Of the many Indian tribes that roamed the Southern Plains during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, none was more feared than the Comanche, who were noted for their "mastery of the swooping raid, the sudden strike, and the clever retreat." The tribe was a loose federation of several bands, related by language and culture, that operated more or less independently.

Prior to their acquisition of the horse, they lived in the Rocky Mountains as hunters, supplementing their diet with wild berries, fruits, and edible roots. Just when and how the Comanche acquired horses is not known, but the available evidence indicates some time after 1600. According to Wallace and Hoebel, "In horses they were the richest of all tribes; in fact they introduced the horse into the plains and they were the medium through which most other Indians received their mounts (at the expense of the Texans and Mexicansy "

The acquisition of the horse had a revolutionary effect upon the economy and culture of the Plains tribes, for it afforded them a mobility that they had never been able to enjoy when they traveled by foot and depended upon dogs for the transportation of their camp equipment. Now the Plains Indian could ride great distances in pursuit of the migratory buffalo and provide his family with plenty of food, shelter, and clothing. But they had a bigger interest-the raiding of both whites and other Indian tribes for horses, women, and children. Since the spectacular and daring raids resulted in booty that far exceeded the needs of the band, one must infer that they were initiated for the sake of gamesmanship and for the prestige that accompanied success.

Around 1790 the Comanche made a peace agreement with the Kiowa, their strongest rival. The mid-nineteenth century was a period of expansion for the United States that contributed to the problems of the Indians. Relations between Texans and Comanche were mutually distrustful, and incidents resulting from misunderstandings did not change the relationship. Following a period in which the Republic of Texas maintained its independence under the presidency of Sam Houston, Texas was admitted to the United States in 1846.

In 1849 the Southern Comanche were plagued with epidemics of smallpox and cholera that took the lives of two of their most prominent peace chiefs. After years of warfare with other tribes and with the United States, the Comanche, with the Kiowa and Kiowa-Apache, met in council with high-ranking officials of the United States at Medicine Lodge Creek in Kansas in October 1867. After lengthy conferences, the chiefs accepted a treaty that set aside 2,968,393 acres for a reservation of the three tribes that became officially confederated.

With the other Plains tribes, the Comanche shared certain traits that distinguished the culture of this area, the use of the horse, the buffalo hunt, and the tipi. But they never developed military societies nor did they adopt the Sun Dance, both of which are found among most of the Plains tribes.

Living in small autonomous bands or family groups under the leadership of a headman, the Comanche did not function politically as a tribe. They were conscious of belonging to a larger group of people like themselves, but they seem not to have had the sense of tribal solidarity necessary for concerted political action. There was no annual ceremony to bring all the bands together as the Sun Dance did for the Sioux and other Plains tribes. In temperament they were extremely individualistic, and their atomistic social organization was of little help to them in withstanding the advances of an alien civilization.

In a final and desperate effort to rally the Comanche, a Sun Dance was held in 1874 at the instigation of the prophet Coyote Droppings, the first and last time in all their history when "the people" were together as one. But it was too late to save the tribe. The rapidly diminishing herds of buffalo and the settlement of the land by white emigrants rendered impossible the old Comanche way of life.

Following the uprising of 1874-75, the last starving straggling band of Comanches surrendered at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, and accepted settlement on the reservation which had been assigned them at Medicine Lodge Creek.

In the early reservation period there emerged a leader who commanded Indians and whites alike, Quanah Parker (1845-1911), His influence in this difficult transitional period of the Comanche and their associated tribes gives him an honored position in Indian history.

Mooney estimated the Comanche population to have been seven thousand in 1690. By 1910 they had dwindled to 1,717.