History of Texas - West Texas: Comancheria

West Texas: Comancheria

Hämäläinen (2008) argues that from the 1750s to the 1850s, the Comanches were the dominant group in the Southwest, and the domain they ruled was known as Comancheria. Hämäläinen calls it an empire. Confronted with Spanish, Mexican, and American outposts on their periphery in New Mexico, Texas, and Coahuila and Nueva Vizcaya in northern Mexico, they worked to increase their own safety, prosperity and power. The population in 1810-1830 was 7000 to 8000. The Comanches used their military power to obtain supplies and labor from the Americans, Mexicans, and Indians through thievery, looting and killing, tribute, and kidnappings. There was much violence committed by and against Commanches, before and after the European settlement of Texas. Although they made a living partially through raiding and violence, along with hunting/gathering, especially buffalo hunting, the Comanche empire also supported a commercial network with long-distance trade. Dealing with subordinate Indians, the Comanche spread their language and culture across the region. In terms of governance, the Comanches were nearly-independent but allied bands with a loosely hierarchical social organization within bands. Their empire collapsed when their camps and villages were repeatedly decimated by epidemics of smallpox and cholera in the late 1840s, and in bloody conflict with settlers, the Texas Rangers, and the U.S. Army. The population plunged from 20,000 to just a few thousand by the 1870s. The Comanches were no longer able to deal with the U.S. Army, which took over control of the region after the Mexican American War ended in 1848. The long-term imprint of the Commanches on the Indian and Hispanic culture has been demonstrated by scholars such as Gelo (2000) and Marez (2001).