In 1805, the governor of Louisiana
James Wilkinson said the Comanche were "the most powerful nation of savages on this continent." The Comanche controlled of the Great Plains, possessed a marketable commodity with their large herds of horses, and relied on the seemingly inexhaustible herds of bison for subsistence. A smallpox epidemic had thinned their numbers in 1780-1781. Reoccurrences of smallpox and other European diseases would continue to cause a decline in their numbers, but they still numbered about 20,000 as their population was bolstered by captives adopted into the tribe. In 1823, the Mexican government estimated that the eastern Comanche had 2,500 captives among their numbers, and that was not counting a sizeable number of persons who had voluntarily joined the tribe. An estimate from the early 1830s claimed 500 to 600 not counting Native Americans in slavery. In 1790 the Comanche added new Native American partners: 2,000
Kiowa and
Kiowa-Apache joined them as allies in Comancheria. The peace agreements with the Spanish remained mostly effective, keeping a delicate balance between "accommodation and antagonism." The Spanish continued to give gifts and hospitality to the Comanche. The French were gone after 1803 when they sold
Louisiana to the United States. Anglo-Americans on the borders of Comancheria provided a new market and new dangers for the Comanche. The Spanish were few in numbers; the Americans were numerous. The Spanish and Puebloan population of New Mexico was 25,000 in 1800 and was increasing after decades of war with the Comanche. Texas had a Spanish population of perhaps 5,000. In contrast, the United States had a population of 10 million in 1820 and Anglo-Americans were beginning to settle in Texas. The
Anglo market for Comanche horses and mules was large. Irish-born
Phillip Nolan was one of the first American traders with the Comanche in the 1790s. The peace with the Spanish in Texas suffered stains after 1795 and in New Mexico when the
Mexican War of Independence began in 1810, although the Comanche continued to trade with the Spanish. The tribute extended to the Comanche dried up as the new country of
Mexico had few resources to devote to its remote provinces. In 1822 the Mexicans made a grand effort to reduce the Comanche threat by inviting a delegation of Comanche leaders to
Mexico City and signing a treaty "between the Mexican Empire and the Comanche Nation" that granted many trading privileges to the Comanche. In 1824, attempting to secure the survival of the settlements in Texas, the Mexican government opened Texas to foreign settlers and the Anglo-Americans, who were already trading extensively with the Comanche, swarmed in. The concern of the Mexicans was real. In 1825, 330 Comanche rode into San Antonio, the capital and largest city of Texas, and remained there for six days, looting and enjoying themselves. In 1832, 500 Comanche occupied San Antonio for several days without any resistance from Mexican soldiers. The weakness of Mexican Texas enabled the Anglos to win the independence of Texas from Mexico in 1836.
Comanche and independent Texas: 1836–1845 By 1836, when Texas gained independence, the inflow of Anglo immigrants had erased the demographic advantage of the Comanche and their allies. From fewer than 5,000 Spanish in the early 19th century, the population of Texas in 1836 was 38,000 Spanish and Anglo inhabitants. The population of Native Americans in Texas, including the Comanche, was estimated at 14,000 (possibly an underestimate). The egalitarian and acquisitive nature of Comanche society facilitated the integration of captives into the tribe as they needed labor to manage their large domain. The first President of Texas,
Sam Houston, negotiated with the Comanche with the objective of establishing a firm border between the Anglo settlers and Comancheria. His successor
Mirabeau B. Lamar, confronted the Comanche directly. In 1840, the Comanche sent a peace delegation to San Antonio and in a dispute about captives the Texas soldiers killed 35 Comanche, many of them chiefs, in the
Council House Fight. In response the Comanche under a surviving chief,
Buffalo Hump, launched the
Great Raid of 1840, sacking the towns of
Victoria and
Linville (near the
Gulf of Mexico), killing several people, and capturing a huge amount of goods. With the help of
Tonkawa scouts, Texas militia ambushed the retreating (and careless) Comanche in the
Battle of Plum Creek near
Lockhart, Texas, recovering some of the goods and killing several Comanche. Later that year, Texas militia attacked a Comanche village and killed 140 men, women, and children. Mirabeau's campaigns against the Comanche bankrupted the Texas government and both Texas and the Comanche sought peace. A treaty between the Republic of Texas and Texas Comanches was ratified in December 1845. It established a line of trading houses which functioned as a border between Texas and Comancheria. The Comanche agreed to refrain from raiding in Texas in exchange for gifts and trading privileges with Texans.
