The Comanche tribe has played a pivotal role in American History.
They were so fierce in battle that many were afraid to go into battle with them.
They were originally part of the Shoshone tribe. When they acquired horses, they became even more powerful.
They traded a lot with the french and the Wichita tribes.
Comanches means enemy. But they called themselves “The People”.
The Comanche used the buffalo to live but it was the Horse that gave them their identity. They used the horse for a source of wealth.
In the early 18 century, they came into conflict with Apaches. The Comanche’s were victorious in this conflict.
The Comanche battled a lot with the spanish.
In 1785 Spanish had a treaty with Comanche that lasted till the end of the century.
The settlers encouraged other tribes to wage war on the Comanches.
Settlers started to come into America and claim land that was considered Comanche traditional hunting lands.
In one of Comanche raids fighting with settlers, they ended up taking a 9 year old settler goal who would go on to be the mother of the famous Quanah Parker.
Quanah Parker was famous last Comanche Chief.
They government wanted to have peace with the Comanche but couldn’t agree on the one request by the Comanche’s which was to have a boundry line between Comancharia and Texas state line.
1854 Reservations were created for the Comanches.
1867 a treaty was made to make reservations to stop the nomadic tribes.
The Red River War
This started to push the Natives and force them onto the Reservations.
Quanah Parker held out before they surrendered and they were the last free Comanche tribes.
They been reduced to about 1,600 people in their tribe.
Life on the rez was different as they tried to transformed them into the white mans ways.
In 1901 the reservation was broken up and through a previous treaty each person was to get land for each individual but have to relinquish their ways of life.
Lands not allotted to the natives were given to whites and soon they became outnumbered.
When world war 2 came, many Comanches joined the war for jobs and contributed to using their language for code talking.
In 1960s began to work together to rebuild their society.
They established their own tribal government and now have about 16,000 tribal members.
