The Texas–Indian wars were a series of conflicts between settlers in Texas and the Southern Plains Indians during the 19th century. Conflict between the Plains Indians and the Spanish began before other European and Anglo-American settlers were encouraged—first by Spain and then by the newly Independent Mexican government—to colonize Texas in order to provide a protective-settlement buffer in Texas between the Plains Indians and the rest of Mexico. As a consequence, conflict between Anglo-American settlers and Plains Indians occurred during the Texas colonial period as part of Mexico. The conflicts continued after Texas secured its independence from Mexico in 1836 and did not end until 30 years after Texas became a state of the United States, when in 1875 the last free band of Plains Indians, the Comanches led by Quahadi warrior Quanah Parker, surrendered and moved to the Fort Sill reservation in Oklahoma.
The more than half-century struggle between the Plains tribes and the Texans became particularly intense after the Spanish, and then Mexicans, left power in Texas. The Republic of Texas, which was largely settled by Anglo-Americans, was a threat to the indigenous people of the region. The wars between the Plains Indians and Texas settlers and later the United States Army was characterized by deep animosity, slaughter on both sides, and, in the end, near-total conquest of the Indian territories.
Although several native tribes occupied territory in the area, the preeminent nation was the Comanche, known as the "Lords of the Plains". Their territory, the Comancheria, was the most powerful entity and persistently hostile to the Spanish, the Mexicans, the Texans, and finally the Americans. When Sul Ross rescued Cynthia Ann Parker, who had been captured at the age of 9, at Pease River, he observed that this event would be felt in every family in Texas, as every one had lost someone in the Indian Wars. During the American Civil War, the Comanche and Kiowa pushed white settlements back more than 100 miles along the Texas frontier.
Background
Pre-Columbian era
Texas developed in the region between two major cultural centers of pre-Columbian North America. The Southwestern tribes occupied the areas to the west, and the Plains tribes occupied areas to the east. Archaeologists have found that three major indigenous cultures lived in this region and reached their developmental peak before the first European contact. The Pueblo from the upper Rio Grande region were centered west of Texas. The Mississippian culture or Mound Builder region extended along the Mississippi River Valley east of Texas. The Mesoamerica civilization was centered south of Texas. The influence of Teotihuacan in northern Mexico peaked around AD 500 and declined over the 8th to 10th centuries.
During Colonial Mexico, members of new cultures entered and settled in the area; through competition for resources and power, they became adversaries. All were relative newcomers to Texas; Europeans began permanently settling in Texas around the Rio Grande and upwards toward modern-day San Antonio and El Paso starting in the late 17th century; they reached Nacogdoches area around 1721. The Comanche had not arrived into the northern area of the state until roughly the early 18th century; they did not become the predominant nation in the area until the late 18th century, following their successful adoption of the horse. Most other Plains Indians had already arrived by the mid-18th century.
Early tribes
The people indigenous to northern Texas including the Panhandle are called the Southern Plains villagers, including Panhandle culture who include ancestors of the Wichita people. The Tonkawa, long thought to have been prehistoric residents of Texas are now thought to have migrated into the state in the late seventeenth century. Arrival in Central Texas is believed to have been just before or during the early European contact period. Tribes indigenous to east Texas include the Caddo, including the Adai, Eyeish, Hainai, Kadohadacho, Nacono, and Kitsai. The Akokisa, Atakapa, Karankawa, and Tamique lived along the Gulf coast. The Southern Athabaskan speaking Apache, which includes the Mescalero, Chiricahua, Jicarilla, Lipan and Kiowa Apache, are thought to have entered southeastern New Mexico and western Texas in small groups by at least 1400 CE. The Kiowa proper, not to be confused with the Kiowa Apache, arrived in Texas post European contact, their principal nineteenth-century range being north and east of the Texas Panhandle in the Wichita Mountains.
