The Comanche Empire Page 8
with the Taovayas, the strongest member of the Wichita confederation and the only Wichita tribe that still clung to the middle Arkansas valley region. Comanches had shared a border with Taovayas since their conquest of the upper Arkansas basin in the 1720s, but the two groups had had limited contact until the mid-1740s when symmetrical interests drew them together. The Comanche-Taovaya
alliance was probably brokered by French agents who hoped to extend Louisi-
ana’s commercial reach to the west by pacifying the Arkansas channel, but it was in design and substance an indigenous creation. As a military union, the alliance allowed Comanches and Taovayas to join their forces to repel the unrelenting Osage forays from the east and north; as a commercial partnership, it complemented the resource domains of both groups. Comanches offered Taovayas
horses, bison robes, and Apache captives, the bulk of which Taovayas resold to Louisiana, and Taovayas supplied Comanches with guns, powder, ammunition,
and iron tools they obtained from French traders as well as with maize, beans, and squash they cultivated in their riverside fields. This symbiotic food trade was critical to Comanches who had lost their traditional source of carbohydrate products with their 1746 ban from the Taos fairs.⁵²
The Comanche-Taovaya-French trading alliance turned the Arkansas valley
into a busy commercial avenue, with Comanche and Taovaya trade convoys
constantly moving back and forth. When traveling to Comanchería, Taovayas
often escorted French traders, who had paddled to Taovaya villages in canoes before continuing on land toward Comanche rancherías. As the ties solidified, Comanche camps along the upper Arkansas valley began to take the shape of
a trade center. In 1748 Spanish officials were alarmed to learn that thirty-three Frenchmen had visited the Comanches northeast of Taos and purchased mules
with “plenty of muskets.” Soon a wide variety of commodities circulated at the Comanche fairs. Spanish officials in New Mexico fretted about how the French carried in “rifles, gunpowder, bullets, pistols, sabers, coarse cloth of all colors”
and returned to Louisiana with “skins of deer and other animals, horses, mules, burros, and a few Indian captives whom the Comanches have taken as prisoners from other tribes with whom they are at war.” Spanish officials grasped the overall structure of the trade, but they underestimated the extent of the slave traffic. In 1753 the governor of Louisiana concluded that the colony held so many Apache slaves that it was becoming difficult to maintain the old trade and alliance network with the Apaches.⁵³
Virtually overnight, the Comanche-Taovaya alliance shifted the balance of
44
Conquest
power in the Comanche–New Mexico war. Armed with French muskets, iron
axes, and metal-tipped arrows and lances, Comanches reversed the momentum
the Spaniards had enjoyed since 1747. Together with Utes, they hit Pecos and Galisteo with incessant attacks, delivering debilitating blows to the outlying villages; one report claimed that 150 Pecoseños died at Comanche hands between
1744 and 1749. Farther north in the Chama district, the terror of Comanche-Ute raids—which often were nocturnal—drove the settlers to abandon the recently
established villages of Abiquiu, Ojo Caliente, and Quemado. By 1748 Coman-
ches had gained the upper hand, and Governor Codallos reinstituted their trading privileges at Taos. Codallos was replaced the following year by Tomás Vélez de Cachupín, who made the Comanches New Mexico’s foreign political priority: while fortifying Pecos and Galisteo with towers, gates, and entrenchments, he also began seeking peace with the Comanches and their Ute allies.⁵⁴
This shift in Spanish policy was as much a reaction to Comanches’ war-
making as it was a response to their vigorous diplomacy, which had altered the strategic chemistry of the Southwest borderlands to Spain’s disadvantage. The Comanche-Taovaya alliance had put New Mexico in a precarious geopolitical
position by unlocking the southern plains for French merchants and, as Span-
ish officials saw it, French imperialism. In the late 1740s and early 1750s Spanish officials nervously monitored French activities on the plains and especially among the Comanches, whom Cachupín described as a “powerful tribe that
dominates the others.” The French, he continued, were gathering “practical
knowledge of the land adjacent to our settlements which they freely travel by permission of the Comanches.” The governor bitterly condemned the commercial operations of the French, whose livestock markets in Louisiana stimulated Comanche horse raiding in New Mexico. “The trade that the French are developing with the Cumanches by means of the Jumanes [Wichitas],” he warned,
