NEWSPAPER EXTRACTS 201 THEY WERE COMANCHES AND KIOWAS. Jaapes Confession Donated to the Mason County Site by: J Yarbrough <jcyarb@hal-pc.org> Admiral, Texas, Jan. 1, 1902. Col. I. R. Hitt, Colorado City, Texas. Dear Sir: As per your request, I herewith give you a brief recital of my acquaintance and transactions with the Indians. Since the year 1836 to the year of 1876, in my early life, my lines were cast in close proximity to the five civilized tribes and almost daily from 1836 to 1846 was among them, until I was perfectly familiar with them. In the year of 1849, I was employed by the acting quartermaster of the United States army at Fort Smith, Ark., in locating and hauling supplies to the different government posts, located in the Indian Nation and Texas, and was in such employ continuously for several years and while in such employment, I became acquainted with the friendly or the partly friendly tribes, to-wit : Caddos, Wacoes, Ton-queays, Lipans, Delawares, etc. In the year of 1852 or 1853 a man by the name of Stell or Snell made a treaty with the Comanches and Kiowas and set up a trading post on the Clear Fork of the Brazos river half way between the pests of Belknap and Phantom Hill, about forty miles from either post. Shortly after Stell or Snell had established his trading post and had got the aforesaid Indians to the number of 1000 to 2000 to come in, I visited the camp or trading post in company with Maj. Albert Sidney Johnston, who was then paymaster in the United States army and paid off the troops at the following posts, to-wit: Fort Crogan in Hamilton valley, Burnett County; Phantom Hill, Fort Belknap, Fort Graham and Fort Worth. Major Johnston remained in or at Snell's or Stell's trading post one day and night and I studied the Indians very close as they were markedly different in many respects to any Indians I had ever seen. They did not molest us in any way but let us leave them in peace, but had they known the treasure in gold and silver that Major Johnston had with him this letter never would have been written; in proof, some short time after they killed Mr. Agent, looted his camp and went back to their former place and station. In 1855, Major Rough of the United States Rifle Corps was sent out to guard the road from Fort Clark to El Paso. I was sent with him. We had a fight with the Muscalaries Apaches near Eagle Springs, and killed ten of them and piled them up in one pile, and there was a marked difference between them and the Indians that I saw at Snell's or Stell's trading post in 1856. I quit the United States service and built a stage stand to keep the men and mules of the Overland Mail that ran from San Antonio to El Paso. My stand was at Fort Clark. One night the Indians came in and stole all the mail, mules and all the horses but one, and that one was mine, and a good one, which was soon saddled and mounted and the news carried to the com-manding officer at Fort Clark. He ordered a scout at once and we took the trail north, pressed it hard for thirty or thirty--five miles, overtook them, had a fight with them, killed two of them, one of them being dressed in my clothes that he had stolen out of the washtub at Fort Clark. The guide or trailer on this occasion was an old Mexican that the Comanches had stolen when he was a boy, and they had made a slave of him for many years. He scalped the dead Indians; he said they were Comanches and he wanted to get even with them for their many cruelties while he was their prisoner. They had the marks and peculiarities of the Indians that I saw at Stell's or Snell's trading post. In the year of 1857 I got married and settled in Burnett County and went to stock raising, and from that time on to 1876 was more or less in pursuit of Indians and in that number of years I necessarily saw some dead ones and live ones: and I pronounce all that I saw the same Indians that Steil or Snell had made the treaty with, and he said they were Comanches and Kiowas. In the spring of 1874 the State of Texas raised and equipped a battalion of State rangers. I raised and commanded one of the companies. My post of duty was over the counties of Brown. Coleman, Callahan, Runnels, Taylor, Tom Green, etc., and in the first six months of my service I had six separate engagements with the same tribes of Indians that I saw in or at Stell's or Snell's trading post. Ask any old settler that you come in contact with if he had ever seen or heard of the Big Foot Indian that made the big tracks for many years over the counties of Burnett, Lampasas, Llano, Mason, San Saba, Coleman, Brown, etc. I myself, as one of a party have run or trailed him many times before the Civil War, many times during the Civil War, and on and on till the summer of 1874, when with my ranger company we met him and his band in Runnels County and the ranger charge was made in which the noted Big Foot Indian fell and an old war scarred veteran of sixty or sixty-five years was mortally wounded, and fell into our hands. I speak the Mexican language and I had a Mexican in my company that spoke good English. The old wounded Indian spoke good Mexican and he seemed to be willing and anxious to talk. My men stood around while myself and Mexican Joe questioned him. He said that he was a Comanche and his name was Jape or Japee, that Big Foot, the dead brave was a Kiowa chief, and that they had left Fort Sill four or five days before. He said that he or they had raided the settlements for many years, and that the many scars on his person were made by white men in the settlements. He said he helped to kill Wafford Johnson and family on Dog Branch, Burnett County, the Blalock or Whitlock family near Llano County, the Todd family in Mason County, and last, Bill Williams' family in Brown County, in 1874. He said that they had carried one of Bill Williams' girls away off and hung her to a tree, which proved to be as he stated. The way we put the questions to him in regards the killing of the different families and his answers led us all to believe at the time that he helped to do it all, as he could give the direction, the distance, the locations and the length of time, number killed, etc. He answered every question as readily as he could, but one, and that was, the name of his Big Foot Chief. He said that he was a Kiowa chief but his name he would not tell. We killed Indians of the same tribes while in this service at different times and they all had nice red blankets branded U. S. Truly yours, W. J. MALTBY. Extract from: Maltby, William J.,, Captain Jeff, or, Frontier life in Texas with the Texas Rangers: some unwritten history and facts in the thrilling experiences of frontier life : the battle and death of Big Foot, the noted Kiowa chief : the mortally wounding and dying confession of "Old Jape," the Comanchie [sic], the most noted and bloodthirsty savages that ever depredated on the frontier of Texas Colorado, Tex.: Whipkey Print. Co., 1906, 200 pgs.