In the 1740s, Tonkawa, Yojuanes, and others settled along the San Gabriel River. The Tonkawa allied with the Bidais, Caddos, Wichitas, Comanche and Yojuanes in 1758 and attacked and decimated the Lipan Apache and the Mission Santa Cruz de San Sabá. The Tonkawa continued their southern migration into Texas and northern Mexico where they then allied with the Lipan Apache.
Spanish settlers sometimes captured American Indian children. Often it was common practice to have the child baptized and then adopt them into their homes, where they were raised to be servants. At first the practice involved primarily Apaches, and eventually Comanche children were likewise adopted as servants.
Rise of the Comanche
The Comanche language belongs the Uto-Aztecan language family, and is virtually identical to the language of the Northern Shoshone. Sometime in the late 17th century, the Comanches acquired horses, and this acquisition drastically changed their culture. The lives of pedestrians were revolutionized as they quickly developed into a mounted, well-equipped and powerful people. Until around the mid-17th century, the Comanche were part of the Shoshone people living along the upper Platte River in present-day Wyoming. Once they acquired horses, which gave them greater mobility and hunting access, the Comanche became a separate tribe from the Shoshone. Their original migration took them to the southern Great Plains, into a span of territory extending from the Arkansas River to Central Texas. Their population increased dramatically because of the abundance of buffalo, the use of the horse for hunting and fighting, the adoption of other migrating Shoshone, and women and children taken captive during raids and warfare. The Comanche based their warfare on speed and calculated violence, developing superb light cavalry skill. Ultimately, their warriors made such effective use of the horse that the Comanche became the most powerful Indian nation of the plains.
When the Comanche encountered and entered conflict against Spanish colonists, they blocked Spanish expansion to the east from New Mexico and prevented direct communication with the new Spanish settlements north of the Rio Grande. In turn, the Comanche and eventually Apache allies launched deep raids, sending hundreds of warriors into Mexico; they successfully captured and enslaved or adopted into the tribe thousands of Hispanics, Anglos, and Indians of other tribes. Eventually, the numbers were so large that persons not born Comanche made up nearly thirty percent of the Comanche nation. The Comanches were decentralized; historically, they did not form a single cohesive tribal unit but were divided into almost a dozen autonomous groups. The bands had as many as 45 distinct divisions. These groups shared the same language and culture but at times fought internally in ritualized combat, even as they cooperated at other times.
War with the Apaches
Prior 1750, the Apaches were highly influential in west Texas, but this changed with the Comanche incursions. Beginning in the 1740s, the Comanche began crossing the Arkansas River and established themselves on margins of the Llano Estacado. This area extended from southwestern Oklahoma across the Texas Panhandle into New Mexico. The Apaches were driven out in a series of wars, and the Comanche came to control the area. This domain extended south from the Arkansas River across central Texas to the vicinity of San Antonio, including the entire Edwards Plateau west to the Pecos River and then north again following the foothills of the Rocky Mountains to the Arkansas River.
Alliances with other tribes
After driving out the Apaches, the Comanches were stricken by a smallpox epidemic from 1780 to 1781. As the epidemic was very severe, the Comanche temporarily suspended raids, and some Comanche divisions were disbanded. A second smallpox epidemic struck during the winter of 1816–1817. The best estimates are that more than half the total population of the Comanche were killed by these epidemics.
In response to this devastating loss of numbers, the Comanche effectively allied with the Kiowa and Kiowa Apache after one Kiowa warrior spent a fall season with the Comanche in 1790. Fehrenbach believes the union came from the necessity to protect their hunting grounds from settler incursions. First, the Kiowa and the Comanche agreed to share hunting grounds and unite in war. The Kiowa Apache, as allies of the Kiowa, ultimately joined this alliance. Eventually, the three tribes agreed to share the same hunting grounds and had a mutual self-defense and war pact.
