if she could speak directly to the Comanche women, she'd learn their real plight and how they felt about their situations. She doubted they would tell any of the male reporters now milling around Fort Sill their innermost secrets, but they might tell another woman.
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The surrender ceremony wasn't what Melody had expected. She'd anticipated there would be speeches by the Commanding General of Fort Sill and speeches by the conquered Indians. This had been the case when several large units of Confederate soldiers had surrendered at the end of the war.
Instead, the Cavalry column rode up to the parade ground where she stood. Behind them were the Comanche men on horseback, and behind them were the women and children on foot and leading horses laden with packs or pulling a frame made of small trees on which were more packs. There were a few words exchanged between Horace Marks, the Indian Agent and one of the Comanche men, and then the column left.
The only remarkable thing to Melody was the look of the Indians. She'd expected to see them dressed in shoddy clothing and looking downcast and sad. That's what she'd read in the newspaper descriptions of the defeated Confederate soldiers when they surrendered.
Instead, the Comanche men sat straight on their horses with the firm faces of pride and dressed in clean, finely cut leather clothing decorated with colorful beadwork and many feathers. The women's garments were not so rich, but still were clean and sported some decorations of beads and shells. She could not believe these were a defeated people. They looked more to her like people who had resigned themselves to their fate but had refused to surrender their personal pride.
As the column moved out, Melody realized she wasn't going to be able to talk with any Comanche women until they got to wherever the Cavalry was taking them. She walked up to the throng of reporters who surrounded the Indian Agent in hopes of finding out where that would be. It was quickly obvious to her that she had little hope of that happening.
The other reporters, all men, were yelling questions at the Indian Agent and asking how many Indians had been killed before they surrendered and how many of the Cavalry had been killed. They also would not let her get close enough that the Indian Agent could hear her voice over the yelling.
The men reporters all seemed sad when the Indian Agent said there had been no battle. He and the Commanding General of Fort Sill had just sat down with the leaders of the last band of Comanches still not on the reservation to talk. The General had explained that his orders were to bring all the Comanche to live on the reservation and that if they continued to resist, he would only send more soldiers to kill them.
The Indian Agent had pointed out the fact that the vast herds of buffalo that had been almost the sole resource for the Comanche were nearly gone, so even if they continued to live off the reservation, they would starve. The only way to survive as a people with their own religion and customs would be to live on the reservation where the US Government would provide for their needs.
The tribal elders had a long discussion, and at the end, the war chief of the band, a man named Towahwi, stood and said the band would move to the reservation.
