The tradition of capturing individuals among North American Indigenous peoples dates back to prehistoric times. Long before the arrival of European settlers, tribes engaged in the practice of taking captives from neighbouring groups, either to replenish losses incurred in warfare or to obtain victims for retaliatory torture. As conflict escalated between Europeans and Native Americans, the abduction of White captives became commonplace, driven by similar motives as well as the desire to hold them for ransom or leverage them for negotiations with allied European entities.

The earliest documented European captives in Texas were Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his three companions, survivors of a 1528 expedition. Despite utilising their skills as medicine men to escape captivity, subsequent centuries witnessed numerous Spanish and Mexican captives enduring prolonged stays in the camps of Apache, Kiowa, Wichita, and, most notably, Comanche raiders. In the decades following the outbreak of American Indian warfare with Whites in the 1830s, many settlers experienced the harrowing ordeal of Comanche captivity. To better understand why this historical scenario was so feared, let’s explore the hypothetical of what would happen if you were caught by the Comanche tribe...

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