Raiding Mexico: 1779–1870 and penetrated by several routes deep into Mexico. Querétaro is south of Big Spring. After 1840, Comanche policy in Texas became more defensive. Instead, the Comanche prioritized accessing the riches to be found south of the U.S. border in Mexico. The Comanche raided south of the
Rio Grande as early as 1779, their target being the Lipan Apache. In the 1820s, the newly independent and weak Mexican state could not defend its northern outposts, nor provide the Comanche the yearly tribute to which they were accustomed. In 1826, responding to the increased threat, the government of
Nuevo Leon forbade its citizens in the northern portions of the state to travel in the countryside except in groups of at least 30 armed and mounted men. Large scale Comanche raids began in 1840 and continued until 1870. The Comanche and their allies, the
Kiowa and other tribes, raided hundreds of miles south of the border, killing thousands of people and stealing hundreds of thousands of head of livestock, much of which they sold to Anglo-Americans in the United States. In 1848, traveler
Josiah Gregg said that "the whole country from New Mexico to the borders of Durango is almost entirely depopulated. The haciendas and ranchos have been mostly abandoned, and the people chiefly confined to the towns and cities." The northern states of Mexico and the soldiers and militia they could muster were left on their own to deal with the Comanche raids. The national government of Mexico was "too incapacitated by fiscal insolvency, civil war, and, ultimately, foreign intervention" to assist the north.
Comanche and the United States: 1845–1875 – painting by eyewitness
George Catlin When the United States annexed Texas in 1845, it negotiated a treaty with the Comanches and other Texas tribes to replace the Texas treaty of the previous year. This was done in May 1846 on the upper
Brazos River (Butler-Lewis Treaty). Signed by the Penateka/Hois Comanches,
Ioni,
Anadarko,
Caddo,
Lipan Apache,
Wichita, and
Waco), the treaty promised, besides peace and friendship, trading posts, a visit by a Comanche delegation to Washington, D.C., and a one-time payment of $18,000 in goods. A boundary line between Comancheria and Texas was alluded to, but not defined. The Comanche delegation went east shortly afterwards and met President
James K. Polk, but with the
Mexican War just beginning, Congress had more important concerns, and the Senate adjourned without ratifying the treaty. By the time the treaty was amended and ratified in March 1847, the Comanches were certain they had been betrayed. War was averted only when traders and Indian agents advanced credit to send part of the promised gifts. When the amendments were read to the Comanches, the meeting almost ended, but eventually they agreed to the changes. Additional money was appropriated for more gifts, but once again, a boundary line was never established. Meanwhile, there was a serious question over whose responsibility it was to deal with the Texas tribes, the federal or the state government. The problem was not settled until after the
Civil War. In the interim, policy was set by both, and this was confusing, so the 1846 peace treaty brought very little peace to Texas. In May 1847, Texas allowed the German settlers near Fredericksburg and New Braunfels to make their own treaty with the Texas Comanches. In exchange for land, the Germans promised a trading post and gifts. Unfortunately, the Germans not only encroached beyond the agreed boundary, but were slow to pay, and in response the Comanches made raids. A boundary line was eventually set by the Texas governor but was to be enforced by the American army which had taken over the line of Texas forts on the frontier. Army commanders felt they had no authority to enforce state laws, and meanwhile, Texas continued to operate its ranger companies, which were not under federal control, as military units. The Rangers did nothing to prevent encroachment on Comanche lands but would retaliate if the new settlements beyond the line were attacked. To make matters worse, only the Penateka had signed the 1846 treaty. The Nokoni, Tenawa, and other Comanches did not consider themselves bound by the agreement and continued to raid in Texas. On the other side of Comancheria, many things had changed with the beginning of the Mexican War in 1846. An American army under General
Stephen W. Kearny seized Santa Fé and moved on to
California. The Santa Fé Trail became a heavily-travelled military supply route, and forts were built to protect it. Five companies of
