In pre-Columbian times, the Algonquian Cheyenne – a Sioux name, meaning People who Speak a Strange Tongue – seem to have lived at the edge of the forest next to the grasslands of Minnesota, where they hunted, farmed, gathered wild rice, and even made pottery. But the area was then becoming increasingly controlled by Sioux tribes, and under their strong pressure the Cheyenne finally moved westward to the Cheyenne River area in North Dakota; it was probably during this period that they acquired the first horses and became more dependent on the buffalo for food. After their village of earth lodges was destroyed by a war party of Ojibwa, the Cheyenne settled along the Missouri River near the Mandan towns. It was around that time, too, that they split into two groups – the Northern Cheyenne, who inhabited the upper North Platte River in Nebraska, and the Southern Cheyenne, along the Arkansas River in Kansas and Oklahoma. For a while, both groups seem to have adhered to the old ways, planting maize and beans and hunting an occasional buffalo. But horses and guns were becoming increasingly available, and soon the Cheyenne moved out onto the Plains for good. They turned into full-time buffalo hunters, living in teepees, no longer interested in tending fields or making pottery. Within a few decades, the Cheyenne had become true Plains Indians and had made friends and allies out of the Arapaho, who had earlier separated from the Atsina in the north.
On the southern Plains, from the Arkansas River down into Texas, lived the Comanche, the Kiowa, and the Kiowa Apache. The Comanche were members of the Uto-Aztecan family, whose tribes mostly include people who inhabited the deserts of Utah, Nevada, and California, but also the Aztecs of Mexico and the Maya of Central America. At some point in pre-Columbian times, the Comanche apparently separated from the Shoshoni of the Great Basin area and moved eastward across the Rocky Mountains and onto the southern Plains, where they quickly adopted the typical Plains Indian way of life, including the horse and the whole buffalo culture.
Comanche did not waste their time and effort on such useless pursuits as history and traditions of the past. In their experience, people who thought too much about such things starved. Thus, the Comanche are believed to have been the first native people on the Plains to utilize the horse extensively, and they certainly became the most successful at it. What’s more, within a few generations they had lost all memory of their first horses, or of the times when they had none at all; in fact, many Comanche warriors came to believe that they had had horses long before the Spanish. But the horse did radically change their lives; buffalo were easier to hunt, and mounted warriors enjoyed tremendous advantages. In no time at all, the Comanche not only became the greatest horsemen in all America, but they became one of the few native people to learn how to breed horses and mules. Through trade, capture, careful breeding, and especially through massive thievery, they acquired large herds – herds beyond the wildest dreams of most other tribes. Shrewd traders, they also became major suppliers of horses and mules to the French in Louisiana, the American pioneers, and to other Plains tribes.
The Comanche also became early tormenters of the Spanish in Mexico and Texas, raiding them for horses and mules, capturing women and children and invariably killing the men. Not only did they harass the Spanish settlements, but they even intimidated the fierce Apache so much that these tribes finally abandoned the Plains and moved into the Southwest. And once American settlers began drifting into Texas and actually resisted the proud Comanche warriors, the Indians quickly turned their major wrath against these new Texans – and with that began a long and bloody chapter in Western history.
Despite the fact that the Comanche were perhaps the most important people on the southern Plains, they have been paid relatively little attention in American history. Most early historical records are in Spanish and have had little influence in this respect; Texans did not like to talk about the Comanche, probably because most of their memories were painful ones. And the Comanche themselves did little to improve their reputation. They were so certain of their superiority over all other men that they regarded everyone else, red or white, as inferior beings, and the very name of Comanche has become synonymous with the stereotypical image of the savage Indian. They stole just about every horse and mule in New Mexico and northern Mexico, and put a good dent in the available supply in Texas. They captured women and children from rival tribes and sold them to the Spanish in New Mexico as servants. And during the 1800s they expanded into the cattle business, stealing entire herds of thousands of cattle from Texas, to sell in New Mexico.
Comanche raids were legendary for the distances they covered, and they would often strike hundreds of miles from their home base. War parties usually traveled at night, following separate routes to a previously agreed location. Strings of horses were used to avoid fatiguing the animals. War paint was black, with two broad stripes across the forehead and the lower face. After the sudden attack, a rapid retreat began, again using separate routes to avoid being pursued. Returning war parties often wore some of the stolen booty: stovepipe hats, men’s vests, even women corsets, giving them an almost circus-like appearance. It might have been funny, had the Comanche not been so dangerous. Male prisoners were almost always killed at the scene, but women and children were taken back to their villages. Women were often raped and sold for ransom or as slaves; children, if they were not ransomed, were frequently adopted and raised as part of the band. Comanche apparently made little distinction between natural-born and adopted members of their group.
The Kiowa of Kansas and eastern Colorado were frequently allied with the Comanche, and could often be found among them in raids on Mexico and Texas. The Kiowa, too, had come onto the Plains from across the Rocky Mountains. One of their bands had meanwhile become known as the Kiowa-Apache; they were actually an Athabascan people, related to the Sarsi of Canada, and when they were first encountered, they lived under the protection of the Kiowa. Like the Sarsi, they had also adopted many of the ways of their hosts and protectors.