Haskell County Historical Commission to Host J. Brett Cruse,
Plains Region Archeologist and Project Director for the Red River War Battle Sites Project
In recognition of Texas Archeology Month, the Haskell County Historical Commission welcomes all interested persons to join us at Fort Sam Military and Antique Vehicle Museum on Tuesday, October 15, at 6:30pm to hear guest speaker J. Brett Cruse of the Texas Historical Commission. Cruse will give his presentation entitled “Perspectives on the 1874 Red River War Indian Campaign in the Texas Panhandle”. This presentation will provide a brief overview of the Red River War and its causes and will discuss the results of the archeological investigations at several of the battle sites that were conducted by the Texas Historical Commission during their Red River War Battle Sites Project.
The West Texas Historical Association provides this overview: In 1874, the U.S. government dispatched some 3,000 army troops to the Texas panhandle to forcibly move the Indigenous tribes who occupied the region onto reservations that had been established in western Indian Territory. The military campaign against the Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes consisted of a series of battles and skirmishes in what is known today as the Red River War of 1874 and resulted in the defeat and removal of the tribes.
As Project Director, Cruse led Texas Historical Commission crews as well as volunteers in field investigations during 1998 and 1999. The award winning book, Battles of the Red River War shed a revelatory light on these epochal West Texas events. Cruse is a native of Turkey, Texas. He has worked on various archeological field projects in the south, southwest, and eastern U.S. He received a B.S. in anthropology from West Texas State (A&M) University and an M.A. in anthropology from Texas A&M University. He joined the staff of the Texas Historical Commission in 1995 where he served as the Regional Archeologist for the Plains Region and Project Director for the Red River War Battle Sites Project.