“will result in most serious injury to this province. Although the Cumanche
nation carries on a like trade with us, coming to the pueblo of Taos . . . always, whenever the occasion offers for stealing horses or attacking the pueblos of Pecos and Galisteo, they do not fail to take advantage of it.”⁵⁵
The situation was humiliating to Cachupín, but his hands were tied by a delicate play-off dynamic: he could not punish the Comanches by banning them
from the Taos fairs, since that risked losing the Comanche nation and, by extension, the southern plains entirely to the French orbit. While lamenting the
“perverse nature” of the Taos fairs, Cachupín stressed throughout his tenure the importance of maintaining “friendship and commerce with the Comanche
tribe, [and] diverting as much of it as possible from the French, because the Comanche tribe is the only one that could impede [French] access to that ter-
Conquest
45
rain and be the ruin of New Mexico.” The governor found particularly troubling the gun trade chain that extended from Louisiana through the Taovayas to the Comanches; it had the potential, he argued, of becoming “our great detriment, especially since this kingdom is so limited in armaments and its settlers too poor to equip themselves and too few to sustain the burden of continuous warfare.”
Finally, Cachupín was loath to use force against the Comanches simply because New Mexico needed their trade for its economic well-being. With war, he insisted, “an extremely useful branch of trade would be lost and the French of New Orleans would acquire it in toto.”⁵⁶
Instead of pressuring the Comanches, then, Cachupín tried to win their
loyalty by offering more goods and better terms of exchange at Taos. Born out of desperation, his decision turned the Taos fairs into frenzied events. “When the Indian trading embassy comes to these governors and their alcaldes,” Fray Andres Varo reported in 1751, “all prudence forsakes them.” Driven by an explosive mix of greed and fear, said Varo, the governor and other high-ranking officials amassed “as many horses as they can” and “all the ironware possible” for exchange with Comanches: “Here, in short, is gathered everything possible for trade and barter with these barbarians in exchange for buffalo hides, and, what is saddest, in exchange for Indian slaves, men and women, small and large, a great multitude of both sexes, for they are the gold and silver and the richest treasure of the governors, who gorge themselves first with the greatest mouthfuls from this table, while the rest eat the crumbs.”⁵⁷
But even more shocking to Varo was the Comanches’ behavior at the fairs. Be-
fore handing over female captives, he reported, they “deflower and corrupt them in the sight of innumerable assemblies of barbarians and Catholics . . . saying to those who buy them, with heathen impudence: ‘Now you can take her—now
she is good.’” The horrified priest attributed such acts to Comanches’ “unbridled lust and brutal shamelessness,” but it is likely that the public rapes were a way to generate markets for captives. The serial rapes were a graphic forewarning of the horrors captive women would—at least supposedly—endure in Comanche
hands should Spaniards refuse to ransom them. Brutality, in ot
her words, helped legitimize slave markets in Spanish eyes. In 1751, indeed, the inspector of war in Mexico City called the New Mexican rescate a “laudable work” of “ransoming
. . . the little Indian slaves.” “By means of this exchange,” the inspector reasoned,
“these captive children can be educated and brought into the fold of this church, and if the traffic should discontinue, the Cumanches would kill them.”⁵⁸
In late 1751, two years into his term, Governor Cachupín desperately needed
a breakthrough with the Comanches, whose play-off maneuvering, raiding-and-
trading policy, and rough trading tactics were demoralizing the New Mexicans,
46
Conquest
from priests and officials to ordinary settlers and Pueblo Indians. But as much as New Mexico needed peace, Spanish officials were not accustomed to negotiating with Natives from a position of weakness. In November, however, an un-
expected military coup removed political barriers from peace. After yet another Comanche attack on Pecos, this time by three hundred warriors, Cachupín
chased the raiders with ninety-two troops, militia, and Indian auxiliaries and, with the help of genízaro scouts, besieged them in a box canyon on the Llano Estacado. It became a close-range pitched battle, something the Spaniards were familiar and comfortable with and the Comanches were not. The fighting lasted for hours and by nightfall the Comanches had no arrows or gunpowder left.
