Robert Neighbors - Indian Agent and The Field System

Indian Agent and The Field System

Neighbors was released on March 24, 1844 and returned to Texas. At this point Neighbors ended his army service, and early the next year he began his service as an Indian Agent for the Republic of Texas. As Indian Agent for the Lipan Apaches and Tonkawas, he invented the field system of Indian control; instead of remaining at the agency headquarters and waiting for the Indians to pay him a visit, as was the common practice, Neighbors dealt with them directly in their homelands.

Later, when he was Federal Indian Agent for the Comanches, he continued what was then a most unusual practice, that of actually visiting the Indians in their homes, and learning their language and culture. Called the "field system" it was unique for its time. The ultimate result was that he spent much time far beyond the then frontier and in the opinion of historians exercised greater influence over the Indians in Texas than any other white man of his generation. Indeed, other than Sam Houston he probably was one of the few white men to bother to learn their language and culture, let alone travel to the heart of the Comancheria.

After the annexation of the Republic of Texas by the United States, he received a federal appointment as special Indian agent, on March 20, 1847. He was then party to numerous councils, including one between commissioners of the United States and the Texas Comanches near the site of Waco in 1846 and one between the Comanche and the German colonists on the San Saba River in March 1847, which resulted in the so-called Meusebach-Comanche Treaty.