Wagon Trains from Tennessee and Alabama entered Texas after the Civil War. Early day Blueridge settlers were looking for a fresh start, and Texas seemed to be the best place to find it.

1874 Red River view. Early immigrants make their way in an overcrowded boat down the swollen Texas river. Source: http://www.printsoldandrare.com/texas/

Kiowa and Cheyenne leaders pose in the White House conservatory with Mary Todd Lincoln (standing far right) on March 27, 1863, during meetings with President Abraham Lincoln, who hoped to prevent their lending aid to Confederate forces. The two Cheyenne chiefs seated at the left front, War Bonnet and Standing In the Water, would be killed the next year in the Sand Creek Massacre.

Southern Plains Indian tribes during the Red River War and location of reservations. Map courtesy of the Texas Historical Commission.

The threat of Indian raids was a constant source of anxiety for settlers on the Texas frontier, particularly after U.S. troops left Texas during the Civil War years. Painting by Nola Davis, courtesy of Fort Richardson SHS, Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.

There had never been trouble between the Indians and the Quakers There had never been trouble between the Indians and the Quakers. The first tenet of their religion was, "Peace on Earth and Good Will to Men." They never went armed, but always relied upon their faith and the goodness of God for their protection. Lawrie Tatum of Iowa was the first Quaker agent. He was a man with a big heart, who had great faith and a strong personality. He had the advantages of a good education, and had executive ability. The following letter written by Lawrie Tatum from Fort Sill dated May 30, 1871, tells an interesting story of an epochal event in the history of Southwestern Oklahoma, in which, Santanta was the leading character.1 1Santanta was recognized as a leader of the most belligerent and blood thirsty faction of the Kiowa Indians. He thought himself a patriot and orator. He attended the Medicine Lodge peace council in October 1868—as one of the chiefs representing the Kiowa tribe. Henry M. Stanley who afterwards became famous for his explorations in Darkest Africa attended this council, as the correspondent of several metropolitan papers, reported the speech of Santanta in part as follows: "All of the chiefs of the Kiowa-Comanche and Arapahos are here today. They have come to listen to the good word. We have been waiting here for a long time to see you and we are getting tired. All the land south of the Arkansas River belongs to the Kiowas and Comanches and I don't want to give away any of it. I love the land and the buffalo, and will not part with any. I want you to understand that the Kiowas don't want to fight and have not been fighting since the treaty two years ago. I hear a great deal of fine talk from these gentlemen, but they never do what they say. I don't want any of these medicine houses built in the country; I want the children brought up exactly as I am. . . . "When I look upon you, I know that you are big chiefs and while you are in the country we go to sleep happy and are not afraid. I have heard that you intend to settle us on a reservation near the mountains. I don't want to settle there. I love to roam over the wide prairie, and when I do it I feel free and happy; but, when we settle down we grow pale and die. "Harken well to what I say. I have laid aside my lance, my bow and my shield, and yet I feel safe in your presence. I have told you the truth. I have no little lies hid about me, but I don't know how it is with the commissioners; are they as clean as I am? A long time ago this land belonged to our fathers, but when I go up the river I see a camp of soldiers, and they are cutting my wood down or killing my buffalo. I don't like that; when I see it my heart feels like bursting with sorrow. I have spoken."  

U. S. Army columns of the Red River War U.S. Army columns of the Red River War. Courtesy of the Texas Historical Commission.

A Kiowa ledger drawing possibly depicting the Buffalo Wallow battle in 1874, one of several clashes between Southern Plains Indians and the U.S. Army during the Red River War.

Rath & Wright's buffalo hide yard, showing 40,000 buffalo hides baled for shipment. Dodge City, Kansas, 1878.

Kiowa brave. Tow-An-Kee, son of Lone Wolf. Killed in Texas in 1873 Kiowa brave. Tow-An-Kee, son of Lone Wolf. Killed in Texas in 1873. Photo, ca. 1867-1874, courtesy of the Center for American History, Caldwell Collection (#03962), The University of Texas at Austin. Kiowa camp, ca. 1867-1874. Photograph courtesy of the Center for American History, Frank Caldwell Collection (#10187), The University of Texas at Austin.

