Many years ago I hunted American Indian artifacts on the plains of west Texas. I made maps of my finds, locations of camps found, and could tell different tribes by their artifacts, and periods of history of these sites found.
Ancient sites before they used bows and arrows, or horses, many of their artifacts (stone tools were large, as well as the hunting practices of that time, where the tribe would drive a large heard of buffalo over the cliff and finish the Kill with larger tools, and process the whole of the kill on site.
OK, I will try and make the story shorter I can ramble on.
I noticed in several of more modern camp sites, I would occasionally find a piece of glass along with arrow heads spear-points and so on, at first I did not focus on them. Later I could no ignore the glass I found, down on the Concho River, I found a very small cave, in the cave I found one stone spear point, and a knife made from the bottom of a glass bottle of strangely colored glass, the bottom of the bottle had a date in the glass.
The date 1812, so I had to find out at the library, I found that the area had no white settlers or soldiers in that area at that date. The glass had been brought to that area by trade.
But at that date, there were poor German immigrants arriving in Galveston Texas by ship about that same year. There was a deal made by two business men one in Texas and one in Germany. These two men wishing to profit, made a deal trying to take advantage of the land grants the government would give if someone was stupid enough to try and settle the hostile Indian country of west Texas with the Comanche Apache and other hostile tribes. The business deal was to pay to ship poor Emigrants from Germany to Galveston,The businessman from Germany held up to his word and part of the bargain, getting the starving people to tthe shores of Galveston Texas. But the Texas businessman did not hold up his end of the deal, He drank up the money he had to buy wagons and the other supply's needed to get these starving emigrants to the site of the land they held on paper 453 miles away through deadly hostile Indian country.
These immigrants were stuck in Galveston with a piece of paper from the government for 500 acres, with no food or shoes, they traded the land (on paper) for bacon, or shoes... At that time paper deeds were cheap, bacon a rare commodity, many traded away there land for a few more meals, Years later some of these emigrants finally made it to the site of their land in west Texas years later...
Hmm 200 acres for a pound of bacon... "Them thar pigs are worth their weight in gold, thars Gold in them thar Hogs".
1867 A fort an army fort was established in west Texas on the Concho River to fight the hostile tribes Comanche and Apache, Fort Concho Buffalo soldiers (Black soldiers the Indian's called buffalo soldier because their hair was like the hair of the buffalo (American Bison).These black Civil War soldiers (buffalo soldiers Indian fighters) Had a white commander of the fort.
Not far from the site of Fort Concho, I found a field of broken glass, stone tools, rusted square nails, what looked like marbles and other objects including Calvary rim-fire bullet brass casings, buttons... I did not know what this was, but it had all the signs of an Cherokee Indian Campsite, so back to the library I went for more research. There was a small group of friendly Cherokee that lived near the Fort recorded in history, they traded with the buffalo soldiers, they would hunt buffalo for the soldiers, the soldiers would trade their trash (glass bottles nails ...) for the meat Buffalo and hides and for other favors, and even favors from the women of the camp. To the Indian's the trash was valuable to the Cherokee, glass made very good knifes, looked like jewelry or decoration, spearheads and arrow heads are easily made from glass, nails made arrow heads or other tools...
AS far as I know I am the only one who knows where that Indian camp is located, I tried to go to the Fort Concho museum with what I had found and the location of the site, and the Indian artifacts, but they were not interested in the Indian history or the indians artifacts or the glass from the camp I had found. But they were interested in, and kept, some of the Calvary artifacts I had found like a black powder cap and ball pistol cylinder, brass shirt buttons...
This glass was lead glass, from lead glass bottles, many of the bottoms of the bottles had a large hump in them the glass were several different colors green, brown... and each have somewhat of a rainbow glow and scale to them.
The Marbles I found confused me after doing more research,I found out bottles at that time in history were made out of lead-glass and a marble was sealed in the glass when the glass bottle was made, the bottle was filled, the gas pressure from the contents of the bottle would push up on the marble sealing it (from inside the bottle) as a lid To open it the soldier would poke the marble down into the bottle, the marble stayed in the bottle as you drink it the only way to get the marble out is to break the glass.
