The Battle of Village Creek, also known as the Village Creek Massacre, occurred on May 24, 1841, on the embankments of Village Creek in what was then the Republic of Texas. The site of the massacre is now located in Tarrant County, Texas, named for Edward H. Tarrant, who commanded the Texan forces in the massacre. Tarrant rallied a volunteer militia of 69 men, including Captain John B. Denton, who would be the Texans’ only fatality and who would also go on to have a North Texas county bear his name. The Texans used information from a Native American man they had captured to locate the villages, after which they launched a surprise attack which evolved into a running gunfight between the Republic of Texas militia and the Cherokee, Muscogee/Creek, Seminole, Waco, Caddo, Kickapoo, Tonkawa, Wichita, Shawnee, and Anadarko villagers who inhabited Village Creek. Texans used the occurrence of increased Native American raids on Anglo settlements in the Red River counties as justification for the massacre, which was a part of the larger pattern in the Republic of Texas, under the leadership of President Mirabeau B.
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