LocoMon

Los Teichas de Tejas

The Comanche were the Teichas or Tejas Indios.  Incredibly, even though rarely mentioned in Texas history books, it makes the whole State of Texas named after an indigenous ‘American’ tribe, commonly known as the Comanches. (1.) The Comanche called themselves the Nerm or Nim-ma meaning the people. (2.) The French called them Padoucas, given to them by the Kansas, Osage and other tribes between theArkansa and Platte Rivers. (3.) Also, the names Iatan, Ietan, and Nermaernuh (a word adapted from Ute komantcia meaning “Anyone who wants to fight me all the time”). (4. & 5.)

Old Spanish records from the 16th and 17th century attest to the fact that Spanish ‘Explorers’ to Texas were using Comanche words in identifying the lands, the fauna, and its people.

The origin of the Comanche people begins with their separation from the Shoshonian Family. The Comanche was related to the Shoshoni, Ute, Bannock, and other Rocky Mountain tribes including the Nahuatl Speakers of the Mexica Nation. (6)

After moving from Oregon country the shoshones seem to have taken root thousands of years ago in Idaho, Northern Colorado, Wyoming, and Montana. The Shoshoni are composed of Ma-ri-ich-ka or “Eating” Tribes, while their descendants, the Comanches, are Te-ich-as or “Eater” Tribes. The small distinction “Eating ” and “Eater” are important to distinquish between tribes. Liver-Eathing and Root-Eating Shoshoni, blood brothers to the Comanche, tried at different times to begin to establish themselves on Comanche lands but did not succeed. (7.)

While the names Fish Eater and Dog Eater apply to origin stories it does not denote Fish and Dog as food, there are many animal, ie. Buffalo, Antelope, Deer, Elk, …, that are used more to identify tribes than to suggest eating habits.

Before 900 A.D. extremely important. The Sun was the life-bringer or Great Father and the Earth the life-creator or Great Mother. Each tribe had sacred fires which were always kept alive, burning the flames that greeted the morning sun (Map 2).

There were many independent tribal units with no general tribal government and this is of great importence because peace or treaties with the White people did not mean everyone in the Comanche Nation concurred or agreed with their signing; in fact one tribe might be making peace while another was out raiding. The Nokoni or Detsanayuka were never brought into treaty making relations with Texas or United States. They generally ranged North of the Penatekas, neighboring the Tenawas and Tanimas and are sometimes referred to as ‘Middle Comanches.’

One other tribal group merits final attention, and that is, the kwahari or Kwahadi band located wouth of the Yamparikas before Comanches entered the South Plains region, in fact, the two bands probably entered the region at about the same time.

The Dwahadies made the Llano Estacado their home. Kwa – ha -di is Comanche for antelope. They resisted all efforts of the US government to make treaties with them, and defied Washington’s authority. They were proud and loved the independent way and critized the Yamparikas, their beef eating cousin. They were the last Comanches to turn and go the reservation route. Entering into the l9th century Comanches resumed their attacks on the Upper Rio Bravo Valley but never again as damaging as before.

Comanche land was bountiful it was about 650 miles east to west, and 825 miles north to south. With its bounds are southwestern Kansas, southeastern Colorado, the eastern Two-thirds or more of New Mexico, the west half of Oklahoma and all of Texas except a narrow strip to the east. South of the Arkansas the Comanches and Kiowas had an alliance since 1790. The Comanches made a truce with the Southern Cheyennes in 1840. Peace between them was fragile but extremely important for the two most powerful tribes on the Southern Plains. It allowed them to concentrate on the White intruder.

The Comanche area extended from the Arkansas River on the north to the Gulf of Mexico on the south; from a line drawn south from Wichita, Kansas, to the Neches River in Present Texas; thence following the course of that stream to the Gulf of Mexico; along the coast to the mouth of the Rio Grande, up that stream to its headwaters; east, following the course of the Arkansas River.(13) See Map 2

In 1846 through 1848 the United States through the Polk Administration stole a huge hunk of Mexico’s Northern territories (Map 3). The treaty was called the Guadalupe Hidalgo. It is interesting to note that there are many versions of this treaty including many interpretations, but basically it was the United States attempt ot gain access to the southwest territories once and for all. At one point President Polk and a very powerful segment of Congressional Democrats were opposed to the treaty because they wanted to absorb all of Mexico (14.) by replacing officials of major Mexican cities with U.S. Military people. (15.) The U.S.-Mexican War resulted in the occupation of Native American tribal lands in the southwest United States including those of the Comanches. This action was carried out autonomously without any consultation or concurrence with the people that ‘truly’ held this vast domain. It is for this reason that American history distorts and hides the truth in presenting an accurate analogy of this in their learning texts. It was obvious that this action occurred due to Mexico’ weak economic structure due to its recent independence from Spain. Another important reason seldomly addressed is why Mexico originally opened Texas for Anglo pioneers from the ‘Thirteen States’ to come in and settle? And that reason is; Mexico was unable to arrest its northern indigenous population. Spaniards occupying Mexico were destroying indigenous populated cities like the Aztecs of Tenochitlan-Mexico or the Inca of Peru, but they had no experience in dealing with nomadic tribal warrior cultures like the Comanche. Spaniards were hoping to keep the territory by allowing others from the east, who had experience with this type of exploitation (plowing, farming, grazing, …) to come in and do it for them. Europeans brought diseases to which Comanche Indians had developed no immunities. It has been accounted that more than half the people perished of cholera alone.

