Yet all epithets one might attach to Comanche slavery—soft, pliable, voluntary—fail to capture the full human dimensions and costs of the institution. While ascending the Canadian River to Santa Fe in 1839, Gregg encountered in a Comanche ranchería a captive Mexican boy who was “ten or twelve years old, [and] whose nationality could scarcely be detected under his Indian guise.” When he learned from the boy, who still spoke Spanish, that he was from Parral, Gregg offered to ransom him and take him back to his relatives. But the boy, hesitating a little, said “in an affecting tone” that he had
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