Missouri volunteers were sent to garrison these posts during the summer of 1847 and quickly became engaged in fights with Plains Indians. At least one of these at Fort Mann involved the Pawnee. In the other cases, the fights were probably with
Kiowa,
Cheyenne, and
Arapaho, and the amount of Comanche involvement is uncertain. The first part of 1848 was relatively calm, and during that year, Texas Comanches even provided guides for the survey of the route of the new Butterfield (California) trail across southern Texas to El Paso and California. The calm changed suddenly with the
California Gold Rush. As thousands of gold-seekers raced west, they needed horses, and the Comanches moved to meet this new demand. Horse raids increased in Texas, but the major target was northern Mexico. Comanche raids struck deep into
Coahuila,
Chihuahua,
Sonora, and
Durango, reaching their peak during 1852 when they struck
Tepic, then in
Jalisco, south of the border at El Paso. To protect the immigrant routes across the plains, the United States called the "Peace on the Plains" conference at
Fort Laramie (
Wyoming) in 1851. This was an attempt to end, or at least limit, intertribal warfare by defining boundaries between tribal territories. Almost every plains tribe attended and signed the
1851 Fort Laramie Treaty, and received gifts. The Comanches and Kiowa did not attend. A
smallpox epidemic had broken out in their villages, and there was a deep distrust of the northern tribes. Since the Santa Fé Trail was a vital route, it was essential to reach an agreement with them. As the southern Plains tribes gathered around
Fort Atkinson for the distribution of the annuities from the Fort Laramie treaty, large groups of Kiowa and Comanches also came, and they were not in a good mood. Eventually, 6,000 to 9,000 Indians were gathered in the vicinity, and the situation was becoming dangerous. The American agent took it upon himself to distribute $9,000 in gifts to the Comanches and Kiowa, and in 1853 the Kiowa and Yamparika signed their own treaty at Fort Atkinson. In return for safe passage and a promise to stop raiding in Mexico, the United States agreed to pay those tribes $18,000 per year for ten years. There were several reasons the Comanches and
Kiowas had been angry in 1852. The first was they had recently been devastated by epidemics of
smallpox and
cholera. Their first experience with smallpox had been an epidemic (1780–81) so severe that it caused the disappearance of some Comanche divisions. The Comanche were hit again by smallpox during the winter of 1816–17. The wave of immigration from the
California Gold Rush first brought smallpox (1848) and then cholera (1849) to the
Great Plains. These were devastating to every
plains tribe, but especially to the Comanches and Kiowa. The government census estimated a drop in the Comanches' 1849 population of 20,000 to 12,000 by 1851, and the Comanches never recovered from this loss. Smallpox struck again from
New Mexico during 1862 and is believed to have been equally devastating. Cholera returned in 1867. By 1870, the Comanches numbered less than 8,000, and their numbers were still dropping rapidly. The Comanches kept their promise for safe passage on the
Santa Fe Trail, but remained angry about events in
Texas where white settlers continued to encroach deeper and deeper into
Comancheria and the
Texas Rangers were still attacking them. As the frontier advanced, the American army built a new line of forts; when it advanced further, a third line was built. At first these outposts had been garrisoned almost entirely with infantry, allowing the Comanche to simply bypass them. Within a few years however, the infantry was replaced by new light-cavalry regiments. In all, it took three lines of forts and most of the army's pre-Civil War strength to keep the Comanches in Texas in check. Even more aggravating from the Comanches' point of view were posts like
Fort Stockton at Comanche Springs, which were intended to block the "Great Comanche War Trail" leading to northern Mexico. The Americans were required by the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo to prevent raids into Mexico. Between 1848 and 1853, Mexico filed 366 separate claims for Comanche and Apache raids originating from north of the border. Not all efforts to deal with the Texas Comanches were limited to military force. In 1854 the Texas legislature provided 23,000 acres (93 km²) for the United States to established three reservations on the upper
Brazos River for the Texas tribes. Besides Caddo, Delaware, Wichita, and Tonkawa, the United States Indian agent,
Robert Neighbors, convinced some Penateka Comanche to move to these locations.
