Background
The 1867 Medicine Lodge Treaty reserved the area between the Arkansas River and the Canadian River as Indian hunting grounds. Yet, since 1873, several buffalo hunting parties operated in the Texas Panhandle, supplied out of Adobe Walls, Texas by Charlie Mayer and Charlie Rath. These incursions already led to the Second Battle of Adobe Walls in 1874. [3]
In December 1876, a group of Comanche under Black Horse received a permit, through the Indian agent at Fort Sill, to allow them to hunt in Texas. But Black Horse had other interests in mind; he was angry that overhunting by settlers had radically thinned herds of American bison (buffalo), and planned to camp in Yellow House Canyon and attack whatever hunters he saw. Earlier in the winter of 1876, buffalo hunter Marshall Sewell had, along with a group of skinners, set up camp below the Caprock in Garza County, near the head of the Salt Fork Brazos River. On February 1, 1877, Sewell discovered a herd of buffalo, and after setting up the station, picked the animals off one-by-one with his rifle before running out of ammunition. Black Horse witnessed this, and with his warriors, surrounded the hunter on his way back to camp. They tortured and double-scalped him before cutting open his stomach and placing pieces of his rifle tripod in the wounds. [1] The action was witnessed by the three skinners who had accompanied Sewell and by another hunter, all of whom were close to a mile away. They hurried to Rath City, the nearest settlement of any size, to report the murder. [3] : 34
Sewell appears to have been popular among local buffalo hunters, [1] and as a result, the reaction came quickly; about 40 men rode to the site of the murder and buried the hunter, after which they picked up the Comanches' trail. The two parties met in a brief skirmish, in which a half-breed hunter named Spotted Jack was wounded by the Texans, who then returned to Rath City. Black Horse took close to 170 warriors, among whom was captive Herman Lehmann, and began plundering hunters' camps in the region. Among those targeted were Pat Garrett and Willis Glenn. Needless to say, the affair caused great consternation among buffalo hunters, and they demanded action be taken. [2]
Battle
A group of 46 American militiamen men set out from Rath City on March 4, with the express purpose of finding Black Horse and his men. Jim White was elected captain; a former comanchero from New Mexico, named José, acted as guide. Twenty-six of the men rode horses; the others came by wagon. Two nights into the journey, White began to suffer from bleeding in his lungs, and he was required to turn back to Rath City; one of his lieutenants, Jim Smith, was elevated to captain. The band found the site where Sewell had been captured and there picked up the Comanche's trail, following it westward to just northwest of the present-day city of Post; here, the guide predicted Black Horse and his Comanches would be found in Yellow House Canyon. They did, and they entered the canyon at the site of Buffalo Springs Lake, where they killed a sentry. Scouts sighted the Comanche camp later that same day, and the band began an overnight march to reach it, in the process leaving provisions and wagons at the spring. [2]
The Texans reached the canyon fork, today in Mackenzie State Recreation Area, sometime in the early hours of March 18; for a time, they mistakenly followed the north fork before turning south. Moving west, they found a combined Comanche and Apache camp in Hidden Canyon, a site now marked by Lubbock Lake. By then, much of the day was gone, but the buffalo hunters nevertheless decided to mount an attack. They divided themselves into three groups, two mounted and one not; the mounted men went to the sides of the canyon, on the plain, while the hunters on foot followed the creek in the center. When they were within shooting distance, a charge was ordered. This frightened the natives for a moment, and they started for their horses before discovering how small was the force attacking them. Consequently, they rallied - women ran towards the horsemen discharging pistols, while the warriors set up a defensive position. The spirited defense surprised the Texans, who withdrew. One Joe Jackson was shot in the abdomen; some two months later the wound proved fatal, rendering him one of 12 fatalities on the Texans' side. [1] Several others, including the guide, were wounded, as were a number of natives; most notably among the latter, Herman Lehmann was shot in the thigh, and his companion was killed. [2]
At one point during the fighting, a group of hunters, including John R. Cook, managed to repel a flanking movement from the natives; even so, the outnumbered Texans were forced to withdraw down the canyon. The Comanche then set a grass fire to use it as a smoke screen. At mid-afternoon, a retreat was ordered, and the hunters set out towards Buffalo Springs. The natives trailed them briefly before breaking off. The Texans used a bonfire as a decoy before pulling out altogether during the night; they set fires behind them to obscure their tracks. They finally returned to Rath City on March 27. [2] [3] : 35
Aftermath
Although the battle itself was a failure, it marked the beginning of the end of the war. Word of the fight soon reached Fort Griffin, and Captain P. L. Lee responded by going after the hostiles with 72 soldiers of the 10th Cavalry. At Lubbock Lake, they turned north, and on May 4 overtook the natives at Quemodo Lake in Cochran County. A brief skirmish erupted, in which one Ekawakane and his wife were killed. As a result, the remaining natives surrendered and returned to Fort Sill. [2] [3] : 36
By the winter of 1878–1879, the main herd of buffalo on the South Plains had been destroyed, bringing an end to organized buffalo hunting. [3] : 36
Several accounts of the battle exist, told from different points of view. Two of the Texan participants, John Cook and Willis Glenn, left descriptions of the action in their memoirs. Herman Lehmann, too, gave an account of the affair in his autobiography, telling it from the Indian point of view. [2] [4]
The site of the battle is today located in the Canyon Lake Project in Lubbock. [2] Monuments mark a number of sites within the area associated with the battle. [1] Some accounts place the frontiersman Charles "Buffalo" Jones, the co-founder of Garden City, Kansas, and a leader in the efforts to prevent the extinction of the buffalo, at the battle site. [5]
The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ is a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in Lawton, Oklahoma.