Spanish soldiers set fire to the thicket and lashed the illuminated Comanches with volleys of musket fire “which brought on their ruin and destruction.” One hundred twelve Comanches died and thirty-three surrendered. The survivors,
Cachupín reported, wept “from pain” and made a wooden “holy cross, which
they presented to me with great veneration, putting it to their lips and mine.”
The spectacular victory let the governor open negotiations with the Comanches from a more equal footing, and he wasted no time. He kept four women as hostages, but released all the other Comanches, sending them home with a gift of tobacco and an offer of peace. He promised the Comanches free trade in Taos
and asked them to return all the Spanish captives they had carried off from Abiquiu in 1747.⁵⁹
During the first half of the eighteenth century, Spanish officials rarely stopped to study the people who were frustrating their colonial ambitions in the Southwest, and in those few cases when they did write about the Comanches in any
length, they invariably depicted them as barbarians with immense capacity for violence and minimum capacity for social order.⁶⁰ But now, in the first formal peace talks between the two peoples, a different image of the Comanches began to surface. Although the idea of Comanches as savages persisted, Spanish reports reveal a sophisticated Comanche political organization, complete with distinctive hierarchies, established procedures for broadly inclusive decision making, and effective communication systems.
In December 1751, when the survivors of the disastrous battle brought Ca-
chupín’s peace offer among the Comanches, the chiefs from various ranche-
rías sent out messengers to summon a grand council. That council, apparently sponsored by a chief called Nimiricante (Man Eater?), became an arduous one.
The chiefs of various rancherías debated heatedly over Cachupín’s peace offer, struggling to reach consensus. One hurdle involved the fate of five Spanish captives—three women and two boys—whose return Cachupín had made a pre-
condition for peace. Nimiricante’s brother refused to give up one of the captive
Conquest
47
women he held, and Nimiricante intervened, ordering his brother to leave the council ground “or suffer their punishment.” Eventually, the council reached an agreement and decided to make peace “and take advantage of the profit of
the fairs.” Chief El Oso (The Bear), depicted as “the little king of all of them,”
declared that he would bring his followers to Taos if the Spaniards “should not deny them the items that may please them.” The council sent a message to “all the rancherías that they were to be friends of the Spaniards and do them no
injury by stealing horses or committing other hostilities and that those who had Spanish women captives should turn them over to be returned.”⁶¹
In spring 1752, several delegations of Comanche chiefs visited Governor Ca-
chupín in Taos and Santa Fe, forging personal ties that sealed and symbolized good relations between societies. Cachupín sent each delegation home with
gifts “because it is indispensable for these people” and released the four female hostages taken in the November battle. Yet, the process toward peace was tenuous, jeopardized by continuing Comanche raids. A delegation sent by El Oso
apologized for the attacks, explaining that “some Comanches were so deceit-
ful that, although their chiefs warned and counseled them, it was not sufficient to prevent such from committing crimes.” Through these personal interactions and exchanges of gifts, captives, and words, Comanches and Spaniards gradually forged a peace that ended more than a decade of unrelieved violence.⁶²
The final peace agreement—the first between Europeans and Comanches—
was highly favorable for the latter. In return for their chiefs’ personal promises to prevent their followers from raiding, Comanches received several important concessions. Cachupín granted them unrestricted access to Pecos fairs and the right to resume the rescate at Taos, a privilege that effectively quashed the attempts of New Mexican slave raiders to monopolize the slave traffic. Cachupín also issued a meticulous diplomatic protocol that catered to Comanche sensibilities. Under the new code, the New Mexico governor in effect became a
mediator who maintained the peace through ceremonial acts and by protecting
the Comanches against the greed and rough business tactics of the colonists.
