Texan Indian Wars

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The Texan Indian Wars were a series of conflicts between Texan settlers, army units, and Plains Indians . These disputes began at a time when the Texan territory was still under Spanish rule and the first settlers wanted to settle there. They continued when Texas was part of Mexico , lasted when Texas became a separate republic , and only ended 30 years after it joined the United States . While it was still cautious at the beginning of the 50-year struggle between the Indians and the Texans, the conflict intensified more and more after the independence of Texas. This war was marked by deep dislike, mutual massacres and finally the total expulsion of the Indians.

Around 1721, the first immigrants from Europe began to settle in the Nacogdoches area. This article looks at the clashes between 1820, just before Mexico gained independence from Spain , and 1875, when the last free-living Indian group, the Comanche under their chief Quanah Parker , surrendered and moved to the Fort Sill Reservation in Oklahoma . Although the victory was rather one-sided in favor of the Texans, the use of force was equally represented on both sides.

Indians in Texas

The Comanche (dt. Obsolete Komantschen ) are the best known tribe that lived in Texas, but they were the last to settle there. Their allies, the Kiowa and Kiowa Apaches lived in West Texas, the Tonkawa , Delaware , Caddo , Wichita and Cherokee in the east of the area. Until around 1650, the Comanche were part of the Shoshone (dt. Outdated Schoschonen ), who settled the upper reaches of the Platte River in Wyoming. When the Comanche, probably through the mediation of kindred Ute and the hostile Apaches , the opportunities offered them horses for hunting and transportation, realized always attracted major organizations and groups (Engl. Bands ) of the Comanche south on the Texas Plains .

Their migration took them through the central Great Plains and further south into an area between the Arkansas River and north of the Colorado River in central Texas. The tribe kept growing. There were three reasons for this: the abundance of bison , which thus represented a reliable source of food, secondly an influx of further Shoshone and Arapaho, and finally the large number of captured women and children who were found among rival tribes (especially the Apaches, Pawnee , Navajo) , Ute, Osage and others).

The Comanche did not form a single large tribal association, but there were about a dozen autonomous groups, which were then further divided into about 45 village communities. Although the groups spoke the same language and shared a common culture, they fought as often as they cooperated. The most important groups were the Kʉhtsʉtʉʉka (mostly Kotsoteka - ' buffalo eaters '), Kwaaru Nʉʉ / Kwahare (mostly Kwahadi / Quahada -' antelope eaters'), Nokoninʉʉ (mostly Nokoni - 'those who travel around), Penatʉka Nʉʉ (mostly Penateka - 'honey eater') and the Yaparʉhka (mostly Yamparika - '(Yap) root eater').

Before 1750, the eastern Apache groups of the Jicarilla , Mescalero, and Lipan were the dominant military power in Texas. However, this changed with the arrival of the Comanche. Around 1740 they settled in the area of ​​the Llano Estacado . This area extends from Southwest Oklahoma over the Texas Panhandle to New Mexico. In a series of wars, the Comanche and their allies (Ute, Pawnee, Wichita , Tonkawa , Caddo ) wrested control of the eastern plains of the Apacheria from the Apaches . The Apaches then withdrew to the mountains of New Mexico, Colorado and Mexico ( Chihuahua , Coahuila , Nuevo León , Tamaulipas ) and the fringes of the plains. The area thus newly won by the Comanche was soon referred to by the Spanish as Comancheria . They now ruled an area that stretched from the south bank of the Arkansas River across central Texas to the San Antonio area, including the entire Edwards Plateau , west to the Pecos, and then further north along the Rocky Mountains back to the Arkansas River.

Map of the Comancheria in 1858

After the Comanche drove the Apaches out, they were hit by a chickenpox epidemic between 1780 and 1781 . It was so violent that they no longer carried out any raids and individual villages had to disband. There was a second chickenpox epidemic in the winter of 1817. Cautious estimates suggest that half of the Comanche fell victim to the disease.

In the autumn of 1790, a Kiowa warrior stayed with the Comanche for a long time and brokered a lasting peace, so that the two previously bitterly warring peoples (together with the friends of the Kiowa, the so-called Kiowa Apaches - who for Comanche are like Apaches listened and therefore aroused suspicion) allies. The background to this merger was probably the increased influx of settlers. It was hoped in this way to be able to better protect the hunting grounds and oneself.

Anglo-Texan settlers

Towards the end of Spanish rule in Texas, initially only a small number of English settlers came to Texas, as the Spanish authorities severely limited foreign influx. Stephen F. Austin was one of the few Americans assigned a piece of land in Texas. When Mexico gained its independence from Spain in 1821, the new state was keen to populate its sparsely populated northern provinces while at the same time fighting the Comanche rule over the Comancheria . Since the government struggled to persuade Mexicans to settle in the sparsely populated provinces, they recruited American settlers to do so.

Early Texan settlement (1821–1836)

Stephen F. Austin, also known as the "Father of Texas"

In the 1820s, the Mexican authorities tried to further stabilize the north and reached an agreement with Stephen F. Austin. In addition to confirming the land rights he had obtained from the Spanish, they allowed several hundred settlers to enter the country. Word quickly got around among Americans that fertile land was available there. Several thousand settlers came into the country, but had no interest in being ruled by Mexico. When Mexico abolished slavery in 1829 , some Texan settlements broke these laws, while others received government exemptions.

In 1821 Francisco Ruiz negotiated a contract with the southernmost and one of the largest groups of the Comanche Penateka , who lived right next to the settlers' settlements in East and Central Texas. According to this treaty, signed in Mexico City in December 1821 , there should be peace and friendship between them. When the Mexican government failed to deliver the promised gifts for twelve months, the Penateka began raiding the settlers. Missed promises were also the reason the treaty was not kept in New Mexico, and so there was war all along the Rio Grande .

More peace treaties were signed in 1826 and 1834, but each time the Mexican government failed to keep its promises. The Comanche found comparatively easy prey among the settlers in Texas, although the Mexican government again allowed bounties for Indian scalps in 1835 . The newly arrived settlers from the east were only used to more peaceful Indian tribes and were completely surprised by the cruelty of the Comanche and Kiowa. The attacks on the settlers became so serious that they became known even in Washington, DC . The American government then tried to protect the American settlers. When Sam Houston came to Texas as a diplomat in 1833 to negotiate a peace treaty with the Penateka-Comanche, the Mexican authorities were outraged that an American diplomat was negotiating a treaty with the Indians on their territory. Houston was declared persona non grata and asked to leave the country.

Tonkawa and Lenni Lenape (dt. Obsolete Delaware ), however, declared themselves friends of the settlers because they were mortal enemies of the Comanche and were looking for allies. The Comanche particularly hated the tonkawa, as they were cannibals and this was particularly off-putting to them. There is no American source criticizing this Tonkawa behavior as long as they did not eat settlers.

