Chief Placido and the Tonkawas. Multiple accounts of the Battle of Plum Creek give great praise to Placido and his Tonkawas who arrived on foot, but swiftly became mounted warriors by sometimes in one motion killing and swinging onto a Comanche warrior’s horse. Author Wilberger noted that Placido himself was "in the hottest part of the battle, dealing death on every hand, while the arrows and balls of the enemy were flying thick and fast around him." The Tonkawa allies were distinguished from the enemy by white rags tied around their arms or heads. Wilberger noted that as was their custom, the Tonkawas proceeded to cut flesh, feet and hands from their dead enemies, which were used as trophies in celebration of the victory. Placido, his son and Tonkawa associates were close and honored friends of the Burleson family and visited the Burleson homestead often near current San Marcos on the head springs of the San Marcos River. The Tonkawa chief boasted that he never shed the blood of a white man. The Comanches likely had no fiercer enemy than this hereditary one. The Chief was implicitly trusted by the Burlesons and others with which he served including Texas Ranger Colonel John S. (Old Rip) Ford and Captains S.P. Ross, W.A. Pitts, Preston and Tankersley. He ironically was assassinated by revengeful Comanches after having retired to reservation life at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma where because of loyalty to Texas he refused to aid Union sympathizers in the last part of the American Civil War. Wilberger and author John Henry Brown both agreed that he was "the soul of honor and never betrayed a trust. He rendered invaluable services in behalf of Texas, in recognition of which he never received any reward of a material nature, beyond a few paltry pounds of gun powder and salt. Imperial Texas should rear a monument commemorative of his memory. He was the more than Tammany of Texas." [Picture from Homer S. Thrall, A Pictorial History of Texas, 1879, also in Indian Depredations in Texas by J.W. Wilbarger, 1890, said to be drawn by T.J. Owen (a pseudonym for William Sydney Porter, better known as O. Henry). Archives and Information Services Division, Texas State Library and Archives Commission)

The above is found verbatim at http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/dewitt.htm

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