The Comanche Empire

by Pekka Hämäläinen

  37. Zenon Trudeau to Carondalet, July 4, 1796, in Before Lewis and Clark, ed. Nasatir, 1:329–30; Joaquin del Real Alencaster to N. Salcedo, June 13, 1807, and Summary of Recent Events in New Mexico, July 1–Sep. 13, 1808, SANM II 16:247, 556–61 (T-2056, 2134); James, Three Years, 245; José María Ronquillo, Report, Sep. 17, 1831, MANM 13:559–79; Charles Augustus Murray, Travels in North America during the Years 1834, 1835, 1836, 2 vols. (London: R. Bentley, 1839), 365; Gregg, Commerce, 246; James William Abert, Expedition to the Southwest: An 1845 Reconnaissance of Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma (1846; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), 63; and David J. Wishart, An Unspeakable Sadness: The Dispossession of Nebraska Indians (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1994), 31.

  38. Mooney, Calendar History, 162–64 (quote is from p. 163); Elizabeth A. H. John, “An Earlier Chapter of Kiowa History,” NMHR 60 (Oct. 1985): 387; and Kavanagh, Comanche Political History, 146–47.

  39. For Kiowas and Naishans and their move into Comanchería, see Mooney, Calendar History, 164; and Morris W. Foster and Martha McCollough, “Plains Apache,” in Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 13, The Plains, ed. Raymond J. DeMallie, 2 parts (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution, 2001), 2:926–27. For Kiowas’ and Naishans’ trade with the Missouri villagers and their role as middlemen, see Pierre Antoine Tabeau, Tabeau’s Narrative of Loisel’s Expedition to the Upper Missouri, ed. Annie Heloise Abel, trans. Rose Abel Wright (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1939), 154–55, 158 (quote is from p. 158); Gary E. Moulton, ed., The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, 13 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001), 3:403, 422; Zebulon Montgomery Pike, The Expeditions of Zebulon Montgomery Pike, ed. Elliott Coues, 2 vols. (1895; reprint, New York: Dover, 1987), 2:746; George E. Hyde, Life of George Bent: Written from His Letters, ed. Savoie Lottinville (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1968), 31–32; and Pekka Hämäläinen, “The Western Comanche Trade Center: Rethinking the Plains Indian Trade System,” Western Historical Quarterly 29 (Winter 1998): 506.

  40. For the Cheyenne-Arapaho migration, see Pekka Hämäläinen, “The Rise and Fall of Plains Indian Horse Cultures,” JAH 90 (Dec. 2003): 839–40. For fairs, see Edwin James, James’ Account of S. H. Long Expedition, 1819–20, vols. 14–17 of Early Western Travels, 1748–1846, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark, 1905), 16:55; and Jacob Fowler, The Journal of Jacob Fowler, ed. Elliott Coues (1898; reprint, Minneapolis: Ross and Haines, 1965), 51–59, 71–72. For Cheyennes as middlemen, see Joseph Jablow, The Cheyenne in Plains Indian Trade Relations, 1795–1840, Monographs of the American Ethnological Society 19 (New York: J. J. Augustin, 1951), 58–60; John Milloy, The Plains Cree: Trade, Diplomacy, and War, 1790 to 1870 (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1988), 35; and Hyde, Life of George Bent, 32.

  41. Theodore Binnema, Common and Contested Ground: A Human and Environmental History of

  402

  Notes to Pages 165–171

  the Northwestern Plains (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2001), 137, 182–83; George E.

  Hyde, Indians of the High Plains: From the Prehistoric Period to the Coming of Europeans (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1959), 182–83; James, Account, 16:55; John R. Bell, The Journal of Captain John R. Bell, Official Journalist for the Stephen H. Long Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, 1820, ed. Harlin M. Fuller and LeRoy R. Hafen (Glendale, Calif.: Arthur H. Clark, 1957), 180; and Fowler, Journal, 5. Berlandier, too, mentioned Shoshones (“Sonsores”) visiting Comanche rancherías. See Berlandier, Indians, 142. Quote is from Charles Le Raye, “The Journal of Charles LeRaye,” South Dakota Historical Collections 4 (1908): 174. For Shoshone weaponry, see also Moulton, ed., Journals, 5:122. For Crows, see Edwin Thompson Denig, Five Indian Tribes of the Upper Missouri: Sioux, Aricaras, Assiniboines, Crees, Crows, ed. John C. Ewers (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1961), 164.