The Indian raids continued throughout the period between 1821 and 1835, although the Texas Rangers had already been founded in 1823 . Stephen F. Austin had recognized that special troops were needed to fight the Indians, especially the Comanche. They made no distinction between Mexican and American victims in their raids. Austin started the first rangers by paying ten men to fight the Indians and protect the border settlements. Soon after, the settlers formed other ranger companies. This trend continued after the founding of the Republic of Texas. However, there was still no money to set up an army of their own.

Fort Parker massacre

On May 19, 1836, a large war force from Comanche, Kiowa, Wichita and Lenni Lenape attacked the settler outpost Fort Parker. This fort had been completed in March 1834 to provide settlers with a fortified refuge against raids by Indians who violated the peace treaty that Elder John Parker had negotiated with the surrounding tribes. Unfortunately, the attacking Comanche were not among the tribes that participated in the peace negotiations. Five men were killed in the attack on Fort Parker and two women and three children were abducted. The American part of Texas reacted in shock to this incident. The robbery may have been in retaliation for the murder of a Lenni Lenape and his sons for horse theft they did not commit. It is also believed that the stationing of a ranger division at Fort Parker and their actions against the Comanche and Kiowa made the Indians angry.

Kiowa warriors

The kidnapped Parkers among the Comanche

Although the Parker family, especially James W. Parker, called for revenge and asked for support in freeing the abductees, he found little to help him. In addition, the Texas Revolution began shortly thereafter. Sam Houston bought one of the abductees, Elizabeth Duty Kelog, from the Indians, but the other children spent most of their lives with the Comanche. Cynthia Ann Parker lived there for 25 years until she was freed after the Battle of the Pease . John Richard Parker was ransomed but returned to the Comanche voluntarily. His return to the Indians again shows a phenomenon that many people had kidnapped by Indians; they would rather live with the Indians. When Chief Quanah Parker (himself a son of the kidnapped Cynthia Anne Parker) surrendered, 30% of his remaining Comanche were White or Mexican.

Rachel Parker Plummer, James Parker's daughter, was a slave with the Comanche for 21 months until she was bought back in 1838. Her father's efforts had led traders to discover and sell her to the Indians. She later wrote the first book on captivity with the Plains Indians.

The Republic of Texas Era 1836–1845

The relationship with the Indians during the Republic of Texas can be divided into three phases. During Sam Houston's tenure, it was comparatively easy to get along with the Comanche and their allies. They could be kept calm with gifts, and if someone paid for them, they would refrain from assaulting them. Houston, who himself had a good reputation with the Indians, was of the opinion that it was cheaper to buy gifts for the Indians for a few thousand dollars than to pay soldiers permanently for protection and who would still be outnumbered if all the Comanche should and go to war with Kiowa. Because of the tensions with Mexico, it was to be expected that the Mexicans would support the Indians.

Mirabeau B. Lamar , his successor as President of Texas, fought against the Comanche and was able to kill a large number of Indians. The side effect was that the costs almost completely drained the treasury. When Sam Houston replaced him as president, this was not least due to Lamar's failed Indian policy.

Sam Houston's first term, 1836–1838

Penatuka-Komantsche around 1872.

Houston's primary focus in his first tenure as President of the Republic of Texas was to establish Texas as an independent state and therefore had no means of starting a war with the Plains Indians. While the Texas Rangers served to fight criminal Indians and white bandits, Houston used diplomacy and gifts to keep peace with the Comanche and Kiowa on the border. Although Houston had previously lived with the Cherokee and was highly regarded by the Indians for his fair and decent treatment of the Cherokee, the only real problem with the Cherokee was during his tenure with the Indians. In February 1836 he negotiated an agreement with the Cherokee, whereby he had no more problems with the "civilized" tribes until the "Cordova Rebellion", although he did not manage to get the parliament to ratify the treaty that the Cherokee Land ownership awarded. This was not to be the only time Parliament rejected treaties that Houston wanted to make with Indians, and those treaties have always been about land ownership for the Indians.

The height of the Indian problem during Houston's tenure was the Cordova Rebellion. There is evidence that Cherokee and Mexicans had joined forces in a large-scale conspiracy to rebel to force the new Republic of Texas to rejoin Mexico. At first, Houston refused to believe that his friends, the Cherokee, would participate and refused to arrest them. So he finally managed to end the rebellion without bloodshed. When Houston left office, there was peace with the Indians.

President Lamar's tenure, 1838–1841

Mirabeau B. Lamar

Mirabeau B. Lamar, the successor to Sam Houston in the presidency, pursued a fundamentally different Indian policy and declared in 1839: “The white man and the red man cannot live together in harmony. Nature forbids it. "His answer to the Indian problem was:" ... to wage a rigorous war against them and to pursue them without mercy or leniency to their hiding place, until they realize that they are fleeing our country with no hope of return to be preferred to the scourges of war. "

President Lamar was the first civil servant to attempt relocation; H. the deportation of Indians to places no longer had contact with white settlers. This policy assumed that it might be possible to draw a solid borderline behind which the Indians could live in the future without settlers settling there. Lamar was convinced that the Cherokee could no longer live in Texas because they had participated in the Cordova Rebellion. The Cherokee War and the subsequent Cherokee resettlement began shortly after Lamar took office.

The Cherokee War 1838–1839

Although land had been promised to the Cherokee for staying neutral during the Texas War of Independence, President Lamar urged them to voluntarily give up their land and possessions and move to Oklahoma, the United States, to the Indian territories there. Houston, who had granted them the promised claims in the negotiations during the Cordova Rebellion, protested in vain.

In May 1839, a letter was discovered in the possession of the Mexican spy Manuel Flores, in which there were plans to recruit the Indians on behalf of the Mexican government to fight against Texan settlers. Lamar, who had public opinion behind him through this letter, then decided to relocate the East Texas Indians. When they refused, he sent troops to enforce the resettlement.

The battle of Neches

On July 12, 1839, the militia sent a peace commission to the Indians to negotiate the relocation. Reluctantly, the Cherokee negotiated a treaty that forced them to relocate. But they should be paid for the lost corn harvest and the cost of resettlement. The Cherokee promised they would leave within 48 hours but refused to sign the contract because it said they would be brought under guard to the Texas border.

On July 15, 1839, the militia instructed the Indian Commission to report that Texan troops were on the march to their camp and that those Indians who wished to leave peacefully should carry a white flag. On July 15 and 16, several Texas militias under General KH Douglass, Edward Burleson , Albert S. Johnston and David G. Burnet attacked the Cherokees, Lenni Lenape, and Shawnee under the Cherokee chief Bowles. This skirmish became known as the Battle of Neches. The Indians tried to resist in the village. When this failed, they tried to reform, which also failed. About 100 Indians and three militiamen were killed. When Chief Bowles died, he was holding a saber that Sam Houston had given him. After the battle, the Cherokee fled to Arkansas and East Texas was virtually devoid of organized Indian settlements. Their land was given to settlers.

