The Most Powerful Indian Tribe in American History — The Comanche Indians had absolute power in the wide, high plains of North America, from what is now Kansas to northern Mexico. By the year 1800, the Mississippi River was the United States western boundary. France claimed most of the land from there to the Rocky mountains, with Spain claiming the rest beyond, to the Pacific Ocean.

France had major problems of its own in Europe, and in 1803 sold its portion to the USA (for 3 cents per acre.) The Spanish (and later Mexican) army had cavalry and armored soldiers, but their horses were too heavy and slow to match the Indians’ fast ponies. The American cavalry had long-barreled rifles, hard to aim and slow to reload on horseback, so they routinely dismounted to fight on the battlefield

The Comanches, in contrast, could fight at a gallop, firing fifteen steel-tipped arrows in the time the white soldier took to reload his single-shot rifle. Moreover, the Comanche could shield his body by bending over the pony and firing his arrows from under the pony’s neck, holding several arrows in hand for rapid reloading. And also could carry a fourteen-feet long lance.

Comanches also had strategic advantages. They knew their land — the vast empty grassland of west Texas, six hundred miles wide, with few landmarks; knew it well enough to attack at night and disappear before dawn. They fought violently, showing no mercy to those moving into their territory, whether rival Indian tribe or pioneer farmer. If pursued, they would withdraw hoping to lead the enemy into pursuing them, then attacking again at night, stampeding or stealing the horses, leaving their enemy to travel home on foot for a hundred miles over a mostly waterless wilderness.

The Comanche’s first priority was always the safety of his own family, fighting long enough to allow them time to escape, with their children and teepees, then disappearing over the horizon. Sometimes they might kidnap older children of the enemy as slaves or as adoptees.

A famous example of this was the nine-year-old daughter of an east Texas farm family, Cynthia Ann Parker. Her immediate family was killed in the attack; her relatives pursued her captors but were unable to find them. It wasn’t until years later that a government official on a diplomatic visit to a Comanche village noticed one of the women had blue eyes. Cynthia had grown up as a full fledged member of the tribe, now married to a prominent warrior, and mother of three children. No, she didn’t want to be rescued; she hardly remembered much English. She loved her husband and children and was happy with the life of an Indian.

This did not sit well with most Texans, many of whom had lost a family member in the on-going war between the now US State of Texas (soon to join the Confederate States) and the Indians, who didn’t care what the white people did as long as they stayed out of Comanche territory. The Texas Rangers were taking over from the less than competent US Department of Indian Affairs, and some of the Rangers understood the ways of Comanche warfare. Some of the Rangers and the army now had the new Colt six-shooter, and repeating rifles, and were gaining respect from the Comanche chiefs. Cynthia’s husband was killed in one US Army attack, and the last she ever saw of her two sons, ages 12 and 10 was as they fled on a horse into the distance. They arrived safely in a Comanche camp nearly 100 miles away, unusual for Indian boys that young. The older boy, Quanah, was now an orphan (His mother Cynthia was taken back to her East Texas family against her will. Orphans were low status in Indian culture; only as he grew older and gained war skills did Quanah become a chief in his own right.

Indian tribes were being forced into reservations in Oklahoma Territory after the Civil War. The U.S. Army could turn its attention westward in fuller strength. West-bound pioneers were increasing in numbers, although the Santa Fe Trail stayed north of the Arkansas River (the approximate northern limit of Comanche influence); there were now transcontinental railroads, and telegraph lines, as well as gold prospectors, ranchers and farmers intent on new markets in the center of the continent.

The top man of the West Point graduating class in 1862, Ranald Mackenzie rose to the rank of brevet Lt. Colonel at age 23, and after the Civil War, he was transferred to command a cavalry unit in Texas. By that time, Comanches were “the world’s best horsemen and the military masters of the south plains.” Mackenzie, however, studied their tactics and eventually, with better weapons, forced most plains Indians into the reservations around Fort Sill in Oklahoma. Of the three thousand Comanches remaining in the world, about a thousand refused to enter the reservations. Along with remaining Kiowas, Southern Cheyennes, and Kiowa Apaches, about 800 hostile warriors were still free on the western plains.

Mackenzie could be as ruthless as any Comanche. He concentrated on their ponies, killing about 1,000. The buffalo hunters had killed about 31 million animals, taking their hides for leather and leaving the bodies to rot. The huge buffalo herds on which Comanches had depended no longer existed.

Chief Quanah realized that the southern plains had less and less to offer. He went off alone to meditate for several days and nights; his visions in that period convinced him to lead his followers into the reservation and adapt to the white man’s ways, even though his people hated farming and house walls.

Colonel Mackenzie had been assigned to oversee the various reservations around Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He and Chief Quanah, each unconquered by the other, became friends. Quanah became advocate for his fellow Comanches. Mackenzie aided Quanah in the search for his mother Cynthia Ann and his sister Prairie Flower, but failed to locate them.

Author S. C. Gwynne is a master story teller and researcher, producing a true story (with photos and a map) that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.