Quanah 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 grew up among the Kwahadis, the son of Kwahadi Comanche chief Peta Nocona and Cynthia Ann Parker, an Anglo-American who had been abducted as an eight-year-old child during the Fort Parker massacre in 1836 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 hunting American bison, the Comanches' primary sustenance, into near extinction, Quanah Parker eventually surrendered and peaceably led the Kwahadi to the reservation at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.
The Llano Estacado, sometimes translated into English as the Staked Plains, is a region in the Southwestern United States that encompasses parts of eastern New Mexico and northwestern Texas. One of the largest mesas or tablelands on the North American continent, the elevation rises from 3,000 feet (900 m) in the southeast to over 5,000 feet (1,500 m) in the northwest, sloping almost uniformly at about 10 feet per mile (2 m/km).
Plains Indians or Indigenous peoples of the Great Plains and Canadian Prairies are the Native American tribes and First Nation band governments who have historically lived on the Interior Plains of North America. While hunting-farming cultures have lived on the Great Plains for centuries prior to European contact, the region is known for the horse cultures that flourished from the 17th century through the late 19th century. Their historic nomadism and armed resistance to domination by the government and military forces of Canada and the United States have made the Plains Indian culture groups an archetype in literature and art for Native Americans everywhere.
The Red River War was a military campaign launched by the United States Army in 1874 to displace the Comanche, Kiowa, Southern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes from the Southern Plains, and forcibly relocate the tribes to reservations in Indian Territory. The war had several army columns crisscross the Texas Panhandle in an effort to locate, harass, and capture nomadic Native American bands. Most of the engagements were small skirmishes with few casualties on either side. 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.
The Comanche campaign is a general term for military operations by the United States government against the Comanche tribe in the newly settled west. Between 1867 and 1875, military units fought against the Comanche people in a series of expeditions and campaigns until the Comanche surrendered and relocated to a reservation.
Buffalo Hump was a War Chief of the Penateka band of the Comanches. He came to prominence after the Council House Fight when he led the Comanches on the Great Raid of 1840.
Lubbock Lake Landmark, also known as Lubbock Lake Site, is an important archeological site and natural history preserve in the city of Lubbock, Texas, United States. The protected state and federal landmark is 336 acres (136 ha). There is evidence of ancient people and extinct animals at Lubbock Lake Landmark. It has evidence of nearly 12,000 years of use by ancient cultures on the Llano Estacado. It is part of the Museum of Texas Tech University.
The Second Battle of Adobe Walls was fought on June 27, 1874, between Comanche forces and a group of 28 Texan bison hunters defending the settlement of Adobe Walls, in what is now Hutchinson County, Texas. "Adobe Walls was scarcely more than a lone island in the vast sea of the Great Plains, a solitary refuge uncharted and practically unknown."
The Buffalo Hunters' War, or the Staked Plains War, occurred in 1877. Approximately 170 Comanche warriors and their families led by Quohadi chief Black Horse or Tu-ukumah left the Indian Territory in December, 1876, for the Llano Estacado of Texas. In February, 1877, they, and their Apache allies, began attacking buffalo hunters' camps in the Red River country of the Texas Panhandle, killing or wounding several. They also stole horses from the camp of Pat Garrett.
Herman Lehmann was captured as a child by Native Americans. He lived first among the Apache and then the Comanche but returned to his Euro-American birth family later in life. He published his autobiography, Nine Years Among the Indians, in 1927.
Rath City was a frontier town that existed for fewer than five years, and is now a ghost town. The town was located on the Double Mountain Fork Brazos River, 14 miles northwest of Hamlin in southern Stonewall County, Texas, United States.
Tee Pee City is a ghost town located in eastern Motley County near Matador, Texas. The ghost town is near the confluence of Tee Pee Creek and the Middle Pease River in eastern Motley County. The site, originally a Comanche campground, derived its name from the numerous teepee poles found up and down the creek by early settlers.
The 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 the warriors.
The 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 to 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.
The Buffalo Soldier Tragedy of 1877, also known as the Staked Plains Horror, occurred when a combined force of Buffalo Soldier troops of the United States Army 10th Cavalry and local buffalo hunters wandered for five days in the Llano Estacado region of northwest Texas and eastern New Mexico during July of a drought year, where four soldiers and one buffalo hunter died.
Adobe Walls is a ghost town in Hutchinson County, 17 miles (27 km) northeast of Stinnett, in the U.S. state of Texas. It was established in 1843 as a trading post for buffalo hunters and local Native American trade in the vicinity of the Canadian River. It later became a ranching community. Historically, Adobe Walls is the site of two battles between Native Americans and settlers. In the November 1864 First Battle of Adobe Walls, Native Americans successfully repelled attacking troops led by Kit Carson. Ten years later, on June 27, 1874, known as the Second Battle of Adobe Walls, civilians at the Adobe Walls trading post successfully fought off an attack by a war party composed primarily of Comanche and Cheyenne warriors led by the Comanche chief Quanah Parker. The second battle led to a military campaign which resulted in Indian relocation to Indian Territory.
Big Red Meat was a Nokoni Comanche chief and a leader of Native American resistance against White invasion during the second half of the 19th century.
Mow-way or Moway also referred to by European settlers as Shaking Hand or Hand Shaker, 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.
Yellow Wolf, Spirit Talker 's nephew and Buffalo Hump 's cousin and best support, was a War Chief of the Penateka division of the Comanche Indians. He came to prominence after the Council House Fight, when Buffalo Hump called the Comanches and, along with Yellow Wolf and Santa Anna, led them in the Great Raid of 1840.
United States 