Lamar and the Prairie Tribes

Lamar's success in driving out the Cherokee, a relatively peaceful tribe, encouraged him to do the same with the Plains Indians. To do this, Lamar needed an army, so he raised one at enormous expense. The Republic of Texas had only 30,000 inhabitants at the time of its independence.

While the expulsion of the Cherokee with its 2000 tribal members was still easy to accomplish, they now faced around 15,000 Indians of the Comanche and Kiowa. There were only militia troops in Texas and no regular soldiers. The Navy had even been downsized during Houston's tenure. So Lamar had neither enough soldiers nor enough money to pursue his Indian policy, but still she was not dissuaded. Lamar's tenure was marked by escalating violence between the Comanche and white settlers. When the Comanche wintered in Palo Duro Canyon , they could have been arrested, but there weren't enough rangers. Nevertheless, at the end of 1839, some peaceable chiefs of the Penateka-Comanche had come to the realization that a peace treaty could be in their interests. They were of the opinion that they would not be able to drive the settlers from their land anyway, as they had done with the Apaches. In addition, there were problems with attacks by Cheyenne and Arapaho on the northern border and a sharp decline in the population of the tribes due to several chickenpox epidemics in recent years. They did not want to wage a two-front war with pillories and hostile Indian tribes. They proposed a meeting with the whites to draw a recognized line between Texas and the Comancheria .

The respected Penateka war chief Buffalo Hump disagreed with this proposal because he did not trust Lamar and his emissaries. The remaining 11 Comanche tribes were not involved in the peace negotiations anyway. For reasons no longer known today, Lamar erroneously assumed that the chiefs would lead the peace negotiations for the entire people of the Comanche and that all the tribes would now be ready to surrender. His Secretary of War, Albert S. Johnston, issued instructions which made it clear that Lamar expected the Comanche to respond as one people and bow to his show of force. Johnston sent militias to San Antonio with detailed instructions. He wrote to Lieutenant Colonel William S. Fisher, commander of the 1st Infantry Regiment:

“If the Comanche come without their prisoners, which is what we understand, you will arrest them. Some are said to be sent as messengers to their tribe to tell them that those arrested will be held hostage until the prisoners have been extradited. Then the hostages will be released. "

Fight at the Council House

Texas Ranger in 1846

When the Penateka envoys came to San Antonio for the peace negotiations in January 1840 , no other tribe was represented. Government negotiators followed Lamar's orders and demanded the extradition of all prisoners held by the Penateka. In addition, they demanded that the Comanche have to leave central Texas, stop all raids, and not visit white settlements.

The Penateka were so tempted by the presents that on March 19, 1840 a delegation of the Penateka with prisoners appeared in San Antonio. 33 chiefs and warriors, as well as 32 other tribe members appeared under the leadership of chief Muk-wah-Ruh and had only a few prisoners with them, mainly several Mexican children and Matilda Lockhart. The 16-year-old Lockhart was abducted with her sister in 1838 and complained that she had been physically and sexually abused. Burns and the mutilation of her nose confirmed her descriptions. She went on to say that the Comanche held 15 other prisoners and that the tribe would sell them one by one for ransom.

The Texans asked the Comanche to release the other prisoners immediately, but they could not do that even if they had wanted to. For example, the Penateka war chief Buffalo Hump and the Nokoni chief Peta Nocona had already refused to release their prisoners. The prisoners were already integrated into their tribes, as they made no distinction between born and "adopted" tribal members. At that moment in the negotiations, the doors of the Council House, where the negotiations were taking place, were pushed open by the militias and the astonished Comanche was ordered to surrender. They had put their bows, lances and firearms outside, assuming they would enjoy immunity as parliamentarians. They only had their knives on their belts. Nevertheless they drew their knives, called to the other warriors in the courtyard, and fought desperately. All but one of the Comanche in the house were killed. A total of 35 were killed and 29 Indians were captured.

Aftermath: The Great Raid and Plum Creek

In revenge for the murder of the 33 Comanche chiefs at the Council House, all but three whites were tortured and killed. The three survivors had previously been adopted by the tribe. Buffalo Hump wanted more revenge and rallied his warriors. He sent messengers to all the other Comanche, the Kiowa and the Kiowa Apaches. He got around 500 warriors together, as well as 400 women and children to look after them. Buffalo Hump moved with his large force from the Edwards Plateau (the former territory of the Penateka) to the Gulf of Mexico and attacked everything on the way. This campaign was also known as the Great Raid .

After sacking and burning Victoria and Linnville , then the second largest port in Texas, they owned thousands of horses and mules. They also emptied all of the city's warehouses. The people of Linnville fled to the sea, from where they stood idly by as their city was sacked and burned by the Indians.

An incident occurred at Plum Creek, near Lockhart , which military historians believe would never have happened under normal circumstances. Several hundred militia riders under Matthew Caldwell and Ed Burleson, as well as all ranger companies, attacked the mounted Comanche, although they were among the best mounted warriors at the time. A battle of persecution developed in which the Comanche tried to protect their prey. Ironically, the Comanche were saved by a quirk commonly attributed to themselves: greed. The militias captured mules with several hundred thousand dollars in gold bars on their backs. The militia immediately stopped the chase, divided the booty among themselves, and rode home. According to the militia, 80 Comanche are believed to have been killed, but only 12 bodies were discovered. Both sides rode home satisfied - the Comanche with 3,000 stolen horses and other booty and the militia with several hundred thousand dollars in gold bars.

The presidency of Lamar ended with a multitude of raids by the Indians and retaliatory actions by the Texans, but these were often doomed to fail. Buffalo Hump continued his war against the Texans and Lamar hoped in vain for a decisive battle in which he could use his rangers and the militia massively and drive out the plains Indians for good. The Comanche had learned their lessons from Plum Creek and avoided meeting the militia directly. They feared their cannons and did not want to attack against concentrated rifle fire. In 1840 alone, Lamar spent $ 2.5 million fighting the Comanches, more than the republic had earned during his two-year tenure.

Sam Houston's second term, 1841–1844

Sam Houston

Sam Houston was voted out of office after his first term in office because his opponent Lamar had promised tough anti-Indian policies. After the Great Raid and hundreds of smaller raids, as well as the bankruptcy of the national treasury, residents thought differently about Lamar's policy and again elected Sam Houston by a large majority as president.

Houston's Indian policy was to dismiss the vast majority of the regular troops and instead set up four new ranger companies to patrol the border. At the same time he instructed the rangers to protect the Indian areas from invading settlers and illegal traders. Houston wanted to end the cycle of violence and vengeance that had gotten out of hand during Lamar's tenure. Houston allowed the Texas Rangers to take strict action against Indian violations, but they did not seek confrontation. Whenever there was looting by Indians, the rangers were instructed to pursue the real culprits and not punish innocent Indians just for being Indians.