Comanches were nomadic hunter-gatherers who lived in movable dwelling spaces made from buffalo skins formed into tents. Horses gave more mobility, a better hunting periphery, more efficient raiding, and enabled Comanches to carry more heavier camping equipment. The killing of the Comanches’ food supply (the buffalo) for money was promoted by the United States Army. It was a means of depleting indigenous resourcs from the plains by subduing them to stavation thereby accepting the reservation alternative.

Texas settlements pushed into the Comanche Indians’ hunting grounds and although the Comanche struck back inflicting heavier casualties on the anglo-intruder, the Anglo settlers kept coming and grew steadily pushing the game westward to be followed by the Comanche people. The settlements grew and with them slave owning plantations, cattle ranching hustlers and many other genteel-type thiefs. The increase in white population caused numerous incidents to fare up concerning Comanche land incursions. In turn more and more captives which Indians took occurred. In one incident on May 9, 1836, Indians posed as friends intered Fort Parker. They killed the men, wounded three women and took off with two women and three children. One of them was nine year old Cynthia Parker who spent the next 24 years with the Comanches and had a son who later became tribal leader, his name was Quanah Parker.

In 1835 peace was again arranged this time by a Colonel Henry Dodge who persuaded Comanches to return with him to Fort Gibson. They signed the “Treaty with the Comanche and Wichetaw Indians and their associated Bands” on August 24, 1835. (16) It established perpetual peace and friendship among Plains Indians and the United States and ended hostilities against people traveling the Santa Fe Trail. To what bands the signer, Ishacoby (The Wolf), belonged to is unknown, but one thing is sure the treaty represented only a fraction of the total population, most of whom were unaware a treaty had been signed.

The Comanches had a truce with neighboring Native American Nations by 1840, this was just in time, for what was about to happen in the next two decades was to decide the future of Mexico’s former Northwest Territories. The United States absorbed Texas in its growing state of the “Union’ and by 1846 the Congress cessioned off another piece New Mexico and California through the Guadalupe Hidalgo Treaty of 1848, and by doing this took up the Comanche Challenge of War.

PART II

The Comanche War against the United States

The Comanche distrusted any efforts to meet with the white man. Setting things to writing meant ‘paper said one thing while the white signers do another.’ Comanche had little respect for treaty jokers and their documents prepared in advance to meeting. Few treaties were made with the Comanches and most were never ratified by Congress due to Texas’s influential legislature and congressmen. Treaties were at times altered to include Comanche chiefs who were never even pressent. In one incident on March 19, 1840 Texans under orders from Mirabeau B. Lamar took an agressive military policy. A meeting was set at San Antonio, Texas, to give up prisoners and procure peace. Instead a massacre awaited them called by Texas the “Council House Fight.” Chief Mahcouah and 41 men, women and children were killed with 32 women and children kept as slaves. This history is well remembered by the Comanches. (18.)

By 1845, when Texas was annexed, Indian policy had become uniform from the Red River to Canada. The army had pricipal jurisdiction over the Territory and any dissident tribe. Indian pacification and removal was a condition for statehood, but Texas had a peculiar set of historic and geopolitical constraints. It joined the Union with half or its territory still unsettled and controlled by powerful tribes. The Texas-United States deal considered nothing for the Comanche’s rights to the land and should have been part of that transaction.

The United states believed that the People could be controlled by teaties, and their independence taken away by merely reading them the white men’s law. The Senate ratified the Buler-Lewis treaty and the President signed it in 1847. The Penathekas Chiefs X’ed their name with reservations, with no other Comanche band present, and the treaty was more for ritual passage to parade it through the Senate.

In June l867, Congress authorized a peace commission to correct causes of Indian complaints by securing a lasting peace. The U.S. Peace Commission and the Indians present met at Medicine Lodge, Barber County, Kansas on October 21, 1868. It was the last ever made with Comanches, Cheyennes, Arapahos, Kiowas, and Kiowa-Apaches. The commissioners distributed many gifts, food and coffee. In 1887 – 1889 all hopes for peace were again destroyed when every territorial treaty west of the Missouri was immediately violated when hordes of Forty-Niners, none of whom had presidential permission as agreed in the treaties regarding whites entering Comanche lands.

Comanche tribal headquarters was located in Lawton, Oklahoma. Land status:

Tribally Owned Land: 7,045.80 Acres Allotted Lands: 201,350.17 Acres Government owned: 1.00 Acres TOTAL 208,396.97 Acres

Land is owned jointly with Apache and Kiowa tribes of Oklahoma.

Total acreage includes all 3 tribes, acreage by individual tribe is not availabe. Land is held in trust by Act of june 24, l946.