Camp Cooper (commanded in 1856 by LTC
Robert E. Lee) was built nearby. Almost immediately, local settlers began to accuse the reservation tribes of stealing horses and other depredations. Many of these accusations were either exaggerations, lies, or referred to raids by Comanches from the
Staked Plains. The situation became dangerous in 1858 after the army abandoned Camp Cooper. Texas urged the army to make greater efforts against Comanches beyond its borders after the Texas Rangers discovered that bands of Kiowa and Comanche were using the Indian Territory in Oklahoma, as a sanctuary from which to raid into Texas and then elude pursuit after. Between 1858 and 1860, the army's new light-cavalry regiments were used for an offensive against Comanches in Oklahoma. In May, 1858 Colonel John Ford's Texas Rangers, ignoring the state-line, attacked a Comanche village on Little Robe Creek. Three months later his Caddo, Delaware, and Tonkawa scouts were expelled from Texas as undesirables. In October, 1858 Captain
Earl Van Dorn attacked a Comanche village at Rush Springs killing 83. The following May, Van Dorn struck the Comanches at Crooked Creek in
Kansas. The result of this offensive by the army and Rangers was to cause trouble elsewhere. Attacked from Texas, Comanches and Kiowa separated into small bands and moved north near the
Santa Fe Trail. In response to increased Indian attacks on the trail during the summer of 1860, three columns of cavalry were sent into the area on a
punitive expedition. In July, the command of Captain
Samuel D. Sturgis made a major contact. After an eight-day chase, he fought a battle with
Kiowa,
Cheyenne,
Arapaho, and, presumably, some Comanches. During the spring of 1859, a mob of 250 settlers attacked the reservation, but were repulsed. As Neighbors was hated by local Texans, rather than continue to fight them, he arranged to close the reservations and move the residents to
Indian Territory. The peaceful Penateka were forced to leave Texas, along with tribes that had never fought Texans, including the Tonkawa, Caddo, and Delaware, who had served loyally as scouts for the Texas Rangers. After leaving his charges at the new Wichita agency at Anadarko, Neighbors started back to his home in Texas but never made it, near
Belknap, he was ambushed and shot in the back. When federal soldiers withdrew from the region entirely following the outbreak of the Civil War,
Confederate troops initially replaced them.