  42. John H. Moore, The Cheyenne Nation: A Social and Demographic History (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1987), 235; Hyde, Life of George Bent, 37–41, 68; and Comer, Ritual Ground, 123.

  43. For casualties, see, e.g., Foreman, Pioneer Days, 238; and Janet Lecompte, “Bent, St. Vrain, and Company among the Comanche and Kiowa,” Colorado Magazine 49 (1972): 275; and National Intelligencer, Apr. 16, 1839. The description of the 1840 peace draws on Mooney, Calendar History, 276; and George Bird Grinnell, The Fighting Cheyennes (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1915), 63–69 (quote is from p. 69). Both these works draw heavily on Native oral traditions.

  44. For territorial arrangements, see George F. Ruxton, Adventures in Mexico and the Rocky Mountains (London: John Murray, 1861), 291–92; Hyde, Life of George Bent, 37; John W. Whitfield to C. E. Mix, Jan. 5, 1856, LR:OIA, Upper Arkansas Agency, 878:104; and John W. Abert, Through the Country of the Comanche Indians in the Fall of the Year 1845: The Journal of a U.S. Army Expedition Led by Lieutenant James W. Abert, ed. John Calvin (San Francisco: John Howell, 1970), facing 68. For strategic considerations, see Elliott West, The Contested Plains: Indians, Goldseekers, and the Rush to Colorado (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1998), 77.

  45. West, Contested Plains, 83, 192–96; and Comer, Ritual Ground, 125.

  46. For Bent’s Fort in American history, see, e.g., Comer, Ritual Ground, 246–50. For Comanche trade at Bent’s Fort, see Hyde, Life of George Bent, 68–70; Ruxton, Adventures, 283–85, 291–92; Lecompte, “Bent,” 281–85; and Comer, Ritual Ground, 154–56.

  47. For intra-Comanche interactions, see chapter 6.

  48. For the intersections of gifts, kinship, and trade in Comanche foreign relations, see Hämäläinen,

  “Western Comanche Trade Center,” 492–93, 509–10; and David LaVere, “Friendly Persuasions: Gifts and Reciprocity in Comanche-Euroamerican Relations,” CO 71 (Fall 1993): 322–37. For the Iroquois Great League of Peace and Power, see Daniel K. Richter, The Ordeal of the Longhouse: The Peoples of the Iroquois League in the Era of European Colonization (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press for the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture, 1992), 30–49.

  49. For northern plains, see Patricia Albers, “Symbiosis, Merger, and War: Contrasting Forms of Intertribal Relationship among Historic Plains Indians,” in Political Economy of North American Indians, ed. John H. Moore (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1993), 93–132.

  50. Alice Marriott and Carol K. Rachlin, Plains Indian Mythology (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1975), 96–98. See also Mooney, Calendar History, 160–65.

  51. For Ponca legends, see Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, The Comanches: Lords of the South

  Notes to Pages 171–173

  403

  Plains (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1954), 39. For Shoshones, see Colin G. Calloway,

  “Snake Frontiers: The Eastern Shoshones in the Eighteenth Century,” Annals of Wyoming 63

  (Summer 1991): 85–86.

  52. For religious ceremonies, military societies, clothing accessories, hairstyles, and weaponry, see Merino, Report, 173; George Catlin, Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Conditions of the North American Indians, 2 vols. (1844; reprint, New York: Dover, 1973), 2:73; Whipple, Report, 34; William C. Meadows, Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche Military Societies: Enduring Veterans, 1800 to the Present (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1999), 276, 320; and Thomas W.

