Trip Across America

Why did the Spanish Empire’s North American expansion stop near present day Mexico? Why did France not expand West from the Louisiana Territory? Why did Mexico invite American settlers into Texas? Why were the Great Plains the last part of America to be settled? All these questions have the same answer. The Comanche, the most influential Indian tribe in American history.

I’ve spent the last few days in Texas and Oklahoma, and seen plenty of cool sites worth writing about, but this story keeps staring me in the face. It’s impossible to understand the history of Texas without talking about the Comanche. While this is admittedly a deviation from what I’ve been writing about recently, if you stick with me I think you’ll find it interesting.

Up until the mid 1600’s the Comanche weren’t particularly noteworthy. They lived primarily in present day Wyoming, and not by their own choice. They had been driven off more appealing lands by rival tribes, relegated to second tier territory, reflecting their lack of power. Those power dynamics were about to change though, and the instrument of that change was the horse. Brought to North America by the Spanish Empire in the 16th century, the Comanche’s acquisition of the horse would kick start 250 years of brutal combat. This inadvertent technology transfer, from a dominant colonial power to a stone age civilization, would forever change the history of America’s Great Plains.

While all of the Great Plains tribes eventually utilized horses, no tribe mastered the technology quite like the Comanche. They were the only tribe to breed horses, giving them a resource advantage, as horses became currency on the Great Plains. They were also the only tribe to fully incorporate horses into their style of warfare, which became a huge advantage. How and when the Comanche first acquired horses is forever lost to history. What we do know, is that the acquisition of the horse turned the Comanche into the most powerful tribe on the Great Plains. They quickly utilized this power, leaving behind their land in Wyoming, and pushing into the Southern Great Plains. Eventually the Comanche would defeat all of their adversaries, including the Spanish Empire, achieving total control of land covering parts of present day Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Oklahoma, and Kansas. An empire on the American Great Plains.

American settlers would first encounter the Comanche in the 1820’s, unknowingly acting as a kind of human shield for Mexico. By the 1820’s, the recently independent Republic of Mexico, had been dealing with the Comanche for over a century, and they were justifiably terrified. Not only were the Comanche the most militarily powerful tribe, but they practiced a particularly brutal form of warfare.. Looking for a potential solution to the Comanche problem, Mexico decided to invite American settlers into Texas, to create a buffer between them and the Comanches. A foolish scheme that would ultimately lead to Texas becoming part of the United States.

The first settlers into Texas would have had little idea what they were walking into. None of the Indian tribes East of the Mississippi had horses, so no American would have encountered an Indian warrior mounted on horseback. This distinction may sound trivial, but in 1820 a Comanche warrior on horseback had a distinct technological superiority over settlers wielding single shot rifles. In addition to being mobile, a Comanche warrior could fire upwards of 10 arrows in the time it took a settler to reload a rifle. You can see where this is going. They also wouldn’t have experienced Indians engaging in anything resembling the brutal tactics of the Comanche. This was the setup for what would be a half century of brutality on the Texas frontier.

The first encounters between Texas settlers and the Comanche were truly tragic. I’ve mentioned the brutality of the Comanche, but so far haven’t given any examples. For starters, they were quite fond of torture. Texans would quickly figure out that with Comanches you better fight to the death, because if captured a horrible fate awaited you. Roasting you over an open fire, buried alive with your eye lids cutoff so the sun would scorch your eyes out, being wrapped in a wet buffalo hide which would contract under the Sun slowly squeezing you to death. These are just a few of the torture methods utilized by the Comanche. It’s also worth pointing out that similar tactics were used by other Plains Indian tribes. Perfected over generations of warfare against each other, and then unleashed on settlers as the frontier pushed West. The Comanche culture more closely resembled that of Ancient Sparta, existing primarily to make war, a stark contrast to how they are remembered in the 21st century.

Texans quickly learned to fear the Comanche, and the stories of brutality quickly spread back East. Despite this settlers continued to pour into Texas, pushing further into Comanche territory. The killings would continue but for many settlers the risk was worth it. This state of affairs persisted for years, until the creation of an American icon, the Texas Rangers. The Texas Rangers were first formed with the explicit purpose of fighting the Comanche, a task they weren’t very good at initially. They were at the same technological disadvantage as the settlers, carrying single shot rifles, that while powerful were poorly suited for fighting Comanche warriors.

The turning point came in 1838, in far away Patterson, New Jersey, where legendary inventor Samuel Colt manufactured his first repeating revolver. The Colt revolver was a leap forward in technology, but you never would have known it at the time, as no one wanted to buy one. Everyone but the Republic of Texas that is, who in 1839 purchased 180 Colt revolvers for its Navy. As far as we know the Texas Navy never actually used the revolvers. But in one of histories great mysteries, the Colt revolvers somehow ended up in the hands of the Texas Rangers. However it happened, the Rangers were now in possession of the weapon that would allow them to take on the Comanche. The battle along the Texas frontier was about to become a fair fight.

In addition to eliminating the rate of fire difference between that Rangers and Comanche, the Colt revolver allowed the Rangers to fight mounted on horseback. Something they couldn’t do previously, as their rifles had to be fired from a standing position. Regardless the Rangers were now prepared to fight the Comanche, and slowly they were winning.

With the threat of imminent destruction somewhat reduced, the frontier continued to push West further into Comanche territory. There were still plenty of brutal killings of settlers, but that didn’t deter most Texans from pushing forward. This state of affairs persisted until the outbreak of the Civil War. All of a sudden Texas Rangers and US Army troops were called to the East to fight a new enemy. The Comanche had free reign again, and they unleashed terror on Texas. Most of the attacks were never documented as there were no survivors. But we can infer the brutality by the number of settlers who abandoned their land during this period. In some places the frontier was pushed back 200 miles, wiping out 2 decades of progress. It wasn’t until the end of the Civil War and the return of troops to Texas that the retreat was halted.

While the Civil War had been a difficult time for the Texas frontier, the war did produce a technology that would ultimately defeat the Comanche, the repeating rifle. The Colt revolver evened the scales, but the repeating rifle tipped the scales decidedly in favor of the Americans. The extended story and details are fascinating, but the short story is that by 1875 all of the Comanche would end up on reservations in Oklahoma, ending a 50 year war. This was the culmination of nearly 200 years where the Comanche had dominated the Great Plains, dictating who could settle there. For the sake of brevity I’ve skipped over a lot of details, but it seems fair to say that the conflict with the Comanche was pretty influential on the first 50 years of Texas history.

Originally I was going to write about something else, but in the last 2 days I have driven by countless towns and landmarks connected to Comanche history. At a certain point I had to call an audible and write this. As interesting as this topic is, I’ve left out what might be the most interesting part of Comanche history, the personal details of their last chief. It didn’t really fit with the general history and I wanted to keep this reasonably short. For anyone that found this interesting, I highly recommend you read Empire of The Summer Moon. It’s one of the best books I’ve read in the last couple years, a fascinating history of the Comanche, and goes into great detail on the story of their last chief. Well worth a read.