Albert Pike, the newly appointed Indian Agent for the
Confederate States of America, signed two treaties with Comanches in August, 1861; one with the Penateka, and a second with the Nokoni, Yamparika, Tenawa, and Kotsoteka. Besides the usual promises of peace and friendship, the Comanches were promised a large amount of goods and services. Because the Confederacy needed every cent it had to fight the war, the Comanches never received what was promised. For the same reasons, Texas had to send most of its men and soldiers east to fight against the Union, as a result, most of the federal forts and outposts that had held the Comanche at bay for a generation could no longer be manned and were abandoned. With the frontier unguarded and the Confederate treaty promises unfulfilled, Comanches began raids intended to drive settlement back. The Texas frontier retreated over during the Civil War, and northern Mexico was hit by a new wave of Comanche raids. The war also provided the Comanches with an opportunity to seek revenge against the Tonkawa. The Comanche disdained the Tonkawa for their prior service as scouts with the Texas Rangers; but the Texas Comanches had a special hatred for the Tonkawa ever since they had killed and eaten the brother of one of their chiefs. The Comanches were not a gentle people, but they found cannibalism repulsive. After Texas Indian agents had taken over administration of the Wichita Agency in Oklahoma, Comanches participated in an attack on the agency (October, 1862) by pro-Union Delaware and Shawnee from Kansas. When it was over, 300 Tonkawa had been massacred. The survivors crossed the Red River and settled near Fort Griffin. In the years following, they would exact their revenge by serving as army scouts against the Comanches. After 1861, Comanches, Kiowa, Cheyenne and Arapaho almost succeeded in closing the Santa Fé Trail. When federal officials at
Fort Wise learned the Comanches had signed treaties with the Confederacy, they were certain that they had become hostile. While the rest of the nation was bleeding itself to death on eastern battlefields, the ranks of the Union army on the frontier were filled with men who were unemployed, did not wish to fight in the war, and hated Indians. By the fall of 1863, the performance of these "soldiers" had provoked a general alliance between the
Lakota,
Cheyenne,
Arapaho,
Kiowa, Comanches, and Kiowa-Apache. In the autumn of 1864, Colonel
Kit Carson was sent at the head of a column from
Fort Bascom,
New Mexico into the
Staked Plains to chastise the Comanches and Kiowa. His
Jicarilla and
Ute scouts located their camps on November 24. Carson had found more Comanches and Kiowa than he could chastise, and the
First Battle of Adobe Walls came very close to being "Carson's Last Stand." Only the skillful use of artillery kept the Yamparika and Kiowa from massing and overrunning his position. Afterwards, Carson returned to New Mexico and left the chastising of Comanches to others. In the final days of the Civil War, the Confederacy made a final attempt to exploit the hostility of the plains tribes that had been provoked by the federal volunteers. In May, 1865 a council was held on the
Washita River in western Oklahoma. It was well attended by the Comanches and other tribes, but
Robert E. Lee had
surrendered in Virginia two-weeks prior, effectively ending any hope for the continuation of the Confederacy. That summer, while the Union celebrated its victory, the plains were in turmoil. The Santa Fé and Overland trails were closed, and virtually every plains tribe was at war with the United States. As federal troops began to re-occupy their posts in Texas, the Great Plains and
Indian Territory, government commissioners met with the plains tribes in October on the
Little Arkansas River near Wichita to arrange a peace. The
Little Arkansas Treaty of 1865 gave the Comanches and Kiowa western Oklahoma, the entire
Texas Panhandle, and promised annuities of $15 per person for forty years. Of the Comanche divisions, only the Yamparika, Nokoni, Penateka, and Tenewa were parties to the agreement; the Kwahada and Kotsoteka were not. The Kiowa-Apache did not sign the Comanche-Kiowa version but asked to be included under the Cheyenne-Arapaho treaty. This served as an indication of how unstable the situation was. When the annuities arrived, there was widespread disappointment. The Comanches had expected guns, ammunition, and quality goods; what they got were rotten civil war rations and cheap blankets that fell apart in the rain. The peace was soon violated by both sides, and war resumed for another two years. It was a bitter struggle, and General