  Kavanagh, “Comanche,” in Encyclopedia of North American Indians: Native American History, Culture, and Life from Paleo-Indians to the Present, ed. Frederick E. Hoxie (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996), 132. For the Comanche language, see Berlandier, Indians, 103; Manuel García Rejón, comp., Comanche Vocabulary: Trilingual Edition, trans. and ed. Daniel J. Gelo (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995), 5; Captain Frederick Marryat, Travels and Adventures of Monsieur Violet (Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Literature House, 1970), first page of ch. 26; W. P. Clark, The Indian Sign Language (Philadelphia: L. R. Hamersley, 1885), 120; John L. Kessell, Kiva, Cross, and Crown: The Pecos
Indians and New Mexico, 1540–1840 (Washington, D.C.: National Park Service, 1979), 439; Howard Meredith, Dancing on Common Ground: Tribal Cultures and Alliances on the Southern Plains (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1995), 65; and Kavanagh, Comanche Political History, 180–81. This is not to suggest that the spread of language had become a one-way proposition. Early nineteenth-century sources are filled with references to Comanches who understood and spoke Spanish.

  53. For Comanche-Kiowa-Naishan relations, see Alencaster to N. Salcedo, Aug. 30, 1806, SANM

  II 16:212 (T-2006); Mooney, Calendar History, 164–65, 171; Nancy P. Hickerson, “Ethnogenesis in the South Plains: Jumano to Kiowa?” in History, Power, and Identity: Ethnogenesis in the Americas: 1492–1992, ed. Jonathan D. Hill (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1996), 87–88; Hämäläinen, “Western Comanche Trade Center,” 506; Gerald Betty, Comanche Society: Before the Reservation (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2002), 119, 142; Thomas W. Kavanagh, “Comanche,” in Handbook of North American Indians, vol. 13, The Plains, ed. DeMallie, 2:893; García Rejón, comp., Comanche Vocabulary, 5; and Robert S. Neighbors to William Medill, Sep. 14, 1847, 30th Cong., 1st sess., S. Ex. Doc. 1, 901. For the Comanche Sun Dance, see Meadows, Kiowa, Apache, and Comanche Military Societies, 318–23. Quotes are from Berlandier, Indians, 108, 135. For Comanches speaking for Kiowas and Naishans at diplomatic meetings with European colonial powers, see, e.g., Bartolomé Baca to commanding general, May 18, 1825, MANM 3:936; and Stokes and Arbuckle, Journal, 407.

  54. José María Sánchez, “A Trip to Texas in 1828,” trans. Carlos E. Castañeda, SHQ 29 (Apr. 1926): 261–62; Manuel de Mier y Terán, “Noticia de las tribus de salvajes conocidos que habitan en el Departamento de Tejas, y el número de Familias de que consta cada tribu, puntos en que habitan y terrenos en que acampan,” Sociedad de Geografía y Estadística de la Republica Mexicana Boletín 2 (1870): 265; Berlandier, Indians, 109–11 (quotes are from pp. 109–10); Ruíz, Report, 16; García Rejón, comp., Comanche Vocabulary, 5; and W. O. Tuggle, Shem, Ham and Japheth: The Papers of W. O. Tuggle Comprising His Indian Diary, Sketches and Observations, Myths and Washington Journal in the Territory and at the Capital, 1879–1882, ed. Eugene Current-Garcia and Dorothy B.

  Hatfield (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1973), 143. Melburn D. Thurman has identified the “Chariticas” and “Sarritechas” mentioned by Ruíz, Berlandier, and Terán as Lipan Apaches.

  404

  Notes to Pages 174–177

  While it is possible that those ethnonyms were sometimes used to refer to Apaches, it seems clear that Ruíz, Berlandier, and Terán meant the Arapahoes: all three write that the Sarritechas/Chariticas came to Texas from the United States or “North America,” that is, north of the Arkansas and Red rivers, which marked the boundary line between Mexico and the United States. Lipan Apaches, in contrast, had lived since the 1760s in southern Texas and northern Mexico below the Río Grande and would have entered the southern plains from the south. See Melburn D.

  Thurman, “On the Identity of the Chariticas: Dog Eating and Pre-Horse Adaptation on the High Plains,” Plains Anthropologist 33 (May 1988): 159–70.

