Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas Page: 14 of 894

INDIAN WARS AND PIONEERS OF TEXAS.

9

At that time there were in East Texas the Cherokees
and their twelve associate bands of United
States Indians, embracing' portions of the Delawares,
Shawnees, Kickapoos, Alabamas, Cooshattes,
Caddos, Pawnees, and others.
There were also remnants of ancient Texas
Indians
some almost extinct
such as the
Achaes, Jaranenies, Anaquas, Bedwias
still
formidable bodies of Carancahuas, Taxahuas,
Lipans, Tahnacarnoes, Wacos, Wichitas, Keechies,
Ionies, Towdashes, and others, besides the still
principal tribes of the Comanches, Kiowas and

to their west the Apaches, Navajoes, and others
more strictly pertaining to New Mexico, but often
depredating in Texas, as did the Mescalaros and
other tribes from beyond the Rio Grande hailing
from Coahuila and Chihuahua.
Our work is hereafter confined to events after the
American settlements began. It covers the period
from 1822 to 1874, fifty-two years, and much is
untold, but the early struggles in every part of this
State are given as illustrations of what the pioneers
of Texas suffered.

Mrs. Jane Long at Bolivar Point
1820.

Bolivar Point lies, green and inviting, a high
point of land in sight of Galveston. It seems to
say to pleasure-seekers, " Come and visit me. I
have shady groves, fresh breezes, and in the season
fine melons and fruits to offer, but there are events
of historic and romantic interest connected with
me, which add tenfold to my attractiveness." Yes,
truly, seventy-six years ago Bolivar was the scene of
events now known to comparatively few, except perhaps
members of old Texas families, who have
heard them related by the remarkable woman who
there displayed a heroic devotion and courage rarely
equaled in modern times.
First we see her, in the year 1815, at Natchez,
Miss., with sun-bonnet hiding her clustering curls,
and school satchel on arm, as she wends her way to
the academy. The same day she meets, for the
first time, Dr. Long, who has just distinguished
himself in the battle of New Orleans, where he won
from Gen. Jackson the sobriquet of "The
Young Lion." The stream which separates simple
acquaintance from passionate love was soon crossed,
and the boy surgeon of twenty and Jane Wilkinson,
the school girl of fifteen, became husband and wife.
A few years of quiet domestic life, and the adven turous
spirit and manly ambition of the soldier
assumed full sway over a mind which could not be
content with the peaceful pursuits of the farmer, nor
yet with the humdrum traffic of the merchant, which
Long successively engaged in after his marriage.
Mexico was struggling to be free from Spain, and
in 1819 Gen. Long became the leader of a gallant
band of men raised in Natchez for the purpose
of wresting that portion of Mexico called Texas

from the Spanish yoke. Through the many exciting
scenes incident to a soldier's life in this almost
unknown country, Mrs. Long followed her husband,
content if she could but be near him. In 1820 she
found a resting place in a rude fort at Bolivar
Point, fortified and provisioned by Gen. Long
before his departure for La Bahia, or Goliad. Here
the adoring wife long awaited a return, of whose
impossibility her boundless faith would not allow
her to conceive. As time wore on, and no news of
the General's fate arrived, Bolivar was deserted by
the two men who constituted the guard. Although
several vessels touched at the point for the purpose
of conveying Mrs. Long to New Orleans, she, with
her little daughter and negro servant girl, Kian,
determined, at all hazards, to await her husband's
return.
When we look upon the Galveston Island of today,
with its city rising from the sea, its market
gardens and dairy farms, its beach gay with costly
equipages, and surf noisy with the shouts of bathers,
it is difficult to recognize in it the Galveston Island
of seventy-six years ago. At that time, deserted
even by the pirate Lafitte, the red house and the
three trees the only objects that rose above the
water's edge, the cry of seagulls and pelicans,
mingled with the doleful sighing of breaking waves,
the only sounds to reach the ear of the brave woman
who kept her lonely watch at Bolivar, as we view
the incoming ships, laden with freight from every
quarter of the globe, and the sailing yachts bearing
pleasure parties perhaps to the very spot whence
Mrs. Long often strained her eyes to descry a distant
sail which might bring good tidings, it is