Houston also sought talks with the Indians. The Caddo were the first to respond and a contract was signed in August 1842. Then he extended his negotiations to the other tribes, except for the Comanche. These had their own terms for a peace treaty. In March 1843, Houston made an agreement with the Lenni Lenape, Wichita, and several other tribes. Buffalo Hump, who trusted Houston, began negotiations. In August 1843, a tentative armistice treaty was signed between the Comanches, their allies, and the Texans. In October 1843, the Comanche agreed to meet Sam Houston to negotiate a peace treaty. Following the events of the Council House, this meeting shows the confidence Buffalo Hump had in Houston. In the spring of 1844, Buffalo Hump and warchiefs Santa Anna and Old Owl signed a contract in Tehuacana Creek agreeing to hand over all white prisoners and stop raiding Texas settlements. In return, the Texans would cease military action against the Indians, set up additional trading posts, and recognize the border between Texas and the Comancheria . The allied tribes of the Comanche, the Waco , Tawakoni , Kiowa, Kiowa-Apache and Wichita, also agreed to the agreement. By the end of his tenure, President Houston had spent less than $ 250,000 on Indian policy and had made peace. A peace treaty was just waiting to be ratified by the Texas parliament.

President Jones' term of office from 1845 to the end of the republic

As long as the Republic of Texas existed, President Anson Jones ran the state. He continued the Indian policy of his predecessor Houston, with the exception that he, like many other Texan politicians, opposed a fixed border between Texas and the Comancheria . Therefore, he supported those politicians who wanted to remove this clause in the treaty.

End of the republic and annexation to the United States 1845–1861

When the Texas Senate removed the border clause from the final version of the treaty, Buffalo Hump terminated the deal and hostilities flared up again. This was one of the final decisions of the Texas Senate as the state joined the United States.

On February 28, 1845, the US Congress passed a law that sealed the proposed annexation of Texas and made the state part of the United States on December 29, 1845. A major reason for the union was that the US promised to take over a large part of the Texan debt. In exchange, large parts of Texas were transferred to the federal government in 1852. These areas now belong to the states of Colorado , Kansas , Oklahoma , New Mexico and Wyoming .

The state's accession to the United States marked the beginning of the end of the Plains Indians. The government had both the financial resources and the appropriate troops to enforce the "relocation" policy, which it did. This became clear to Buffalo Hump in May 1846 and he began peace negotiations in Council Springs. Eventually he signed a peace treaty with the United States.

Buffalo Hump then behaved peacefully in the late 1840s and 1850s. In 1849 he led John S. Ford's expedition from San Antonio to El Paso . In 1856 he finally had to lead his people into the newly created Brazos River Reservation. White horse thieves and illegal settlers repeatedly haunted the reservation. The tribes, on the other hand, were dissatisfied with their limited freedom and poor food supplies. All of this led to Buffalo Hump taking the Penateka out of reservation in 1858.

The murder of Robert Neighbors

Around the time settlers began attacking the Indians on their Texas reservation, federal government Indian agent Robert Neighbors incited the hatred of the Texan settlers. Neighbors complained that the army officers from the reservation-related army posts Fort Belknap and Camp Cooper did not support him and also did not protect the Indians. Despite constant death threats, Neighbors did not hesitate to do his duty and protect the Indians. Finally, with the help of the army, he managed to keep the white settlers out of the reservation. Neighbor realized, however, that this situation could not last and the Indians in Texas would no longer be safe. In August 1859 he succeeded in relocating her to a reservation in Indian territory . On the way back from there, he stopped in a settlement near Fort Belknap. While he was speaking to a settler on September 14, 1859, a man named Edward Cornett shot him in the back and killed him. Historians believe that this murder was related to Neighbor's efforts to protect the Indians. Neighbor may not have known his killer at all. He was buried in the Fort Belknap cemetery.

Attack on Buffalo Hump's camp

While the Penateka camped in the mountains of Wichita under the leadership of Buffalo Hump, what was once the most powerful Comanche tribe in southern Texas was attacked by the American army under Major Earl van Dorn . Van Dorn allegedly did not know that Buffalo Hump's tribe had recently signed a peace treaty with the American government at Fort Arbuckle. About 80 members of the tribe, mostly women and children, were killed. Nevertheless, van Dorn reported the attack on a peaceful camp as a "battle" with the Comanche to his superiors and to this day some historians refer to the massacre as the "battle in the Wichita Mountains". Buffalo Hump, who had grown old and tired, moved on with the remains of his people to the Kiowa-Comanche reservation near Fort Cobb in the Indian Territory of Oklahoma. There he asked for a house and land to work as a farmer. He wanted to give his people an example of how they should live in the future. He finally died there in 1870.

The Antelope Hill Campaign and Little Robe Creek 1858

In the years 1856-1858 things were sometimes very bloody on the Texan border, as more and more settlers invaded the Comancheria . 1858 was also the year that troops first invaded the Comancheria during the so-called Antelope Hill Campaign that culminated in the Battle of Little Robe Creek. The battle also marked the beginning of the end of a viable community of the Comanche, as they were massively attacked in their home country. Valuable hunting grounds were settled and large areas of pastures for the horse herds were plowed under. Not least because of the attack on Buffalo Hump's camp, the Comanche realized that they would not be able to live safely outside the reservation. Her response was several bloody raids in Texas. In 1858 there were only 5 of the 12 Comanche tribes left, one of which, the Penateka, was now only a few hundred people strong who lived in the reserve.

When the Comanche realized that their way of life was about to die out, they fought back with relentless harshness. The US Army was initially helpless in the face of this violence. It also looked as if political reasons stood in the way of a punitive expedition, especially since federal law and several treaties forbade troops to penetrate into Indian territory. The fact that a large number of tribes, like the Cherokee, lived peacefully as farmers there, did not want to endanger this peace. The Comanche and Kiowa, however, took advantage of this by living in the Comancheria part of Indian territory, but invading Texas to raid Texas settlers and then withdrawing again.

Relations between the federal authorities, the state of Texas and the Indian tribes were also strained by a legal regulation that had been passed in the course of the annexation of Texas to the United States. The American Constitution stipulated that the federal authorities were responsible for Indian affairs. From 1846 this also applied to Texas. But while in other states Washington had control over state property and Indian affairs, this had been regulated differently with the connection of Texas and Texas retained control over its own property. So in other states it was possible for the federal government to designate reservations on state land, but in Texas not without the consent of the state. Texas, however, was not prepared to tolerate reservations on its own state territory; on the other hand, Texas was glad that the federal government paid the costs of Indian affairs. The Indian federal agents of the time in Texas saw no possibility of concluding peace treaties with the tribes if the Indians could not be granted land rights.

