Black_Feather
69 Cal.
Does anyone have any references to any time period of Indians owning or having gotten a hold of any hawken rifles?
Indian owned hawken rifles?
- Thread starter Black_Feather
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I’ll have to look for the details, but I remember records of inventories of native guns turned in by defeated tribesmen during the plains Indian wars of the 1870s. There were at least a few Hawkens among the guns that were confiscated. You can find this in Dorsey’s book about guns of the Indian wars. There may be something in Dumont’s books about Custer battlefield guns, also.
I believe near the back of Baird’s second book, Fifteen Years in the Hawken Lode, he reported an anecdote from an elderly physician who had served the people of the Fort Berthold area. This doctor was also a gun collector. The story was an elderly Arikara man came in with his adult son as translator. The old man was totally uncommunicative, so the doctor figured he would “break the ice” by showing the old man some of his guns. The patient was unimpressed with the Winchesters or anything else… until the doctor pulled out an original Hawken. That got the old man’s attention. He knew exactly what he was looking at, and that opened the door of communication.
Generally speaking, I think Indians preferred lighter guns, but there were definitely some Hawkens in native hands.
Notchy Bob
I believe near the back of Baird’s second book, Fifteen Years in the Hawken Lode, he reported an anecdote from an elderly physician who had served the people of the Fort Berthold area. This doctor was also a gun collector. The story was an elderly Arikara man came in with his adult son as translator. The old man was totally uncommunicative, so the doctor figured he would “break the ice” by showing the old man some of his guns. The patient was unimpressed with the Winchesters or anything else… until the doctor pulled out an original Hawken. That got the old man’s attention. He knew exactly what he was looking at, and that opened the door of communication.
Generally speaking, I think Indians preferred lighter guns, but there were definitely some Hawkens in native hands.
Notchy Bob
