1. Cultures in Conflict A visual history of the Frontier Wars in Texas
Created by: Kristi Fleming
Murchison Middle School
Spring 2007

2. Frontier Wars
The battles between the Texans (and Americans) and the Plains Indians (Red Tribes) during Reconstruction are referred to as the “Frontier Wars”.
Wilderness at the edge of the settled area of Texas
What was the “frontier”?
What was the “frontier line”?
The border between settled Texas and the Frontier
Comanche Kiowa Apache
Mostly un-settled aka “The Frontier”
Settled Texas

3. LAND Needed for farming and ranching LAND Needed for buffalo
Native American Needs
vs.
Anglo American Needs
LAND Needed for farming and ranching
LAND Needed for buffalo
Strengths:
Knowledge of the territory
Skilled fighters
Strengths:
Forts
Federal government support
Weaknesses:
Too few in number, untrained, supply shortages
Forts too far apart
Little experience fighting Native Americans
Weaknesses:
Depended on buffalo for survival
Disagreement among leaders

4. Medicine Lodge Treaty
Engraving of the Medicine Lodge Treaty Council, 1867 Natives agreed to stop raiding Anglo settlements in exchange for rations and supplies
1867 – present day Kansas
Representatives from the United States and representatives of the Comanche, Kiowa, Cheyenne, Arapaho and other southern Plains tribes sign the Medicine Lodge Treaty, intended to remove Indians from the path of white settlement.
The treaty establishes reservations for each tribe in the western part of present-day Oklahoma. It also requires Native Americans to stop making raids on Anglo American settlements and give up their traditional lands elsewhere. In exchange, the government pledges to establish reservation schools and to provide resident farmers who will teach the Indians agriculture. However, the Army would not be allowed on reservation land.The tribes' refusal to give up their free-ranging traditions and remain confined within the territory assigned to them leads to devastating warfare.

5. Important TX Indian Chiefs and Warriors
Satank (Set-ankia) Sitting Bear
Kiowa Chief who was killed during transport to Jacksboro for trial after the Warren Wagon Train Raid.
Important TX Indian Chiefs and Warriors
Kiowa
Lone Wolf (Guipago)
Leader of the War Faction of the Kiowa Tribe. He believed in fighting the whites to keep the Kiowa way of life. Attended the Medicine Lodge Treaty and fought at Adobe Walls.
Kicking Bird (Te-ne-angopte)
Leader of the Peace Faction of the Kiowa Tribe. He urged his people to adapt and became known for his preaching of peace.
Satanta (Set-tain-te) White Bear
Called “Orator of the Plains” because of his speeches at Medicine Lodge Council. Kiowa Chief involved in the Warren Wagon Train Raid

6. Important TX Indian Chiefs and Warriors
Quanah Parker
Son of a Comanche chief (Peta Nocona) and an Anglo American woman, Cynthia Ann Parker, who had been captured by the Comanche as a child.
He became a powerful Comanche chief who fought to stop the spread of the Anglos.
Comanche
Ten Bears (Paruasemana)
Comanche chief known for his speech at the Medicine Lodge Treaty in 1867.
"I was born upon the prairie where the wind blew free and there was nothing to break the light of the sun. I was born where there were no enclosures and where everything drew a free breath. I want to die there and not within walls."

7. Important Anglo Leaders of the Frontier Wars
President Ulysses S. Grant Replaced military officers on reservations with Quaker agents in an effort to make peace
General William Tecumseh Sherman
Civil War hero who brought the total war tactics he used to crush the Confederacy against the tribes of the Plains
Important Anglo Leaders of the Frontier Wars
Lawrie Tatum
Quaker Agent sent by Grant to help deal with the Native Americans in Indian Territory. Shown here with some returned Native captives.
General Philip Sheridan
Commander of the US Military Department of the Southwest. Helped defeat the bill proposed by the Texas Legislature that would have protected the buffalo
Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie, 4th Cavalry
The leader of the U.S. Army at Palo Duro

8. Aftermath of Indian attack on an early Texas farm
Aftermath of Indian attack on an early Texas farm. The Native’s economy had become dependent on the people and supplies acquired from Anglos during these raids.
Drawing by Nola Davis, courtesy Texas Parks and Wildlife Dept.
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 Dept
On a path of destruction stretching from Linville in south Texas to east of Austin, Comanche raiders are intercepted by citizen militia and rangers at the Battle of Plum Creek Engraving from sketch by T.J. Owen (a pseudonym for the author, O'Henry), from Wilbrager, 1889.