The penetration into the Comancheria in 1858

The governor of Texas, Hardin Richard Runnels , had campaigned in 1856 with the promise that he would end the Indian raids. However, it was dampened when the 2nd Cavalry stationed in Texas was relocated to Utah and was finally completely disbanded. Thereupon Runnels decided to reactivate Rangerbattalione, which had been disbanded when Texas joined the Union. On January 27, 1858, Runnels named John Salmon "Rip" Ford captain and commander of the Texas Rangers, the militia, and befriended Indian troops. Ford was a veteran of the Mexican-American War and a skilled Indian fighter. Runnels ordered him to attack the Comanche on their land, the Comancheria.

Ford had no qualms about attacking Indian villages and slaughtering every inhabitant he could find. As a simple reason, he was satisfied that the Comanche dealt with the settlers in a similar way. Runnels gave Ford clear orders, “I would like to emphasize once again that vigorous action must be taken. Follow every trace and all traces of hostile or hostile Indians that you discover and, if possible, catch up with them and punish them if they present themselves as hostile. "

On March 19, 1858, Ford traveled to the Brazos Reservation, which was roughly within the boundaries of what is now Fort Worth , and integrated the Tonkawa tribe into his troops. Ford and Tonkawa chief Placido were determined to follow the Comanche and Kiowa into their tribal areas along the Canadian River and in the Wichita Mountains. If possible, they wanted to "kill their warriors, destroy the supplies, attack their camps and families, thereby depriving them of the opportunity to wage war."

In April 1858, Ford established Camp Runnels near the town of Belknap. Ford had been instructed again by Runnell to "... follow any and all traces of hostile or hostile Indians and carry out the toughest punitive orders without being hindered by anyone" (This meant the US federal agencies whose army and Indian commissioners are trying may refuse entry to Indian Territory in Oklahoma with reference to federal law or valid treaties). On April 15, Ford crossed the Red River with the Tonkawa warriors and Anadarko and Shawnees scouts from the Brazos reservation in Texas and invaded Indian territory. They moved on to the part of the Comancheria that belonged to the territory. In doing so, he violated federal law and several treaties. He later said that it was his job to "... find and fight Indians and not learn geography."

The Battle of Little Robe Creek

At dawn on May 12, 1858, Ford Ranger and the Tonkawa began an attack on a Comanche village that would last the entire day. This battle was actually three different skirmishes spread over the day. The first battle began when a village was attacked that the ranger scouts had discovered. The next skirmish ensued when the larger village was attacked by Chief Iron Jacket further up the Canadian river. Iron Jacket was killed in this battle, but his village was initially saved because Chief Peta Nocona came to the rescue with his Nokoni warriors. Ford then withdrew along the Canadian. Peta Nocona knew that his warriors would have no chance if they faced Ford in open battle, so she did not seek combat. Instead, he tried to involve individual groups of rangers or Tonkawa warriors in combat. He wanted to slow down the enemy's advance so that the villages further upstream had time to retreat. He succeeded in doing this too.

The Battle of Little Robe Creek is also remarkable because, in addition to violating the law and killing innocent people, the Texans allowed the Tonkawa to eat up some of the fallen Comanche in order to absorb the strength of the enemy through this ritual cannibalism .

Effects of Little Robe Creek: 1858–1860

The Battle of Little Robe Creek embodies the typical example of how women and children were treated in the Texan Indian Wars. Ford, accused of neglecting women and children in all of his battles against the Plains Indians, dismissed the matter by saying "... it's difficult to distinguish between warriors and squaws." These morbid jokes show It was clear that Ford didn’t care what sex or age its victims were. Ford used the deaths of Texan settlers, including their wives and children, as a justification to view all Indians, regardless of gender or age, as fighters.

The Tonkawa warriors celebrated victory by decorating their horses with the hands and feet of the killed Comanche as trophies. "The rangers noticed that the dead opponent was missing several body parts and that the tonkawa were carrying bloody containers that indicated a terrible victory festival that evening." The scale armor of Chief Iron Jacket was on his body "like shingles on the roof" and the rangers cut it up and took the pieces with them as trophies. The attacks in the Antelope Hills showed that the Comanche were no longer able to protect their villages in the Comancheria.

The “reward” of the Tonkawa

The other Indian tribes never forgot the Tonkawa that they fought with the Texans. Despite all requests from their chief Placido to protect his people, they had to leave the Brazos reservation and were relocated to a reservation in Oklahoma, where they had to live with the Lenni Lenape, Shawnee and Caddo tribes. In 1862 these tribes banded together and attacked the Tonkawa. 133 of the 309 remaining Tonkawa were killed, among them the chief Placido. Today there are only 15 Tonkawa families on the Oklahoma reservation.

The Battle of the Pease River, 1860

Cynthia Anne Parker's tombstone

There are two versions of what happened on December 18, 1860 at Mule Creek near Margaret, Texas in Ford County. The official version is that Lawrence Sullivan Ross and his men persecuted and destroyed a squad of Nokoni Comanche, including the leader Peta Nocona. According to Chief Quanah Parker's version, his father (Peta Nocona) should not have been there that day and the Nokoni killed were women and children who were drying buffalo skins and meat in a camp there. Both sides agree, however, that Ross, his rangers and the militia, discovered a group of Nokoni at dawn on December 18, 1860, which was encamped at Mule Creek, a tributary of the Pease River . All but one woman and two children were killed. It had been noticed that it was a white woman. She was later identified as Cynthia Ann Parker. The children were a ten year old boy and Cynthia Parker's baby "Prairie Flower".

Cynthia Parker was brought back to her family, who were closely guarding her to prevent her from going back to her husband and the other children. After her daughter died of the flu, she starved herself to death because her guards would not allow her to return to the Comanche and try to find her husband and sons.

The civil war as postponement 1861–1865

The American Civil War between the Confederate Southern and Northern states of the USA helped to that the violent attacks of the Plains Indians against the settlers increased after the cavalry had the Indian Territory because of the war have to leave, and many Ranger, the Confederate army had joined . The Comanche and other prairie tribes began eliminating settlements in the Comancheria. The Texas border was partially moved back up to 150 km and the prairie was littered with abandoned and burned farms and settlements. The Indian population was no longer so large that they could again exercise control over the entire Comancheria.

The Elm Creek Raid

In the late fall of 1864, a force of 500 to 1,000 Comanche and Kiowa in Young County, Texas, raided the area around Fort Murrah in the Middle Brazos River Country. They besieged the population in the fort and stole every cow, horse and mule in the area. The vigilante group managed to defend the fort and the Indians withdrew north. They took 10 women and children as prisoners.

The First Battle of Adobe Walls

The first battle of Adobe Walls took place on November 26, 1864 at the ruins of William Bent's Trading Post and Saloon at Canadian in Hutchinson County, Texas. It was one of the greatest battles between whites and Indians in the Great Plains, measured by the number of people involved. It came about because General James Henry Carleton , the commander of the New Mexico Military District, decided to punish the attacks by Comanche and Kiowa on treks near Santa Fe . The Indians viewed the treks as invaders, killing the bison that the Indians needed to survive.