Ok I will stop rambling on.
Ancient sites before they used bows and arrows, or horses, many of their artifacts (stone tools were large, as well as the hunting practices of that time, where the tribe would drive a large heard of buffalo over the cliff and finish the Kill with larger tools, and process the whole of the kill on site.
OK, I will try and make the story shorter I can ramble on.
I noticed in several of more modern camp sites, I would occasionally find a piece of glass along with arrow heads spear-points and so on, at first I did not focus on them. Later I could no ignore the glass I found, down on the Concho River, I found a very small cave, in the cave I found one stone spear point, and a knife made from the bottom of a glass bottle of strangely colored glass, the bottom of the bottle had a date in the glass.
The date 1812, so I had to find out at the library, I found that the area had no white settlers or soldiers in that area at that date. The glass had been brought to that area by trade.
But at that date, there were poor German immigrants arriving in Galveston Texas by ship about that same year. There was a deal made by two business men one in Texas and one in Germany. These two men wishing to profit, made a deal trying to take advantage of the land grants the government would give if someone was stupid enough to try and settle the hostile Indian country of west Texas with the Comanche Apache and other hostile tribes. The business deal was to pay to ship poor Emigrants from Germany to Galveston,The businessman from Germany held up to his word and part of the bargain, getting the starving people to tthe shores of Galveston Texas. But the Texas businessman did not hold up his end of the deal, He drank up the money he had to buy wagons and the other supply's needed to get these starving emigrants to the site of the land they held on paper 453 miles away through deadly hostile Indian country.
These immigrants were stuck in Galveston with a piece of paper from the government for 500 acres, with no food or shoes, they traded the land (on paper) for bacon, or shoes... At that time paper deeds were cheap, bacon a rare commodity, many traded away there land for a few more meals, Years later some of these emigrants finally made it to the site of their land in west Texas years later...
Hmm 200 acres for a pound of bacon... "Them thar pigs are worth their weight in gold, thars Gold in them thar Hogs".
1867 A fort an army fort was established in west Texas on the Concho River to fight the hostile tribes Comanche and Apache, Fort Concho Buffalo soldiers (Black soldiers the Indian's called buffalo soldier because their hair was like the hair of the buffalo (American Bison).These black Civil War soldiers (buffalo soldiers Indian fighters) Had a white commander of the fort.
Not far from the site of Fort Concho, I found a field of broken glass, stone tools, rusted square nails, what looked like marbles and other objects including Calvary rim-fire bullet brass casings, buttons... I did not know what this was, but it had all the signs of an Cherokee Indian Campsite, so back to the library I went for more research. There was a small group of friendly Cherokee that lived near the Fort recorded in history, they traded with the buffalo soldiers, they would hunt buffalo for the soldiers, the soldiers would trade their trash (glass bottles nails ...) for the meat Buffalo and hides and for other favors, and even favors from the women of the camp. To the Indian's the trash was valuable to the Cherokee, glass made very good knifes, looked like jewelry or decoration, spearheads and arrow heads are easily made from glass, nails made arrow heads or other tools...
AS far as I know I am the only one who knows where that Indian camp is located, I tried to go to the Fort Concho museum with what I had found and the location of the site, and the Indian artifacts, but they were not interested in the Indian history or the indians artifacts or the glass from the camp I had found. But they were interested in, and kept, some of the Calvary artifacts I had found like a black powder cap and ball pistol cylinder, brass shirt buttons...
This glass was lead glass, from lead glass bottles, many of the bottoms of the bottles had a large hump in them the glass were several different colors green, brown... and each have somewhat of a rainbow glow and scale to them.
The Marbles I found confused me after doing more research,I found out bottles at that time in history were made out of lead-glass and a marble was sealed in the glass when the glass bottle was made, the bottle was filled, the gas pressure from the contents of the bottle would push up on the marble sealing it (from inside the bottle) as a lid To open it the soldier would poke the marble down into the bottle, the marble stayed in the bottle as you drink it the only way to get the marble out is to break the glass.
Ok I will stop rambling on.