Europeans in Texas
European and especially mixed-race Mexican colonists reached Texas prior to the end of Spanish rule. Colonial authorities did not encourage colonization in this area, as it was too far from their bases. The number of colonists was extremely limited, and they were always at risk of Comanche raids. By the early 19th century, as a result of the Comanche wars, the Mexican wars of Independence, and the collapse of colonial power, Mexican resistance to Comanche attacks had almost collapsed.
In contrast to the neglected military capabilities of the Mexicans, authorities considered Americans extremely aggressive in combat, and they were subsequently encouraged to establish settlements on the frontier in present-day Texas as a defensive bulwark to Comanche raids further south. Although most of these early Americans were ultimately killed, executed or driven from Texas by Spanish authorities during the Green Flag Republic, the Comanche's subsequent raids deep into Mexico showed the practicality of Americans in holding the frontier. Consequently, the new regime quickly recruited Americans, the first of which was Stephen F. Austin, who was given a Spanish land grant in Texas. When Mexico won its independence from Spain in 1821, its government continued to recruit Americans, as it wanted to develop its depopulated northern provinces.
Mexican Texas: 1821–1836
In the 1820s, seeking additional colonists as a means of securing the region, Mexico reached an agreement with Steven F. Austin reauthorizing his Spanish land grants allowing several hundred American families to move into the region. As Austin used his network and government sponsors to spread the word of rich lands in Texas, thousands of additional colonists from the United States flooded into the region. Many had no interest in being ruled by the government of Mexico. In 1829, when Mexico abolished slavery throughout Mexico, the immigrants from the U.S. were exempted in some colonies. Under the change, many slaves in Mexico were reclassified as indentured servants. Texian and Tejano settlers unified in resistance to political and economic controls imposed on the region under the Mexican central government, resulting in the Texas Revolution.
In 1821, while colonists were still welcome, Jose Francisco Ruiz negotiated a truce with the Penatucka Comanche, the band closest to the settlements in East and Central Texas. Following that truce, he was able to complete a treaty of peace and friendship, which was signed in Mexico City in December 1821. But, within twelve months the Mexican government failed to pay the presents promised to the Pentucka, who resumed raiding at once. For the same reason, the peace treaties signed for New Mexico broke down. By 1823 war raged the entire length of the Rio Grande. Most of the remaining Mexican settlements were destroyed; only those in the upper Rio Grande were secured. Thousands of surviving Mexican refugees fled to this area. The Comanche pushed out or killed most of the Mexican settlers in the region, except the European-American Texans.
The Mexican government negotiated additional treaties, signed in 1826 and 1834, but in each case failed to meet the terms of the agreements. Although such events would have proven catastrophic in early years as the Comanche raided towards Mexico City, the presence of American militias obstructed such attacks, thereby encouraging the Mexicans to become dilatory in payments. Because Comanche raiding was based on taking booty and captives, the proximity of American communities' proved more fruitful to Comanche raiding. Although Texan military force was much stronger than previous Mexican colonists, the sheer rapidity of advance and large numbers of the raiders overwhelmed many of these early Texan colonists. For example, in 1826 Comanches raided and burned Green DeWitt's new town of Gonzales to the ground.
During the period of 1821 to 1835, colonists had difficulty with Comanche raids, despite the formation of full-time militia ranger companies in 1823. Tonkawa and Lenape tribes, enemies of the Comanche, allied with the new immigrants, trying to gain allies themselves against these traditional enemies. The Comanche detested the Tonkawa, in particular, for allegedly being cannibals. As early as 1823, Austin recognized the need to have specific forces designated to fight the Plains tribes, especially the Comanche. They did not distinguish between Mexicans and Americans in their raids. Austin created the first Rangers by hiring 10 men; they were paid to fight Indians and protect the colonial settlements. Soon the colonists organized additional Ranger companies. After the Republic was created, this trend continued. Without the resources for a standing army, Texas created small Ranger companies mounted on fast horses to pursue and fight Comanches on their own terms.