In 1870, a young Texas boy named Tommy Stringfield vanished from the world he knew.

After an attack on the Texas frontier, the five-year-old child was carried away and raised among Apache people under the name “Two Braids.” For nearly forty years, he lived a life shaped by the customs, hardships, dangers, and loyalties of the tribes with whom he traveled. Only much later would he begin to uncover the truth: that he was not born Apache, but was the lost son of a murdered frontier family.

Originally published in 1911, Captured by the Apaches is the extraordinary narrative of Thomas “Two Braids” Stringfield—his childhood captivity, his years among Native tribes, his memories of Geronimo’s people, his search for his surviving relatives, and his painful attempt to reconcile two radically different worlds.

This book is both a dramatic captivity story and a historical artifact of the American Southwest. It reflects the language, attitudes, fears, and prejudices of its time, while also preserving a rare firsthand account of frontier violence, cultural displacement, survival, and identity.

For readers interested in the Old West, Native American history, Texas frontier life, captivity narratives, Geronimo, and nineteenth-century American history, this volume offers a powerful and troubling glimpse into a vanished era.

This Arcadia Press edition presents a restored historical text for modern readers, preserving the original narrative as a primary source from the frontier period.