Today we honor all those who struggled through out our history to make the workforce safe and equable for us all. Let us hope this struggle will continue to succeed and stop child labor and virtual slavery across our world.
Buy local, manufacture local, try for self sufficiency in all things.
We were discussing today’s Winter Solstice and wondering if we should write our disappointments from the closing year down on paper, and burn them, sending the ashes of our despair drifting into the wind. We both thought for a moment and in one voice said. :Ya know. this has been a darn good year!”
For you all we wish happiness and joy to you and your families for Christmas, and our coming New Year. We wish for you love and prosperity, health and safety.
Contractor Henry Warren was hired to haul supplies to the forts in West Texas. On May 18, 1871 Warren’s wagon train, heavily laden with corn, was traveling the Jackson Belknap Road towards Salt Creek Crossing. Along the trail they briefly encountered the famous General William Tecumseh Sherman. Within an hour of this brief encounter a large group of riders was spotted in the distance ahead, appearing to be Kiowa warriors. Warren quickly placed the wagons in a circle, mules in the center.
The Warriors efficiently attacked the circled wagons, killing then mutilating seven of the wagoners. The leaders of the Kiowa warriors were Satana, Satank, and Eagle Heart. They had watched the Sherman party pass by from their hidden post, but had not attacked. The previous evening a Shaman predicted that the relatively small party would be shortly followed by a larger party with more reward.
The raiders lost 3 men but in the end of the raid captured 41 mules’ carrying many supplies as the Shaman had prophesied.
Only five men escaped, including one Thomas Brazeale who managed to reach Fort Richardson, 20 long walking miles away where he told the story of the brutal attack to Colonel Ronald Mackenzie. Sherman was informed and the two army officers took a party out to search for the raiders. The 3 chiefs were captured and sent by train to Fort Richardson. Satank was killed on the train while trying to escape, and the other two were tried and convicted of murder in Jack County, Texas on July 6 in the first Native American trial in history,