Today's Walk With The Keechi Creek Ghosts Of Indians & John B. Denton

Keechi Creek

Today I took a short walk with the Keechi Creek Indian Ghosts who haunt the Village Creek Natural Historical Area in Arlington.

The Keechi Creek walk was cut short by downfalling rain.

Keechi was the Indian name for what is now called Village Creek. Apparently I have blogged about this before, repetitive bore that I be. I was Googling for info about John Bernard Denton and found a previous blogging of mine near the top of the list.

Today I read an article about John B. Denton on a dentonwiki website.

That dentonwiki article took a more revisionist modern view of John B. Denton than some of the articles whose point of view is more rooted in the way the Anglo world viewed the Indian world a couple centuries ago.

Here's a blurb from the dentonwiki article...

The Death Of John B. Denton

John Barnard Denton (July 28, 1806 – May 22, 1841,  was a Methodist Episcopal Church minister, lawyer, soldier, and political candidate for whom both Denton County, Texas and the city of Denton, Texas were named. He converted to Methodism soon after meeting his future wife, Mary Greenlee Stewart, who also taught him how to read and write. He later became a captain and was known for his battles against Native Americans. He died in 1841 after an attack on a Keechi village in adjacent Tarrant County. Though once described as a "brave hero", he would now probably be known as a confused racist.

There were a lot of confused racists back in the days of Denton. His death is depicted in the picture. This took place a short distance north of the Village Creek Natural Historical Area. A Texas State Historical Marker marks the spot.

Denton sort of brought it on himself, getting killed by the natives. He joined General Edward H. Tarrant's Fourth Brigade. In April of 1841 the Ripley family was killed by some horse rustling Indians, likely Comanche, near what is present day Denton.

Tarrant's Texas militia took off to find some Indians to punish. Eventually they found the string of villages of peaceful agrarian Indians who lived along Keechi Creek, in current day Arlington. The militia destroyed two nearly empty villages, mostly deserted because the braves were gone hunting. The third village attacked was not undefended, which now had Denton in a real fight.

Soon Indians from other villages joined the fight and had Tarrant and Denton in full retreat. With Denton soon killed.

It is not known how many Indians were killed that day. But, this was the start of the final solution for this particular group of Native American tribes. Those who were not killed made their escape to Oklahoma, where there descendants live to this day. And operate a casino or two.

And have a Facebook page.