Herman Lehmann

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Herman Lehmann (born June 5, 1859 near Fredericksburg , Texas , † February 2, 1932 in Loyal Valley, Texas) was a child of the German immigrants Moritz and Augusta Lehmann, who came to Texas in 1846. He was kidnapped by Indians as a child at the age of ten and then lived first with the Apaches and later with the Comanche . In later life he returned to his family. The phenomenon of a white boy raised by Indians made him a celebrity in the United States. He published his autobiography Nine years Among the Indians in 1927 .

family

The father Moritz Lehmann was born on May 29, 1827 in Friedersdorf (now Biedrzychowice, part of the Sorau district) in what was then Niederlausitz , and died on May 11, 1862 in Squaw Creek, Mason Co., Texas. His wife Augusta Johanna Adams, born on February 27, 1833 in Kulm / West Prussia , died on April 15, 1911 in Texas.

Moritz Lehmann and Augusta Adams came as part of one of the waves of emigration from the Mainz Adelsverein . With the ship "Louise" they left Bremerhaven on September 8, 1846 and reached the port in Galveston (Texas) on November 2, 1846 after almost eight weeks of crossing .
They were not married until three years later, on September 30, 1849. From this marriage there were seven children:

  1. Emelyn Lehmann; Born November 28, 1850 in Mason Co., Texas ; † April 28, 1851 Mason Co., Texas
  2. Gustave Adolph Lehmann; * May 20, 1855 in Mason Co., Texas; † March 29, 1940 in Mason Co., Texas
  3. Wilhelmina Lehmann; * September 1, 1857 in Texas; † March 12, 1948 in Texas
  4. Herman Lehmann; Born June 5, 1859 in Mason Co., Texas; † February 2, 1932 in Loyal Valley, Mason Co., Texas
  5. Caroline Wilhelmina Lehmann; Born October 12, 1860 in Loyal Vallery, Mason Co., Texas; † January 24, 1937 in Texas
  6. William "Willi" Frederick Lehmann; Born October 30, 1861 in Mason Co., Texas; † September 11, 1951 in Loyal Valley, Mason Co., Texas
  7. Mathilde Lehmann; * 1863 Mason Co., Texas

After Moritz's death, Augusta married Phillip Buchmeier on June 5, 1863 in Hilda Mason Co., Texas (born September 25, 1820 from Hesse; † December 18, 1891 in Mason Co., Texas; also with the spelling as "Buchmeyer" in led by the states). Augusta had six more children with him:

  1. Sophie Buchmeier; * 1865 Texas
  2. Emma Buchmeier; Born March 15, 1867 Texas
  3. Auguste Buchmeier; * 1869 Texas
  4. Martha Buchmeier * 1870 Texas
  5. Amalie Buchmeier *> 1871 Texas
  6. Henry Buchmeier * March 10, 1875 Texas

biography

Capture

The family ran a remote farm near Fredericksburg. On May 16, 1870, the farm was attacked by a group of Apaches. He and his brother Willie were caught in the field and taken away. His two sisters escaped into the house. Four days later, the Apache group was discovered by an army patrol and a gun battle developed. His brother Willie escaped and returned home. The Apaches escaped with Herman as their prey.

Living with the Apaches

The Apaches of the Mescalero people took Herman Lehmann with them to their camp in the east of the US state New Mexico . It initially became the personal property of a chief named Carnoviste and his wife Laughing Eyes. The Apaches named Herman Lehmann "En Da", white boy. During his time with the Apaches, he came into contact with other kidnapped white children. While in captivity he communicated in German with a boy, Adolph Korn. Lehmann lived with the Indians for about nine years, four of them with the Apaches, and assimilated completely. As a young warrior, one of his notable acts was a battle with the Texas Rangers on August 24, 1875. This battle took place on Concho Plain, about 100 miles west of present-day San Angelo, Texas. Texas Ranger James Gillett was about to shoot Herman Lehmann when he realized Lehmann was a white man. When the rangers later tried to catch him, he escaped. Lehmann had now completely adapted to the living conditions of the Apaches and was considered one of theirs.

Asylum with the Comanche

Around the spring of 1876, Herman Lehmann killed a medicine man from a rival Apache group in a battle in revenge for the murder of his chief Carnoviste. Because he feared revenge and his group had been worn out in battle, he fled to more remote areas and hid there for about a year. In his autobiography, he described the retreat area he initially chose as a paradise with lots of game, green floodplains with good water and ideal temperatures. However, when he saw other local groups roaming the area, he moved on and finally made up his mind to join the Comanche. At the time he was about sixteen years old. He approached a group of the Comanche and after a period of observation he went to their camp. He told them his life story and convinced them of his good intentions. Finally they took him in. He was allowed to choose the family he wanted to belong to and chose Cotopa as his brother. He himself was named Montechena.

End of the Indian Wars, time on the reservation

The chief of the Comanche Quanah Parker had finally negotiated the laying down of arms for his people with the whites in 1875. In July 1877 he tried to convince scattered groups that had not given up their arms to give up the fight. Herman Lehmann was a member of a group Quanah Parker found on the Rio Pecos in eastern New Mexico. Parker convinced them to give up the fight and also come to the reservation near Fort Sill , in what is now Oklahoma. Lehmann initially refused, but later also came to Fort Sill.

Returning and trying to adapt to living conditions

Lehmann lived with the Quanah Parkers family on the Kiowa -Comanche reservation near Fort Sill from 1877 to 1878. During this time, some people had noticed that he was a white man living among the Indians. His mother had never given up hope of finding him again. Adolph Korn, who had returned earlier from his captivity, had told her that he had met Lehmann with the Apaches. She met the commandant of Fort Sill, Ranald S. McKenzie , in Fredericksburg, Texas. According to the description he gave her of Herman Lehmann, however, she did not assume that this was her son. Even so, she asked that the boy be brought to her.