9. Warren Wagon Train Raid
The Warren Wagon Train Raid was a raid by the Kiowa that served as a turning point in American Policy toward the Natives of Texas.
Site of the Warren Wagon Train Raid Young County, 1871
Sketch depicting Warren Wagon train attack
T.J. Owen (the writer O.Henry.)
The peace policy adopted after the Medicine Lodge Treaty was abandoned. The Quaker Agents were sent home. The army would stop just defending the settlers… they would start attacking.

10. What the Buffalo Meant to the Native Americans
Paunch (stomach) made into water bags
Sinews (tendons) and hair were made into bowstrings, rope, and thread
Buffalo hide became clothing, saddles, robes, and covers for teepees
Hoofs, horns and bones became ornaments, cups, and utensils
Buffalo Poo (dung) was used as fuel for fires
A Kiowa chief describes it this way: “The buffalo is our money … the robes we can prepare and trade. We love them just as the white man does his money. Just as it makes a white man feel to have his money carried away, so it makes us feel to see others killing and stealing our buffaloes, which are our cattle given to us by the Great Father above.” =
Survival

11. Using Buffalo to Destroy the Native Americans
General Philip Sheridan
Instrumental in instituting the policy of killing the buffalo to kill the Indians
Shooting Buffalo on the Line of the Kansas-Pacific Railroad, c. 1870
By promoting in Congressional testimony the hunting and slaughter of the vast herds of American Bison on the Great Plains and by other means, Sheridan helped deprive the Indians of their primary source of food. Professional hunters, trespassing on Indian land, killed over 4 million bison by When the Texas legislature considered outlawing bison poaching on tribal lands, Sheridan personally testified against it in Austin, Texas. He suggested that the legislature should give each of the hunters a medal, engraved with a dead buffalo on one side and a discouraged-looking Indian on the other.

12. Charles Rath J. Wright Mooar
Buffalo Hunter
Between , the American bison, or buffalo, was reduced in numbers from 60 million to a mere handful. By 1900 there were only two small wild herds in all of North America, numbering only 550 animals. This change was accelerated in the last 40 years of the 19th century by the coming of the buffalo hunter and thousands of land-hungry settlers.
J. Wright Mooar
Buffalo Hunter

13. The End of the Plains Indians
Buffalo skulls, mid-1870s, waiting to be ground into fertilizer
The End of the Plains Indians
The railroad, the development of the hide industry during the 1800s, and the wholesale destruction of the buffalo guaranteed that the Native Americans would no longer have the means to survive
Rath & Wright's buffalo hide yard, showing 40,000 buffalo hides baled for shipment. Dodge City, Kansas, 1878

14. Forts and Battles in Texas (1870s)
Adobe Walls
Battles at Palo Duro Canyon
Indian Territory
New Mexico Territory
Ft. Richardson
Warren Wagon Train Raid
Fort Belknap
Fort Griffin
Frontier Line
Fort Bliss
Fort Concho
Ft. McKavett
Ft. Stockton
Fort Davis
Austin
Fort Clark
Ft. McIntosh
Fort Brown

15. The final stand of the Plains Indians in Texas
Drawing of the Adobe Walls Battle – June 1874
One of the battles of the Red River War. Quanah Parker led 100s of warriors from 5 Native American Nations against 29 Anglo buffalo hunters in a failed effort to take over the camp. The battle was a crushing spiritual defeat for the Native Americans. However, the Natives increased their attacks on West Texas settlements and kept fighting in order to protect their land and stop the killing of the buffalo. Over the next two months they killed over 190 settlers across 5 states.
Quanah Parker
Led the Comanche at Adobe Walls
Battle of Palo Duro Canyon – September 1874
The major battle of the Red River War. It was a small battle, but it represented the last effort of the Natives in Texas to stand up against the American military and the advancement of the whites. The battle ended in the confinement of the Plains Indians to reservations in Indian Territory.
Red River War
The final stand of the Plains Indians in Texas
Colonel Mackenzie, 4th Cavalry
The leader of the U.S. Army at Palo Duro
Lone Wolf
One of the chiefs defeated at the Battle of Palo Duro