William Sherman finally ordered the army not to pay ransom for white captives held by Indians to avoid giving them incentive for further kidnappings. While the army was making its own plans to deal with the hostiles by force, the federal government decided to make one final effort to resolve the conflict through treaty. The result was a milestone peace conference held at Medicine Lodge Creek in southern
Kansas (October, 1867). In exchange for a wagon train of gifts brought by the commissioners and the payment of annual annuities, the Comanches and Kiowa signed the Medicine Lodge Treaty exchanging Comancheria for a 3 million acre (12,000 km²) reservation in southwestern Oklahoma. The arrangement did not work as intended. Because of an outbreak of cholera in their camps, the Kwahada neither attended the conference nor signed the treaty. Afterwards, they did not consider themselves bound by the Medicine Lodge Treaty, and chose to remain on the Staked Plains. Most of the other Comanches moved to the vicinity of
Fort Cobb and remained on the reservation for the winter, but since the treaty was not yet ratified, there was no money to pay for rations. After a starvation winter, most of the Comanches and Kiowa at Fort Cobb chose to return to the plains in the summer of 1868. Once again raids were made into Texas and Kansas, and the new reservation was used as a sanctuary to prevent pursuit by the army. Even
Fort Dodge was attacked, and its horses stolen. The frustrated Indian agent at Fort Cobb resigned and went east, leaving the mess in the hands of his assistant. The treaty was ratified in July, and funds were made available, but the responsibility for the administration of annuities was placed with the army. After all tribes were ordered to report to Fort Cobb or be considered hostile, General
Philip Sheridan set plans in motion for the winter campaign of 1868–69 against the hostiles in western Oklahoma and the Staked Plains. LTC
George Custer and the
7th Cavalry attacked a southern Cheyenne village on the
Washita River in November, and Major Andrew Evans struck a Comanche village at Soldiers Spring on Christmas Day. Afterwards, most of the Comanches and other tribes still on the plains returned to the agencies. In March, 1869 the Comanche-Kiowa agency was relocated to
Fort Sill and the Cheyenne-Arapaho agency to
Darlington. Only the Kwahada were still on the Staked Plains. The Kiowa and other Comanches were on the reservation, but by the fall of 1869 small war parties were occasionally leaving to raid in Texas. During one of these raids near
Jacksboro in May, 1871, the Kiowa almost killed
William Tecumseh Sherman, commanding general of the United States army. "Great Warrior" Sherman was conducting an inspection tour of western posts, when a Kiowa war party noticed his lone ambulance and small escort. They chose instead to attack a nearby supply train. When Sherman learned of his narrow escape, he was furious and proceeded directly to Fort Sill. When he discovered the Kiowa chiefs were openly bragging about the latest raid, he ordered their arrest and sent them to Texas for trial. After a Texas court sentenced them to life imprisonment, the Comanches and Kiowa launched a series of retaliatory raids that killed more than 20 Texans in 1872. At the same time, Texas civilians stole 1,900 horses from the tribes at Fort Sill. Meanwhile, the army in Texas was trying to deal with the raids from the reservation and massive thefts of Texas cattle by the Kwahada for sale to
New Mexico Comancheros. In October, 1871 a raid led by
Quanah Parker stole seventy horses from the army at Rock Station. The commanding officer, Colonel
Ranald S. Mackenzie, did not take this lightly. For the next two years, Mackenzie and his black cavalry troopers ranged the Staked Plains chasing the Kwahada. The campaign ended with an attack on a Comanche village at McClellan Creek (September, 1872). Mackenzie captured 130 women and children and held them hostage at
Fort Concho. This slowed the raiding while the Comanches negotiated for their release. In April, 1873 they were released and sent under escort to Fort Sill. A detour had to be made around Jacksboro to prevent a riot. At the request of the Secretary of the Interior, Texas Governor
Edmund J. Davis paroled the Kiowa chiefs in October after they had served only two years on the condition that the raiding stop. The Kiowa were grateful, but an occasional war party still slipped off the reservation, crossed the Red River, and headed south into Texas.