In April 1878, Lehmann was brought to his family in Texas. Five soldiers and a driver accompanied him in a mule-pulled ambulance to Loyal Valley, Mason County, Texas. He arrived there on May 12, 1878. The residents of Loyal Valley came together to see the returning boy. Lehmann had forgotten the German mother tongue and could no longer understand it. He was also no longer able to speak English. Mother and son did not recognize each other. Lehmann himself had long assumed that his family had been killed by the Indians. A closer examination of Herman Lehmann finally established that he was the one wanted.

He found it difficult to readjust to the life of the settlers. In the following years he wavered between adapting to the settlers' way of life and his Indian way of life. During his time with the Indians, he had never attempted to return to settler society. After his discrepancies with the Apaches, he had joined the Comanche and not sought the proximity of the whites. He often wore Indian clothing in his later life.

His first marriage, which he concluded with NE Burke in 1885 , failed. With his second wife Fannie Light he went back to what was then the "Indian Territory", where he had received a land grant as a member of the Comanche people. Herman and Fannie had five children: Henry, John, Amelia, May and Caroline. In 1926 he left this area again to finally return to the family of his brother Willie in Loyal Valley.

Lehmann died on February 2, 1932 in Loyal Valley, Mason County, Texas, and is buried next to his mother and stepfather.

Lehmann's autobiography as a historical source

Lehmann's biography goes far beyond the personal experiences of an individual and contains a multifaceted and lively picture of the time and society of Indian society at the end of the Indian wars. The author of the foreword to his autobiography, Dale F. Giese, praises the book that he has used in his university seminars for 20 years as the basis for the way of life of the Plains Indians during the Indian Wars.

Lehmann describes in particular the hardship of the Apaches against themselves such as z. B. completely ignoring even the most severe physical pain and basic physical needs such as eating, drinking and sleeping. Lehmann describes this adjustment process in his autobiography vividly and vividly. Furthermore, he describes the different currents within the people of the Comanche and the main enemies: all whites in general, other Indian groups, Texas rangers or the buffalo hunters who threaten the livelihood of the Indians. The precarious situation of the Indians in the time of the Indian wars, who increasingly had to move to the less populated and controlled Mexico , also becomes clear . Further topics are the Indian conception of religion, the relationship between man and woman, conception of nature, eating, drinking, hunting, war and weapons, education, etc. This results in an ethnographic overview of the Indian way of life of the Apaches and Comanche in the time of the Indian wars .

His second autobiography, "Nine Years Among the Indians," which appeared in Austin in 1927 , was published on his initiative with the help of J. Marvin Hunter. A first version had been changed too much by the ghostwriter according to his wishes. The American literary scholar J. Frank Dobie praised the autobiography as one of the best on the subject.

Movies

  • Herman, the Apache. A German among Indians

reception

Web links

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Herman Lehmann, J. Marvin Hunter: Nine Years Among the Indians. Boeckmann-Jones, Austin 1927. (Reprint: 4th edition. University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque 1998) (google-books)
  2. ^ Emigration files from Brandenburg, Prussia; Ernst Moritz Lehmann, birth info: 1827, origin: Laubnitz / Sorau, departure 1846, age: 19; Destination North America.
  3. ↑ Rootsweb; Emigration from Bremen with the ship Louise , ship list with arrival of Moritz Lehmann
  4. ^ Genealogy at Rootsweb Ditto
  5. ↑ Gustave Adolph Lehmann at Find a Grave
  6. ↑ Mina Lehmann at Find a Grave
  7. ^ William F. Lehmann at Find a Grave
  8. ↑ Robert R. Robinson, Fritz Goldbeck: Die Bremerwanderung in Germany and in Texas. Volume 2, Nortex Press, 1979. Original from University of Wisconsin - Madison, ISBN 0-89015-131-8 .
  9. ↑ Gravestone at "Find a Grave "
  10. ↑ Emma Buchmeyer (∞ Holcomb) at Find a Grave
  11. ^ Rootsweb: 2nd marriage of Augusta ADAMS
  12. ^ Moritz Tiling: The German Element in Texas from 1820 to 1850 and historical sketches of the German Texas Singers' League and Houston Turnverein from 1853 to 1913. 1st edition. Houston 1913, pp. 106f.
  13. ↑ "Marker" - history board (picture)
  14. ↑ Captured By Indians
  15. ^ Lehmann: Nine years. 1927, p. 43.
  16. ^ Lehmann: Nine years. 1927, p. 106 ff.
  17. ^ Lehmann: Nine years. 1927, p. 126 ff.
  18. ^ Lehmann: Nine years. 1927, p. 144 ff.
  19. ^ Lehmann: Nine years. 1927, p. 197.
  20. ^ Lehmann: Nine years. 1927, p. 192.
  21. ^ Lehmann: Nine years. 1927, p. 202.
  22. ↑ William Chebahtah, Nancy McGown Minor: Chevato. The Story of the Apache Warrior Who Captured Herman Lehmann. University of Nebraska Press, Lincoln (NE) 2007, ISBN 978-0-8032-1097-4 , p. 113.
  23. ^ Herman Lehmann: Jewish “Little Big Man” Apache & Comanche.
  24. ↑ Herman, the Apache. In: Terra X. Broadcast on February 21, 2016.
  25. ^ Herman Lehmann: L'indiano bianco. Daim Press, Milano 1975.
personal data
SURNAME Lehmann, Herman
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American kidnapping victim, was kidnapped by Indians as a child of German parents and lived with them for nine years
DATE OF BIRTH June 5, 1859
PLACE OF BIRTH near Fredericksburg , Texas
DATE OF DEATH February 2, 1932
Place of death Loyal Valley, Texas