WThe Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ Comanche: Nʉmʉnʉʉ; "the people") are a Native-American nation from the Great Plains whose historic territory consisted of most of present-day northwestern Texas and adjacent areas in eastern New Mexico, southeastern Colorado, southwestern Kansas, western Oklahoma, and northern Chihuahua. Within the United States, the government federally recognizes the Comanche people as the Comanche Nation, headquartered in Lawton, Oklahoma. The Comanche language is a Numic language of the Uto-Aztecan family. It was originally a Shoshoni dialect, but has diverged over time to become a separate language.
WThe Comancheria or Comanchería is the region of New Mexico, west Texas and nearby areas occupied by the Comanche before the 1860s.
WThe First Battle of Adobe Walls was a battle between the United States Army and American Indians. The Kiowa, Comanche and Plains Apache tribes drove from the battlefield a United States Expeditionary Force that was reacting to attacks on white settlers moving into the Southwest. The battle, on November 25, 1864, resulted in light casualties on both sides but was one of the largest engagements fought on the Great Plains.
WThe Antelope Hills expedition was a campaign from January–May 1858 by the Texas Rangers and members of other allied Native American tribes against Comanche and Kiowa villages in the Comancheria. It began in western Texas and ended in a series of fights with the Comanche tribe on May 12, 1858, at a place called Antelope Hills by Little Robe Creek, a tributary of the Canadian River in what is now Oklahoma. The hills are also called the "South Canadians," as they surround the Canadian River. The fighting on May 12, 1858, is often called the Battle of Little Robe Creek.
WThe Battle of Blanco Canyon was the decisive battle of Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie's initial campaign against the Comanche in West Texas, and marked the first time the Comanches had been attacked in the heart of their homeland. It was also the first time a large military force explored the heart of Comancheria. On 12 August 1871 Mackenzie and Colonel Benjamin Grierson were asked by Indian Agent Lawrie Tatum to begin an expedition against the Kotsoteka and Quahadi Comanche bands, both of whom had refused to relocate onto a reservation after the Warren Wagon Train Raid. Col. Mackenzie assembled a powerful force consisting of eight companies of the Fourth United States Cavalry, two companies of the Eleventh Infantry, and a group of twenty Tonkawa scouts.
WThe Battle of Plum Creek was a clash between allied Tonkawa, militia, and Rangers of the Republic of Texas and a huge Comanche war party under Chief Buffalo Hump, which took place near Lockhart, Texas, on August 12, 1840, following the Great Raid of 1840 as the Comanche war party returned to west Texas.
WThe Battle of North Fork or the Battle of the North Fork of the Red River occurred on September 28, 1872, near McClellan Creek in Gray County, Texas, United States. A monument on that spot marks the site of the battle between the Comanche Indians under Kai-Wotche and Mow-way and a detachment of cavalry and scouts under U.S. Army Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie. There was an accusation that the battle was really an attempt "to make a massacre," as during the height of battle some noncombatants were wounded while mixed in with warriors.
WBlack Horse or Tu-ukumah, was a Comanche war chief. After Bull Bear died in 1874, Black Horse was promoted to second chief in the Quahadi band of Comanche.
WForming a part of the Eastern Shoshone linguistic group in southeastern Wyoming who moved on to the buffalo Plains around AD 1500, proto-Comanche groups split off and moved south some time before AD 1700. The Shoshone migration to the Great Plains was apparently triggered by the Little Ice Age, which allowed bison herds to grow in population. It remains unclear why the proto-Comanches broke away from the main Plains Shoshones and migrated south. The desire for Spanish horses released by the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 may have inspired the move as much as pressures from other groups drawn to the Plains by the changing environment.
WComanche is a Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Comanche people, who split from the Shoshone people soon after the Comanche had acquired horses around 1705. The Comanche language and the Shoshoni language are therefore quite similar, but certain consonant changes in Comanche have inhibited mutual intelligibility.
WThe Council House Fight, often referred to as the Council House Massacre, was a decidedly lopsided fight between soldiers and officials of the Republic of Texas and a delegation of Comanche chiefs during a peace conference in San Antonio on March 19, 1840. The meeting took place under an observed truce with the purpose of negotiating the exchange of captives and ultimately facilitating peace after two years of war. The Comanches sought to obtain recognition of the boundaries of the Comancheria, their homeland, while the Texians wanted the release of Texian and Mexican citizens held prisoner by the Comanches.
WCuerno Verde was a leader of the Comanche, likely of the Kotsoteka Comanche, in the late 18th century.
WThe Great Raid of 1840 was the largest raid ever mounted by Native Americans on white cities in what is now the United States. It followed the Council House Fight, in which Republic of Texas officials attempted to capture and take prisoner 33 Comanche chiefs who had come to negotiate a peace treaty, killing them together with two dozen of their family and followers. The Comanche tribe was supposed to have brought white hostages as their part of the negotiations but only brought one young woman. Arguments and fighting then broke out among the Texians and Comanches. The Texas Officials were determined to force the Comanche to release all white captives among them. To avenge what the Comanche viewed as a bitter betrayal by the Texans, the Comanche war chief Buffalo Hump raised a huge war party of many of the bands of the Comanche, and raided deep into white-settled areas of Southeast Texas.
WHorseback (1805/1810-1888) was a Nokoni Comanche chief.