Colonel Kit Carson was given command of the 1st Cavalry, a division of New Mexico volunteers, and assigned to move to the winter camps of the Comanche and Kiowa and attack them. These winter camps should be somewhere on the south bank of the Canadian. On November 10, 1864 Carson set off with 335 cavalrymen and 75 Ute and Jicarilla Apache scouts . Carson had recruited this at Lucien Maxwell's Ranch near Cimarron, New Mexico. On November 12, 1864, Carson's troops moved down the Canadian to the Texas Panhandle . They were accompanied by Lieutenant George H. Pettis with two howitzers and carried 27 covered wagons, one ambulance and food for 45 days. Carson decided to move to Adobe Walls first, knowing the area having worked there 20 years earlier. Unfavorable weather, including an early blizzard, slowed their progress, and so they could not reach Mule Springs until November 25, 1864. It was 45 km from there to Adobe Walls. Scouts had discovered a large Indian camp at Adobe Walls and Carson ordered the cavalry and the covered wagon to advance with the two howitzers.

About two hours after sunrise on November 26, 1864, the cavalry attacked a Kiowa village that consisted of 150 tents. Chief Dohäsan and his people fled, but alerted a nearby Comanche village. Carson then marched on to Adobe Walls and reached the ruined city around 10 o'clock that day. He first set up a hospital there. He was dismayed to discover that there were countless Indian villages in the area, including a. a very large Comanche village with around 3,000-5,000 Indians. This was a lot more resistance than he expected. The Kiowa also attacked. Chief Dohäsan was supported by the chiefs Stumbling Bear and Satanta . After Carson's troops ran out of ammunition, he ordered them to retreat that afternoon. The angry Indians tried to prevent the retreat by setting fire to the prairie grass and bushes by the river. Carson then withdrew to higher ground and was able to keep the Indians at a distance with the two howitzers. When evening came, Carson directed some of his scouts to burn down a Kiowa village. The Kiowa chief Iron Shirt was killed because he refused to leave his tepee. Carson's mission was seen as a success in hindsight, despite the fact that he had to withdraw from the battlefield.

The last years of the prairie tribes

The end of the civil war also led to the end of the Plains Indian tribes. The government had an army of millions and was able to break practically any resistance of the Indians. So it was only a matter of time before the last Indians surrendered.

The buffalo hunters

The buffalo were not the only source of food for the Indians, but they provided almost everything to survive on the prairie. The Plains Indians had their entire culture and way of life centered on the buffalo:

“... 24 to 28 prairie tribes had figured out how to use the buffalo in 52 different ways to make food, supplies, war and hunting implements, and the like. For example, the hooves were boiled to make glue. The hump-like back was used to make shields because of its strength, the hides were used for teepee construction. You needed between 12 and 14 skins for a tent. "

The army knew that the easiest and fastest way to drive the Indians into the reservation was to destroy the buffalo, as this would deprive them of their livelihood. In the period that followed, between 15 and 60 million buffaloes were killed by hunters. In 1899 there were only about 1,000 buffalo alive.

Assault on the Warren Trek

In 1871 the Kiowa chief Satanta attacked several covered wagon treks in Texas. His ruin came after the attack on the Warren Treck on May 18, 1871. Shortly before the attack on the trek, the Indians let a hospital car with little guard pass by. In that car was General William T. Sherman . As soon as the attack occurred, the trek began to build a wagon castle and all mules were brought to the center of the circle. Nevertheless, the Indians managed to steal all the supplies on the trek and kill and maim seven coachmen. Five others managed to escape. As soon as the army learned of the raid, Colonel Ranald Mackenzie and General Sherman pursued the Indians. Since Satanta had publicly boasted that he had carried out the raid with Satank and Big Tree , they were arrested by Sherman.

First trial against Indian chiefs

General Sherman ordered that the chiefs be brought to justice, opening the first trial against Indian chiefs. The three chiefs were taken to Jacksboro and charged with murder there. On the way there, Satank was shot while trying to escape near Fort Richardson. He had started singing his death song and tried to snatch the rifle from one of the guards. Before he could shoot, he was shot himself. At first his body was left unburied on the street because his family members were afraid to take him away. Colonel Mackenzie assured the family that they could do so safely. General Sherman wanted to send a message through the Jacksboro trial. What he couldn't foresee was that the trial would turn out to be a spectacle. First of all, the two lawyers that the army had hired to represent the two Kiowa did not adhere to the instructions they received from the army, but really tried to defend their clients. Their trial strategy included portraying the two chiefs as the ones waging a war to ensure the survival of their people. This led to worldwide attention and more and more opponents of this court hearing appeared on the scene. The Indian Affairs Bureau also spoke up, arguing that the chiefs would have no civil jurisdiction because their people would be at war with the United States. The chiefs said nothing in their defense. Satanta warned of what would happen if he were hanged: “I am a great chief of my people. If you kill me it will look like a spark in the prairie grass. It will cause a great fire - a terrible fire! "

However, Satanta was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death, as was Big Tree. However, Edmund J. Davis , the governor of Texas, came under pressure from the leaders of the so-called Quaker Peace Movement and changed the court's sentence from the death penalty to life imprisonment. Satanta and Big Tree spent two years in Huntsville State Prison before they were released.

Satanta's further fate

Chief Satanta

Satanta was released in 1873 and was said to have resumed attacking buffalo hunters and was involved in the attack on Adobe Walls. The Kiowa, however, denied that he was involved in the battle, but he would have passed his war lance and other symbols of the war chief on to younger, more aggressive warriors. However, the government assumed that he was involved in the battle so that he would have violated his parole and would have to be re-imprisoned. Satanta surrendered in October 1874 and was sent back to the state prison. His guards in the prison reported that Satanta was used in road works in the original hunting grounds of his people and often appeared sad and absent there. In his book "The History of Texas" Clarence Wharton also tells of Satanta's prison time:

“After he was returned to prison in 1874, he saw no chance of escaping. For a while he had to be in chains building the MK&T. Railroad help. During this time he became very bitter and his soul was broken. He was seen looking for hours through the bars of his cell to the north, towards the hunting grounds of his people. "

Satanta killed himself on October 11, 1878 by jumping out the window of the prison hospital. Big Tree was also re-imprisoned, but not taken to Huntsville like Satanta. Unlike Satanta, he had not been seen on the battlefield.