  55. For shifting Wichita locations, see Smith, Wichita Indians, 29, 113, 137. For Comanche-Wichita cooperation, see Rafael Gonzáles to Juan de Castañeda, June 5, 1824, and Cayetano Andrado to Antonio Elozúa, Dec. 16, 1825, BA 77:224–25, 86:792–93; and Matthew Babcock, “Transnational Raid and Trade Routes: Comanche Expansion from the Rio Grande to Durango, 1821–

  1846” (unpublished paper in author’s possession). For Pahayuko’s statement, see “Talk of Pah-Hah-Yoco and Roasting Ear,” Jan. 19, 1845, IPTS, 1:174. For Wichitas’ reputation in Texas, see Austin to Mateo Ahumada, May 18, 1826, in Austin Papers, ed. Barker, 2:1338–40; Jean Louis Berlandier, Journey to Mexico: During the Years 1826 to 1834, trans. Sheila M. Ohlendorf, Josette M.

  Bigelow, and Mary M. Standifer, 2 vols. (Austin: Texas State Historical Association and University of Texas Press, 1980), 2: 313; and David G. Burnet to Henry R. Schoolcraft, Sep. 29, 1847, IPTS, 3:97. Quote is from “Minutes of Council at Tehuacana Creek,” May 13, 1844, IPTS, 2:40.

  56. Quotes are from Sibley to Eustice, Dec. 31, 1811, in “Dr. John Sibley,” SHQ 49 (Jan. 1946): 403;

  “Delegation from the Comanche Nation,” in Papers Concerning Robertson’s Colony in Texas, comp. and ed. Malcolm McLean, 18 vols. (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1974–93), 4:428; Berlandier, Indians, 122; Gregg, Commerce, 437; and Thomas J. Farnham, Travels in the Great Western Prairies, vols. 28 and 29 of Early Western Travels, 1748–1846, ed. Reuben Gold Thwaites (Cleveland: Arthur H. Clark, 1906), 28:151. See also José Francisco Ruíz to Elozúa, Aug. 1, 1830, in Robertson’s Colony, 4:334–35; Neighbors to Medill, Mar. 2, 1848, 30th Cong., 1st sess., S. Rpt.

  171, 17; Gary Clayton Anderson, The Conquest of Texas: Ethnic Cleansing in the Promised Land, 1820–1875 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2005), 48–49; Ruíz to Elozúa, Aug. 1, 1830, BA 133:31; and Sánchez, “Trip to Texas,” 261, 265–66.

  57. For voluntary immigrants, see “Delegation from the Comanche Nation,” 428; R. B. Marcy, Thirty Years of Army Life on the Border (New York: Harper and Bros., 1866), 89; Susan Miller, “Those Homelands That You Call the Louisiana Purchase,” in The Louisiana Purchase and Its Peoples: Perspectives from the New Orleans Conference, ed. Paul E. Hoffman (Lafayette: Louisiana Historical Association and the Center for Louisiana History, 2004), 84; Anderson, Indian Southwest, 224–26; and Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 194. Quotes are from Sibley, Report, 80; and Robert S.

  Neighbors, “The Na-Ü-Ni, or Comanches of Texas; Their Traits and Beliefs, and Divisions and Intertribal Relations,” IPTS, 3:350.

  58. Quotes are from Brooks, Captives and Cousins, 193; and Padilla, Report, 55.

  59. Quote is from Sánchez, “Trip to Texas,” 262. Also see Lila Wistrand Robinson and James Armagost, Comanche Dictionary and Grammar (Arlington: University of Texas at Arlington, 1990), 102; and Ladonna Harris, Stephen M. Sachs, and Benjamin J. Broome, “Wisdom of the People: Potential and Pitfalls in Efforts by the Comanches to Recreate Traditional Ways of Building Consensus,” American Indian Quarterly 25 (Winter 2001): 117.

  60. Catlin, Letters, 2:67–68.

  Notes to Pages 179–183

  405

  61. For epidemics, see Mooney, Calendar History, 168, 172–73; and John C. Ewers, “The Influence of Epidemics on the Indian Populations and Cultures of Texas,” Plains Anthropologist 18 (May 1973): 104–15. For population numbers, see David Dickson to Henry Clay, July 1, 1827, Despatches from United States Consuls in Texas, 1825–44, RG 59, General Records of the Department of the State, T153, NAMP, reel 1 (no frame number); J. C. Clopper, “Journal [1828],” in Texas by Terán: The Diary Kept by General Manuel de Mier y Terán on His 1828 Inspection of Texas, ed.