16. Buffalo Soldiers Henry O. Flipper
The first African-American to graduate from West Point Military Academy
Buffalo Soldiers were former slaves, freedmen, and Civil War soldiers who served in the US Military during “peacetime”
The nickname buffalo soldiers began with the Cheyenne warriors in The actual Cheyenne translation was Wild Buffalo. The nickname was given out of respect and the fierce fighting ability of the 10th cavalry. Overtime, Buffalo Soldiers became a generic term for all African American soldiers.

17. The Apache’s Last Stand in Texas
Apache leader Victorio led raids throughout the Trans Pecos
After several years of peace, warfare along the Mexican border began again in Apache raids were still a problem in West Texas. While most Apache lived in New Mexico and Arizona one band, led by a chief named Victorio, still fought in the mountains of West Texas.
The Army spent months tracking the elusive Apache leader Victorio through the mountains of the Trans-Pecos. Col. Benjamin Grierson assigned eight companies of the 10th Cavalry to the search which resulted in several battles with the Apaches.
Victorio's last skirmish with Colonel Grierson and the 10th Cavalry occurred in August 1880, only 40 miles south of the Guadalupe Mountains in the Sierra Diablo Mountains, at a place called Rattlesnake Springs. Victorio and his band retreated across the Rio Grande where most of them were killed by Mexican troops.

18. The Results of the Frontier Wars of Texas
Native Americans in Texas moved onto the reservations in Indian Territory (Oklahoma) or continued their fight in other states
With the Native Americans out of Texas and the threat of raids gone, settlers could move into West Texas and the Panhandle and establish their farms and ranches
Many new towns were established at this time in the Western half of the state
The cattle industry exploded… with the buffalo gone from the “Sea of Grass” cattlemen now had huge areas in which to raise cattle on their new ranches
The forts were no longer needed, so many were closed.

20. Resources
Passionate Nation: The Epic History of Texas, James L. Haley, 2006, Free Press New York, NY
Handbook of Texas Online

21. Juan Cortina
The first authentic biography of one of the most famous of the nineteenth century Texas Rangers—Capt. Leander H. McNelly. No history of the murderous Sutton-Taylor Feud, or of the Texas State Police, or of the depredations of the Mexican Gen. Juan H. Cortina, or of the rancher Richard King, or of the infamous Nueces Strip can be written without major emphases on the influence of McNelly and the men who followed him so loyally

22. 1866 General Philip H. Sheridan takes command of U. S
1866 General Philip H. Sheridan takes command of U.S. forces in the West, proposing to bring peace to the plains by exterminating the herds of buffalo that support the Indians' way of life: "Kill the buffalo and you kill the Indians," he says.
1866 Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving blaze the first cattle trail, driving a herd of 2,000 longhorns from Texas to New Mexico in what will become an annual tradition across the southern plains.
1867 The first cattle drive from Texas up the Chisholm Trail arrives at the rail yards of Abilene, Kansas.
1870 Buffalo hunters begin moving onto the plains, brought there by the expanding railroads and the growing market for hides and meat back east. In little more than a decade, they reduce the once numberless herd to an endangered species.
Railroad companies begin massive advertising campaigns to attract settlers to their land grants in the West, sending agents to rural areas in the eastern states and throughout Europe to distribute handbills, posters and pamphlets that tout the rich soil and favorable climate of the region. But the higher costs of railroad land compared to public lands, and the fact that railroads pay no taxes on their lands, soon stirs charges of extortion, leading to state laws controlling railroad rates and land sale practices by the decade's end.
1874 Joseph Glidden receives a patent for barbed wire, an inexpensive, durable and effective fencing material which, with the destruction of the buffalo, will open the plains to more efficient agriculture and ranching.