The Battle of the North Fork of the Red River

In 1872 it became clear that the Quaker peace policy was a complete failure. Nevertheless, it was valid law and therefore troops from Fort Sill could not be officially used against the Comanches. However, the army was eager to attack the Comanche in their home country, the Comancheria, which they did in 1872. A captured Comanchero , Edwardo Ortiz, told the army that the Comanche would be in winter camp on the Llano Estacado (Staked Plains) along the Red River . General Christopher C. Augur , in command of the Department of Texas, sent Captain Napoleon Bonaparte McLaughlin from Fort Concho to a reconnaissance team. McLaughlin began this two-month patrol in the spring of 1872 and returned with the news that the majority of the Comanche were in fact in camps on the Staked Plains. Ortiz further assured that the area was ideal for moving with army troops. General Augur then ordered Colonel Ranald Mackenzie to San Antonio to discuss strategy . After the meeting, the army launched a campaign against the Comanche in the Staked Plains.

On September 28, 1872, a cavalry unit under Colonel Mackenzie attacked a Comanche village near McClellan Creek in Gray County, Texas. The so-called "battle" was actually a massacre of the Indians led by Kai-Wotche and Mow-way . The totally surprised men, women and children were butchered. Many villagers were captured and taken to Fort Concho under guard, where they remained throughout the winter. Mackenzie used the Indians as leverage on the Indians who had left the reservation. They should return and release their white prisoners.

Mackenzie's strategy worked and shortly after the battle, Mow-way and Bull Bear came to the area of ​​the Wichita Indian Agency with their warriors. The chief of the Nokoni , Horseback, who himself had family members among the prisoners of the Comanche, took the initiative to convince the Comanche to return the stolen cattle and the white prisoners in exchange for their families. This was the first time United States forces had successfully attacked the Comanche in the Comancheria. At the same time, it showed the Comanche that the Staked Plains were no longer a safe haven. The battle also made it clear that the Indians would only have to destroy their villages and make it impossible for them to survive outside the reservation in order to force them to return. Mackenzie's tactics were so successful that General Shermann authorized him to use them in the Red River War of 1874. His attacks on the village at Palo Duro Canyon and the extermination of the Comanche horses at Tule Canyon in 1874 were a reflection of the battle.

The Red River War

During the summer of 1874, the US Army under General Nelson Appleton Miles began a campaign to drive the Comanche, Kiowa, Kiowa-Apaches, Southern Cheyenne, and Southern Arapaho from the Southern Plains to Indian Territory reservations. This should finally pacify the region. The "Red River War", as it was called, led to the end of the Indian culture of the southern prairie tribes and destroyed an entire people. The buffalo hunters, who almost exterminated the livelihood of the Indians, the buffalo, also accelerated the process.

During the war there were about 20 skirmishes between army units and the Indians. The well-equipped and well-supplied army soldiers only ensured that the Indians were constantly on the run, so inevitably were without ammunition and food and then had to end the fight.

The Second Battle of Adobe Walls

The second Battle of Adobe Walls took place during the Red River War, when the Indians found with increasing desperation that the buffalo hunters were destroying their food supplies and thus endangering the livelihoods of their people. Thereupon the Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne and other plains Indian tribes united. A force of 700 warriors emerged who wanted to attack the buffalo hunters camped at the ruins of Adobe Walls. On June 27, 1874, the Indians appeared at the camp of the 28 hunters, in which there was also a woman. If the hunters had slept as the Indians suspected, they would likely have been overrun and killed instantly. Even if the attackers had followed Chief Quanah Parker's plan to attack the buildings directly at their own cost, the hunters would have had no chance of survival. However, the defenders were awake and were able to repel the attack with their long-range buffalo guns. Billy Dixon managed what is probably the most famous shot in the West when he shot an Indian standing on a cliff 1.5 km away. When Quanah Parker was also wounded, the Indians broke off the attack. This was the last major attempt by the Comanche to defend their tribal areas, but the differences in armament could not be balanced out.

Mackenzie's campaign against Quanah Parker

According to historiography, the Red River War began on July 20, 1874. On that day, General Sherman telegraphed General Philip Sheridan to launch an offensive against the Comanche and Kiowa in the plains of West Texas and Oklahoma. Using Mackenzie's tactics, he should attack them in their winter camps, destroy the camps, and either kill them or drive them into the reservation.

Colonel Mackenzie and the 41st Cavalry chased Quanah Parker and his warriors for the remainder of the year 1874 to 1875. He approached the Indian hideouts at the east end of the Llano Estacado from five different directions. In the most daring and decisive battle, Mackenzie destroyed five Indian villages in Palo Duro Canyon on September 28, 1874. The destruction of 3,000 Indian horses in the Tule Canyon finally broke the Indian resistance, since in addition to the destroyed camps and food reserves, their last possessions were also destroyed. On November 5, 1874, Mackenzie and his troops won a last, smaller battle over the Comanche. He then became the commandant of Fort Sill and monitored the Comanche-Kiowa and Cheyenne-Arapaho reservations from there.

The end of the Texan Indian Wars

Quanah Parker, the last Comanche warchief.

Mackenzie sent Jacob J. Sturm, a doctor and translator, to Quanah Parker to get him to do the job. Sturm found Quanah, whom he described as a "young man with great influence among his people," and raised his concern. Mackenzie had given his word that Quanah's people would be treated with honor and no one would be charged if Quanah gave up. Otherwise every warrior, woman and child would be hunted. Quanah Parker later stated that he was ready to die himself but did not want women and children to be killed. Quanah therefore believed Mackenzie's threats. Sturm later reported that Quanah said he rode to a Table Mountain where he encountered a wolf trotting towards him. The wolf howled and then moved away to the northeast. An eagle flew overhead and pointed its wings towards Fort Sill. The signs convinced Quanah Parker and on June 2, 1875 he led his tribe to Fort Sill in what is now Oklahoma and surrendered there. That was the end of the Plains Indians as an independent people.

Quanah Parker was appointed the sole chief of the Comanche by his archenemy Mackenzie. He worked hard to educate his people and enable them to survive in the world of the white man. He also tried to keep the land of his people together and when that failed, to get the best possible price for it.

Military analysis

Diseases

Illnesses, which were introduced mainly by the Europeans, meant a dramatic turning point in the lives of the Indians. Anthropologist John C. Ewers counted no fewer than 30 major epidemics, mainly chickenpox and cholera , that occurred between 1528 and 1890 and wiped out about 90% of Texan Indians.

Over half the Comanche population was wiped out in just two epidemics, from 1780 to 1781 and from 1816 to 1817. In numbers, this means that the Comanche shrank from over 20,000 people to fewer than 8,000 in these two epidemics. The Texans' technical and military superiority may have done the rest, but the main driver behind the decline of the Plains Indians was disease.

weapons

At the time of the Texas Revolution, there were 30,000 English, Spanish, and Mexican settlers in Texas and an estimated 15,000 American Indians. The settlers were armed with single-shot firearms, which were completely inadequate, especially against the Comanche. These were a deadly threat to defenders who had to reload after each shot, especially due to their masterly mastery of cavalry tactics and as mounted archers. Since they were constantly on the move with their horses, a well-aimed shot was very difficult in the chaos of a battle. Although the Comanche quickly learned to use single-shot weapons, they refused to use them because they could shoot faster with their bows. They, along with their mortal enemies (and allies from the mid-1830s), the Apaches, were also the ones who put an end to the Spanish conquest of North America. They succeeded in defending their tribal territory against the militarily experienced Spaniards and Mexicans and even expanding it , which only a few tribes apart from the Apaches had succeeded in doing . By the end of the 18th century, the Comanche are said to have owned every horse in New Mexico through their forays. This tactical advantage remained with the Indians, especially the Comanche, until the invention of the repeating rifle and the revolver. The Battle of Bandera Pass was the first in which the Texans gained a military advantage through the use of revolvers. In 1860 there were fewer than 8,000 Indians and about 600,000 settlers in Texas. These now also had access to repeating rifles and revolvers.