Topin Tone-oneo, daughter of Kicking Bird Topin Tone-oneo, daughter of Kicking Bird. The only one of the great Kiowa chief's children to survive him, she was with the first group sent to Carlisle Indian School in 1879. Source: http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/forts/indians.html Indians at Fort Marion. Indians of various tribes who were captured in the Texas Red River Wars and other Indian battles of the late 19th century were imprisoned at this Florida military fort. Photo ca. 1860s-1930s, courtesy the National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution (Lot 90-1 INV 09854500). Source: http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/forts/indians.html

Pupils at Carlisle Indian school, Pennsylvania Pupils at Carlisle Indian school, Pennsylvania. Established in 1879 by Richard Pratt, the school attempted to assimilate Indian children into the "white man's world" through education and financial support. Among its students were four of Comanche chief Quanah Parker's children and those of others involved in the Texas Indian Wars. Source: http://www.texasbeyondhistory.net/forts/indians.html

Texas Cattle Trails Before the Civil War, the Shawnee Trail (far right) led Texas cattlemen to markets in Kansas City and St. Louis. Following the war, increased settlement closed that route, and in 1866 Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving blazed a trail west to the New Mexico and Colorado markets, called the Goodnight-Loving Trail (far left). Soon, however, railheads in Kansas led cowboys up the Chisholm Trail to Abilene, and up the Western Trail to Dodge City and points north.

Roundup on Texas Ranch

Cover of The Beef Bonanza: How to Get Rich on the Plains, by Gen. James. S. Brisbin, one of the books that helped fuel the cattle boom of the early 1880's. (Courtesy Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.)

Bucking Broncos

Cowboys branding mavericks in the 1880's

"Second Guard." A cowboy camp at night in the 1880's, with some cowboys bedding down while others prepare to head out for night duty watching over the herd. Photograph by F. M. Steele.

Cowboys branding "mavericks" in the 1880's Cowboys branding "mavericks" in the 1880's. This cowboy name for cattle without a brand can be traced to Texas rancher Samuel Maverick, whose habit of neglecting to brand his herd led his neighbors to call an unbranded steer "one of Maverick's." Photograph by F. M. Steele.

Cowboys eating dinner on the range Cowboys eating dinner on the range. A typical chuckwagon, like the one shown here, carried potatoes, beans, bacon, dried fruit, cornmeal, coffee and canned goods. (Library of Congress)

"Where we shine." Cowboys at the end of an 1897 roundup in Ward County, Texas, pose with their herd of almost 2,000 cattle. By this time, barbed wire had closed down the long cattle trails for nearly two decades. Photographed by F. M. Steele.

1871 Kansas-Transport of Texas Beef on the Kansas-Pacific Railway-Scene at a Cattle-shoot in Abilene, Kansas. This beautiful, hand colored engraving is from the August 19, 1871 issue of Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper. Source: http://www.printsoldandrare.com/texas/

1882 Picture of a capture of a Texas Town by cowboys 1882 Picture of a capture of a Texas Town by cowboys. Source: http://www.printsoldandrare.com/texas/

1882 Texas-Herders Driving Their Sheep, Menaced by a Prairie Fire, To a Place of Safety. Source: http://www.printsoldandrare.com/texas

Dignitaries and railworkers gather to drive the "golden spike" and join the tracks of the transcontinental railroad at Promontory Point, Utah, on May 10, 1869. The Central Pacific's wood-burning locomotive, Jupiter, stands to the left, the Union Pacific's coal-burning No. 119 to the right.

The starting line for the first Oklahoma Land Rush, April 22, 1889.

Homesteaders photographed in the 1880's by Solomon Butcher in Custer County, Nebraska.

Exodusters waiting for a steamboat to carry them westward in the late 1870's. (Library of Congress.)

Homesteader Omer Yern and family photographed by Solomon Butcher in Custer Country, Nebraska, 1886. (Courtesy Nebraska State Historical Society.)

David Hilton and family pose for homestead photographer Solomon Butcher, showing off their prize possession, a pump organ. Butcher noted that Mrs. Hilton insisted on having the organ hauled into the yard, so her family portrait would not reveal that the Hilton's still lived in a sod house.

While preserving some traditions of their homeland, settlers on the Texas frontier were transformed by their experiences, becoming "westerners."

Fenced in Ranch

A winter cattle drive photographed by Charles Belden. (Library of Congress.)

Theodore Roosevelt on horseback in the Dakota Territory in the 1880's, when he had moved west to live as a cattle rancher. (Library of Congress.)