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.Exley, J.A.. "Frontier Blood: The Saga of the Parker Family 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.Richardson (2005), p. 9.
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.Prikryl, Daniel J. Fiction and Fact about the Titskanwatits, or Tonkawa, of East Central Texas. Bulletin of the Texas Archeological Society 72:63–72, 2001. https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth1013930/m1/69/Collins, Michael. The Prehistory of Texas, Texas A&M Anthropology Series, p.217, Timothy K. Perttula, editor 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.Newcomb, W.W. Jr. The Indians of Texas: From Prehistoric to Modern Times, p.238. University of Texas Press, 13th paperback printing, 2002.Mescalero Apache Research Report, p.4. TxDOT Tribal histories project, July 2020. https://www.txdot.gov/business/resources/environmental/compliance-toolkits/historic-resources/tribal-histories.html
In the 1740s, Tonkawa, Yojuanes, and others settled along the San Gabriel River.Gary Clayton Anderson, The Indian Southwest, 1580–1830: Ethnogenesis and Reinvention (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999) p. 85 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.Anderson, The Indian Southwest, p. 89 The Tonkawa continued their southern migration into Texas and northern Mexico where they then allied with the Lipan Apache.May, Jon D. "Tonkawa" , Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History & Culture, Tulsa: Oklahoma Historical Society (retrieved 8 Feb 2009)
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.de la Teja (1956), p. 123.
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.Sultzman, Lee (2006). "Comanche History: Part One" . . Accessed September 7, 2007. 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.Fehrenbach, T.R. Comanches, The Destruction of a People
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