Comanche

Treaty of 10 December 1850 – Texas Indians

In a historic meeting on December 10, 1850, near the headwaters of Wallace Creek, Special Agent John H. Rollins forged a pivotal peace treaty with the chiefs of numerous Texas Indian tribes. This landmark agreement, aimed at establishing peace and defining relations between the U.S. government and these tribes, covers a wide array of commitments from acknowledging U.S. jurisdiction to regulating trade, ensuring mutual peace, and setting forth guidelines for the return of prisoners and stolen property. With the original treaty held in Washington and a copy in the Texas State Library, this document remains a crucial piece of history in understanding the complex relationships and negotiations between Native American tribes and the expanding United States.

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Governor Houston’s Life Among the Indians

The year following his failure to secure the contract, Houston spent writing letters defending his acts and denouncing the officials who had been discharged. In addition to the Indian officials, he poured his wrath and denunciation on Colonel Hugh Love, a trader on the Verdigris whom Houston accused of being in league with the Indian Agent to rob the Creeks; Love replied to Houston with some spirited charges against the latter. Stung by the contents of an article appearing in a Nashville paper, in a burst of passion Houston gave to the press of Nashville a most intemperate letter, July 13, 1831, beginning:

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Fort Gibson Conference with the Indians, 1834

One of the most important Indian conferences ever held in the Southwest, occurred at Fort Gibson in 1834 for it paved the way for agreements and treaties essential to the occupation of a vast country by one hundred thousand members of the Five Civilized Tribes emigrating from east of the Mississippi; to the security of settlers and travelers in a new country; to development of our Southwest to the limits of the United States and beyond and contributed to the subsequent acquisition of the country to the coast, made known to us by the pioneers to Santa Fe and California traveling through the region occupied by the “wild” Indians who, at Fort Gibson, gave assurances of their friendship. It is true, these assurances were not always regarded, and many outrages were afterwards committed on the whites and by the whites, but the Fort Gibson conference was the beginning and basis upon which ultimately these things were accomplished.

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The Osage Massacre

When the treaty council with the Osage at Fort Gibson broke up in disagreement on April 2, 1833, three hundred Osage warriors under the leadership of Clermont departed for the west to attack the Kiowa. It was Clermont’s boast that he never made war on the whites and never made peace with his Indian enemies. At the Salt Plains where the Indians obtained their salt, within what is now Woodward County, Oklahoma, they fell upon the trail of a large party of Kiowa warriors going northeast toward the Osage towns above Clermont’s. The Osage immediately adapted their course to that pursued by their enemies following it back to what they knew would be the defenseless village of women, children, and old men left behind by the warriors. The objects of their cruel vengeance were camped at the mouth of Rainy-Mountain Creek, a southern tributary of the Washita, within the present limits of the reservation at Fort Sill.

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Colonel Dodge Reaches Villages of Western Indians

Trailing through broad and verdant valleys, they went, their progress often arrested by hundreds of acres of plum trees bending to the ground with tempting fruit; crossing oak ridges where the ground was covered with loaded grapevines, through suffocating creek-bottom thickets, undergrowth of vines and briars, laboring up rocky hillsides and laboring down again, the

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Choctaw Traditions – The Council Fire, The Nahullo

The faces of the Choctaw and Chickasaw men of sixty years ago were as smooth as a woman’s, in fact they had no beard. Sometimes there might be seen a few tine hairs (if hairs they might be called) here and there upon the face, but they were few and far between, and extracted with

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Comanche County Oklahoma Cemeteries

Most of these Comanche County Oklahoma cemeteries are complete indices at the time of transcription, however, in some cases we provide the listing when it is only a partial listing. Hosted at Comanche County OKGenWeb Archives Highland Cemetery Photos Letitia Cemetery Meers Cemetery Sterling Cemetery Hosted at Oklahoma Genealogical Society Elgin Cemetery Geronimo Cemetery Letitia

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Massacre at Howard’s Well and Other Depredations – Indian Wars

Closely following the outbreak of the Cherokees and half -breed renegades at Whitemore‘s, Barren Fork, came on attack by a similar party of Indians, half breeds, and Mexicans combined, on a train of supplies, en route to Fort Stockton, at Howard’s Well, near old Fort Lancaster. The facts of this one of the most inhuman massacres

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William Cody – “Buffalo Bill” His Life and Adventures – Indian Wars

One of the best known, and since the death of the renowned Kit Carson, probably the most reliable guide on the Western frontier, is William Cody, otherwise known as “Buffalo Bill.” His exploits have been the theme of a dozen novelists, and in the year just past (1870-72) his movements have been as accurately and

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Indian Hostilities in California and New Mexico – Indian Wars

In New Mexico, which became a part of the United States territory at the same time as California, the Indians are numerous and far more formidable than those farther west. The Apache Indians and Navajo Indians are the most powerful tribes west of the Mississippi. Being strong, active, and skillful, war is their delight, and they were the terror of the New Mexicans before the territory was occupied by the United States troops. The Pueblo Indians are among the best and most peaceable citizens of New Mexico. They, early after the Spanish conquest, embraced the forms of religion and the manners and customs of their then more civilized masters. The Pimos and Maricopos are peaceable tribes who cultivate the ground and endeavor to become good citizens. They are much exposed to the irresistible attacks of the Apache Indians and Navajo Indians, and, very often, the fruits of their honest toil become the plunder of those fierce wanderers.

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Tribes of the Pike’s Peak Region

It would be interesting to know who were the occupants of the Pike’s Peak region during prehistoric times. Were its inhabitants always nomadic Indians? We know that semi-civilized peoples inhabited southwestern Colorado and New Mexico in prehistoric times, who undoubtedly had lived there ages before they were driven into cliff dwellings and communal houses by

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Games of the Plains Tribes

Amusements and gambling are represented in collections by many curious devices. Adults rarely played for amusement, leaving such pastime to children; they themselves played for stakes. Most American games are more widely distributed than many other cultural traits; but a few seem almost entirely peculiar to the Plains. A game in which a forked anchor-like

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Treaty of October 21, 1867 – Memorandum

Articles of a treaty concluded at the Council Camp on Medicine Lodge Creek, seventy miles south of Fort Larned, in the State of Kansas, on the twenty-first day of October, eighteen hundred and sixty-seven, by and between the United States of America, represented by its commissioners duly appointed thereto to-wit: Nathaniel G. Taylor, William S.

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