Indian Captives Dot and Bianca Babb
Chico, Wise County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Two of Texas history's best-known Indian captives, 13-year-old T. A. "Dot" Babb (1852-1936) and his 9-year-old sister Bianca (1855?-1950) were stolen by Comanches from their home near here in September of 1865. While at play one day, the children were surprised by a raiding party of 35 to 40 Indians. Mrs. Babb was killed and Dot, Bianca, and Mrs. Luster (a visitor) were taken to Indian Territory (present Oklahoma). After helping Mrs. Luster escape on the way, Dot was very nearly executed, but so stoic was he in facing death that the Indians admiringly spared his life. For the next two years Dot and Bianca lived, in different tribes, as adopted Comanches. Bianca later recalled that the Indians held a feast - with coffee, a luxury - upon her arrival and that they colored her blonde hair with charcoal and buffalo tallow. Dot, after a winter as the squaws' flunky, asserted his male rights and thereafter spent his time taming horses. He was taken on raids against other tribes and showed signs of becoming a fine warrior. After two years, the children's father ransomed them and a joyful reunion occurred. Both Dot and Bianca spoke with sympathy, however, of many Indian customs and of kind treatment during captivity.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In September 1865, as the Civil War closed and the Texas frontier remained violent and contested, a Comanche raiding party swept down on the Babb homestead near here, killing the children's mother and carrying off young Dot, his sister Bianca, and a visiting neighbor. For two years the siblings lived among the Comanche in Indian Territory, adopted into different bands—Bianca's blonde hair darkened with charcoal and tallow, Dot learning to break horses and ride on raids—until their father secured their ransom. Their later recollections, notably sympathetic toward their captors, complicated the era's lurid captivity narratives.
Why it matters
The Babbs' ordeal captures the human cost of the collision between settlers and Plains nations on the post-war Texas frontier, and their nuanced testimony pushed back against the one-sided captivity stories that shaped American attitudes toward Native peoples.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
September 1865 was a dangerous time on the North Texas frontier. The Civil War had just ended, and during the war years many of the men and much of the organized defense of the frontier had been drawn away. Settlements in counties like Wise sat on the edge of lands that the Comanche and their Kiowa allies had long used and defended.
The Comanche were among the most powerful peoples of the southern Plains. They were superb horsemen who had dominated the region for generations, and they fiercely resisted the settlers pushing into their homeland. Raids on outlying farms, which took horses, goods, and sometimes captives, were part of a long and brutal conflict in which both sides suffered terrible losses.
Taking captives was an old practice across the borderlands, among Native nations, Spanish and Mexican colonists, and Americans alike. Among the Comanche, captives might be adopted, put to work, or ransomed. Children were sometimes raised as full members of a band.
North of the Red River lay Indian Territory, in present-day Oklahoma, which in those years was a vast region beyond the reach of Texas settlements. A captive taken there was carried into a very different world, far from any help.
People & events
The Babb children were playing near their home when the raiding party appeared: 35 to 40 riders. Dot, the older boy, was 13, and his sister Bianca was about 9. Their mother was killed in the attack. Dot, Bianca, and a visitor named Mrs. Luster were taken captive and carried north toward Indian Territory.
On the way, Dot helped Mrs. Luster escape. It was a brave act and a dangerous one, and it nearly cost him his life. His captors prepared to execute him, but he faced death so calmly that they admired his courage and spared him. That stoicism earned him the respect of the people who held him.
The siblings then lived as adopted Comanches in different bands for about two years. Bianca later remembered a feast held when she arrived, with coffee, then a real luxury, and remembered that her blonde hair was darkened with charcoal and buffalo tallow. Dot spent his first winter doing menial work at the women's direction. After that he claimed a young man's place, spent his days taming horses, went along on raids against other tribes, and showed signs of becoming a fine warrior.
After two years, their father paid a ransom to bring them home, and the family had a joyful reunion. What followed is surprising. Both Dot and Bianca, who lived well into the twentieth century, spoke sympathetically of many Comanche customs and of the kindness they had received. Their story didn't fit the simple tale of savagery that many Americans expected to hear.
Its place in the American story
Captivity stories fascinated and frightened Americans for more than two centuries, from colonial New England to the Great Plains. They were often told in lurid terms that painted Native peoples as nothing but cruel, and those stories helped justify war and removal. The Babb children's story matters because their own accounts complicate that picture.
Dot and Bianca did not deny the violence of that September day. Their mother was killed in front of them. But they also described adoption, feasts, respect, and kindness, and a way of life with its own values and loyalties. Their testimony shows that captivity was a human experience with many sides, not a simple morality tale.
Their story also shows what the post-Civil War frontier cost everyone involved. Within about a decade of the Babbs' capture, the U.S. Army, together with the destruction of the great buffalo herds, forced the Comanche onto reservations in Indian Territory, ending their independent life on the southern Plains. Settler families like the Babbs and Comanche families alike lived through the violent end of that world.
That makes this marker a valuable counterweight. It remembers a real tragedy while leaving room for the humanity of everyone in it, which is what honest history requires.
If you visit
The marker stands in the Chico area of Wise County, in open North Texas country of rolling hills, pasture, and scattered woods. It's worth taking a moment to look out over the land and picture it in 1865: isolated homesteads, few neighbors, and the wide expanse stretching toward the Red River and Indian Territory beyond.
This is a heavy story, and families with children may want to talk it through beforehand. The marker offers a good way into a real conversation: what it would feel like to be taken from home, how two children adapted to a completely different way of life, and why they later spoke kindly of the people who had taken them.
The marker is a place to reflect rather than a site with buildings to tour. Give yourself a few quiet minutes. Watch for traffic when pulling over, and respect any private property nearby.
The region makes a good base for a North Texas history drive that looks at the frontier from more than one side. Pairing this stop with a museum or site that tells the Comanche people's own history of the southern Plains would round out the picture that Dot and Bianca themselves tried to give.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · T. A. "Dot" Babb
- · Bianca Babb
- · Mrs. Luster
Related events
- · Comanche captivity of the Babb children
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Babb Cemetery
Chico, TX
This cemetery dates to September 1866 and the killing of Mrs. John S. Babb by Comanches, an attack that also carried off two of her children, Dot and Bianca, into a captivity that lasted two years before their father recovered them. It marks the violent frontier that North Texas remained in the years just after the Civil War, when raids and captivities were a constant fear for settling families.
Huff Family Massacre
Alvord, TX
In 1874, during one of the last Indian raids in Wise County, tragedy struck a newly arrived settler family. While C. W. Huff and his son worked a remote part of their land, raiders killed Mrs. Huff and her daughters Palestine and Molly. Neighbors buried the victims in a wagon bed, and in 1879 Huff donated the land around the grave for a cemetery.
Captain George Stevens
Flat Rock, TX
Alabama-born George Stevens came to Wise County in 1855 and made his name as a defender of frontier settlers, active in resisting Indian raids and serving as a guiding officer in local home-guard units. He also wore the badge of county sheriff across the 1860s and 1870s, keeping order in a raw and often violent region.
Flat Rock Cemetery
Decatur, TX
Flat Rock was settled in the 1850s by Moses Ball and other pioneers, its name drawn from flat stones that formed a local landmark. Tradition holds the first burial in its cemetery was an American Indian and the second a small girl who died as her family migrated through; the oldest legible stones date to 1878, amid many unmarked graves. Ex-Texas Ranger George W. Stevens deeded the ground for the cemetery in 1890, and the community faded after 1914.