  Jack Jackson, trans. John Wheat (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2000), 25; José Francisco Ruíz,

  “‘Comanches’: Customs and Characteristics,” in The Papers of Mirabeau Buonaparte Lamar, ed. Charles Adams Gulick, Jr., et al., 6 vols. (1920–27; reprint, Austin: Pemberton, 1968), 4:222; Houston to Ellsworth, Dec. 1, 1832, in Writings of Sam Houston, ed. Williams and Barker, 1:268; Report of G. W. Bonnell, reprinted in 30th Cong., 1st sess., S. Rpt. 171, 42; Foreman, Advancing the Frontier, 148–49; Hall, Social Change, 145: David J. Weber, The Mexican Frontier, 1821–1846: The American Southwest Under Mexico (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1982), 177, 195; and LaVere, Contrary Neighbors, 64.

  62. For Wichitas’ and Kiowas’ losses as front-line communities, see Foreman, Advancing the Frontier, 113; and Willard H. Rollings, The Osage: An Ethnohistorical Study of Hegemony on the Prairie-Plains (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1992), 269. For diplomatic settings, see, e.g., Baca to commanding general, May 18, 1825, MANM 3:936; “Treaty with the Comanche,” Oct. 8, 1826, in Documents of American Indian Diplomacy: Treaties, Agreements, and Conventions, 1775–1979, comp. Vine Deloria, Jr., and Raymond
DeMallie (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1999), 154; Stokes and Arbuckle, Journal, 407; and “A Treaty Signed in Council at Tehuacana Creek, Oct. 9, 1844,” IPTS, 2:113–14. Quote is from Neighbors, “Na-Ü-Ni,” 349.

  63. Manuel de Mier y Terán to Guadalupe Victoria, Mar. 28, 1828, in Texas by Terán, ed. Jackson, trans. Wheat, 30; and Sánchez, “Trip to Texas,” 263.

  C H A P T E R 5 . G R E A T E R C O M A N C H E R Í A

  1. For raids and violence, see William H. Oberste, History of Refugio Mission (Refugio, Tex.: Refugio Timely Remarks, 1942), 217, 249–50; F. Todd Smith, From Dominance to Disappearance: The Indians of Texas and the Near Southwest, 1786–1859 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2005), 52–53; and Pedro de Nava to Manuel Muñoz, Jan. 27 and June 4, 1795, Miguel Músquiz to Juan Bautista de Elguézabal, Nov. 8, 1801, Elguézabal to Manuel Antonio Cordero y Bustamante, Jan.

  6, 1802, Nava to Elguézabal, Jan. 19, 1802, Elguézabal to Nava, Apr. 14, 28, and 29, 1802, Nava to Elguézabal, Oct. 28, 1802, and Cuaderno Borrador, certified copy of Francisco Xavier de Uranga to Nava, Sep. 29, 1802, BA 25:269–70, 541–42, 30:406–7, 477–78, 494–500, 536–37, 873–75, 824–26. For the council, see Elguézabal to Cordero, Mar. 30, 1803, and Nemesio Salcedo to El-guézabal, Apr. 26, 1803, BA 31:157, 211–12.

  2. For Spanish vulnerability and fears of American influence in Comanchería, see N. Salcedo to El-guézabal, Nov. 14, 1802, Sep. 13, 1803, and Aug. 14, 1804, Elguézabal to N. Salcedo, Sep. 11, 1805, and Testimony of Chief Cordero, Oct. 25, 1810, BA 30:899, 31:609, 32:607, 33:528–82, 47:6–7; N. Salcedo to Fernando Chacón, May 8, 1804, in Before Lewis and Clark: Documents Illustrating the History of the Missouri, 1785–1804, ed. A. P. Nasatir, 2 vols. (1952; reprint, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1990), 2:734–35; and Julia Kathryn Garrett, Green Flag over Texas: A Story of the Last Years of Spain in Texas (New York: Cordova, 1939), 10.