Buffalo hunting Meanwhile, the
great slaughter of the plains buffalo had begun. Between 1865 and 1875, the number of
buffalo on the
Great Plains fell from fifteen million to less than one million. Unofficially sanctioned by army commanders who issued free ammunition to hunters, it destroyed the basis for the
plains tribes' way of life. During the winter of 1873–74,
Cheyenne hunters returned to the Darlington agency to report that
Kansas buffalo hunters were destroying the southern buffalo herds. As this news spread, violence erupted at the Darlington and Wichita agencies, which had to be put down by troops. Afterwards, large groups of Cheyenne left the reservation and headed for the plains. At first the Comanches and
Kiowa thought the Cheyenne were mistaken, but their story of the plains littered with dead buffalo was eventually confirmed.
Second Battle of Adobe Walls In December, the government decided to deal harshly with the
Kiowa and Comanches to end the raids in
Texas. The agent at
Fort Sill was ordered to limit rations and suspend the distribution of ammunition. A sense of general panic set in, and by May several groups of Comanches and Kiowa had left the reservation. At first they were uncertain what to do. Several Comanches had recently been killed in Texas by
Tonkawa scouts, and some of the first thoughts were of revenge. However, the agent had learned of their departure and purpose and had alerted the army. After some discussion, a decision was made to attack the buffalo hunters on the Staked Plains. In June, 1874 a large Comanche-Cheyenne war party attacked twenty-three buffalo hunters camped in the
Texas Panhandle at the site of Carson's 1864 battle at Adobe Walls. The
Second Battle of Adobe Walls marked the beginning of the Buffalo War (or
Red River War) (1874–75), the last great Indian war on the southern plains. After the initial rush failed, the Comanches came under fire from the hunters' long-range buffalo guns and were forced to retire. The uprising spread rapidly as more warriors left the agencies and joined the hostiles on the Staked Plains. To halt this, soldiers began to disarm the Comanches and Kiowa who had remained on the agencies. In August, groups of Penateka were peacefully drawing rations at the Wichita agency when soldiers stationed at the agency demanded they surrender their weapons. When this was refused, a fight broke out and the Comanches fled, but the agency was under siege for the next two days until it was relieved by troops from Fort Sill. By September only 500 Kiowa and Comanche were still on the reservation; the others were out on the Staked Plains. That same month the army began to move. Three converging columns moved into the heart of the Staked Plains. Trapped between them, the Comanches, Kiowa, and Cheyenne had little rest. Colonel
Nelson A. Miles' column made the first contact and defeated a group of Cheyenne near
McClellan Creek. For the Comanches, Cheyenne, and Kiowa, the major blow occurred when Mackenzie located a mixed camp hidden in
Palo Duro Canyon (September 26–27). After driving off the warriors during
a short battle on September 28, he burned the camp and killed 2,000 captured horses. There were few other encounters, but the relentless pressure and pursuit throughout the fall and winter had its effect. Starving, the remaining Comanches, Kiowa, and Cheyenne began to return to the agencies, mostly on foot because they had been forced to eat their horses. By December there were 900 on the Fort Sill reservation. In April, 200 Kwahada, who had never submitted, surrendered at Fort Sill. In June the last 400 Kwahada, including
Isatai'i and
Quanah Parker, surrendered. The war was over. Mackenzie disposed of many of the Comanche and Kiowa horses. After giving 100 to his Tonkawa scouts, he sold 1,600 horses and mules for $22,000. The proceeds were used to buy sheep and goats for his former enemies. By 1879, the buffalo were gone. That year, the Kiowa-Comanche and Wichita agencies were merged into a single agency. Always pragmatic, the Comanches adjusted, but in typical Comanche style. Taking advantage of his Texas heritage, Quanah Parker emerged as an important Comanche leader. He collected tolls on cattle herds that used the
Chisholm Trail to cross the reservation and sold
grazing rights to nearby Texas ranchers. Few argued with him about price. With his five wives he moved into a large comfortable house, called the
"Star House." It had eight large stars painted on the roof to insure he had more stars than any U.S. army general. He was elected a sheriff and served as a tribal judge. By the time he rode in
Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural parade in 1905, Quanah had amassed 100 horses, 1,000 cattle, and of cultivated farmland. == Population history ==