The name Kickapoo is the English corruption of Kiwegapaw which means “he moves about, standing now here, now there.” When first encountered by the French in the seventeenth century, they were living between the Wisconsin and Fox Rivers. They later migrated to the area of the Illinois River. Following the Blackhawk War of 1832, they moved to Missouri, then to Kansas. From Kansas, some of the Kickapoos migrated south through Texas where anti-Indian sentiment was very strong and settled in Mexico.
During the Civil War, two different Kickapoo groups left Kansas to join their Mexican relatives. On their way through Texas, they were attacked by Confederate soldiers and by Texas Rangers. Once settled in Mexico, the Kickapoos retaliated by carrying out raids against border towns in Texas.
By 1873, a Congressional commission investigated the Texas war against the Kickapoos and concluded that the war could only be settled by the removal of the Kickapoos from Mexico and their resettlement on a reservation in the United States.
In Texas, the Americans were concerned about raids from Kickapoos, Lipan Apaches, and Mescalero Apaches from Mexico. Writing in 1885, E. B. Beaumont, in a report reprinted in Eyewitnesses to the Indian Wars, 1865-1890, describes the situation this way:
“Issuing from their mountain retreats, they traveled by night across the plains and mountains, hid by day among the ravines and cedar breaks which abound, suddenly swoop down upon some unprotected ranch, cruelly murdering its wretched inhabitants, drove off the stock, and sometimes carried women and children into captivity.”
E. B. Beaumont also reports:
“The Kickapoos were the most relentless, if possible, toward the Texans, by whom they were wantonly attacked while peacefully emigrating from Arkansas. The Texans were routed with severe loss, but from that day Texas has been considered fair ground for Kickapoo raids, and all murders there as justifiable retribution.”
General Philip Henry Sheridan, the commander of the Department of Missouri (an Army command echelon that functioned during the 19th century Indian Wars), and Secretary of War William Belknap met at Fort Clark, Texas for a secret meeting with Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie to discuss the fate of the Mexican Kickapoos and other Mexican Indians. General Sheridan told Mackenzie:
“I want you to be bold, enterprising, and … when you begin, to let it be a campaign of annihilation, obliteration and complete destruction.”
When Mackenzie asked about authority, he was told that he had the backing of President Grant.
Following the secret meeting, U.S. Troops from Texas, accompanied by a detachment of Seminoles, invaded Mexico and destroyed three Indian villages in Coahuila: Kickapoo, Lipan Apache, and Mescalero. E. B. Beaumont reports:
“The Kickapoos were struck first, and the firing alarmed the other villages, whose inhabitants had time to escape to the ravines, thickets, and marshes, which enclosed their homes, but not before twenty of their warriors had paid the penalty of their brutal crimes.”
In the attack on the Apache villages, 40 Apaches were taken prisoner. Among those captured was Costilietos, a Lipan Apache chief. The army also captured 200 horses.
With regard to the Kickapoo, A.M. Gibson, in his book The Kickapoos: Lords of the Middle Border, reports:
“The Kickapoo villages, undefended—the warriors having departed the day before—were caught completely by surprise. The Indian population, women, children, and old men, was panic-stricken, but even they fought like demons when the terror of the surprise assault passed.”
Gibson also reports:
“Methodically, the troops hunted out the hiding Indians, killed those who resisted, and took prisoners the more placid ones.”
Some 40 Kickapoo women and children were taken prisoner, and watched while the soldiers torched their houses, destroying all their personal belongings. Horses were gathered up, and the prisoners tied to the horses (sometimes as many as three per horse). The soldiers then rushed back to Texas, fearing that the Kickapoo men would soon return. The prisoners were then sent to Fort Gibson where they were held as prisoners of war.
The Mexican government issued a strong protest. The attack was not a spontaneous excursion into Mexican territory, but one which had been planned over the course of several months and had involved special training for the troops. It should be noted that this was not the first American invasion of Mexico to attack Indian villages. In 1870, the United States State Department had formally asked Mexico for permission to invade to attack Indians, and Mexico had strongly denied permission. The U.S. Army in 1870, and in the years that followed, simply ignored international law and attacked Mexican villages.
In Oklahoma, the army refused to turn over the Kickapoo women and children to the care of the Indian Office which was administered by the Department of the Interior. The army insisted on holding them as prisoners of war until the Kickapoo returned to a reservation.
In Coahuila, Mexico, American negotiators persuaded the Kickapoo to remove to Oklahoma. The army raid on their village had completely devastated them and they had to be fully outfitted for removal. In their journey north, the 317 warriors, women, and children were taken on a long route to avoid contact with communities in Texas.
When they arrived in Oklahoma, they were assigned to a reservation next to the Osage and the Kaw, both traditional enemies of the Kickapoo. The United States, however, in its infinite wisdom considered all Indians the same and was blissfully unaware of cultural difference and conflicts. The chiefs protested because they had been told that they would be able to select their own reservation. In his chapter on the Kickapoos in the Encyclopedia of North American Indians, Joseph Herring reports:
“On American soil, however, they spent the following decades squabbling with American authorities, contesting land allotment and the government’s civilization program.”
More American Indian histories
Indians 101: The Tlingit Rebellion of 1802-1806
Indians 201: The war against the Yavapai
Indians 201: The Heavy Runner Massacre
Indians 201: Utah's Black Hawk War
Indians 201: The Cayuse Indian War
Indians 201: The Bannock Indian War
Indians 201: The Sheepeater Indian War
Indians 101: The Lame Cow War