See also

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Native American Texans ( Memento of the original from December 12, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.texancultures.com
  2. ^ "Timeline of History". The University of Texas Institute of Texan Cultures at San Antonio ( Memento of the original from September 1, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.texancultures.utsa.edu
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wallace, Ernest and Hoebel E. Adamson. The Comanches: Lords of the Southern Plains . University of Oklahoma Press. ( The Civilization of the American Indian Series 34) 1952.
  4. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Sultzman, Lee (2006). [1] . Comanche History: Part One. Retrieved September 7, 2007.
  5. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s Fehrenbach, TR Comanches, The Destruction of a People
  6. ↑ a b c d e f g h i Exley, JA: Frontier Blood: The Saga of the Parker Family
  7. ↑ a b c d e Kreneck, Thomas (2000). Samuel Houston at www.tshaonline.org ( Memento June 12, 2008 in the Internet Archive ). Texas Handbook Online. Retrieved September 7, 2007. (English)
  8. ↑ Siegel, Stanley. The Poet President of Texas: The Life of Mirabeau B. Lamar, President of the Republic of Texas
  9. ↑ a b Dial, Steve (2005). [2] . Texas Beyond History: The Die is Cast, Sep 7, 2007.
  10. ↑ a b c Herring, Rebecca (2002). http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/jcc3.html ( Memento from May 1, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) . Texas Handbook Online September 7, 2007.
  11. ↑ a b Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.forttours.com
  12. ↑ a b c d e Schilz, Jody (2002). http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/CC/btc1.html ( Memento of July 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) . Texas Handbook Online September 7, 2007.
  13. ^ Council House Fight
  14. ^ University of Texas .
  15. ↑ Comanche Nation ( Memento of the original from June 30, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / or.essortment.com
  16. ^ A b c d The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement: A Century and a Half of Savage Resistance to the Advancing White Frontier . Arthur H. Clarke Co. 1933.
  17. ^ Roell, Craig (2002). http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/LL/btl1.html ( Memento of July 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) . Texas Handbook Online, September 7, 2007.
  18. ^ Treaty Negotiations - Texas State Library
  19. ↑ The Avalon Project at Yale Law School: Texas - From Independence to Annexation ( Memento of the original from December 5, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.yale.edu
  20. ↑ a b c d e Handbook of Texas Online - BUFFALO HUMP ( Memento of December 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive ).
  21. ↑ Handbook of Texas Online - NEIGHBORS, ROBERT SIMPSON ( Memento October 7, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  22. ^ Comanche Part Three
  23. ↑ a b c d Frontier Forts> Texas and the Western Frontier
  24. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement: A Century and a Half of Savage Resistance to the Advancing White Frontier . Arthur H. Clarke Co. 1933.
  25. ↑ Handbook of Texas Online . Texas State Historical Association ( April 6, 2008 memento on the Internet Archive )
  26. ↑ The Battle of Little Robe Creek
  27. ↑ Tonkawas - Indians of Central Texas ( Memento of the original from May 13, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / bellnetweb.brc.tamus.edu
  28. ↑ a b c Trosser, John (2004). [3] . "Adobe Walls Texas" September 7, 2007.
  29. ↑ American Experience | Transcontinental Railroad | Special features
  30. ↑ a b c Handbook of Texas Online - SATANTA ( Memento of July 6, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  31. ↑ Satanta ( Memento of March 8, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  32. ^ A b Brian C. Hosmer: Battle of the North Fork . In: Handbook of Texas Online . Archived from the original on July 24, 2008. Retrieved July 15, 2007.
  33. ↑ Close, George (2000). [4] . Texas Beyond History September 7, 2007.
  34. ↑ [5]
  35. ^ Campbell, Edward (2005). [6] . Texas State Library: The Battle of Adobe Walls September 7, 2007.
  36. ↑ Close, George (2000). Cherokee Indians ( Memento of the original dated December 6, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Texas Handbook Online, September 7, 2007.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.tshaonline.org

literature

  • Jo E. Exley: Frontier Blood. The Saga of the Parker Family . 2nd ed. University Press, College Station, Tx. 2004, ISBN 1-58544-136-8 .
  • Theodore R. Fehrenbach: The Comanches. Destruction of a culture ("The Comanches. The History of a People"). Fackelträger Verlag, Hannover 1992, ISBN 3-7716-1556-9 .
  • Morris Foster: Being Comanche. A social history of an American Indian Community . University Press, Tucson, Ariz. 1991, ISBN 0-8165-1246-9 .
  • Ian Frazier: Great Plains . Faber & Faber, New York 1990, ISBN 0-571-14260-5 .
  • Sally Lodge: The Comanche (Native American People). Rourke Publ., Vero Beach, Fla. 1992, ISBN 978-0-86625-390-1 (children's book, together with Katherine Ace).
  • Bill Lund: The Comanche Indians. A novel (Native Peoples). Bridgestone Books, Mankato, Minn. 1997, ISBN 978-1-56065-478-0 .
  • Martin Mooney: The Comanche Indians (The Junior Library of American Indians). Chelsea House Publ., New York 1993, ISBN 0-7910-1653-6 .
  • Rupert N. Richardson: The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement. A Century and a Half of Savage Resistance to the Advancing White Frontier . Eakin Press, Austin, Tx. 1996, ISBN 978-0-585-23693-3 (reprint of Glendale edition, CA 1933).
  • Willard Rollings: The Comanche (Indians of North America). Chelsea House Publ., New York 1989, ISBN 1-55546-702-4 .
  • Frank Secoy, Frank: Changing Military Patterns on the Great Plains. 17th century through early 19th century (Monograph of the American Ethnological Society; Vol. 21). 2nd ed. University Press, Seattle, Wash. 1966.
  • Thomas Streissguth: The Comanche (Indigenous Peoples of North America). Lucent Books, San Diego, Cal. 2000, ISBN 978-1-56006-633-0 .
  • Ernest Wallace, E. Adamson Hoebel: The Comanches. Lords of the Southern Plains . 10th ed. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Okl. 1988, ISBN 0-8061-2040-1 ( The Civilization of the American Indian Series ; 34).

Web links