More broadly, the treaty recognized the Comanches as a sovereign nation—a
concession Spaniards denied many smaller Native societies—thereby setting
a precedent that Mexico, the Republic of Texas, and the United States would
later follow. Cachupín sensed that peace for Comanches was not a static state of coexistence two parties agreed on once, but rather a tenuous condition that needed to be continuously reaffirmed through words and deeds. To appeal to
this premise, he instructed New Mexico’s governors to personally attend trade fairs, “sit down” with Comanche chiefs, “command tobacco for them,” and use
“various expressions of friendship and confidence which discretion and wisdom
48
Conquest
suggest to learn their desires.” He even offered advice on gestures and appearances. “Exterior acts and circumstances of one’s looks influence considerably the idea that they [Comanches] ought to form,” he advised his successor. “You should introduce yourself with skill and with expressive words, maintain in your looks a mien, grave and serene, which they may observe and thus continue the faithful friendship.” Finally, Cachupín specified how Spanish officials should minister to Comanche trading parties. Soldiers were to protect Comanche horse herds during fairs and governors should personally adjudicate any disputes. With an eye for detail, he ordered the settlers to keep any livestock they did not wish to trade outside town limits during fairs, for a refusal to sell could anger the Comanches. Without fully realizing (or admitting) it, Cachupín had begun adjusting Spanish trading practices to Comanche principles, which demanded that material possessions should flow freely among friends and allies. In Comanche culture, reluctance to share signified more than stinginess; it was tantamount to enmity.⁶³
During the peace talks, moreover, Cachupín yielded to Comanche rule
over the Great Plains east of New Mexico and cut back Spain’s support to the Apaches. He persuaded the remaining Carlana, Cuartelejo, and Paloma villages to relocate from
the open plains to the immediate vicinity of Pecos, thus clearing the northern Llano Estacado for Comanche use. Separated from the bison range by the Sangre de Cristo and Mescalero ranges, Carlanas, Cuartelejos, and Palomas managed from then on only sporadic hunts to the grasslands. They attached themselves so closely to Pecos that when they went for their brief hunting forays they often left their women and children behind in the town. When Bernardo
de Miera y Pacheco, a soldier and mapmaker who had visited Comanchería sev-
eral times, prepared in 1758 a map of the kingdom of New Mexico, he identified the buffalo plains east of the Pecos River as simply “tierra de Cumanches” and placed all Apache rancherías to the west of the Pecos valley. Those Apaches who did not seek refuge in New Mexico migrated to the south and east to join their Lipan cousins on the Texas plains. With the Apaches either clustered near Pecos or relocated south, the Comanches now controlled the entire western plains
from the Arkansas valley down to the Red River.⁶⁴
At the same time that Comanches made peace with New Mexico and usurped
the Apache lands on the northern Llano Estacado, they also achieved vital diplomatic and military victories on their northern and eastern borders. By 1750 their detente with the Taovayas had carried them into an alliance with both the Skidi and Chaui Pawnees, close relatives of the Taovayas. These connections secured Comanches’ northern border while also augmenting their ability to combat the Osages in the east. The Comanche-Taovaya-Pawnee alliance had a clear anti-
Conquest
49
Osage stance. All three nations felt threatened by the Osages and sought to
combine their forces against this nation whose war parties moved across a wide range stretching from the Missouri to the Canadian River. In 1751 the allied Comanches, Taovayas, and Pawnees launched a massive assault on their common enemy, killing twenty-two chiefs and delivering a devastating blow to the Osage nation.⁶⁵
The joint war served Pawnees and Comanches better than it did Taovayas,
whose isolated villages on the middle Arkansas bore the brunt of Osage attacks.