WIsatai'i, Isatai, or Eschiti was a Comanche warrior and medicine man of the Kwaharʉ band. Originally named Kwihnai Tosabitʉ, after the debacle at Adobe Walls on June 27, 1874, for which he was blamed, he was known as Isatai'i. Isatai'i gained enormous prominence for a brief period in 1873-74 as a prophet and "messiah" of Native Americans. He succeeded, albeit temporarily, in uniting the autonomous Comanche bands as no previous Chief or leader had ever done. Indeed, his prestige was such that he was able to organize what was said to be the first Comanche sun dance, an Indian ritual that his tribe had not previously adopted.
WThe Battle of Little Robe Creek, also called the Battle of Antelope Hills, took place on May 12, 1858. It actually was a series of three distinct encounters that took place on a single day, between the Comanches on the one side, and Texas Rangers, militia, and allied Tonkawas attacking them. It was undertaken against the laws of the United States at the time, which strictly forbade such an incursion into the Indian Territories of Oklahoma, and marked a significant escalation of the Indian Wars. It also marked the first time American or Texas Ranger forces had penetrated the Comancheria as far as the Wichita Mountains, and Canadian River, and it marked a decisive defeat for the Comanches.
WThe Meusebach–Comanche Treaty was a treaty made on May 9,1847 between the private citizens of the Fisher–Miller Land Grant in Texas, who were predominantly German in nationality, and the Penateka Comanche Tribe. The treaty was officially recognized by the United States government. In 1936, a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, Marker number 991, was placed in San Saba County to commemorate the signing of the treaty.
WMow-way, was the principal leader and war chief of the Kotsoteka band of the Comanche during the 1860s and 1870s, following the deaths of Kuhtsu-tiesuat in 1864 and Tasacowadi in 1872.
WNative American tribes in the U.S. state of Nebraska have been Plains Indians, descendants of succeeding cultures of indigenous peoples who have occupied the area for thousands of years. More than 15 historic tribes have been identified as having lived in, hunted in, or otherwise occupied territory within the current state boundaries.
WThe Quanah Parker Star House, with stars painted on its roof, is located in the city of Cache, county of Comanche, in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places listings in Comanche County, Oklahoma, in 1970.
WQuanah Parker was a war leader of the Kwahadi ("Antelope") band of the Comanche Nation. He was likely born into the Nokoni ("Wanderers") band of Tabby-nocca and grown up among the Kwahadis, the son of Kwahadi Comanche chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker, an Anglo-American who had been kidnapped as a child and assimilated into the Nokoni tribe. Following the apprehension of several Kiowa chiefs in 1871, Quanah Parker emerged as a dominant figure in the Red River War, clashing repeatedly with Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie. With European-Americans deliberately hunting American bison, the Comanches' primary sustenance, into extinction, Quanah Parker eventually surrendered and peaceably led the Kwahadi to the reservation at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
WThe Battle of Pease River occurred on December 18, 1860, near the present-day town of Margaret, Texas in Foard County, Texas, United States. The town is located between Crowell and Vernon within sight of the Medicine Mounds just outside present-day Quanah, Texas.
WPeta Nocona (circa1820-1864), son to Iron Jacket, was a chief of the Comanche Kwahadi division. He married Cynthia Ann Parker, who had been taken as a captive in a raid and was adopted into the tribe by Tabby-nocca's family. Among their children was Quanah Parker, the last war chief of the Comanche.
WThe Red River War was a military campaign launched by the United States Army in 1874 to displace the Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, and Arapaho Native American tribes from the Southern Plains, and forcibly relocate the tribes to reservations in Indian Territory. Lasting only a few months, the war had several army columns crisscross the Texas Panhandle in an effort to locate, harass, and capture highly mobile Native American bands. Most of the engagements were small skirmishes in which neither side suffered many casualties. The war wound down over the last few months of 1874, as fewer and fewer Indian bands had the strength and supplies to remain in the field. Though the last significantly sized group did not surrender until mid-1875, the war marked the end of free-roaming Indian populations on the southern Great Plains.
WTen Bears was the principal chief of the Yamparika or "Root Eater" division of the Comanche from ca. 1860-72. He was the leader of the Ketahto local group of the Yamparika, probably from the late 1840s.
WThe Texas–Indian wars were a series of 19th-century conflicts between settlers in Texas and the Southern Plains Indians. These conflicts began when the first wave of European-American settlers moved into Spanish Texas. They continued through Texas's time as part of Mexico, when more Europeans and Anglo-Americans arrived, to the subsequent declaration of independence by the Republic of Texas. The conflicts did not end until thirty years after Texas joined the United States.
WTosahwi, meaning White Knife, was a Penateka Comanche chief. He was deemed "cooperative" by William Babcock Hazen.
WThe Trial of Satanta and Big Tree occurred in May 1871 in the town of Jacksboro in Jack County, Texas, United States. This historic trial of Native American War Chiefs of the Kiowa Indians Satanta and Big Tree for the murder of seven teamsters during a raid on Salt Creek Prairie near Jacksboro, Texas, marked the first time the United States had tried Native American Chiefs in a state court. The trial attracted national and international attention. The two Kiowa leaders, with Satank, a legendary third War Chief, were formally indicted on July 1, 1871, and tried shortly thereafter, for acts arising out of the Warren Wagon Train Raid.