Indian Papers of Texas and the Southwest, Vol. V

305

No. 216 LETTER FROM GEORGE B. ERATH TO H. R. RUNNELS

Brasos Agency 10 Jany 1859 To his Excellency H R Runnells Governor of the State of Texas Honored Sir By Request of the Citizens of the upper County wich i have the honour to represent in the state Senate i proceeded to the frontier and the principle scene of exitement caused by late in- dian Depredations and the unfortunate occurence of part of the men in pursuit of hostile indians and other hors thiefs whose those fired on a camp of friendly indians i regret that my pre- diction of similar occurences have become true the indians of the lower reserve have been hunting and pasing over the terri- tory where hostile indians where making continul incursions and the population exited suspicioned those indians concerned as a natural) consequence they not being able to distinguish differ- ent tribes and as it is costumary with indians doing mischief to retreat by the camps of friendly indians on whom they equally depredate trails of the enemy where frequently found to the camps of our allys as the lower reserve wich to men not ac- quainted with costums and warfare of indians was an easy source of suspiscion the citisens had demanded continually that friendly indians be kept from among them as it created equally a contin- ual interruption and successive false alarms while in the mean time those friendly indians toock many libertys not consistent with the costums of the white man it was on this ground that . the attack on those indians who had been warned a day or two previous to leave was perhaps excusable if not justifyable the names in wich it was done is not approved off by the citisens of the county generally but nevertheless meets with partial appro- bating as a nessessity to enforce the demand for the indians to remain with out the limits of settled county where the hostile indians where so frequently committing outrages and where there is but little doubt that a certain class of a few white men where also on the creditt of indians creating disturbances of the county some 200 men having assembled on the palopinto from the countys of Coryell, Bosque, Erath and others for the purpose of protecting the country from retaliation by the reserve indians among whom a disposition prevailed in the exitement of the times to break on the lower reserve but this was not the desire