Walking With The Village Creek Indian Ghosts Thinking About Captain Jack's Stronghold & Custer's Last Stand

Today on my way to Pantego I stopped at the Village Creek Natural Historic Area to take a walk with the Native American Ghosts that haunt this location.

Today I left the un-natural paved trail and walked on the old Indian Trail that used to meander through one of the biggest Indian Villages in North America, hence the name of the creek.

The Indian Village in this location stretched for miles, towards the north toward the Trinity River. A river which I imagine back then was totally safe to take a bath in or drink the water as it flowed by.

The Indian tribes that lived in this location were hunters, farmers and traders. And then the Texans came and evicted them using their eventually perfected primitive form of eminent domain abuse.

Last week I read A Terrible Glory: Custer and the Little Bighorn - the Last Great Battle of the American West by James Donovan.

True Crime is one of my favorite genres. Methinks the fate that befell the Native Americans falls in that category.

This book covers the period that marked the final decades of the Indian Wars, from the Powder River War victory by Red Cloud and his tribe to the Wounded Knee Massacre in 1890, with Custer's Last Stand at the Little Bighorn being the focal point to tell the story.

Back when I was in grade school and high school, at that point in time the true history of the Indian Wars was not taught. What we were taught was totally skewed to the White point of view. By the time I got to college this was changing.

A few years ago I remember stopping to read a historical marker in Northern California that made note of the fact that near this location was Captain Jack's Stronghold, made famous in the Modoc War that caught the world's attention back in the 1870s, much like the federal siege at Mount Carmel, near Waco, did in the 1990s. That particular historical marker dated back to the early 1900s. It totally made Captain Jack and the Modocs out to be villains.

However, in modern day America, if you visit Lava Beds National Monument you can explore Captain Jack's Stronghold and the Visitor's Center tells the accurate history of what transpired.

Much like the historical markers in Village Creek Natural Historic Area, sort of tell the accurate story of what transpired in that location.