That the most promising young warriors attended leadership school.Ī woman served as commandant at a camp established for this purposeĪnd prominent war chiefs visited, lecturing the boys on weapons, communicationsĪnd tactics. So tenderhearted in fact that grandfathers or uncles assumed the responsibilityįor the young boy's rigorous martial training. The Raid and the HuntĬomanches parents were exceptionally kind and loving to their children. They learned through a century of dealing with foreign nations that new generals and their armies would soon return with horses and weapons as tribute for an alliance. The Comanche didn't steal Dodge's horses though the heavy strain would surely breed in distance and comfort. They preferred paints and emphasized strains that would produce better traveling, hunting or war ponies. They could catch and saddle their own ponies by the time they were five.Ĭolonel Dodge observed, some years after his 1833 encounter with a large band of Comanche in the Wichita Mountains, that "the Comanche were not only the best horse thieves, but the best horse breeders in America." The band treated Dodge and his dragoons in an aloof and indifferent manner but they showed an acute interest in the army's heavy horses. Boys were placed on horseback before they could walk, and When a warriorĭesired to go somewhere, a wife brought his horse right to his teepee'sĮntrance. Subject was Sioux warrior demonstrating Comanche riding technique.Īs possession of horses became a signifier of status, Comanche men loathed walking anywhere. Horses, and it wasn't that uncommon for any warrior to own over a thousand. Soon no respectable chief would have less than a few thousand Their herds swelled to tens then hundreds of
In one of their earliest raids they stole a herd of That adopted the nomadic horsebacked life of the raid and the hunt.Ībilities on horseback soon earned them fearful respect throughout They became the role models to the other thirty or so tribes Comanches'Įxceptional skills at horse riding, stealing and breeding eventuallyĮnabled them to expand their herds until they dominated the Southern Like Romans, the tribe related mythologically to the wolfĪnd were kind and playful, packlike. The horse and when first encountered they thought it was a wonderful, Roamed into the Taos/Santa Fe area in search of horses. In the early 1700s, knowledge of the horse had spread Resulting in a Pueblo-Hopi uprising and the Spaniards' decade-longĪbandonment of their New Mexican rancheros. Records reported the first mounted Apache attacks in 1650, eventually Apparently some of these new vacquerosĭeserted, taking horses, bridles and saddles to Apache camps. They didn't intendįor this to reoccur in America, so decades passed before reluctantĪuthorities nervously granted permission to the colonists in Santaįe to teach their Pueblo-Hopi slaves the equestrian skills necessary Had long been victimized by horsebacked barbarians. The Spanish, like other European and Asian nations, The one bugabooĬonfronting a cavalry on stallions was to lose control when meetingĪn opposing force that included mares in heat, and that, of course, Thus mounted, conqueringĪ continent void of horses was embarrassingly easy. Relations | Comancheria | Horse | More Comanche/Kiowa Battles | The Raid and the Hunt | Spanish Invasion Spanish InvasionĬoronado and his conquistadors arrived from Spain in the middleġ500s on stallions in their search for gold. Their struggle is still replayed and celebrated with the advent of each new western.Ĭomancheria Comanche Nation Topics (click on a topic to jump to that section) Comanche Nation | Comanche Their heroic exploits and courtly behavior were the germ of the modern American cowboy myth. In the Cross Timbers, the knights were usually cowboys riding patrol, dividing their time between Ranger and ranch duties. Troopers and Rangers alike adorned sabers and adopted the manners and valiantry of ancient European knights. The Texas pioneers' war with the Comanches began in 1836 at the dawn of Texas' Republic and the Victorian Age. The Comanche Nation held the center of this map and dominated, virtually owned, everything and body around it.
The Comanche called themselves "The People." Others usually referred to them as their enemies, "Those who always fight us." A single generation of warriors at the turn of the eighteenth century managed to acquire and master not just the horse, but the art of horse raising and more importantly, horseback fighting.
Comanche indian series#
Part of our in-depth series exploring the forts of Comancheria
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